In this work, Amy Peeler presents a robust reading of the New Testament incarnation narratives, arguing for a view of God that transcends gender. She energetically exposes the presuppositions undergirding the traditional claim that God is male. Peeler draws from her well-rounded experience as an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and associate rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Geneva, Illinois.

Peeler’s argument proceeds in three steps—elaborating on the meaning of sex, gender, and roles. First, she draws from Israelite history and New Testament writings to tackle the claim that God is male. Through an analysis of the purity laws of Judaism and the Gospels’ portrait of Mary’s pregnancy and birthing of Jesus, she uncovers the shortcomings of traditional assumptions. The work proceeds by reaching beyond the ordinary conception that God is masculine because of attributes such as sovereignty and divine initiative. Peeler challenges the usual trope of the oppressed feminine woman, underscoring how Mary represents strength. The third move of the argument addresses the controversial subject of gender “roles.” Peeler builds her position around the doctrine of the virginal conception, implying that the nature of the dogma makes Jesus’ maleness one of a kind.

Peeler’s argument against the alleged maleness of God engages Hebrew and NT scripture interpretations. She concedes that the OT scriptures characteristically represent God as male but maintains that they never depict God as a “sexual” male deity. She argues that the frequent Hebrew scripture allusions to God as Israel’s Father or King remain purely figurative, “contained within the ideas of founding or care, never procreation” (p. 13). Although NT depictions are more direct—God causes the birth of a baby—Peeler emphasizes that God’s maleness remains one of analogy. God is like a father. He is not a “sexual” male that impregnated a human woman (p. 19). Peeler’s most impactful argument is a pneumatological one, drawing on the linguistic representation of the Holy Spirit. In the OT, the Spirit is referred to using the feminine Hebrew ruakh. In the NT, the Spirit is neither masculine nor feminine, but referred to using the neuter Greek pneuma. In Trinitarian perspective, the agent of birth in the Gospels is the Holy Spirit who is responsible for Mary’s pregnancy (Matt. 1:18, 20) and the one whose power overshadows her making the child the holy babe of God (Luke 1:35).

Reviewed by Paul J. Palma

Publisher’s page: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802879097/women-and-the-gender-of-god/

PneumaReview.com: Will you please introduce us to your newest book?

Paul Palma: This book offers an historical and comparative profile of classical Pentecostal movements in Brazil and the United States in view of their migratory beginnings and transnational expansion. Pentecostalism’s inception in the early twentieth century, particularly in its global South permutations, was defined by its grassroots character. In contrast to the top-down, hierarchical structure typical of Western forms of Christianity, the emergence of Latin American Pentecostalism embodied stability from the bottom up―among the common people. While the rise to prominence of the Assemblies of God in Brazil, the Western hemisphere’s largest (non-Catholic) denomination, demanded structure akin to mainline contexts, classical Pentecostals such as the Christian Congregation movement cling to their grassroots identity. Comparing the migratory and missional flow of movements with similar European and US roots, in this book, I consider the prospects for Brazilian Pentecostals with an eye on the problems of church growth and polity, gender, politics, and ethnic identity.

PneumaReview.com: What is the significance of the word “grassroots” in the title?

PneumaReview.com: In the book you refer to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Chicago in 1907-08. Please tell our readers a little bit about the history of that move of God.

PneumaReview.com: Some key missionaries went out from Chicago to Brazil, who were they?

Paul Palma: Two Chicagoan missionary teams were integral in the founding of Brazilian Pentecostalism. The first was a group of Italian migrants and onetime Presbyterians. Luigi Francescon, accompanied by Lucia Menna and Giacomo Lombardi, arrived in South America in 1909. The Italians helped found the Brazilian Christian Assembly (CA) and Christian Congregation (CC) movements. The second was a duo of Baptist Swedes, Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren. The former Baptists Berg and Vingren arrived in Brazil in 1910 on their way to founding the Brazilian Assemblies of God (AD).

PneumaReview.com: What factors contributed to making their ministries so fruitful?

PneumaReview.com: As you have pointed out in the book their work is still evident today in the ongoing ministry of three denominations. Please tell us briefly about each.

Paul Palma: Despite challenges, each of the denominations are bearing fruit today. The CC is now a decidedly international movement with congregations throughout Latin America, North America, Italy, and beyond. The AD remains the largest Western (non-Catholic) denomination with a membership of about 21 million, but its expansion has tapered over the last decade due to structural and political shifts. The CA endures throughout Latin (and North) America but has splintered into several different denominations, including the Pentecostal Christian Church, the Bible Christian Church, the Villa Devoto CA, and the CA God is Love.

PneumaReview.com: You highlight the fact that two of the denominations trace their roots back to Luigi Francescon. What issues caused the movement he started to divide into two groups?

Paul J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022).

Paul Palma: The chief difference between the Francescon-founded CC and CA is a regional one. Francescon pioneered the CC on Brazilian soil. A year before his 1910 arrival in Brazil, he founded the CA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. CA churches slowly made their way into Brazil and recently reunited through inter-ecclesial efforts that harken to their Chicagoan heritage. While Francescon concentrated on the CC in Brazil (based in São Paulo), another cohort of missionaries from Chicago filled the need for workers in Argentina, and the movement there developed peculiarities of its own. For instance, while the CC readily expanded among the native Portuguese population, the CA remained ethnically Italian and insulated from other churches well into the twentieth century.

PneumaReview.com: Do the Pentecostal churches in Brazil have different practices or priorities than most non-Brazilian Pentecostal churches in the United States?

Paul Palma: Besides the prevalence of Portuguese-speaking members, there are subtle cultural differences. The CC churches are distinguished from most other Pentecostal churches by their insistence that women wear head coverings (the “veil”) during public worship. You will also find less urgency for seminary training for ministers among the Brazilian churches. While Brazilian Pentecostals now encourage seminary training, they lacked the resources for educational institutes for many years. For the AD, because of reasons tied to its Swedish roots, even when educational resources were available, it favored a short-term Bible School training model over formal seminaries.

PneumaReview.com: At different points in the text, you mention “reverse mission,” for those who may be unfamiliar with that term please explain what it means.

PR

Additional Resources

Read the review of Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States by Brian Roden

Watch the book launch introduction by Paul Palma

What is the genre of your book?

The book incorporates aspects of practical spirituality and autobiography. However, it is best described as a cultural study.

What prompted the writing of this book?

The recent loss of my paternal grandmother, Esther Palma, and maternal great-Aunt, Esther Stigliano, catalyzed a fresh resolve to revisit and write on my roots. Both were nonagenarians and represented in life a window into the world and ways of a cherished yet overlooked generation. Embracing Our Roots harkens to their legacy who, as Italian immigrants, braved the New World on behalf of subsequent kin. Inspired by their legacy, I began to mine the treasures that had been passed down to me—family records, personal letters, and photo albums, retracing the footsteps of those whose legacies I carry on.

What is the overarching message of the book?

Drawing from my background as an Italian American evangelical, Embracing Our Roots considers the significance of rediscovering our ancestral history in a society where many are forced to repress, ignore, or reject their heritage. As a nation of immigrants, every American is, in some sense, an “ethnic” American and stands to benefit from considering how the people and places they come from make them unique.

What major themes are addressed?

The book addresses the issues of biblical living, faith-based traditions, food culture, immigration, social class, race, family dynamics, and mental health.

Paul J. Palma, Embracing Our Roots: Rediscovering the Value of Faith, Family, and Tradition (Wipf and Stock, 2021).

What makes your book unique from other similar books?

Other books have been written on the significance of ancestry, ethnic background, and building our family tree. This work is unique because it situates the entire project of retracing our roots within the larger referents of biblical redemption and a faith-entranced worldview. The significance of genealogy is a reoccurring theme in the Bible, harkening to the communal, familial dimension of God’s providence.

Who do you envision as the target audience for this book?

It is intended for scholars and laypersons alike. While I claim that genealogy and family life are best approached from a faith-entranced perspective, I hope this work will also be illuminating for those looking in on the life of faith from the outside. I invite non-religionists interested in their ancestral history to join in this journey of rediscovery.

Did the circumstances surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic influence your perspective in any way?

The work was completed at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic. Amid immense loss for our families, our nation, and the world, I realized there was something that nothing and no one can take from us—the value of our inheritance. Rooted in God’s constancy, we can have confidence that our faith and family legacy will endure.

This work offers a window into the shape of the thought of the Anglican priest and eighteenth-century revivalist John Wesley. Knight uncovers the peculiar theology of the Great Awakening pioneer, illuminating his passion for the gospel and vision for church renewal. Knight is an ordained United Methodist Church elder and the Donald and Pearl Wright Professor of Wesleyan Studies and E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at the Saint Paul School of Theology.

The book journeys through Wesley’s main contribution to Christian thought, his soteriology. Knight considers Wesley’s thought in light of the Moravian and Calvinist controversies, his unique emphasis on the restoration of the imago Dei, theology of grace, practical ethic of love, and later controversies (such as the nature of Christian perfection and view of the church). Concluding chapters explore Wesley’s theology of revival, eschatology, and the heart of his soteriology—the reality of renewing grace through divine love.

Wesley’s legacy endures as an architect of the Great Awakening and one of the foremost theologians of the eighteenth century. He adopted an Arminian soteriology in a revival championed by new light Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards. Wesley conceded the Augustinian principle of original sin and total depravity (or deprivation); however, his concept of prevenient grace underscored the reality of a moral conscience whereby one possessed the ability to cooperate with God’s saving grace. His cooperationist perspective allowed him to circumvent the deterministic implications of predestination. As Knight describes, Wesley’s salient soteriological contribution remains his “optimism of grace,” rooted in the transformative character of the Spirit’s work from conversion through the entire way of salvation. Wesley’s optimism allowed him to move from original sin to the often-controversial concept of “Christian perfection” (or “entire sanctification”). Knight underscores the nuances of Wesley’s view of Christian perfection, consisting in the synthesis of “instantaneous” and “gradual” sanctification. If early on in his career Wesley admitted one could achieve absolute perfection (“as an angel”) and “immunity from both error and temptation” in this life, his thinking subsequently matured, transcending the dualism that pitted direct experience against means of grace (108–9).

The intellectual legacy of Wesley is accented by the way he suspended inherited dichotomies. Alongside his synthesis of instantaneous and gradual sanctification, he reconciled the antinomian opposition between Christ’s imputed righteousness and practical holiness in addition to conflicting theologies of revival. In response to antinomian dualism, Wesley advocated the living out of saving grace; accordingly, one is “justified by faith alone, but genuine faith is given to those who have repentant hearts and lives” (113). While Wesley was concerned with the goal of personal salvation, it was only of initial consequence—he constantly looked beyond individual justification to sanctification and the “spreading of holiness throughout the earth” (127). Similarly, Wesley’s theology of revivalism hinged on a sovereign work of God that is both precipitous (“sudden”) and measured (“gentle”). Quoting from Wesley’s “The General Spread of the Gospel,” a revival might begin as “a shower, a torrent of grace” but more generally will “silently increase wherever it is set up” (in Knight, 128).

Among the principal contributions of the book is Knight’s pneumatological reflection on Wesley’s soteriology. Wesley’s goal of a new creation and restoration of the imago Dei in every believer was achieved by the perfecting (renewing) work of love through the Spirit. As Knight describes:

That our renewal in love is a work of divine power led Wesley to develop a more dynamic theology of the Holy Spirit than his Protestant predecessors. Grace for Wesley was much more than divine favor, which then and now is often construed in such a way as to leave persons fundamentally unchanged rather than as entry into a transformative relationship with God. Grace at its heart is the power of the Holy Spirit; thus, we can approach God with an expectant, although not a presumptive, faith (143).

While Wesley admitted that divine power is expressed in the miraculous, its foremost purpose was renewal—transformation and perfecting, through relationship, into the likeness of God. John Wesley: Optimist of Grace is a first-rate introduction into the theology of the revivalist and founder of Methodism. This work will appeal to scholars and laypersons alike interested in the heart of Wesley’s thought and Wesleyan theology.

Reviewed by Paul J. Palma

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781625648389/john-wesley/

Pasquale Vozza is an Italian born evangelist and pastor. He served as president and secretary of the Italian Christian Church of Northern Europe and pastored the North Miami Christian Church for nearly thirty-five years. Vozza studied theology in Rome and at the College of the International Bible Training Institute in London. From Saving Bodies to Saving Souls chronicles his journey as a missionary and shepherd of God’s people. Much of this book describes the signs and wonders that accompanied his ministry as evidence of the ongoing miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in the contemporary Church.

The early chapters detail Vozza’s growing up years. He was born and raised in the industrial southern Italian city of Taranto, Apulia during the WWII years. The efforts of Italy’s Prime Minister, Benito Mussolini, to increase the Italian population, which included a benefit of 3 thousand lire per child, incentivized his parents to keep having kids (eight in all). Raised nominally Roman Catholic, Vozza learned the Catechism at school. However, he recalls how little he was taught about the Bible: “I did not hear the word ‘Bible’ until I was twenty-one years old” (p. 5). He became preoccupied with a nighttime routine of smoking, drinking, and gambling. Through the persistent prayers and encouragement of his mother, who was worshipping at an evangelical house church “underground” (non-Catholic congregations were forbidden), Vozza underwent a conversion experience. He resolved to win the souls of his wayward friends and found work selling Christian devotional literature door to door. He spent a year term in the military, where he earned a reputation as the “Protestant guy with the Bible” (p. 45). Stationed in Rome, each Sunday, Vozza attended the services of the only Protestant church in the city, the headquarter building of the Assemblies of God in Italy, founded by the Pentecostal pioneer, Roberto Bracco.

The final chapters describe Vozza’s move to the US and ministry in Florida. After seven years overseeing the CCNA sister organization, the Italian Christian Church of Northern Europe, he, his wife, and three daughters joined his wife’s family in Miami. There he accepted the call by the CCNA Southern District to pastor the North Miami Christian Church. The church quickly blossomed, aspiring to a multi-ethnic outreach with Sunday school offered in Italian, French-Creole, and Spanish and a dynamic ministry among the Jewish people.

Vozza’s life story, of one sold out to godly service and the building of God’s kingdom, will resonate with Christians from all traditions. From Saving Bodies to Saving Souls offers a portrait of hope for the inquiring mind that will appeal to non-Christians looking in on the meaning of the life of faith from the outside. This book will be of interest to laypersons and ministers as well as historians of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity.

Reviewed by Paul Palma

PneumaReview.com had the opportunity to speak with two scholars about this move of God, each of them giving an interview. The first of these interviews is with Dr. Paul Palma. He has written a significant book called Italian American Pentecostalism and the Struggle for Religious Identity, published in August 2019. In this book, he has written about the Italian Pentecostal Movement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The second interview is with Dr. Michael Brown. It may be a surprise to some but an Italian Pentecostal Church played an important role in his spiritual journey. We trust that you will find these interviews informative and inspiring.

Pneuma Review: When and where did the modern-day Italian Pentecostal Movement start?

Paul Palma: In assessing the origins of any religious movement, I think it is helpful to distinguish between a movement and specific phenomena. Pentecostal phenomena—“baptism in the Spirit,” speaking in tongues, healing, etc.—have been present among Italian peoples for centuries. Such phenomena, typically occurring in isolated contexts, were reported in parts of Italy in the late nineteenth century as well as at the Azusa Street Revival in 1906. A movement, on the other hand, brings cohesion to such phenomena for ongoing edification within a congregational setting. Defined in this latter sense, the origins of Italian Pentecostalism trace to Chicago. There is wide consensus, among North American, Italian, as well as South American scholarship, that the Italian Pentecostal Movement first took shape among an independent holiness congregation of Italian immigrants in inner-city Chicago in 1907.

Some members of this Chicago Italian congregation experienced the baptism in the Spirit at William H. Durham’s North Avenue Mission, the center of a revival considered in many respects to be the Midwest transplant of Azusa Street. From Durham’s church, the revival made its way to their Italian mission on West Grand Avenue, only blocks away. In the weeks and months that followed, numerous Italians were converted and reportedly baptized in the Spirit. The congregation later adopted the name the Assemblea Cristiana (Christian Assembly), becoming the first Italian Pentecostal church on record.

Pneuma Review: Which denominations today can trace their roots back to the Italian Pentecost in Chicago?

Paul Palma: There are numerous denominations today that trace their roots to Chicago’s Assemblea Cristiana. These are centered chiefly in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Italy. The flagship denomination of the Italian Pentecostal Movement was the Christian Church of North America (CCNA), today known as the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, established in 1927. The Italian Pentecostal Church of Canada (now the Canadian Assemblies of God) developed from the CCNA, although incorporated as a separate religious body in 1959. The Assemblea di Dio in Italia (Assemblies of God in Italy, ADI), the largest Protestant denomination in Italy, was also founded with the help of Italian Pentecostal pioneers from the CCNA. Numerous other denominations in Italy trace their roots to the classical Pentecostalism of the Assemblea Cristiana, among them being the Chiesa Cristiana Pentecostale Italiana (Italian Pentecostal Christian Church), Chiesa Apostolica in Italia (Apostolic Church in Italy), Chiese Elim in Italia (Italian Elim Churches), Chiesa di Dio (Church of God), Congregazioni Cristiane Pentecostali (Pentecostal Christian Congregation), and the Chiese Evangeliche della Valle del Sele (Sele Valley Evangelical Churches).

John Wesley

Wesley called attention to the inward, experiential dimension of faith. This emphasis was in part a reaction to the Calvinism that permeated the social and political life of the English world in the seventeenth century. Also undergirding the movement was the “living faith” Wesley imbibed from his encounter with German Pietism. Wesley’s contact with the Moravians, Pietists within eighteenth-century Lutheranism that drew from Catholic mysticism, gave him an awareness for the emotional dimension of faith. This led to his personal conversion, during which as he described, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.”[1] Wesley understood the Christian life as consisting of two separate experiences of grace—conversion (or justification), and Christian perfection (or sanctification). The first, justifying grace, covered over all the “actual sin” one had committed. Sanctifying grace, on the other hand, was given for the “residue” of sin that remained after one became a Christian—the inherited (original sin) from Adam.[2] According to Wesley, sanctifying grace occurred subsequent to the justifying grace of conversion. Wesley refers to the reality of this subsequent sanctifying experience as “Christian perfection,” “perfect love,” and “heart purity.”[3] While this experience is gradual and works itself out over the entirety of the Christian life, as Peter Althouse explains, there is also an instantaneous dimension of sanctification for Wesley. It is this latter “crisis” sense that undergirds the Holiness view of sanctification and the Pentecostal baptism in the Spirit.[4]

This is an anthology of primary source documents that examine the contributions of African Americans in the expansion of the modern-day Pentecostal movement. Reflected in their doctrine, songs, and liturgies, the Pentecostal movement has flourished among the races and ethnic peoples of America. In this work, Estrelda Y. Alexander, Associate Professor of Theology at Regent University and Executive Director of the Seymour Pan-African Pentecostal Project, points to the Holy Spirit as the means for cultivating racial consciousness.

This work examines the relationship between African Spirituality and Slave religion (chapter 1), the legacy of the nineteenth century Black Holiness movement (chapter 2), as well as the enduring impact of the Azusa St. Revival and Apostolic Faith Mission (chapter 3). In chapters 4-6 Alexander turns to a discussion of the denominational significance of the movement, underscoring its relationship to African American Trinitarianism, the Oneness churches, and White majority churches. Chapter 7 broaches the topic of women rights and ordination in African American Pentecostalism. Chapter 8 assesses the relationship of the movement to Neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, and chapter 9 examines the theological dimensions of social justice and racial reconciliation.

The unique contribution of this volume is the survey of beliefs, practices, and theology of African American Pentecostals as individuals and leaders speaking first-hand about their faith experiences. These “insider” voices emanate from male and female, the educated and uneducated alike. This work encompasses those from Trinitarian and Oneness backgrounds, pre- and post-Asuza Pentecostals, integrationalists and nationalists, the Word of Faith movement, and those from classical and contemporary perspectives. Each contribution is accompanied by detailed biographical information on the author and featured piece.

The nineteenth century African American spirituals resound with passion, overcoming joy, and holiness fervor. Novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston clung to the anthem of her peers from the choruses of Scripture. She sang as she strove to rise above her circumstances and life as a domestic servant in New York City during the 1920s: “Beloved, beloved, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, but we know, but we know… when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, we shall be like Him” (7).

The African American Oneness Pentecostal perspective is unique in that it is not foremost rooted in arguments of alleged modalism—a topic that pervades popular discussions of the movement. The historical African American Oneness concern centers on their biblical ‘Apostolic’ hermeneutic. In the Victim of the Flaming Sword, G. T. Haywood admits of the “One Person God” and the “Holy Ghost New Birth,” but remains convinced by the Apostolic witness that Jesus is not a subsidiary “Second Person” of the Trinity (101). The Apostles, Haywood explains, knew nothing of Trinitarian doctrine: “The word ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation” (102). The Black Oneness perspective is motivated first by their commitment to the faith of the pioneers of early Christianity. James C. Richardson, in From With Water and Spirit sees in Jesus the fulfillment of the God of the Old covenant: “Jehovah-God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ of the New Testament (117).”

Lilian Sparks, a member of Ida Robinson’s Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America, embraced an early egalitarian stance. She sang of her identity in Christ and freedom to preach, “There’s neither Jew nor Gentile, to those who’ve paid the price; ‘Tis neither Male nor Female, But one in Jesus Christ…. Some women have the right to sing, and some the right to teach; but women, called by Jesus Christ, surely have the right to preach” (158).

By drawing us back to the original sources, Alexander paints a vision of freedom, egalitarianism, and yearning for the pristine faith of early Christianity. Black Pentecostalism has left this legacy, ensconced in rare and precious first-hand autobiographical accounts of sermons, hymns, testimonies, and treatises. Ministers, interested lay-persons, and the academic community at large will find in the Black Fire Reader not simply a companion resource on the African American Pentecostal experience, but access into the life, beliefs, and culture of a people who have shaped and re-envisioned contemporary Christianity.

Reviewed by Paul J. Palma

Preview Black Fire Reader: https://books.google.com/books?id=dJlMAwAAQBAJ

Publisher’s page: http://wipfandstock.com/black-fire-reader.html

Read the related review of Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism (IVP Academic, 2011) by Wolfgang Vondey: http://pneumareview.com/ealexander-black-fire/

To the Ends of the Earth examines the historical and theological impact of global Pentecostalism on modern Christianity. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religious movement in the contemporary world. In this fascinating study, Allan Anderson, professor of Global Pentecostal Studies at the University of Birmingham, draws from over twenty years of active ministry experience in the South African Pentecostal context.

This work is divided into nine chapters. Anderson examines the ubiquity of twentieth century revivals, as well as the origins, missionary dynamics, and migrational structure of the movement (chapters one, two, and three). The author proceeds to address issues of gender, family and community dynamics, in addition to the global meaning of renewal in light of the Pentecostal full gospel (chapters four, five, and six). Chapters seven, eight, and nine are devoted to the themes of Christian transformation and independence, the relationship between charisma and faith, and Pentecostal entrepreneurialism.

In the last century, the southern hemisphere has served as the arena for a remarkable expansion of Pentecostal forms of Christianity. This expansion represents a change in the global trajectory and demographics of Christianity beyond anything previously imagined. Independent Pentecostal churches in particular proliferate on the new international playing field, expanding rapidly while spawning their own unique traditions. Pentecostals now represent a quarter of the world’s Christian population, some 614 million adherents worldwide. This staggering figure is best explained with reference to developments in the majority world—South America, Africa, and Asia. The impetus to evangelize and expand on these continents is “underpinned by a firm belief in the Bible as an independent source of authority, one that resonates with local customs and relates better to a spiritual and holistic worldview” (249). Working in tandem is a Protestant regard for biblical authority and a “renewalist” emphasis on the Spirit’s empowering presence—the result is a potent, transformative brand of Christianity.

What is most intriguing about the Spirit’s work in these contexts is the proliferation of indigenous types of Christianity. In many places Western missionaries are considered a nuisance, and in some nations even heretical. Spirit-led revival movements have tended to challenge the notion of Western hegemony. In continuity with the revival tradition, Pentecostalism is a liberative movement, freeing ordinary people from colonial and ecclesiastical oppression, while introducing free enterprise to the world’s religious marketplace. Anderson is not suggesting that Western missionaries should be discouraged in their pursuits to share the gospel, but that the path to success on the new Pentecostal frontier exists in partnering with indigenous churches and encouraging local leadership.

In a pluralistic age, To the Ends of the Earth promises the continued success of world Christianity through the many Pentecostal manifestations of the miraculous. As Pentecostalism traverses race, gender, and class barriers, it adapts in new cultural contexts, promoting vital, energizing forms of worship. This can be seen in the vivid liturgies, music, and dance of majority world peoples who have embraced the contemporary work of the Spirit. Pentecostalism provides “primitive” cultures continuity with their “spirit world” origins. Anderson points to the future of world Christianity found soaring on the winds of renewal. Pentecostalism has emerged as the formidable instrument of this renewal by offering the majority world a tangible expression of communal identity, healing, deliverance.

Reviewed by Paul J. Palma

Preview To the Ends of the Earth: https://books.google.com/books/about/To_the_Ends_of_the_Earth.html?id=Fdn3dMgyJL0C

Editor’s Note: This academic paper by Paul Palma was first presented at the 2013 meeting of the Center for Renewal Studies. Less technical readers may want to start with the more accessible conclusion.

Introduction

The early Pentecostal movement expanded among those seeking a more dynamic and vital religious experience. For some this entailed transition through one or more pre-Pentecostal traditions. The first Italian Pentecostals were Roman Catholic converts who transitioned through Protestant and independent Holiness stages before arriving to the Pentecostal movement. The guiding motivation for their progress from one denomination to the next was dissatisfaction with conventional orthodoxy and the pursuit of an intuitive, affective spirituality.

Religious Trajectory of the Italian Pentecostals

The Italian Pentecostal movement formed among a community of immigrants in the first decade of the twentieth century. Italians entered America as nominal and devout Catholics. Growing anticlericalism and distrust for American Catholicism, dominated at that time by the Irish Church, forced many Italians to veer from their ethnoreligious roots. Some ventured to Protestant churches. The first Italian Pentecostals were Presbyterians-turned evangelical Holiness believers. The movement of Italians to increasingly revivalistic churches provides the conceptual framework for understanding the spiritual formation of the first Italian Pentecostals.

The creation of the Italian Evangelical Mission in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century redefined Italian ethnoreligious identity. Beginning as a community of independent Holiness believers, this congregation emerged from the spiritual vacancy created by a neglectful American Catholic Church and the rigid demands of mainline Protestantism. Luigi Francescon and Pietro Ottolini assumed the leadership responsibilities of the Evangelical Mission. Francescon emigrated in 1890 and converted among a group of Waldensians before cofounding the First Italian Presbyterian Church of Chicago. Ottolini emigrated in 1891, converted from Catholicism through an independent evangelist, and later joined the First Italian Presbyterian Church.[2]