This book lives up to its claim to study global Pentecostalism, not because it covers it country by country, but because it is grounded in the places in the world where Pentecostalism has had a major impact on society. These places are Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa, China, Russia and the Ukraine, India and the Philippines. However, the case of the Philippines, the reflections relate mainly to the Catholic Charismatic Movement, the largest Pentecostal/charismatic group in the country.

The book is written from a sociological point of view and the focus is detailing Pentecostalism’s impact on things like economics, community life, and politics. Other issues, such as one’s relationship with God and dealing with the ever-present spirit world in the Majority World, are noted (p. 116) but not considered in depth.

The layout of the book is straightforward and not divided into sections. Following Hefner’s introductory chapter, “The Unexpected Modern—Gender, Piety and Politics in the Global Pentecostal Surge,” there are a total of eight lengthy chapters. (1) “Pentecostalism: An Alternative Form of Modernity and Modernization,” by David Martin. (2) “The Future of Pentecostalism in Brazil: The Limits to Growth,” by Paul Freston. (3) “Social Mobility and Politics in African Pentecostal Modernity,” by David Maxwell. (4) “Tensions and Trends in Pentecostal Gender and Family Relations,” by Bernice Martin. (5) “Gender, Modernity, and Pentecostal Christianity in China,” by Nanlai Cao. (6) “The Routinization of Soviet Pentecostalism and the Liberation of Charisma in Russia and Ukraine,” by Christopher Marsh and Artyom Tonoyan. (7) “Pentecost amid Pujas: Charismatic Christianity and Dalit Women in Twenty-First Century India,” by Rebecca Samuel Shah and Timothy Samuel Shah. (8) “Politics, Education and Civic Participation: Catholic Charismatic Modernities in the Philippines,” by Katharine L. Wiegele. Peter Berger’s afterward then sums up the book excellently by tying the articles together.

As Hefner and others note (p. 9) Pentecostalism focuses much more on personal rebirth or transformation than social structural change. All authors report, however, that the personal transformation also brings positive to change to families and communities. Men no longer visit the bars and brothels and pour their resources into their families instead, providing social lift. Women, who are often oppressed in male dominated societies, find their voices in the Pentecostal Movement. Martin, for example, mentions that women are often used in prophecy (p. 38). Transformed individuals then, do positively impact broader society.

A lot of attention is given throughout the book to the impact of the prosperity gospel in the Majority World. Much of the impact has been positive, although the prosperity gospel in these regions is much less focused on money than its American counterpart and appears to be more along the line of Yonggi Cho’s three-fold blessing prosperity gospel based on 3 John 2.

Luke Timothy Johnson is a first-rate biblical exegete and a Roman Catholic. He takes the reader through Luke and Acts, seeing in both the fulfillment in Jesus of the prophetic in the messianic role of prophet, priest and king. Unlike a majority of scholarship grounded in the modern discipline of critical study of the text and background, Johnson sees Luke and Acts as complementary, in fact amounting to what Luke intended to be a single read, or at least read together. Jesus comes and fulfills the Torah in a way that seems to turn Torah on its head. This is contrary to how the Pharisees do Torah, who Johnson sees as seeking to fulfill it in more of a straightforward way.

Johnson sees Jesus’ radical fulfillment of the prophetic in Luke as continuing on in the church in Acts. What Jesus began to do in Luke he continues to do in Acts by the Spirit through the church. And Johnson sees the church’s fulfillment as being even more radical. Jesus began that step toward what was fulfilled later in the church and continues on to this day.

Johnson argues for a prophetic emphasis in both Luke and Acts, which he shows is demonstrated well in the texts themselves. He sees this emphasis grounded in certain prophets of the old covenant: Moses, Elijah, Elisha. Jesus was not like the writing prophets such as Isaiah, but like the prophets who by the Spirit spoke God’s word and embodied, enacted (signs and wonders, etc.) and witnessed to that word, a witness that resulted in suffering. The prophets listed in Luke-Acts is impressive: “Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, John, Simeon, Anna, John, Jesus, and those followers of Jesus through whom the spirit of the resurrected one did signs and wonders” (p. 67). The prophetic word and work is to point to and give something of God’s vision ultimately for the world.

I find the thesis that Luke and Acts underscore the prophetic which is fulfilled in Jesus in calling the church back to its true mission and vocation healthy. Yes, the church is prophetic by nature in its calling and constitution. Johnson sees the Pentecostal/charismatic church as important in keeping alive the manifestations of the Spirit seen in Acts.

Two events happened last week that leave me wondering if, at long last, some demonic strongholds over the Philippines are being broken.

For the last twenty or twenty five years or so, evangelicals in the Philippines have been giving increased attention to ministry to Muslims. However, I believe that history may someday record that recent developments may have opened the floodgates to a renewed and focused emphasis on these unreached peoples.

Last week, Dr. Melba Maggay and her team at the Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture (ISACC) in Manila convened a conference on contextualization (making the gospel understandable within various cultures) in Asia and focused on ministry to Muslims. Some time ago, Dr. Maggay opined in an email that God has been leading her ministry more in the direction of Muslims. Since Dr. Maggay is one of the most well known and respected evangelical leaders in the Philippines, this move toward Muslims is significant. I personally believe that she will undoubtedly lead others on the same journey.

Conference speakers included Dr. Andrew Walls, who spoke by videotape as health issues prevented him from attending and Dr. Miriam Adeney, an internationally known writer and Christian anthropologist, as well as others. Dr. Walls gave us an overview of the history, development and expansion of Islam since its founding in 622 AD. While limited by time restraints, his review was impressive in scope and calls for much reflection on how “Christians” have treated and mostly ignored Muslims throughout the centuries. Dr. Adeney spoke to a number of issues, including some touching stories of some of the eight million Filipinos working abroad whom God is using in some very difficult places.

Prof. Amina Rasul-Bernardo and Attorney Johaira Wahab, both Muslim women from the Magindinao tribe in Mindanao (Southern Philippines) who are involved in the efforts to resolve the “Christian”-Muslim conflict that has raged there for a number of decades, updated us on their perspective on the ongoing efforts to bring peace to the troubled parts of the region. Both women were candid that Muslims as well as “Christians” have contributed to the problem. Rev. Dann Pantoja, a Filipino evangelical who is the founder and director of Peacebuilders, a Mennonite consulting team dedicated to the peace process (see www.peacebuilderscommunity.org), shared his story about engaging in this work and gave a Christian perspective on the peace process dialogue, particularly noting the unresolved tensions that remain.

Darrell W. Johnson, The Glory of Preaching: Participating in God’s Transformation of the World (IVP Academic, 2009), 278 pages, ISBN 9780830838530.

With the massive growth in multimedia ministries, it might seem that preaching could go the way of vinyl LPs and telegrams. However, in The Glory of Preaching, Darrell W. Johnson not only aims to convince us that preaching has not lost any of its wonder but that, by standing up to preach, we have the opportunity to participate in this wonder each and every week.

In part 1, we are given the theoretical reasons behind the importance of preaching, based on his hypothesis that “When a human being … invites the gathered assembly into a particular text of the Bible … something always happens” (p. 7). The first two chapters of this part take the form of extended expositions of two key Bible chapters, Ezekiel 37 and Matthew 13. Taken together, these two chapters not only give us a glimpse of the redemptive power of preaching but of reasons why we may not see the expected results after every sermon. The fourth chapter takes a different angle by providing a useful and inspiring study of the Greek words used to refer to preaching and the dynamics of the preaching moment that they represent.

The only flaw in this section is that, whereas three of the four chapters rely on direct examination of the Word of God, the third chapter takes a more indirect route and focuses exclusively on the views of theologians. While theological reflection on preaching is welcome and necessary, it would have been useful to relate the theological positions to biblical examples. The thesis of this chapter is that expository preaching, where a sermon examines a single biblical text, rather than a theme or principle, is superior to other preaching methodologies such as narrative and topical preaching (pp. 53-55). Such a position is surely hard to defend scripturally, given the wide variety of preaching styles used by both Jesus and His disciples.

For a number of readers, part 2 will be welcomed as one of the most straightforward sections of the book to apply to the practice of preaching. Here the author deals with the mechanics (his term, see pp. 103-104) of creating a sermon from a Biblical text and backing up your words with Biblical integrity.

In the first chapter of this section (chapter 5), the author walks us through the broad steps of sermon creation from scripture selection to finding the right ways to express the sermon’s content. For each step in the process, we are given a number of questions to guide our thinking. Of course, some of these will be more relevant to some texts and even congregations than others. For instance, the precise nuances of the prepositions used in a text may be less relevant when preaching to a church with a large proportion of new believers. However, these guides, if used wisely will give any preacher an excellent foundation for text study.

Chapter 6 moves us to the ordering of the sermon by providing a wide range of sample structures that can be used. These will be useful for both inexperienced and mature preachers alike and, when combined with the study methods outlined in the previous chapter will form a powerful addition to a preacher’s toolkit. We are also reminded of the oral nature of preaching and the effects this might have on preparation and on the creation of the notes that are taken up to the pulpit.

Over twenty years ago Gary B. McGee wrote a comprehensive survey of Assemblies of God (AG) missions, “This Gospel Shall Be Preached.” In it he called for others to follow with regional histories of the various AG fields of missionary service. That call is beginning to be answered. In 1997 Lawrence R. Larson wrote a history of AG work in Fiji that runs over 500 pages. In 2004 A. C. George published his study of the AG in India that runs to nearly 400 pages. Dave Johnson, missionary to the Philippines since 1997, has now given us a detailed history for AG work in the Philippines. We will address three questions about this work.

First, is this history told from the perspective of the “white” missionary to the neglect of the national ministers and church leaders? By focusing on the roles of western missionaries such work as we are reviewing here goes against the grain of current studies of world Christianity. Noted authors like Allan Anderson have stressed the need to tell the stories of gifted and anointed national workers who did much of the “heavy lifting” in establishing missions work; sadly most of their names are lost but much is being done to present “history from below.” But it is also true that the stories of western Pentecostal missionaries are also disappearing at an alarming rate as early generations of pioneer missionaries are gone and records of their life ministry disappear. So it is without shame to say that Dave Johnson has done a great service in preserving the 84-year history of AG missionaries going from the United States to the islands of the Philippines. Johnson’s work does in fact describe the roles and contribution of many Philippine pastors, evangelists, and church leaders.

Second, has Johnson “sanitized” the accounts of these missionaries without mention of their problems and failures? No, Johnson does not hesitate to narrate some of those defeats and failings as my personal knowledge of a few of those missionaries can verify: independent-spirited types, moral failures, and church splits are not glossed over. In any mission field where successful work has produced a national church there will be tension of personnel, administrative control, and mission strategy. For example in chapter nine this work narrates such a moment of tension between the AG Missionary Fellowship and the Philippines General Council of the AG that arose in the 1960s-1970s, reached a peak, and finally resolution.

Third, what resources have been used by the author of this history? Johnson has drawn on a comprehensive variety of sources: Pentecostal Evangel articles, AG missions publications, academic studies, minutes of American and Philippines national committees and councils, taped interviews, missionary newsletters, and emails from current and past AG missionaries.

The nature of Pentecostalism is the taking the message of Jesus to the nations. We can be grateful to Dave Johnson for preserving an important part of that story in the Pacific islands of the Philippines.

Find the book at: daveanddebbiejohnson.com

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Brubaker

Editor’s note: The full text of Led by the Spirit is now available at: https://www.academia.edu/34297392/LED_BY_THE_SPIRIT.pdf