The Pneuma Review » Paul Palma

Missions and Grassroots Pentecostalism: an interview with Paul Palma

Paul Palma — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 22:00:20 +0000

An interview with Dr. Paul J. Palma about his book, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility

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?

The development of Latin American Pentecostalism was characterized by growth among the lower and working-class.

Paul Palma: By “grassroots,” I wish to emphasize the development of Pentecostalism among the common people. In contrast to the top-down structure typical of Western, more dominant forms of Christianity, the development of Latin American Pentecostalism was characterized by growth among the lower and working-class masses. A corresponding characteristic of “grassroots,” specific to the classical Pentecostal stream I focus on in the book, is the lay-led orientation of the movements.

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.

By 1910, the center of gravity of the Pentecostal awakening, particularly in its international reach, had shifted from Azusa Street to Chicago.

Paul Palma: The 1907–08 Chicago revival was the Midwest transplant of the better-known Azusa Street, Los Angeles, revival. Standing at the hub of the Chicago awakening was the North Avenue Mission pastored by William H. Durham. Through their connections with the North Avenue Mission, the Italian and Swedish pioneers of Brazilian Pentecostalism had their initial Pentecostal experience. By 1910, the center of gravity of the Pentecostal awakening, particularly in its international reach, had shifted from Azusa Street to Chicago.

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?

Early Pentecostalism was a vibrant missionary movement. Brazilian Pentecostalism was propelled by a passion for the ongoing ministry of the Spirit and a millenarianism that sought to win as many converts as possible before Christ’s imminent return.

Paul Palma: As many know, early Pentecostalism was a vibrant missionary movement. Brazilian Pentecostalism was propelled by a passion for the ongoing ministry of the Spirit and a millenarianism that sought to win as many converts as possible before Christ’s imminent return. Additionally, the movements’ initial outreach found momentum among the significant diaspora population (Italian and Swedish) in Brazil. Pentecostalism satiated a need for identity and solidarity among the displaced migrants. One could also point to the aptitude of the pioneers. Both on the Italian and Swedish side stood individuals who were sold out for Christ, dedicated to their ministry, and tactical in their outreach.

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.

The reverse mission shift: nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France are now among the leading missionary-receiving countries in the world.

Paul Palma: The “reverse mission” paradigm is a distinguishing marker of global Pentecostal Christianity. It encompasses those movements that trace to the “sending” countries of the global North. In such cases, the conventional global South “receiving” countries are now dispatching missionaries of their own back into North American and European contexts. By 2007, much to the credit of widespread Pentecostal movements such as the CC and AD, Brazil had supplanted Britain and Canada in the number of workers sent out into foreign mission fields. This contemporary shift means that nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France are now among the leading missionary-receiving countries in the world.

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

Paul Palma: Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States

Brian Roden — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 21:00:38 +0000

Paul J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) 417 pages, ISBN 9783031133701.

In Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility, Dr. Paul J. Palma presents a history of the major Pentecostal movements in Brazil, beginning with how immigrants to the United States who encountered Pentecost took the full gospel message to Brazil, how the denominations were established and how they grew and adapted over time, and how these movements in Brazil then proceeded to reach out beyond their Latin American borders in reverse missions to North America and Europe.

The book consists of ten chapter comprising two major sections: “Classical Pentecostalism in Transnational Perspective,” and “Classical Pentecostalism and Mobility: Challenges and Prospects.” The first part deals with the history of the founding and expansion of Brazilian Pentecostal groups, while the second part deals with contemporary challenges facing the denominations profiled in this book.

Brazil was not as staunchly Catholic as the former Spanish colonies in Latin America.

Chapter one introduces Luigi Francescon, who emigrated from Italy to the United States for economic opportunities. Once in America, he converted from his childhood Catholicism, moving through Presbyterianism until he eventually became Pentecostal. Francescon’s holiness mission in Chicago became the launching pad for Italian Pentecostalism in the form of the Asamblea Cristiana (Christian Assembly). Another Pentecostal movement—this one among Swedish Baptists in Chicago—involved Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, who had also left their native land for work opportunities in the United States. All three of these men felt called by God to take the Pentecostal message to Brazil. While Brazil was nominally Catholic, it was not as staunchly Catholic as the former Spanish colonies in Latin America—which had been influenced to some degree by Inquisition-inspired fervor—and thus was more open to Protestantism and other “imported” faiths. After these brief introductions, Palma gives some general statistics about the growth of Christianity, and Pentecostalism in particular, in Latin America, and presents an outline of what will be covered in the other chapters of the book.

The Pentecostal emphasis on direct encounters with the Spirit of God resonated with many rural Brazilians.

Chapter two discusses in detail the origins of grassroots Pentecostal movements in both the U.S. and Brazil. The multicultural character of the Azusa Street revival was reflected in the Chicago outpouring at the North Avenue Mission. Francescon felt the call to carry the message of Pentecost to his fellow members of the Italian diaspora in Argentina and southern Brazil, while Berg and Vingren landed in the northern region of Brazil a few months after Francescon’s arrival in the south. The Pentecostal emphasis on direct encounters with the Spirit of God resonated with many rural Brazilians, whose indigenous folk religions (or Afro-Brazilian religions among the descendants of imported slaves) also held the concept of direct, unmediated spiritual encounters, along with physically and emotionally expressive religious practices. Palma also looks at the influence of other pre-Pentecostal Protestant works in Brazil, since the backgrounds of people coming from Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist/Holiness churches had an impact on how the newly-forming Pentecostal bodies would set up their governing structures.

Such intense desire to seek for and know God seems to be a recurring theme in the spread of Pentecostal belief and practice around the world.

One particular bit of history in this chapter, dealing with Francescon’s wife Rosina Balzano, really grabbed my attention. “Her desire to read the Bible, freely and on her own accord, finally propelled her to join up with her family [in America]. Rosina had grown irritated with the incessant pleas of priests forbidding her from reading it. When she learned from her father about ordinary people, like herself, reading and preaching the Bible in the New World, she left to meet her family, arriving in Chicago in 1891” (p. 32). Such intense desire to seek for and know God seems to be a recurring theme in the spread of Pentecostal belief and practice around the world.

In the third chapter, Palma discusses the founding and early growth of Pentecostal bodies in Brazil. Initially, Pentecost in Brazil was concentrated among European and U.S. immigrants to the nation. Later migrations of rural Brazilians to the cities for work brought Portuguese speakers into contact with the Pentecostal churches made up primarily of immigrants from other countries. Both groups being “outsiders” often led to solidarity based on the lived experience of migration, whether across or within national borders. Palma notes that “Pentecostalism supplied a ‘common language,’ holding out to the displaced agrarian migrant the promise of solidarity and belonging” (68). In contrast to the missions outreaches of mainline Protestant denominations, which focused on spreading North American versions of Christianity among the lower-middle class of Brazil, the Pentecostal groups “came to be religious-social phenomena by, of, and among the poor, literally a Brazilian religion of the Brazilian migrant poor” (82).

Assimilation: once second and third generations emerge, who are more accustomed to the host country language and culture, it is hard for groups that focus on immigrant populations to maintain their numbers and growth if there is a downturn in immigration numbers from their home countries.

Chapter four looks at Italian Pentecostalism in northern Argentina, where Francescon ministered briefly before moving his focus to Brazil. Argentina had a considerable population of Italian immigrants (about forty percent of all foreigners in the country at the time), and Italian missionaries from the Chicago church saw the opportunity to spread the Pentecostal message to that community. While the Christian Assemblies group witnessed significant growth early on, baptizing about 10,000 new believers between 1926 and 1940, it faced stagnation and later decline due to various challenges (96). The most significant roadblock may have been the group’s tendency to stay focused on its Italian immigrant base, rather than acculturating to the national language of Spanish and reaching out to Argentine natives. Similar concerns have been raised regarding Latino immigrant churches in North America—once second and third generations emerge, who are more accustomed to the host country language and culture, it is hard for groups that focus on immigrant populations to maintain their numbers and growth if there is a downturn in immigration numbers from their home countries.

In the fifth chapter, Palma discusses the growth of Brazilian Pentecostalism beyond the urban and rural poor into “reverse missions,” where the country that was once the recipient of missions efforts ends up sending missionaries back to the countries that previously sent them workers. By 2007, Brazil was sending out more foreign missionaries than Britain or Canada (105). Both the Italian-rooted Christian Assemblies and Christian Congregations, and the Brazilian Assembleia de Deus (Assemblies of God, hereafter AD) founded by Swedes Vingren and Berg, now have congregations in the United States, from which their founders left to minister in Brazil. Just as these group started in Brazil by working among Italian and Swedish immigrants to that country, their U.S. branches started out ministering to Brazilians who had migrated to the States for economic reasons. One church in San Jose, California, that traces its roots to the Brazilian AD (but is independent from that organization) has even planted a church in Santa Catarina in Brazil, adding another half-circle to the missions movement that had already gone full-circle (118).

Part II of the book begins with chapter six, which discusses various aspects of church growth in Brazilian Pentecostalism. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Italian-founded Christian Congregations and the Swedish-founded Assemblies of God followed fairly parallel growth trajectories. After that, however, the CC’s growth rate plateaued, while the AD’s growth curve climbed steeply upward (though it is noted that the AD has seen a decline in membership of over two million members between 2010 and 2015). This chapter dives deep into various factors that contributed to these varying growth patterns, and careful readers will be on the lookout for how those issues may impact the growth or decline of their own church bodies. Special attention is given to the role that the move to autochthonous leadership had on church growth, with the groups that more readily handed leadership over to Brazilian nationals experiencing faster growth.

The seventh chapter takes a look at various forms of church polity in Pentecostal groups in both Brazil and in the United States. The Christian Congregations churches have held steadfastly to a model of unpaid, volunteer clergy. “Except for assistance with missionary travel expenses, ministerial office holders and other administrative personnel are expected to sustain themselves fiscally through their own means” (152). This seems very much in line with what I have heard about the early Pentecostal church planters in the United States, who were generally bivocational. The Brazilian Assemblies of God, on the other hand, has a much more episcopal structure, with authority centralized in the office of the pastor-presidente, who at times exercises authority at the level of a “Pentecostal pope” (158). Palma also discusses some of the differences between how Pentecostal groups incorporate ideas from liberation theology in their work with the poor and the presentation of those in classical Roman Catholic liberation thought.

Brazilian movements have lessened the involvement of women in the public worship service over time.

Chapter eight discusses issues of gender role differences in Brazilian Pentecostal churches. Sex-specific dress codes are still very prevalent, often not so much out of concerns for modesty, but rather for the purpose of clearly identifying the genders. A beneficial side-effect is that, according to one Brazilian study, “the discreet, non-provocative clothes of Pentecostals protect poor women from sexual harassment” (194). Many congregations still practice gender segregation in worship, which likewise keeps young men from seeking to sit by the most attractive young ladies during worship, which leaders feel can cause distractions. Unlike North American Pentecostal denominations, which for the most part accept women’s ordination and leadership in ministry (at least in theological position papers, though maybe not always in practice), the Brazilian movements have lessened the involvement of women in the public worship service over time. While earlier in the history of the Christian Congregations group women served as deaconesses, now those women who perform the same diaconal functions are called by the name “sisters of piety,” with the title of deacon reserved solely for men. “Women can call hymns, pray, and testify, but if any males are present, regardless of their age, females take the backseat in speaking roles” (190). When women do perform these speaking functions in public worship, they are expected to wear a head covering based on a literal interpretation of Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian church.

Chapter nine touches on issues of holiness ethic, separatism, and political involvement. Holiness codes tend to be stricter in rural, less affluent areas, while a bit more latitude is shown among the economically prosperous and believers in urban spaces. Politically, while Catholics and mainline Protestants have become less politically involved in Brazil over time, Pentecostals— especially within the AD— have moved in the opposite direction, in contrast to the early apoliticism of Pentecostal groups in the country: one third of the thirty Protestants elected to the national congress in 1994 were members of the AD. Palma foreshadows the involvement of Pentecostals in the country’s 2022 presidential election, a fact that has been borne out in news reports after the publication of this book. Pentecostals were also reportedly involved in the violent protests in the capital, Brasilia, on January 8, 2023, that eerily echoed facets of the January 6, 2021 events in Washington, D.C. (which saw many neo-pentecostals active in rallies in the weeks just before that event).

In his concluding tenth chapter, Palma summarizes how the different ethnic backgrounds of the founders of Pentecostalism in southern (Italian) and northern (Swedish) Brazil impacted the polity, practices, and politics of the groups they established, yet this ethnic factor is often overlooked. However, despite their origins being traced to European-American immigrants, the CA, CC, and AD movements today are all undoubtedly Brazilian in character. Considering the reverse missions from Brazil to North America and Europe, Palma notes that “the story of Brazilian classical Pentecostalism illustrates the vibrant multidirectional character of twenty-first-century Christianity” seen in many parts of the world (235).

Knowing where Pentecostalism has come from is vital for those doing Pentecostal church work today.

I found Dr. Palma’s book to be an interesting read that increased my knowledge of Pentecostalism in another part of the world from my own upbringing in the southern United States. Part of my credentialing process with the U.S. Assemblies of God included a class on our fellowship’s history, which had a brief mention of two Swedish missionaries from Chicago who felt led by the Spirit to go to Brazil. It was a joy for me to be able to read a fuller account of the Assembleias de Deus founded by Berg and Vingren.

Anyone interested in the development of Pentecostal churches around the world will find this book to provide significant insights into the largest Spirit-filled movement within the borders of a single country today. Knowing where Pentecostalism has come from is vital for those doing Pentecostal church work today, as the roots of a movement, while not exhaustively deterministic of its future, do continue to exert influence. In addition, seeing where other groups may have taken missteps that hampered the mission of the church can help contemporary workers to be on guard against similar errors.

Reviewed by Brian Roden

The Immense Value of a God-given Inheritance: an interview with Paul Palma

Paul Palma — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 23:15:58 +0000

An interview with Dr. Paul J. Palma about his book, Embracing Our Roots: Rediscovering the Value of Faith, Family, and Tradition.

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.

Amos Yong’s Who is the Holy Spirit?

Paul Palma — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 21:27:52 +0000

From the Fall 2013 issue of Pneuma Review.

Amos Yong, Who is the Holy Spirit? A Walk with the Apostles, a Paraclete Guide (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2011), 215 pages, ISBN 9781557256355.

Amos Yong has written a fresh and comprehensive guide concerning the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. This work has profound implications for contemporary audiences regarding the topic of the Spirit in the Acts narrative. Who is the Holy Spirit will resonate with anyone wishing to discern the winds of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.

This book is divided into eight parts and thirty-nine chapters. The first part illuminates the ramifications of the Spirit’s outpouring, as well as the kingdom promise and the Spirit’s outpouring. This is followed by an overview of the economy of salvation, including the gifts, fellowship, mission, politics, and charismatic dimensions of the Spirit (part two). Part three underscores the economics of the Spirit in Judea, and part four examines the theological work of the Spirit in light of the story of the people of Israel. The fifth part addresses the movement of the Spirit into Samaria and the highways of Palestine. Part six enumerates the relationship between the Spirit and the Gentiles. Part seven, the prophetic and political overtures of the Kingdom-empire, in addition to the relationship of the Spirit to the world. The final part explores the witness, resurrection, nature, and sacramental dimensions of the Spirit.

According to Yong, the empowering witness of the Spirit outlines how to live faithfully in a pluralistic world. Whether government, society, or the global economy, the demands on our lives will consume us if we are not equipped with the power of Spirit. As Yong proposes, following Zaccheus, our response might also extend “the new economy of salvation so as to reconcile people, opposing and correcting the unjust structures of our world” (p 28). Yet as he explains, there is fellowship, warmth, and healing in the Spirit. This indeed is a sign of the messianic promise and “the redemption, reconciliation, and release long associated with the year of the Lord’s favor” (p 44). Whither the economics of the Spirit? If we fully embrace the Spirit’s power, and overcome our self-centeredness, then we will have the full embodiment of the Holy Spirit upon our lives. Above all, the Spirit filled life in the Acts narrative is about spiritual formation, or perhaps even better, transformation. There is resurrection power in the Spirit and in the Spirit the ability to traverse foes and powers of darkness.

Global Awakening

Paul Palma — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 12:48:41 +0000

Mark Shaw, Global Awakening: How 20th-Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 221 pages, ISBN 9780830838776.

This book by Mark Shaw is a welcome contribution to the study of world Christianity. His innovative thesis is that global revivals are the primary delivery system of religious change in the modern world. Several forces contribute to the new face of world Christianity, including globalization, the modern missions movement, translation of the Scriptures, and the empowerment of indigenous peoples. Through theoretical analysis and case studies, Shaw maintains that these forces are not the product of American folk ritual or the Western religious right, but belong to worldwide “charismatic people movements that transform their world by translating Christian truth and transferring power” (p 16).

Shaw claims that the rise of new world Christianity is the product of indigenous movements working “from below” (p 29). These movements emerge from a combination of spiritual, cultural, historical, group, and global dynamics. Each chapter is devoted to a separate case study, examining the dynamics of global revivals in light of particular movements. Shaw begins with the Great Korean Revival of 1907. Through local leadership, the Korean revival transformed secular imports—an alien commerce, culture, and religion—into a new, indigenous expression of Christianity (chapter 2). In chapter 3, Shaw examines the Nigerian revival of 1930 in light of cultural dynamics. Inundated by the perils of influenza, war, plague, and economic depression, Nigerians transferred their trust from science and witchcraft to “new light” indigenous leadership (p 65). The Dornakal revival in India provides an example of the role of conversion in revival (chapter 4). East African revivals illustrate the spiritual dynamic of radical community, which freed historic churches in Uganda from British colonialism and brought renewal to existing Protestant groups (chapter 5). Chapter 6 examines the North American post-war evangelical revivals. Bolstered by the soaring Pentecostal movement, leaders such as Billy Graham, John Stott, and Samuel Escobar, challenged the forces of communism and religious fundamentalism. The “Lausanne Covenant” (1974) paved the way to an international evangelicalism.