The byline reads: “COVID got us used to staying home. But it’s the work of God’s people to lift up the name of Christ and receive God’s Word—together.”

Dr. James F. Linzey as the keynote speaker for the Easter Sunrise Service 2017 outside the Airman-Marine Memorial Chapel, MCAS Miramar, former “Home of Top Gun.”

Jonathan Sciano, “Department of the Air Force ‘Mentoring Resources’ Includes Historical Battle of Midway Documentary by Dr. James F. Linzey” Christian News Wire (October 14, 2024).

Leadership resources from the US Air Force includes PneumaReview.com author James F. Linzey‘s speech about about the Battle of Midway and moral leadership. The speech has been made available here: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/embed/511646

Roger E. Olson, “What Is a ‘Form of Life?’ Can an Outsider Understand?” Patheos (October 24, 2024).

Historian of religion, Roger Olson, introduces Wittgenstein’s “forms of life” in the context of language games, arguing that outsiders (particularly to movements such as Pentecostalism) are unable to understand forms of life they are observing. Therefore, Olson argues, outsiders should be careful to criticize what they have not participated in. “The deep ‘logic’ of Pentecostalism is an experience that can’t be described. It can only be felt. It’s a profound connection with God but even ‘connection’ is not a word often used. It’s a feeling without words to describe it. It can be provoked by a fervent prayer, by speaking in tongues, by a powerful sermon, by a hymn or gospel song, by … many things.”

J. R. Briggs, “7 Ideas for Improving Bible Engagement in Your Church: How to encourage a deeper experience of Scripture” CT Pastors (July 19, 2018).

“The Christians Living Under Buddhist Nationalism: Yale scholar David Moe explores the faith and identity of ethnic minorities in his home country of Myanmar” Christianity Today (October 29, 2024).

Angela Lu Fulton interviews Dr. David Thang Moe, who studies and writes about religion in Southeast Asia.

Kelly K, “How to Disagree and Still Keep it Holy” Charisma (October 28, 2024).

Image: Natalia Fogarty

Roger E. Olson, “Why ‘Panentheism’ Is False” Patheos (November 14, 2024).

Historian of religion, Roger Olson, provides a basic definition of classical or traditional panentheism of the Hegel and Whitehead varieties and contrasts them to what is being said about a “Christian Panentheism” (as expressed, for example, by Moltmann). Olson is making the point that those that deny creation ex nihilo (as classical panentheism does) are not within orthodox Christian theism. But this so-called Christian panentheism is not automatically heterodox if creation ex nihilo is embraced.

PR

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

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.

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).

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.

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).

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

Lora Timenia is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God in the Philippines. She has a Master of Theology degree from Asia Pacific Theological Seminary and serves both in the administration of the school and on its faculty (biographical information on the back cover). The Publisher’s Preface of the book tells us that this volume is the publication of the author’s master’s thesis. It is thus an academic work, a quick look at the table of contents demonstrates this. There is a logical unfolding of the material presented in the book. The chapters cover things such as:  reviews of relevant literature (Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5), an explanation of methodology (Chapter 6), presentation of and understanding of findings (Chapters 7 and 8) evaluations (Chapters 9 and 10), a conclusion and recommendations (Chapter 11). Though this book is very academic in format it is not difficult to read, the language employed is clear and straightforward.

The author’s motivations in writing this book are to present a sound academic understanding of Toronto Blessing revivalism, to address the confusion of classical Pentecostals in her own country about this movement, and to provide some guidance in evaluating various manifestations (page ix). She does not wish to criticize this movement in a destructive way (page xvii), though she does have some concerns about it (page 4). The main questions she seeks to answer in this study are: “What is a TB revivalist theology of signs and wonders from a Filipino perspective?” What contributed to the development of this theology in the Philippines?” “And, what are the implications of this theology in the Filipino P/C context?” (page 5). In the previous sentence “P/C” stands for Pentecostal/Charismatic. Timenia is careful to distinguish and define the various classifications of Spirit-empowered movements referred to in the book (pages 6-9).

If you live in the West, do not let the title of this book dissuade you from reading it. While the author has a decided interest in examining the Toronto Blessing movement in the context of her own country, one need not live in the Philippines in order to benefit from reading it. Timenia believes that there is a connection between the Toronto Blessing Movement in her country and in North America (page 5). Because of this, she traces the significant historical developments of the movement and its leaders (pages 23-32). In this section the reader will encounter the names of many well-known leaders in this movement, people like: John and Carol Arnott, Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, and Che Ahn. So if you are interested in the history of this movement you will find it in this book. Her research also contains a survey of relevant sources about revivalism in the Filipino context (Chapter 4). This includes material from Toronto Blessing ministers in the Philippines (pages 49-53; 56-58). Timenia notes that Pentecostal/Charismatic and Toronto Blessing Christianity is attractive to Filipinos and fits in well with their worldview (page 78). She further cites information from Filipino ministers who are part of the Toronto Blessing Movement. I found Filipino minister Hiram Pangilinan’s biblical support for gemstones to be very unconvincing (page 92). However, I found Apollo “Paul” Yadao’s ideas about how to discern what is of God to be refreshing (page 100). Miguel Que’s statements about Scripture and signs and wonders were also good (page 106). In Chapter 8 Timenia identifies common themes that she uncovered in Filipino and American Toronto Blessing Movements.

Reviewed by John Lathrop

N. American Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781725294219/third-wave-pentecostalism-in-the-philippines/

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).

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.

Church historian William De Arteaga introduces an important but often forgotten figure that God used to prepare many for the Charismatic Renewal.

J. Rufus Moseley

If there was no Rufus Moseley, there might not have been a Charismatic Renewal. Born in 1870 and died in 1954, J. Rufus Moseley was one of the most important, but largely forgotten evangelists for Pentecostalism. Without his ministry and influence, perhaps the Charismatic Renewal would not have occurred, or at least not in the 1960s-1970s.

Moseley brought Pentecost to the mainline churches indirectly, but decisively, by his work through several para-church organizations. Birthed in the 1930s, these organizations formed in reaction to the stultifying anti-supernaturalism and cessationism of mainline Protestantism. During the 1920s and 1930s, theological liberalism was at its height. The shift was so strong, so unrelenting that many Christians were even doubting the effectiveness of prayer.[1] That was the natural outcome of living and being taught in cessationist churches where no one saw a miraculous healing or supernatural event because no one prayed in faith for those things.

During this era of spiritual drought, four para-church organizations were paramount in upholding the Biblical understanding of prayer, the veracity of the Bible, and the present manifestations of the miraculous and healing prayer. They were, the Christian Ashram Movement of Eli Stanley Jones (1884–1973), Dr. Albert Day’s Disciplined Order of Christ (Methodist), the Rev. John Gaynor Bank’s Order of St. Luke (originally Episcopalian), and especially, the Camps Furthest Out (CFO), an interdenominational group founded by Professor Glenn Clark.[2]

Moseley added a Pentecostal dimension to these groups. His Pentecostalism was not based primarily on a study of classical Pentecostal writings that came out of the Azusa Street Revival, but on his own dramatic experience with the resurrected and glorified Jesus in 1910. It was a “mystical” encounter. Some Evangelicals are suspicious of the word, but all it means is a direct and intimately personal spiritual experience.[3] Moseley’s experience was very similar to that of the great 19^th Century evangelist Charles Finney – it was a sudden, unexpected immersion and union with the Risen Lord. After Moseley’s encounter with Jesus he manifested the gifts and fruits of the Spirit to an unusual degree. He lived a life of anointed teaching, sacrificial love and generosity that impressed all who met him.

A life of preparation

J. Rufus Moseley was born on August 29, 1870 into a devoutly Christian farming family in the mountain town of Elkin, North Carolina. His father, a veteran of the Civil War, had a reputation for absolute integrity and kindness in all his dealings. Rufus recounted:

When he offered for sale, or in trade, a horse or a mule, he first told its faults to the full. When he took a load of watermelons to sell, he sought to have the larger ones at the bottom instead of the top.[4]

In this book, Daniel Castelo’s main goal is to show how Pentecostalism “is decisively not a Protestant tradition generally” and “not part of contemporary evangelicalism particularly” (p. xiii). He moreover argues that pentecostal identity, spiritualty, and theological development are diminished when these foci are largely subsumed under Evangelicalism (p. xiv). He thus suggests that Pentecostalism “is best framed as a modern instantiation of the mystical stream of Christianity” (pp. xv-vi). Hence, “Pentecostalism is best understood as a mystical tradition of the church catholic” (p. xvi). Castelo thus argues that rather than immediately looking to contemporary Evangelicalism, Pentecostals can find far more congruent resources for articulating their identity, spirituality, and theology, in the historical Christian mystical tradition. In the Postscript, Castelo well summarises his purpose for this book: “Its aim has been to facilitate a theological exercise of rethinking Pentecostalism in light of mystical categories for the sake of deepening the connections of this movement within wider Christianity and also as a way of differentiating it from forms of reasoning typically associated with American evangelicalism” (p. 177).

Daniel Castelo

Besides the Introduction and Postscript, the book comprises five chapters. By framing the book’s thrust “within the domains of theological method and epistemology” (p. 1), in Chapter One (“The Challenge of Method”) Castelo substantiates his aims by demonstrating their resonance with past and ongoing pentecostal scholarship that has conceived Pentecostalism as a “spirituality” (pp. 1-6). Castelo devotes Chapter Two (“A Mystical Tradition?”) to identifying thematic aspects of the historic Christian mystical tradition which he believes are most congruent to pentecostal experience and spirituality. Here he argues that convergence can be seen between the pentecostal stress on “encountering God” as the aim of their liturgical practices (pp. 80-83) and the historic mystical stress on movement towards “union” with God (pp. 44, 55-57, 80-82). In Chapter 3 (“The Epistemological Form of Evangelical Theology”), Castelo argues the incongruence of contemporary Evangelicalism’s theological methodological approaches as a ready resource for pentecostal theological method, insofar that Evangelicalism continues its epistemological embedding within its fundamentalist-foundationalist heritage (p. 125).

It should be seen that in many ways, Castelo’s functions as a follow-up to themes and aims earlier pursued by Simon Chan in his book, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Sheffield, 2000). Castelo in fact devotes a section to Chan’s earlier work (pp. 154-157). What primarily differentiates Castelo’s book from Chan’s earlier work however, is the greater analytical depth he gives towards explicating incongruence between pentecostal and contemporary evangelical (particularly North American) epistemological and theological-methodologies. Unfortunately, on this topic (chapter 3), his argumentation is quite dense and seemingly over repetitive.

Daniel Ramírez, Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), xix + 283 pages.

Why should readers of The Pneuma Review look up these books under review? Although the answers to this question may seem obvious, they nevertheless need to be reiterated: because the center of Christianity has now shifted from the Euro-American West to the global South; consistent with the foregoing, because of the so-called “browning” of the North American church such that the its vitality is currently being sustained, and is projected to be increasingly carried over the next few decades, by migration from the rest of Latin America; and because, for the North American Pentecostal movement in general and the Assemblies of God denomination specifically, one third of all adherents are non-white and one-fourth – and growing percentage-wise as well as in aggregate – are Latino (see, e.g., Pew Research Center demographics from July 2015). Beyond other rationales that might motivate the present constituency, the above ought to prompt curiosity at least, if not a sense of urgency about becoming more acquainted with what Espinosa and Ramírez have to say. To be as pointed as possible: despite their “Decade of Harvest” initiative in the 1990s, the Assemblies of God would be in no less severe of a decline compared to mainline Protestant denominations if not for growth in Latinos within its ranks over the last two decades!

Gastón Espinosa is Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College.

The authors and their books covered in this review are quite distinct. Ramírez is a more recently established academic who is shifting, at the time of this writing, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (their Department of American Culture and Latino/a Studies) to Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, California). This is his first book, his Duke University PhD thesis, which has been substantially revised and extended, appearing after almost a decade. Espinosa, meanwhile, began his scholarly work on the origins of Latino Pentecostalism in the first half of the twentieth century (completing his PhD on this topic in 1999 at the University of California, Santa Barbara) and has become renowned as one of the foremost specialists on Latino religions with more than a half dozen books from Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, and other prestigious scholarly publishers. From his post at Claremont McKenna College, since 2009 as the Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies, Espinosa’s Latino Pentecostals in America builds on his research trajectory going back more than two decades, carrying forward to the present the more historically focused coverage of his preceding monograph, William J. Seymour and the Origins of Global Pentecostalism: A Biography and Documentary History (Duke University Press, 2014). Both have been participants at least in some respects of the histories they are narrating and thereby provide superb and complementary guidance to anyone interested in understanding further the Latino side of North American Pentecostal history.

​Pentecostalism from a Multicultural Perspective​

A public lecture with Dr. Allan Anderson, Professor at University of Birmingham, UK. All are welcome to attend.

When: Thursday, April 7 at 6pm PDT.

Where: Living Waters Church, 9095 Glover Road, Langley, British Columbia.