Westminster Faith Debate February 2014 address

The Westminster Faith debate video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aY-7aNnH6U
This is the text of my presentation.

Can historic global churches maintain central authority
or must they devolve?

1.    The Changing Demography of Christianity

Despite the secularisation of the western world during the last century and its effects, there has been a worldwide Christian resurgence, especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Since World War II, Christianity has become one of the principle religions of the global South. Regions that were once outside the main orbit of Christianity have become major centres of Christian impact, while Europe, once the religion’s heartland, is in noticeable recession. The strongholds of Christianity are no longer Rome and Canterbury, but Lagos, Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Manila and Seoul. In 1900 some 90% of Christians lived in Europe and North America, by 1970 this had dropped to 57%. Today only 35% of Christians live in Europe and North America, and two thirds of all Christians live in the global South. Soon, more than half of the Christians in the world will be Africans and Latin Americans, and Christianity is still expanding rapidly in Asian countries, especially China. These massive cultural and geographical shifts and realignments have enormous implications.

2.    The Changing Character of Christianity

But it is not only the numbers that have shifted; it is also the character of Christianity that has changed. With these shifts have come massive cross-cultural patterns of religious encounter, affecting a great variety and diversity of Christianities, bringing about structural changes, variations of liturgies, theological views and ecclesiastical traditions, ideas of authority and leadership patterns, processes of indigenization producing new religious art, music, hymns, songs, and prayers—all these have fundamentally altered the face of Christianity today. In addition, at least a quarter of the world’s Christians are thought to belong to some version of Pentecostalism, including Charismatic renewals in Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches, and this proportion is much higher outside the western world. This is because Christians in the South live in a spiritual universe that is not dichotomised; and they can with one breath speak about political, social or economic liberation, and liberation from supernatural evil forces. Some of this language sounds strange and sometimes offensive to western ears. The majority of Christians are also conservative in doctrine and behaviour, allowing the anti-gay laws in Uganda, Nigeria and Zimbabwe to receive widespread approval by a range of churches. We have witnessed the tensions in the worldwide Anglican Communion over similar issues, with these conservative forces led by the primate of the world’s largest Anglican church in Nigeria.

3.    Networks of Churches and World Communions

Protestantism has a history of schisms, and these have continued into the twenty-first century. There are thousands of Christian denominations worldwide today. It is in the nature of Protestantism to schism because of the focus on the authority of the local church. But there are also ‘world communions’ of major Protestant denominations including Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists and Reformed. These communions are usually networks of independent churches that are predominated by churches from the South. Many of the new megachurches in the world are Charismatic, and are run by particularly gifted individuals. Notwithstanding the real dangers that their individualism and fierce independence brings, these churches often network together in ways that are non-hierarchical and decentralised. Just as the world has recoiled from colonialism, there is increasing opposition and resentment against any sort of ecclesiastical control from the North. The Anglican Communion is holding itself together precariously. The new Pope Francis, the first ever pope from outside Europe although with the familiar Italian ancestry, has breathed new life into the Catholic Church. But if Catholicism is to avoid increasing decline the Curia will need to decentralise further and give more independence to the various cardinals and archbishops in the global South. The latest appointment of cardinals has signalled Francis’ willingness to do this, with nine of the sixteen new voting cardinals from Latin America (5), Asia (2) and Africa (2). This bodes well for the future and one wonders whether there will ever be a European pope again.

So, my answer to the debate question is therefore for me a no-brainer. Whether we like it or not, the historic churches will be forced to devolve or they will continue to decline.

EDITORIAL: PentecoStudies  13:1, April 2014

Three of the five articles in this issue were first given as papers at the European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism (GloPent) conference on 1-2 February 2013 at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and have since been revised for publication. The theme of that conference was Pentecostalism and Politics, an intriguing and important subject. The conference was attended by some ninety participants from seventeen countries. Such matters as the impact of the growth of Pentecostalism worldwide on political governance, development, and public debates were discussed. Many scholars usually describe Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians as politically conservative.  Whether this is their default position is certainly debatable, as they are found on all sides of the political spectrum worldwide, as Timothy Steigenga attests here, and it is only in the United States that the majority can be correctly described as belonging to the “religious right”. Interesting questions arise concerning how politicians in Africa, Asia and the Americas have accommodated the increased presence of Pentecostals in the public sphere. But before we can fully understand the complicated relationship between Pentecostalism and politics, we need first to deal with a common, often unconscious, and narrowly-defined assumption of a dichotomy between an apolitical sphere of religion and a “secular” sphere of politics. Such a dichotomy is imaginary and does not exist in most parts of the world. Although only the first article in this issue deals directly with the question of Pentecostals and politics, social and political questions are raised by the other articles too.

The first paper, "Pentecostalization, Politics, and Religious Change in Guatemala" addresses these issues directly and is written by Timothy J. Steigenga, Professor of Political Science at the Florida Atlantic University in south-east Florida. He has done extensive research and publications on religion and politics in Latin America, transnationalism, and migration, his latest books being Living "Illegal": The Human Face of Unauthorized Immigration (2011), and A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations (2009). His article reflects on survey research conducted in Guatemala in 1993 and warns us about coming to too facile conclusions about the role of Pentecostalism in politics. He argues that what he terms “pentecostalized religion” is political inasmuch as it mobilizes opinions around community, national and international issues that affect the daily lives of its participants. He challenges conventional wisdom in studies on Pentecostalism in Latin America (and elsewhere) that have at their base a Weberian concept of the “Protestant ethic” leading to economic advancement and upward social mobility. These earlier studies also posit the idea that Pentecostals are either politically conservative or quiescent. Steigenga’s research in Guatemala, while showing how “pentecostalized” all forms of Christianity had become, demonstrates that Pentecostals were not significantly more or less politically conservative than other religious groups, even though there was a correlation between religious conservatives across all groups and the tendency towards quietism. Interestingly, the research also shows that pentecostalization improves the quality of gender relations and egalitarianism. There are some surprising results in this research and important methodological considerations, which I will not spoil for you before you have read the article!

Healing has historically been one of the main reasons for the attraction of Pentecostalism. Candy Gunther Brown, a religious historian and ethnographer and Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Indiana, Bloomington writes the second paper, "Pentecostal Power: The Politics of Divine Healing Practices", focussing on healing as an alternative to socio-political power. Candy has written several pioneering studies on Pentecostal and Charismatic healing, her latest books being Testing Prayer: Science and Healing (2012) and The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America (2013). Her article here focuses on the dimension of healing as power to mobilise spiritual power and complement or replace political power. Pentecostalism in many parts of the Majority World appeals to the politically powerless, including women, and those relatively poor or uneducated. It promises individuals and communities a better life, but above all, it gives them a sense of empowerment denied them by the prevailing social and political system. Brown makes the key point that Pentecostalism grows because prayer for healing gives people a sense of both physical and social restoration, and this prayer most often occurs in out-of-the-way, humble places rather than in large crowds attracted to flamboyant and controversial healing evangelists. Pentecostals believe that divine empowerment gives them instant answers to social and political challenges in a world where they have no access to the material sources of power.

The third article, "A Megachurch in a Megacity" is jointly authored by Mark J. Cartledge and Andrew Davies from the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK. Mark is the former editor of PentecoStudies and author of several books on Pentecostalism, the latest being Testimony in the Spirit: Rescripting Ordinary Pentecostal Theology (2012) and Practical Theology: Charismatic and Empirical Perspectives (2003). Most recently, Mark and Andrew head a research project on megachurches in London, and this article may indicate some of the research agenda for that project. The authors explore the concept of “megachurch” (defined as a congregation of over two thousand worshippers) by looking at the leading example in Western Europe, the Kingsway International Christian Centre in London and its internet projections. This is a predominantly Nigerian “prosperity gospel” church and the largest congregation in the UK, whose leader Matthew Ashimolowo personally embodies the success, “health and wealth” ethic of the church. The article explores issues that not only relate to the rather new field of megachurch studies, but also discusses the importance of studies on cyber religion, identity formation, globalisation, and the relationship between religion and culture. This article points to the need for further research on these issues and their importance for understanding religion and society in a rapidly changing Europe.

Torsten Löfstedt is Associate Professor in religions in the Department of Cultural Sciences at Linnaeus University in Sweden. This is one of several articles he has written on Russian Pentecostalism. But here in "Countering Exorcistic Excess in Russia", he compares the beliefs of two Christian denominations: the dominant Russian Orthodox Church, and the largest Pentecostal denomination, the Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith. Their beliefs about demons, curses and exorcism are remarkably similar, despite there being counter accusations of demonic activity within the other denomination! But the extent of the threat of demons and curses differs widely. The official views of both denominations tend to use what Löfstedt calls a “medical metaphor”, that exorcism is part of a holistic healing ministry that works together with other health professionals; but within both denominations is also found a dualistic “military metaphor” that talks of spiritual warfare against demons as agents of Satan to be cast out of individuals. This article is certainly of great interest to those of us familiar with exorcism practices in other parts of the world, and the contrast between Russia and Western Europe on the popular religious belief level is striking.

Last but not least, another article from Sweden, "To Live the Biblical Narrative", this time from Greger Andersson, Professor of Comparative Literature at Örebro University. Long ago, Walter Hollenweger described Pentecostals as having a narrative (or oral) theology and witness. In his absorbing study on the testimony narratives, biographies and autobiographies of Swedish Pentecostals, Andersson traces how they refer to the narratives of Acts to justify their Pentecostal experiences, while at the same time allowing their experiences to interpret those biblical narratives. In particular he focuses on the experience of Spirit baptism, which Pentecostals relate back to passages in Acts, and consequently use their experience to interpret the same passages, a reciprocity that is common in classical Pentecostalism throughout the world. The narratives are taken from a nineteenth century revivalist, Charles Finney, two early Scandinavian Pentecostals, T.B. Barratt and Lewi Pethrus, and Dennis Bennett, an American Episcopalian Charismatic leader from the 1960s. In comparing these four narratives of their Spirit baptism, Andersson is able to trace narrative patterns that are affected by and affect the narratives in the Book of Acts. I hope this introduction will have whetted your appetite and leave the rest of this and the other articles in this issue for your personal enjoyment and critique.