David Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), xviii +197 Pps.
This title is the compliment to his Tongues of Fire title, first published in 1990, but extends the scope globally. It puts Pentecostalism, and its charismatic penumbra, in a global context, taking off from the initial template offered by Latin America. He has not acknowledged all of the ancillary readings in the historic and contemporary varieties of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement. The first chapter deals with the sheer size of the phenomena composed 250,000,000 people in a conservative estimate. Thereafter, the book shows how the religion of poor whites fused with the religion of poor blacks to create a potent amalgam capable of crossing the cultural barrier and truly exploding globally. It then shows how the respectable poor seeking to enter the modern world in Latin America, Africa, the new middle-class in South-East Asia, and the Chinese diaspora, are most receptive to Pentecostalism. He goes on in chapter two to demonstrate that Pentecostalism is subordinate to evangelicalism in North America. The third chapter sets Latin American developments within the context of the spread of global capitalism and the rise of the megacity. Chapter four continues to speak of Latin American Pentecostalism, following through on the themes of healing, the economic and political ethos of Pentecostalism, the special appeal to women, and the reform of the nuclear family. In the fifth chapter, he cllanges the assumptions that indigenous cultures can be sealed off from so as to preserve intact the relation of a local faith to a local social fabric; and second he challenges the notion that evangelicalism is necessarily more remote from indigenous faiths than Catholicism. He notes that in Africa, Pentecostalism appeals particularly to young people, both men and women, who are disembedded from traditional contexts and who are anxious to embrace modernity. Moreover, Pentecostalism in Africa has attendant paradigmatic changes: e.g., the trek to urban centers and megacity’s, the rending apart of the extended kin network, and gains for the individual in freedom to choose and act responsibly (151-52). In Asia, it appeals to the emergent middle class. In China, to those who are making the trek to the megacity.
Martin notes that though Pentecostalism is indeed attached to “fundamentalists” and to a conservative understanding of scripture, the heart of its distinctive appeals lies in empowerment through spiritual gifts offered to all (1). Although in the Western world Pentecostalism could be seen as a reaction to modernity, in the non-western world, Martin contends, it could be seen as an embracement of modernity (1). It advances pluralism in Latin America and volunteerism in Africa. In a negative note, Martin contends that Pentecostalism in the developing world is likely to undergo a trajectory of incline and decline, until its devotees better themselves, relax their rigor, and get educated, just like in the Western world (2).
Martin notes that Azusa Street sent people out in every direction, carrying with them a fusion of the faith of culturally despised blacks with that of culturally despised whites, which recovered a primal spirituality (5). He cites Nathan Hatch, who argues that in almost every respect, Pentecostalism recapitulated Methodism: in its entrepreneurship and adaptability, lay participation and enthusiasm, and in its splintering and fractiousness (8). It offered space to blacks and women in spite of the splintering over color which later occurred in both movements, and in spite of the lack of endorsement for equal ministry as between men and women. Where the two movements differed was in the “third blessing” of Holy Spirit baptism, in the intensity of millennial expectation, and in a shift to a Christ of power rather than the Man of Sorrows. In reality the third blessing and the millennial expectation were closely linked because the gift of tongues presaged the last days. During the time remaining, one was not passively to await the end but to work heartily instead. Yet such differences may not be all that great, Martin notes (9).
Nathan Hatch, the distinguished Methodist historian, says that Wesley and his associates actually began what is now know as Pentecostalism, out of the materials provided by pietism, which thereafter combined with the enthusiasm of poor blacks and poor whites to explode on a global scale (167). Further, he writes that:
Methodism in America transcended all barriers and empowered common people to make religion their own. Unlike Calvinism, which emphasized human corruption, divine initiative, and the authority of educated clergymen and inherited ecclesiastical structures, the Methodists proclaimed the breathtaking message of individual freedom, autonomy, responsibility and achievement. More African Americans became Christians in ten years of Methodist preaching than in a century of Anglican influence. Methodism did not suppress the impulses of popular religion, dreams and visions, ecstasy, unrestrained emotional release, preaching by blacks, by women, by anyone who felt the call. It was under Methodist auspices that religious folk music – white and black spirituals – prospered.[1]
Hatch goes on to note the ways in which Methodism used to be unacceptable just as Pentecostalism is now unacceptable, in particular through loud singing, groaning, bouncing, and sighing. It appealed to aspiring upstarts making up the first wave of competitive religious entrepreneurship, but by 1900 it had become the largest and wealthiest Protestant denomination, and the time was ripe for Pentecostalism to take over.
[1] Nathan Hatch, “The Puzzle of American Methodism,” Church History 63:2 (1994):185.