Here are his estimates of the trends in population growth and the changes in religious identification since 1900. Note the incredible rise of Pentecostal/Charismatic movements (includes African independent churches and Chines underground house churches) which has taken place predominantly in the developing world where the population is growing fastest.
Category Archives: Pentecostalism
Christianity surges in Indonesia
11 May, 2010 – 10:50 PM
Time Magazine reports: A religious revolution is transforming Indonesia. Part of the spiritual blossoming entails Muslims embracing a more conservative form of faith, mirroring global trends that have meant a proliferation of headscarves and beards in modern Islamic capitals. More surprising, though, is the boom in Christianity — officially Indonesia’s second largest faith and a [...]
Pentecostal power
17 November, 2009 – 5:56 AM
What is remarkable about this new strain of Pentecostalism is the heroic intensity of the ministries, which have not yet evolved into tired bureaucracies. The founders of these programs are driven by a sense of calling, a feeling of thankfulness for how God has intervened in their personal lives, and they are constantly reinventing their [...]
God’s option for the poor
14 November, 2009 – 7:11 AM
Researchers Donald Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori went looking for fast growing churches in the developing world addressing social needs in their community. The churches had to be led and funded indigenously. No foreign money or leadership. Is it any surprise that 85% of the churches that fitted the criteria were Pentecostal or charismatic? Their conclusion [...]
Is the gospel good news for the poor?
19 October, 2009 – 11:36 AM
It is certainly a distortion of the Christian message if it is primarily interpreted as a program for the material improvement of the human condition. The core of the Christian message is the proclamation of a tectonic shift in cosmic reality inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This proclamation radically relativizes all the empirical [...]
The Reformation of Machismo
28 April, 2009 – 3:59 PM
The conventional wisdom is that Christianity reinforces the oppression of women. Elizabeth Brusco, a feminist Marxist scholar conducted fieldwork in Columbia from 1982-1983, and found that pentecostal conversion transformed traditional gender relations by giving women a moral authority in the home to challenge their husbands’ drinking, gambling, or adultery. She wrote up her findings in [...]
Andrew Evans: Part 2
21 August, 2008 – 7:32 AM
The second half of my interview with Andrew Evans on the Rise and Rise of the Assemblies of God in Australia. Pentecostals are known for their dependence on the Holy Spirit. Did all this goal setting undermine that dependence? We set goals. But to get the churches going there has to be a work of [...]
Andrew Evans on the rise and rise of the Australian Assemblies of God
20 August, 2008 – 1:31 AM
Andrew Evans was born in India to missionary parents. He served as a missionary in Papua New Guinea. Back in Australia he took a church of 150 people and grew it to thousands—Paradise AOG. For twenty years he led the Assemblies of God (now Australian Christian Churches) in exponential growth of both churches and people. [...]
The spreading fires of early Pentecostalism
19 March, 2008 – 11:27 PM
Allan Anderson has a new book out: Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism. My copy is still on the way but I have read a summary article. Here are some highlights . . . According to Anderson, Pentecostalism is probably the fastest expanding religious movement ever. Here are five of the main features [...]
10 questions for Gary Hourigan
7 March, 2007 – 9:05 AM
Recently caught up with Gary Hourigan at the next1000 Summit. Gary’s learning about church planting movements by doing it. So he seemed a good candidate for 10 Questions. . . 1. What’s your background? Back in 1983 my wife Terri and I were feeling the pressures of life. She met an old friend who invited [...]
