Lausanne World Pulse – African Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity: An Overview
By Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
The African Factor in Pentecostalism
Rudolf Otto laments the inability of orthodox Christianity to recognize the value of the non-rational aspect of religion, thus giving the “idea of the holy” what he expresses as “a one-sidedly intellectualistic approach.”3 Pentecostalism is a response to such cerebral Christianity and wherever it has appeared the movement has defined itself in terms of the recovery of the experiential aspects of the faith by demonstrating the power of the Spirit to infuse life, and the ability of the living presence of Jesus Christ to save from sin and evil. This is even more so in Africa where religion is a survival strategy and where spirit-possession, with its emphasis on direct divine communication, intervention in crises and religious mediation, are central to religious experiences. The ministries of healing and deliverance have thus become some of the most important expressions of Christianity in African Pentecostalism. Much of the worldviews underlying the practice of healing and deliverance, especially the belief in mystical causality, resonates with African philosophical thoughts.In Africa today Pentecostal and charismatic churches may be found all over major cities.
“In the political arena, the independent Pentecostal/charismatic churches in particular have played both functional and dysfunctional roles.”
In Uganda, not only has the new Pentecostal phenomenon overshadowed that country’s versio of older AICs, but the new Pentecostal communities are “mushrooming in luxuriant fashion.”4 The NPCs in particular have a special attraction for Africa’s upwardly mobile youth, a lay-oriented leadership, ecclesiastical office based on a person’s charismatic gifting, innovative use of modern media technologies, particular concern with congregational enlargements and a relaxed and fashion-conscious dress code for members. In the prosperity discourse, there is continuity between coming to Christ and experiencing a redemptive uplift that is evidenced partly through the possession of material goods.
The involvement of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity in Africa has been felt at all levels of African civil life including economics, education and politics. In the political arena, the independent Pentecostal/charismatic churches in particular have played both functional and dysfunctional roles. Pastors of Pentecostal churches have served as providers of supernatural protection for politicians seeking to consolidate power by entrenching themselves in office. Many politicians were perceived as corrupt individuals who relied on medicines from shrines to keep themselves in office, so by providing “Christian alternatives” of such shrine services, the reputation of such Christian “prophets” has suffered tremendously. In African countries like Ghana and Zambia, politicians have courted the friendship of popular charismatic leaders in order to take advantage of a movement with a massive youthful following to achieve political ends. In Ghana, Bishop Duncan-Williams virtually served as the chaplain to the Rawlings government. The former president of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba, not only declared Zambia a Christian nation when he took office in 1991, but he also put in appearances at Pentecostal crusades and conventions.
Pentecostalism and African Christianity
What people consider important in theology are the things that address their religious needs. Encounters with the spiritual world either as malevolent powers seeking to destroy people, marine spirits negating efforts at public morality or as the performance of ritual in order to solicit help from the powers of beneficence are important elements in African religiosity. In continuity with the African religious paradigm, Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity has proven successful in Africa because of its openness to the supernatural and through its interventionist and oral theological forms that resonate with traditional African piety. The intention of the practitioners, though, has always been to be biblical, and this theology is expressed in three ways:
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