The global phenomenon of Pentecostal growth continues to interest scholars, particularly its local manifestations. Although previous explanations may have noted the connections between the cultural substrata and local Pentecostal practices, this book concentrates on seeking out the connections. Using both extensive field research and reflection on Latin American scholarship, the author proposes that a major link exists at the level of worldview assumptions, particularly in understandings of spiritual power. The book concludes with a reflection on the implications a conversion based on the search for spiritual power has for the future of the evangelical church in Latin America.

Cultural expressions of Christianity show great diversity around the globe. While scholarship has tended to consider charismatic practices in distinct geographical contexts, this volume advances the anthropology of Christianity through ethnographically rich, comparative insights from across the Australia-Pacific region. Christianity, Conflict, and Renewal in Australia and the Pacific presents new perspectives on the performative dynamics of Christian belief, conflict, and renewal. Addressing experiences of cultural and spiritual renewal, contributors reveal how tensions can arise between spiritual and political expressions of culture and identity, opening up alternative spaces for spiritual realization and religious change. These local processes further mobilize responses of individuals and groups to state forces and political reforms, in turn, influencing the shape of translocal and transnational Christian practices.

Two powerful and interrelated transnational cultural expressions mark our epoch. They are Charismatic spirituality and the global city. This book offers a fresh and challenging articulation of the character of the charismatic renewal of Christianity in the framework of global cities, the socio-economic situation of poor urban residents, and urban space, resulting in a vision for the future city as a religious, ethical, and political space. The book studies the social, economic, and ethical implications of the charismatic renewal on urban living and urban design aimed at promoting human flourishing. From multidisciplinary perspectives Nimi Wariboko investiages the nature and impact of interreligious dialogues and encounters between charismatic Christianity and other religions in global cities.

Pilgrimage into Pentecost explores the life and legacy of Howard M. Ervin, Th.D., chronicling Ervin's pilgrimage from his beginnings as Baptist pastor to his global influence as a Pentecostal leader. His exegetical theology led him to advocate a distinctively Lukan theology of the Holy Spirit, and he became for a while the leading scholarly apologist for the classical Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism. Ervin's scholarship spurred fruitful theological debate on the contemporary work of the Holy Spirit, especially with New Testament scholar James D.G. Dunn, while his extensive ecumenical pastoral ministry demonstrated the Spirit's work of unifying the body of Christ. Pilgrimage into Pentecost not only pays well-deserved tribute to a pioneer of Pentecostal scholarship but also offers his devout scholarship and distinguished forty-year teaching career at Oral Roberts University (ORU) as an example for others.

aAn exceptional book in that it tells the story of the failure of a faith-based movement rather than its success. In a richly textured narrative, the authors describe the limitations of religious charisma when it confronts the harsh reality of a business-minded board that requires accountability. This book is fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand the interplay between spirit and flesh, vision and economic reality.a
--Donald E. Miller, Executive Director, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California

What does it mean to live out the theology presented in the Great Commandment to alove God above all and to love your neighbor as yourselfa? In Blood and Fire, Poloma and Hood explore how understandings of godly love function to empower believers. Though godly love may begin as a perceived relationship between God and a person, it is made manifest as social behavior among people.

Blood and Fire offers a deep ethnographic portrait of a charismatic church and its faith-based ministry, illuminating how religiously motivated social service makes use of beliefs about the nature of Godas love. It traces the triumphs and travails associated with living a set of rigorous religious ideals, providing a richly textured analysis of a faith community affiliated with the aemerging churcha movement in Pentecostalism, one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic religious movements of our day.

Based on more than four years of interviews and surveys with people from all levels of the organization, from the leader to core and marginal members to the poor and addicts they are seeking to serve, Blood and Fire sheds light on the differing worldviews andreligious perceptions between those who "served in" as well as those who were "served by" this ministry.

Blood and Fire argues that godly love -- the relationship between perceived divine love and human response -- is at the heart of the vision of emerging churches, and that it is essential to understand this dynamic if one is to understand the ongoing reinvention of American Protestantism in the twenty-first century.

One of the unique aspects of the religious profession is the high percentage of those who claim to be "called by God" to do their work. This call is particularly important within African American Christian traditions. Divine Callings offers a rare sociological examination of this markedly understudied phenomenon within black ministry. Richard N. Pitt draws on over 100 in-depth interviews with Black Pentecostal ministers in the Church of God in Christ-both those ordained and licensed and those aspiring-to examine how these men and women experience and pursue "the call." Viewing divine calling as much as a social process as it is a spiritual one, Pitt delves into the personal stories of these individuals to explore their work as active agents in the process of fulfilling their calling. In some cases, those called cannot find pastoral work due to gender discrimination, lack of clergy positions, and educational deficiencies. Pitt looks specifically at how those who have not obtained clergy positions understand their call, exploring the influences of psychological experience, the congregational acceptance of their call, and their response to the training process. He emphasizes how those called reconceptualize clericalism in terms of who can be called, how that call has to be certified, and what those called are meant to do, offering insight into how social actors adjust to structural constraints.

The global growth of Pentecostal movements during the course of the twentieth century has been widely documented although, to date, there has been little written on their developing ecclesiology. After making the case for a concrete rather than idealised approach to ecclesiology, this book describes and analyses the transitions that have framed the ways in which Australian Pentecostals have understood church life and mission. From a loosely knit faith missions movement, to congregational free church structures, to the so-called apostolic models of mega-churches, Australian pentecostalism stands as a microcosmos of ecclesial developments that have occurred throughout the world. This book, therefore, provides a means of reflecting upon what has been gained and lost in the process of ecclesiological change.