Where Faith Grows, Fired by Pentecostalism

NY Times ^ | 10/14/03 | SOMINI SENGUPTA and LARRY ROHTER

[Valin]

N THE LAGOS-IBADAN EXPRESSWAY, Nigeria — For many, this highway leads to the future of the Christian faith, and at 9 o'clock on a Friday night, traffic is heavier than a Los Angeles rush hour.

Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians, from street vendors to computer consultants, sit through the exhaust and the squealing horns to reach evangelical campgrounds with churches as large as airplane hangars. The names are as spectacular as the hopes they sell: Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Deeper Life, and the largest and oldest, the 12,000-acre Redemption Camp.

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The worshipers are drawn by a program of rousing song and dance and by an eminently practical gospel promising health and prosperity. They come seeking quick fortunes or protection against mundane maladies, from hunger to arthritis to armed robbers. They shout hallelujahs until close to daybreak, when the highway, famous for accidents and bandits, is safe to make the crawl back to Lagos.

Here nobody, it seems, can afford not to pray.

"In countries where everything is very O.K., where they take care of their citizenry, people are very lethargic when it comes to religion and God," said Oluwayemisi Ojuolape, 27, a lawyer in Lagos, who attended this all-night vigil, called Holy Ghost Service. "They are not encouraged to ask for any help. They seem to have all of it."

Not so in the developing world, where Christianity is drawing followers as never before.

That growth is changing the complexion and practice of the Christian faith and other religions in a fervid competition for souls, generating new tremors in places like Nigeria, which are already marbled with ethnic and political fault lines, and causing schisms between the old Christians of the north and the newer ones of the south. It is also beginning to be felt in the political life of these countries.

The new Christian expansion is particularly striking in Pentecostalism, a denomination born only about 100 years ago among blacks, whites and Hispanics in an abandoned church in Los Angeles. Emphasizing a direct line to God, its boisterous, unmediated style of worship employs healings, speaking in tongues and casting out demons.

Spreading Pentecostal congregations — a quarter of all Christians worldwide — are bumping up against established Christian churches and Islam in Africa, and chipping away at what has long been a virtual Roman Catholic monopoly in Latin America.

In Brazil, where the national identity has been intertwined with Catholicism since the Portuguese landed 500 years ago, the emotional services at thousands of Pentecostal churches amount to a religious revolution in the world's largest Catholic country.

In the 25 years of John Paul II's papacy, Brazil's Protestant population has quadrupled, with the biggest surge coming in the 1990's among evangelical and Pentecostal groups. More than 25 million Brazilians belong to such churches, leaving pastors like Ezequiel Teixeira of the New Life Project Church in Rio de Janeiro so giddy that he predicts, "In another 25 years, Brazil will have a Protestant majority."

By some estimates, more than a third of Guatemala's population is now Protestant, and Pentecostal churches are making significant inroads in Argentina, Colombia and Chile, where Catholics account for 70 percent of the population.

Across the tropics and the south, Christian worship, especially Pentecostalism, has captured hearts and minds in countries where the precariousness of ordinary living — blackouts, robbery, disease, corruption — makes rich and poor alike turn to divine intervention.

"It allows for spiritual or divine agency, so that God has the power to fix and heal and also to protect you," said Lamin Sanneh, a professor at Yale Divinity School who specializes in West Africa. "You might fall into a ditch, or you might be in a car accident, roads such as they are. You are always in present danger. Pentecostalism speaks that language very well."

[Quix]

I think the author was not so accurate in his tone regarding the Azuza street revival.

However, Pentecostalism has been proud to be of use in helping ALL God's children draw closer TO HIM.

Pentecostals have had a public personna in the national media and consciousness which has been quite askew from the researched facts--in terms of socio economics as well as even mental health and education factors.

This was true 30 years ago when I wrote my dissertation after collecting more than 1,000 variables on a range of value orientations including Pentecostals and charismatics.

It is even more true, now.

The Bible says:

These signs SHALL FOLLOW THOSE WHO BELIEVE . . .

Perhaps when they don't, something is amiss from the belief or the practicing of the belief.

Certainly when the need is greatest as in less developed regions, and where there are few to no theologians to tell individuals they shouldn't just take God's Word at face value . . . THEN GOD SEEMS TO CONFIRM HIS WORD WITH SIGNS FOLLOWING RATHER ROUTINELY.

He doesn't seem to affirm the smug and self-righteous near so often in similar ways.

[Valin]

I think the author was not so accurate in his tone regarding the Azuza street revival.

Let's bear in mind this is the NY Times. And as sich there is going to be "spin".

[WorkingClassFilth]

Hey, Quix! 'Sssup?

[bluecollarman]

Freepers I need some honest criticism on this Gospel  Song

[nuconvert]

Quite a long piece.
And it's the Times.

[Keyes2000mt]

In general, even though I consider myself a Pentecostal, I have some grave reservations about some of the movements:

First is the tendancy towards megachurches, where it is often hard to be discipled, excercised in the faith, and cared for Spiritually. People need that sense of community in the Lord and that is hindered in large groups.

Second, preaching prosperity can give people a false impression. God will bless the faithful, but that's not to say they'll never be rough times. We need to be clear that they'll be hard times, but God will bring us through them.

Overall, I won't comment much further than that. I think that when people are really getting excited about God and seeking Him and living for Him, it's a good thing and revival is essential.

In these countries, Catholicism is losing membership because it's become dead and dry. It's not real to people and that's why we're seeing the decline of the faith in Europe. (a related article.) Christianity is not a philosophy, or a thought, it's a living faith where God cleanses us and leads us according to his ways.

[ppaul]

Lots of good stuff on Asuza Street and more here: http://www.discernment.org/

[EternalVigilance]

What is happening in Nigeria now is what happened in South Korea some time ago. The country was transformed, and a large majority of South Koreans are now Christians. That transformation was also very Pentecostal in nature.

[Quix]

For sure!

Thanks.

[Quix]

Had one of my 'hunch' trips to Hasting's bookstore this past week.

Interestingly, there were a couple of paperbacks intro'd by Whitley Strieber . . . one on IMPLANTS and one on a Shag Harbor DARK OBJECT.

Nothing on the implants that hasn't been out before but very well documented.

The DARK OBJECT incident seems much above average documented to--about evidently two craft which submerged in 1967.

Anyway--interesting . . . I think we'll see that area rachet up in the next 6-9 months much above average.

In terms of this thread . . . was surprised to see the title and more surprised that there was something slightly better than a hatchet job on the topic.

Am waiting for the narrow, rigid, constipated, . . . . RELIGIONISTS to start screaming. Thankfully just the one post so far and that rather mild--just a link to a site that screams.

Will be interesting when God starts demonstrating so OVERTLY in terms of modern day miracles that the issue will be moot.

Hope you and family are well. Thanks for the jingle.

[Quix]

In my view, discernment.org

has less than 0.0 discernment. 'Negative' discernment is not a great way to convince me one is walking like Jesus, usually.

Comes across to me as a fairly ignorant house of prissy rock throwers with huge piles of rocks they are eager to pass out to others.

No biggy. God's will as well as His power will win out. He has always enjoyed using strange people and HIS foolishness to confound man's wisdom.

[Skooz]

Joel 2:28

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions

2 Thessalonians 2:3

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

I believe we are seeing the simultanious fulfilliment of both of these passages of Scripture. A great falling away and apostacy on one hand, and a great revival with millions saved on the other. Both of these are due to happen before Jesus returns. I believe Christ's return is imminent.

South America (Pastor César Castellanos at International Charismatic Mission in Bogotá, Colombia has over 30,000 small groups of 12 people each), Africa, and China (see "Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power" by David Aikman,) are places where, with an astonishing lack of notice from our media, God is pouring out His spirit and bringing millions into His kingdom.

It won't be long now.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Looks like we are pretty much on the same page.

I have never cared for the mega-churches myself. I prefer the mother-daughter church method to keep churchs under a thousand.

And I find the idea of going beyond teaching "God will supply all your needs" troubling. God can and does supply what you need but if prosperity will take you away from Him then He will not give it to you. It may be what you want but it isn't what you need.

[Skooz]

A better attitude, I believe, is to ask God to supply all of our need as well as some left over to help someone else. We can bless others with our abundance, but, like you said, if abundance will cause us to stumble, He will withhold it.

He is a wise Father.

[Keyes2000mt]

And I find the idea of going beyond teaching "God will supply all your needs" troubling. God can and does supply what you need but if prosperity will take you away from Him then He will not give it to you. It may be what you want but it isn't what you need.

Cotton Mather once said, "Religion begat prosperity and the mother hath slain the daughter."

[Mr. Mulliner]

Glad you mentioned China and the book by David Aikman (which I haven't read, but hope to yet). I lived in China for 7 years and when I read this article, I was struck by how different Chinese Christians are from what was described in Latin America and Africa. Chinese have such a strong expectation of suffering as a Christian and it sort of rules out a prosperity gospel.

In many other ways, a lot of the growth of the church in China has been pentecostal/charismatic in nature, I'd say. Miracles and healing are prayed for and there's definitely that expectation that a believer can go directly to God to supply their needs. But there just aren't too many "fat" Christians in China.

[Mr. Mulliner]

That's an interesting Cotton Mather quote. I was just thinking how the opposite could be true, that the daughter - prosperity - has slain the mother. In places where there is the most economic prosperity, faith seems weakest.

[Skooz]

I just ordered the Aikmen book from Amazon.com less than five minutes ago. It should be here next week. It has been on my Wish List for a month now, several weeks before it was released. I anxiously look forward to reading it.

[pinz-n-needlez]

ping