Writing the Pentecostal history of Africa, Asia and Latin America

Abstract

This article examines the writing of Pentecostal history and in particular, the biases and presuppositions associated with it. The problem of sources and the neglect of the important role of indigenous (‘native’) workers in the historiography of Pentecostalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America is the main focus. It refutes the idea of an American ‘Jerusalem’ and urges a rewriting of this history from the perspective of those who ‘received’ the Pentecostal missionaries from the West.

Notes

This article has been abridged and extensively revised from my An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (2004), pp.167–184 and ‘Revising Pentecostal History in Global Perspective’, in Anderson and Tang (2004), pp.157–183.

Anderson (1979); Bloch‐Hoell (1964); Calley (1965); Lalive d'Épinay (1969); Hollenweger (1972).

Cox (1996); Dayton (1987); Faupel (1996); Jacobsen (2003); Wacker (2001).