The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism

Cambridge Companions to Religion

by Cecil M. Robeck Jr. (Editor), Amos Yong (Editor)

Pentecostalism is one of the fastest-growing religious movements in the world. Groups in the United States dominated early Pentecostal histories, but recent global manifestations have expanded and complicated the definition of Pentecostalism. This volume provides a nuanced overview of Pentecostalism's various manifestations and explores what it means to be Pentecostal from the perspectives of both insiders and outsiders. Leading scholars in the field use a multidisciplinary approach to analyze the historical, economic, political, anthropological, sociological, and theological aspects of the movement. They address controversies, such as the Oneness-Trinity controversy; introduce new theories; and chart trajectories for future research. The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism will enable beginners to familiarize themselves with the important issues and debates surrounding the global movement, while also offering experienced scholars a valuable handbook for reference.

Genres: Christianity

356 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2014

Reviews

[Stephen]

This book is a multidisciplinary reference work surveying global Pentecostalism from historical, theological, sociological, anthropological, political, and economic angles. Rather than offering a single narrative, it functions as a scholarly map through Pentecostalism's competing histories and identities, deliberately resisting tidy answers. Instead it introduces readers to the live debates, and incorporates the emerging or emerged consensus about the multi-polar origins of the movement.

The book is structured in three parts. The opening section, a long introduction by the editors, sets out definitional and historiographical problems, including the contested question of Pentecostalism's origins and its "family resemblances" worldwide. This leads into regional surveys covering North American Pentecostalism, Pentecostalism in Europe and the former Soviet Union, and then, treated together as a comparative unit with multiple authors, Latin American Pentecostalism, African Pentecostalism, and Asian Pentecostalism in context. The second part addresses history, theology, missiology, sociology, and politics, including sustained attention to controversies such as the Oneness–Trinitarian split and the phenomenon of glossolalia.

Allan Anderson has favourably reviewed the work in PentecoStudies (2017), treating it as a substantive contribution to the field's reference literature. The book follows Anderson's own earlier edited volume on global Pentecostalism methods, and some of the consensus mentioned above is down to Anderson’s own works. The scholars writing in this volume are well-respected subject matter experts from around the world, and the book rightly notes the strength of the movement in the global south, and the large differences in what Pentecostalism means and looks like in the various contexts in which it has risen. It is a perceptive observation as to the extent that Pentecostal liturgies, rituals and ecclesiology differ from one another but reflect the contexts from which they arose.

For readers working on Pentecostal and evangelical church history, it remains a dependable one-volume orientation to the field's terrain and context.

[Aaron Schuschu]

Informative, yet dismissive of the very legitimate criticism that they’re oblivious to social justice concerns.