African Pentecostalism and World Christianity. Группа авторов
Christianity.
3. Hassan, Religion and Development in the Global South; Kim, Rise of the Global South; Daughrity, Rising; Sanneh and Carpenter, Changing Face of Christianity.
4. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity.’”
5. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 2–3.
6. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 4.
7. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 4.
8. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christinaity,’” 5.
9. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 6.
10. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 8.
11. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 8.
12. Robert, “Naming ‘World Christianity,’” 9.
13. Sanneh and Carpenter, Changing Face of Christianity; Bediako, Christianity in Africa; Bongmba, Routldge Companion to Christianity in Africa; Maxwell and Lawrie, Christianity and the African Imagination; Barnes, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic.
14. Asamoah-Gyadu, Taking Territories, 7.
15. Asamoah-Gyadu, Taking Territories, 2–8.
16. Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity, 113.
17. Asamoah-Gyadu, “African Pentecostalism,” 31.
18. Asamoah-Gyadu, “Spirit and Spirits,” 50.
19. Asamoah-Gyadu, Taking Territories, 25.
20. Asamoah-Gyadu, Taking Territories, 7, 8, 25.
21. Asamoah-Gyadu, Taking Territories, 10.
Section I
Christianity in History
1
Bird’s-Eye View of Contemporary Christianity in Africa
Opoku Onyinah
I first met Professor J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu when I was studying at the Regent Theological College at Nantwich, in the UK, and our meeting was providential and fortuitous. The Director of Studies at Regent had recommended that I pursue a Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology, but he preferred that my supervisor be a Pentecostal theologian. During this time, our school hosted a Pentecostal conference, and a student from the University of Birmingham attended. This student gave me a greeting and a telephone number from Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, who was then a PhD student at Birmingham. I contacted Kwabena, who introduced me to Professor Allan Anderson, one of the premier scholars of Pentecostalism, and he graciously agreed to be my PhD supervisor. This was in perfect accord with what my director of studies had recommended. Soon, my family moved to Birmingham, and we stayed at Griffin Close, next door to Asamoah-Gyadu and his family, and a great friendship developed. We shared things together and often joined in prayer. He told me that when he finished his course, he wanted to return to Ghana and equip people in Christian education.
Like a prophet, Professor Anderson (who was Asamoah-Gyadu’s internal examiner) told me that Kwabena had the potential to become a great scholar. Indeed, that is what has happened. Asamoah-Gyadu is a world-renowned African Christian educationist.22 His writings and teachings have proven to be timely and relevant for African Christians now that the Western missionary enterprise in Africa has significantly declined, and the Christian faith is in African hands. The missionary effort resulted in the spread of Western Christianity across sub-Saharan Africa. Missionaries sought to evangelize the continent and to keep the faith—and its followers—pure, with no syncretism. To achieve this, missionaries often removed believers from their homes and placed them in so-called “Salem” environments. But those days of partitioning African Christians from Africa are long gone. In the latter part of the twentieth century, Christian churches in Africa transitioned to be led by African leaders.
This chapter looks at what African Christians consider to be the vital, essential parts of the faith. In short, they seek a direct, victorious, supernatural encounter with God, who transforms all aspects of their lives. Under African leadership, this reformed Christian experience, dubbed as the “Pentecostalization” of Christianity, evolved through African ingenuity in the transformation of Evangelical Pentecostal Christianity, which had been tied to American Pentecostal/Charismatic spirituality. Professor Asamoah-Gyadu has helped guide this shift. His writings and teachings are evidence of what David Barrett predicted in 1970, that “African Christians might well tip the balance and transform Christianity permanently into a non-western religion.”23 This is not just happening on African soil. African Christians who have traveled abroad have transported their Christian experience to the diaspora, where many of them worship the Lord in the same manner in which they worship Him in Africa. In this chapter, I will also take note of that very significant movement.
I shall begin by giving a historical overview of Christianity in Africa. The emergence of the Pentecostal movement and its impact on the mainline churches follows. Then I will end with the contemporary Christianity in Africa and its worldwide influence.
Early Christian Activities and Nineteenth-Century Missionary Activities
Christianity entered Africa as early as the New Testament times as we see Philip ministered to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26–40. We assume that the eunuch carried the Gospel back to Africa. Quite quickly, North Africa became the center of Christian activities and this lasted from the second through the fifth centuries. Africa produced notable Christian leaders such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Origen of Alexandria, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo. The African faith was strong. During times of Imperial Roman persecution, many chose death rather than recant their faith. However, from the sixth century, the faith waned, and the church in North Africa was divided through doctrinal issues and internal struggles. The desire for ecclesiastical and political power replaced the evangelistic zeal. These factors facilitated the spread of the new Islamic religion across North Africa from the seventh century onward.
Though Christianity survived for hundreds of years, ultimately, only the Coptic Church in Egypt was left standing (though we also affirm the tenacity of the Church in Ethiopia). Currently, the Coptic Orthodox Church represents 10 to 15 percent of Egypt’s population.24 This crippling of the Church in North Africa denied Christianity to the rest of Africa until later missionary enterprising activities. Christianity was introduced to sub-Saharan Africa in the fifteenth century. The Portuguese commercial voyages maintained some Roman Catholic priests to minister among their settlements. In Southern Africa, this began in 1458, while in West Africa this began in 1471. During this period, attempts were made to present