Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context (Regnum Studies in Global Christianity) 150647540X, 9781506475400

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity Interpretations from an African Context

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu Forewords by Allan Anderson & Nimi Wariboko

REGNUM STUDIES IN GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY

Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

REGNUM STUDIES IN GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY (Previously GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL VOICES series)

Series Preface In the latter part of the twentieth century the world witnessed significant changes in global Christian dynamics. Take for example the significant growth of Christianity in some of the poorest countries of the world. Not only have numbers increased, but the emphasis of their engagement has expanded to include ministry to a wider socio-cultural context than had previously been the case. The Regnum Studies in Global Christianity series explores the issues with which the global church struggles, focusing in particular on ministry rooted in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Not only does the series make available studies that will help the global church learn from past and present, it provides a platform for provocative and prophetic voices to speak to the future of Christianity. The editors and the publisher pray particularly that the series will grow as a public space, where the voices of church leaders from the majority world will contribute out of wisdom drawn from experience and reflection, thus shaping a healthy future for the global church. To this end, the editors invite theological seminaries and universities from around the world to submit relevant scholarly dissertations for possible publication in the series. Through this, it is hoped that the series will provide a forum for South-to-South as well as South-to-North dialogues.

Series Editors Ruth Padilla DeBorst Hwa Yung, Bishop Wonsuk Ma Damon So Miroslav Volf

President, Latin American Theological Fraternity, Santiago, Chile Methodist Church of Malaysia, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia Executive Director, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK Research Tutor, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK Director Yale Center for Faith and Culture, New Haven, MA, USA

REGNUM STUDIES IN GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY

Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity Interpretations from an African Context

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

Copyright © J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu 2013 First published 2013 by Regnum Books International Regnum is an imprint of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies St. Philip and St. James Church Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HR, UK www.ocms.ac.uk/regnum 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The right of J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a license permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licenses are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN - 978-1-506475-40-0 Typeset by Words by Design | Cover design by Words by Design

The publication of this title is made possible through the generous financial assistance of Dr. Ato Essuman, Former Lay President of the Methodist Church Ghana and Managing Consultant, Profile Consult, Ghana. Distributed by 1517 Media in the US and Canada

 

Dedication To Theodora, my companion in life And to our children, Theophil, Griselda, and Emmanuel With thanks for labouring with me

Contents Preface and Acknowledgements Forewords Chapter 1 Clothed with Power: Spirit-Inspired Renewal and Christianity in Africa

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1

Chapter 2 Signs of the Spirit: Worship as Experience

17

Chapter 3 Jericho Hour: Prayer as Theological Interventionist Strategy

35

Chapter 4 The 12/70 Paradigm Shift: Ecclesiology in the New Charismatic Ministries

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Chapter 5 “For Open Doors”: Interpretations of Giving

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Chapter 6 Calvary to Pentecost: The Cross and Prosperity

105

Chapter 7 Unction to Function: The Reinvention of the Theology of Anointing

121

Chapter 8 Miracle Meal: The Holy Communion

145

Chapter 9 Bible-Believing and Bible-Preaching Churches

161

Conclusion: “The Spirit Moveth”

179

Bibliography

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Index

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Preface and Acknowledgements

This book can be read as a sequel to my earlier work African Charismatics, which was published by E.J. Brill in 2005. That book is a revised version of my doctoral dissertation, completed at the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2000 under the supervision of Prof. Emmanuel Y. Lartey. The limit placed on the number of words in a doctoral thesis means that tangential issues arise that may never be explored fully. Since completing the doctoral programme, over the last decade I have continued to explore developments within contemporary Pentecostalism and have published a number of papers on a movement that has transformed the face of Christianity in Africa and beyond. I have addressed some of the topics in this volume in one form or other in international journals on religion, theology, or mission studies; the chapters on Giving and Tithing, Holy Communion, Prayer, and the Bible in African Pentecostalism are entirely new. As each of those previously published papers has been revised, restructured, and updated, the material found in this book on these subjects is sufficiently distinct to make it unnecessary to specify these earlier contributions. Pentecostalism is an experiential global movement. For many years the USA was its best-known location in terms of its origins, influence, and popularity. Scholars have, however, started to note that the movement may have originated in various non-Western contexts simultaneously with the popular Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, led by William J. Seymour, in 1906. I argue in this volume that, although no means all, a number of the indigenous movements known historically as African Independent Churches (AICs) in the scholarly literature may actually have been more Pentecostal or charismatic than previously thought. This is a position I took in African Charismatics but having had occasion to look at the data again, I make that claim more boldly here. Not only do AICs share religious and theological tendencies and emphases with indigenous classical and contemporary Pentecostal movements, but also, many of their practices previously condemned as belonging to the occult have been reinvented in contemporary Pentecostal spirituality. I illustrate the reemergence of these practices among Ghanaian contemporary Pentecostals in the chapters on anointing, prayer, and the use of the Bible, in particular. The presentation of contemporary Pentecostalism as a historically modern and theologically more versatile version of indigenous Christian movements calls for a revision of nomenclature. In the main I have retained the biblical expression “Pentecost” in this work by referring to the movements under study

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here as “Pentecostal”. In several places, however, I use the expression “pneumatic Christianity” to refer collectively to all those movements in the history of Christianity in Africa that privilege and normalize the experiential presence of the Holy Spirit in worship and spirituality. The bottom line is that contemporary Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity, emerging within an urbanized, globalized, and technologically sophisticated Africa, has attracted a more educated and youthful constituency than the older independent or Spiritual churches did. The innovative use that the new movements make of modern media, for example, has not only improved their public appeal but has also enabled them to present a more nuanced form of Christianity that responds better to the exigencies of contemporary African urban life. Much of the primary data for this study has come from personal observations and interactions with significant contemporary Pentecostals and their leaders, and also from participation in and experience of many of the developments at first hand. Thus far I have collected data personally, coming closest to using field assistants in my interactions with my students at the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana, where I teach. I also teach Pentecostalism at the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture, Akropong-Akwapim, and at the Central University College School of Theology and Mission in Accra, where I serve as an adjunct. I am deeply grateful to all my students for the very friendly, collegial, and insightful discussions that we have been able to have over the years and that have deepened my experiences and understanding of pneumatic Christianity. The bringing together of the material in this book started at Regent University College in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA, where my colleagues Prof. Amos Yong and Prof. Clifton Clarke worked together to enable me to spend about a fortnight using their library. During that period, Prof. Vinson Synan offered me accommodation in his home and even invited me to attend one of his lectures and share with the students what I was about at the time. I thank all three colleagues for their help. My friend and fellow labourer in the Lord’s Vineyard Rev. Dr. Casely B. Essamuah, now serving the Bay Area Community Church in Annapolis, Maryland, has always encouraged me to work on new publications, and I remain indebted to him for such wonderful friendship. In the Spring Semester of 2012, I spent a sabbatical at the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC), New Haven, Connecticut, where this project was completed. I thank the retiring director Dr Jonathan Bonk, his deputy, Dr Nelson Jennings, and the staff for receiving me so warmly and making OMSC a home away from home for me. During my sabbatical I had opportunities to share parts of this work at various universities and seminaries, mainly in the USA, at the invitation of the following friends: Prof. David Morgan and Prof. Grant Wacker, Duke University, North Carolina; Prof. Robert Priest, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Chicago; Prof. David Daniels III, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago; Prof. Kenneth Apold and Prof. Elsie McKee, Princeton Theological

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Seminary, New Jersey; and Prof. John Azumah, Columbia Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia. The chapter on Prayer was also presented at the Yale-Edinburgh Conference organized by Prof. Lamin Sanneh and Prof. Andrew Walls and hosted by Prof. Brian Stanley. I am grateful to all these friends, who so graciously affirmed my work, going the extra mile by inviting me to share time with them and in their institutions in ways that extended my experiences and networks. The feedback in questions and contributions at all the lectures helped me to rethink several issues and make necessary adjustments to the material. I remain deeply thankful for the opportunities offered to me. My friend Prof. Wonsuk Ma, Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, agreed to publish this work even before seeing the manuscript, and I am very grateful to him for his trust and confidence. I thank Dr Rona Johnston Gordon of New Haven, Connecticut, for her copy-editing services and the attention she gave the material at such short notice by working assiduously on it. When she delivered the manuscript I was amazed at the transformation in my work. Rona gave me the confidence that, although initially developed as independent essays, the work is publishable as a book. Mrs Frances Akuete of the Tema Joint Church in Ghana provided substantial financial assistance towards copy-editing. Honorable Dr Ato Essuman of the Methodist Church Ghana also surprised me by generously supporting my sabbatical in a way that went directly into the production of this book. I thank the two of them for being clairvoyant in terms of my financial needs at the time and allowing the Lord to use them to be such a blessing to my work. There are many other friends, ministerial colleagues, and loved ones who helped me in one way or another during this endeavour, including my colleagues at Trinity, and I wish to thank them individually and severally for all their support and friendship. Theodora, my life’s companion, and our children, Theophil, Griselda, and Emmanuel, put up with much because of my pastoral and academic commitments at both the local and international levels. I want to express my appreciation to them for their continued patience, understanding, and support by dedicating this book to them. This is in the hope that their hearts will be cheered by the realization that their sacrifices have not been in vain. Finally, I extend gratitude to my friends within the Pentecostal/charismatic Christian family for their warmth and endorsements as a colleague in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has been gracious and the ultimate glory is hereby returned to him for all that he continues to do in my life and that of my family, and in the ministry his Spirit has granted me. May the Lord’s name be praised.

Foreword – Allan Anderson

Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu has emerged as the foremost African scholar of Pentecostalism since the premature passing away of Ogbu Kalu in January 2009. His writings are prodigious and insightful, and the publication of this welcome new book is no exception. I think it is his best study to date, written with the maturity of a scholar who not only observes but also reflects. He writes with the heart of a Christian teacher for truth. It is all too easy for westerners to observe African Pentecostalism from a distance and be critical of their sometimes-bizarre manifestations and emphases on health and wealth in the midst of a poverty-ravished continent. But Asamoah-Gyadu tells it like it is and from the inside, being both a critical and a sympathetic observer. This is a theology of African Pentecostalism as well as a rich description of its inner heart. Based on extensive research in Ghana and elsewhere, with many vivid descriptions of Pentecostal practices observed by the author, interspersed with theological and biblical reflection, and interacting with other scholars worldwide, this book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the rapidly growing and increasingly dominant form of Christianity in the vast African continent. African Pentecostals will recognize themselves in these pages. This is no caricature of their beliefs and practices, but is a faithful reflection of them. World Christianity underwent tremendous shifts in both geographical location and character during the twentieth century. Lamin Sanneh asserts that “Charismatic Christianity… is largely responsible for the dramatic shift in the religion’s center of gravity”. Philip Jenkins speculates that Pentecostal and independent churches will soon “represent a far larger segment of global Christianity, and just conceivably a majority”, resulting in Pentecostalism being “perhaps the most successful social movement of the past century”. The many varieties of Pentecostalism have contributed to the reshaping of the nature of global religion itself, with enormous implications. The future of global religion is affected by this seismic change in the character of the Christian faith. It is no coincidence that the southward shift in Christianity’s center of gravity over the twentieth century has coincided with the emergence and expansion of Pentecostalism.1 Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa. Pentecostalism is not a homogeneous movement, for there are literally 1

Lamin Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 275; Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford, 2007), 8-9.

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thousands of different Pentecostal denominations, many independent of those forms founded in North America and Europe at the start of the twentieth century. The global South has seen a remarkable expansion of Pentecostal forms of Christianity in the last century, an expansion that has altered global religious demographics considerably. In Africa, as in Latin America and Asia, many large urban megachurches have arisen, and much of the rapid growth in Christianity there has come among those who have a Pentecostal orientation. Increasingly, complex and multifarious networks of new independent churches have mushroomed in recent years, making them possibly the largest grouping within Pentecostalism as a whole. The recent history of Pentecostalism is littered with ‘revival’ movements causing schisms that have become its defining feature. There are many reasons for the emergence and growth of Pentecostalism in Africa, and any attempt to enumerate these runs the risk of reductionism. Asamoah-Gyadu has skillfully built a safe path through this minefield. Pentecostalism is above all a form of Christian mission with a transnational orientation based on personal enterprise, the ubiquitous voluntarism of its membership, and the constant multiplication of multi-centered, variegated organizations whose primary purpose is to evangelize and spread their influence worldwide. These constant efforts to expand and proselytize are underpinned by a firm belief in the Bible as an independent source of authority, one that resonates with local customs and relates better to a spiritual and holistic worldview – and by theological convictions based on a common experience of the Spirit who empowers believers’ mission to the world. The personal conversion of individuals is the goal of these efforts. To their credit, Pentecostal missionaries, whether African or foreign, were themselves largely untrained and uneducated, and practiced ‘indigenous church’ principles. They quickly found and trained thousands of local leaders, who took the ‘full gospel’ much further than they had. This swift transfer to local leadership was unprecedented in the history of Christianity, and Pentecostal churches became indigenous and ‘three-self’ (self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating) before the older missions had even begun the process. Contemporary African Pentecostalism is the product of a long process of development with precedents going back to a much earlier time. Its history was in continuity with the revivalist movements out of which it emerged in the early twentieth century. Its mission was to liberate very ordinary people from colonial and ecclesiastical hegemony and free women from male patriarchy. It encouraged free enterprise in a global religious market. The revival movements challenged western hegemony and created a multitude of new indigenous churches – a type of Christianity in local idiom that was a cultural protest movement, but was also bound to include emphases on power to overcome an evil spirit world and manifestations of the miraculous. Pentecostalism addressed allegations of both the foreignness and the irrelevance of Christianity in African societies. With its emphasis on the

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priesthood of all true believers, it broke down barriers of race, gender, and class, and challenged the exclusive preserves of ordained male, foreign clergy. Of course, this development included multiple schisms that, while increasing division, also proliferated local leadership and encouraged religious competition. One of the main reasons for the growth of Pentecostalism has been its ability to adapt itself to different cultures and societies and give contextualized expressions to Christianity. These are described in this book and expressed in energetic and energizing worship and liturgies, music and dance, prayer with the free use of the emotions, and in communities of concerned and committed believers. Pentecostals are becoming more socially aware and active in efforts to relieve poverty and disease. Of all Christian expressions, Pentecostalism has an ability to transpose itself into local African cultures and religions effortlessly, because of its primary emphases on the experience of the Spirit and the spiritual calling of leaders who do not have to be formally educated in church dogma. This often leads to schism, but also assists multiplication. In particular, the ministry of healing and the claims of the miraculous have assisted Pentecostalism in its appeal to a world where supernatural events are taken for granted. Pentecostalism developed its own characteristics and identities in Africa without losing its transnational connections. The widespread use of mass media, the setting up of new networks that often incorporate the word ‘international’ in their titles, frequent conferences with international speakers that reinforce transnationalism, and the growth of churches that provide total environments for members – these are all features of this multidimensional Pentecostalism, which promotes this global meta-culture constantly. Although socio-political and historical factors undoubtedly had a role in the spread of Pentecostal Christianity, religious and ideological factors were probably more significant. The ability of Pentecostalism to adapt to and fulfill people’s religious aspirations continues to be its strength. A belief in a divine encounter and the involvement or breaking through of the sacred into the mundane, including healing from sickness, deliverance from hostile evil forces, and perhaps above all, a heady and spontaneous spirituality that refuses to separate ‘spiritual’ from ‘physical’ or ‘sacred’ from ‘secular’ are all important factors in Pentecostalism’s growth. It has been able to tap into ancient religious traditions with one eye on the changing world of modernity. This combination of the old with the new has enabled it to attract people who relate to both these worlds. With its offer of the power of the Spirit to all regardless of education, language, race, class or gender, Pentecostalism has been a movement on a mission to subvert convention. Unlike older forms of Christian mission, its methods were not so dependent on western specialists and trained clergy and the transmission of western forms of Christian liturgy and leadership. In fact, Pentecostalism in its earliest forms broke down the dichotomy between clergy and laity that was the legacy of older churches.

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It was estimated that Christians exceeded Muslims in Africa for the first time in 1985, and Christians are now almost the majority – a phenomenon so epoch-making that Lamin Sanneh describes it as “a continental shift of historic proportions”. There are now over four times as many Christians in Africa as there were in 1970. Of course, some of this has to do with differentials in population growth; but it remains true that much of the growth of African Christianity has occurred through conversion, where the influence of Pentecostalism is strongest. In contrast, the Christian population of Europe during the same period has increased only by about a quarter, and that of North America by about a third. The decrease in the percentage of world Christianity in the global North is likely to continue. But even if the statistics are speculative, the fact that this movement had only a handful of adherents at the beginning of the twentieth century makes its growth an astounding development.2 A 2006 Pew Forum report (focused only on urban populations) estimated that classical Pentecostals formed 33% of the population of Kenya, 18% in Nigeria and 10% in South Africa. With Charismatics and independent churches added in, the figures increase considerably and what they have termed ‘Renewalists’ approximate half the national populations in these African countries. Here, Pentecostalism in all its various forms is not only a significant proportion of Christianity, but a sizeable chunk of the entire population with enormous clout.3 The rise of the Charismatic movement in the western world certainly made Pentecostal ideas and practices more acceptable to traditional forms of Christianity. But this might also be seen as one result of the privatization of religion beginning in the 1960s, when the established churches no longer held monopoly and authority over all things sacred. It could be argued that Charismatic Christianity provided a panacea for the spiritual deficit in organized religion and in western society as a whole. After the 1980s, the ‘Pentecostalization’ of older churches in Africa and Asia accelerated as these churches adjusted to the rapid growth of new Pentecostal churches in their midst. They began to adopt their methods, particularly appealing to the young and urbanized. Simultaneously, the new form of Pentecostalism exhibited a fierce independence that eschewed denominations and preferred associations in loose ‘fellowships’. This gave rise to the Pentecostal megachurches that operate in cities like Lagos, Accra, Kinshasa, Nairobi and Johannesburg. The

2

Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations, 274-75; Todd M. Johnson, David B. Barrett, & Peter F. Crossing, “Christianity 2012: The 200th Anniversary of American Foreign Missions”, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 36:1, 2012 (28-29); Douglas Jacobsen, The World’s Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 373. 3 http://pewforum.org/Christian/Evangelical-Protestant-Churches/ Spirit-andPower.aspx.

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megachurches often form networks with similar churches across the world, and these transnational associations are not only North-South, but also South-South and East-South. Contemporary African Pentecostalism is very much the result of the process of globalization, and ‘health and wealth’ advocates are as much at home in Lagos and Kampala as they are in Tulsa or Fort Worth. In many cases, the only ones who get rich in poverty-ravaged countries are the preachers. The mass media, beginning with the use of periodicals and newsletters, followed by a ready acceptance of new technologies – first radio and then television and internet – tourism and pilgrimages to megachurches, ubiquitous voluntarism, and an international economy, combined to create conditions conducive to the spread of a globally-friendly religion like Pentecostalism. This manifested itself in many different ways. Some of the new churches leave much to be desired – especially those with wealthy leaders whose questionable and exploitative practices continue to be debated in public forums. The adaptability of Pentecostalism to a culture is more easily achieved in those parts of the world like Africa, where a spiritual universe exists and healing and the supernatural are regarded as ‘normal’ experiences. Pentecostalism also grows where a pluralistic religious environment is the norm. This makes Pentecostal forms of Christianity more amenable to Africa than to Europe with its dominant state churches and increasing secularization. The Christian world has become more interconnected than ever before; and increasingly Pentecostals are having conversations with other Christians that are bringing them out of their largely self-imposed isolation. Whether this will result in more unity or more division and diversity is anyone’s guess. It is certain that the continuous change and transformation in world Christianity will continue. But Pentecostalism in the majority world, as Jenkins has observed about Christianity in the global South, does not represent a global religion with roots in the North, but a new type of Christianity altogether.4 The emphasis on a personal, heart-felt experience of God through the Spirit is offered to all people without preconditions, enabling them to be ‘powerful’ and assertive in societies where they have been marginalized. They are offered solutions to their felt needs in all their varieties. This will continue to draw people in the majority world to Pentecostal churches. When yours is an all-encompassing, omnipotent, and personal God who enters into a personal relationship with individual believers, everything becomes a matter for potential prayer. The ‘born-again’ experience focusing on a radical break with the past attracts young people disenchanted with the ways of their parents. Pentecostalism’s incessant evangelism, offering healing and deliverance, draws large crowds and its organized system of following up contacts means that more ‘unchurched’ people are reached with this message and joined to Pentecostal communities. Its cultural flexibility in its experiential and 4

Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 254.

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participatory liturgy, offering a place-to-feel-at-home, a measure of religious continuity with the past spirit world, and (at least to some observers) the appearance of an egalitarian community meeting the ‘felt needs’ of ordinary people – all combine to provide an overarching explanation for the appeal of Pentecostalism and the transformation of Christianity in Africa. AsamoahGyadu portrays these features brilliantly, and I warmly commend this study to you. Allan Anderson, University of Birmingham

Foreword – Nimi Wariboko

Professor Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu writes with the simplicity and profundity of a master scholar adept at his own game. He presents a rich, contextual, and multi-layered discourse on the way Pentecostalism is forged in the fire of the Holy Spirit and fashioned under the pressures and peculiarities of concrete human experiences in Africa. The tightly controlled narrative unwinds within superbly readable and thorough analyses. He has written a book that is an excellent blend of theological clarity, historical depth, anthropological concreteness, and scholarly-personal assessments of African Pentecostalism. The argument is brilliant and subtle. Asamoah-Gyadu weaves his theological argument out of the voices and practices of the Pentecostals themselves. He does not start by imposing a philosophical theory or paradigm on them but, in a manner worthy of the calland-response of West African traditional worship and meetings, allows his vast theological training to shape a mutually correlated representation of their stories. Yet, he is also appropriately critical of African Pentecostals’ misuse of scripture. Written on Africa, particularly Ghana, this book amply locates the cult practices, history, and ideas of African Pentecostals in the African context. The Pentecostal plant of Ghana, the author insists, is not an imported tree, but a homegrown body. The blossoming Ghanaian Pentecostal tree is fed by the soil, water, and air of indigenous African beliefs and their encounter with modernity, colonialism, Western Christianity and civilization, and globalization. Asamoah-Gyadu in the tradition of African scholars like Lamin Sanneh and Ogbu Kalu has shown that Christianity is now an African religion and the impetus for its growth and development is located within the continent and its people. Though the data for Asamoah-Gyadu’s book are mainly drawn from Ghana, its far-reaching scholarship sheds light on the nature, logic, and dynamics of Pentecostalism worldwide. The particular experience of Ghanaian Pentecostals informs and reveals the universalism of Pentecostalism. Through his clear mastery of the theological and social scientific literature, Asamoah-Gyadu makes a major contribution to the historical and comparative study of Christianity. In this effort, Ghana Pentecostalism easily comes off as an exemplar. Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity also represents an example of another sort. It is that of an emerging new form of scholarship on African

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Pentecostalism. Most scholars who write on African Pentecostalism tend to overemphasize the quest of believers for power as sourced from Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit at the detriment of a fuller understanding of the cultic life. When they are not reducing the faith life of Africans to the search for power, they are focusing on the much harangued prosperity gospel as some kind of a “disease.” The result either way is a narrow, partial, distorted, hollowed-out representation of African Pentecostalism. On reading them one usually gets the impression that Pentecostalism is a monster prowling about in Africa looking for someone to devour. Asamoah-Gyadu avoids this pitfall and gives us a full, robust account of Pentecostalism as a concretely lived experience and a richly textured faith fabric responding to the existential questions and needs Africans have in the twenty-first century. In this endeavor, he reveals the ability of Pentecostals to be simultaneously inside and outside of African traditional cultures as central to their production of innovations. This diasporic status is indeed important for interpreting the religious discourse and practices of African Pentecostals. As much as Asamoah-Gyadu has tried to give us a comprehensive view of Pentecostalism in Africa, there are areas we look for him to address; areas of immense scholarly interest today. First, we search for a discussion of institutionalized Pentecostal theological education in Africa and the rising involvement of Pentecostal churches and denominations in university education. This is an area that deserves a good chapter given the orientation of the work. Second, we want him to dwell on the involvement of Pentecostals in national politics and the impact of Pentecostal churches on politics, political parties, and public policies in Africa. Third, he presents African Pentecostalism as one giant movement for the reinvention of the traditions of African traditional religions and cultures, and Christianity. This open door begs for a discussion on how the “reinventions” are being “traditioned.” No institution like Pentecostalism can survive only on the principle of initiating something new (what I have called elsewhere the “Pentecostal Principle”) without sustaining some kind of a “Catholic Substance.” Therefore, we long for more discursive spaces to voices of protest within the Pentecostal movement itself. An adequate investigation of the “Protestant Principle” within Pentecostalism itself would greatly benefit this discourse. Every religion is a mixture of the Catholic Substance, Protestant Principle, and the Pentecostal Principle (initiating something new, novum). I would like to see these three elements spelt out on the author’s subsequent work on African Pentecostalism. Given the brilliance of this present volume, Asamoah-Gyadu is one scholar who can execute this future project well. We should look forward to such a study. By way of reaching conclusion, let me stop to point out how AsamoahGyadu ends his book. He closes with a set of “benchmarks of Pentecost,” a set of five standards he thinks readers should deploy to gauge the presence of

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God’s Spirit in the church: (1) transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ; (2) Desire for prayer and renewal; (3) Empowerment for active witness; (4) Manifestations of the Spirit, and (5) Pursuit of eternal values. We may not all agree with these standards and even with the idea of metrics for evaluating matters of religion, but one recognizes the impetus behind his move. Given the rampant, unverifiable, and self-serving claims of some African preachers and churches as unique ciphers of God’s anointing, he wants African Christians to think seriously about how to ascertain the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in their midst. Katherine B. Stuart Professor of Christian Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School, Massachusetts, USA

Chapter 1

Clothed with Power: Spirit-Inspired Renewal and Christianity in Africa

Pentecostalism has emerged as the most exciting and dominant stream of Christianity in the twenty-first century. This is especially so in the non-Western world—Africa, Asia, and Latin America—which is now the heartland of world Christianity. Even in contexts where Christianity may be declining, such as the northern continents, Pentecostalism and its historically younger and theologically more versatile progenies are leading the way in the revival of a Christian presence by means, for example, of the ministries of immigrant churches. The rise of contemporary Pentecostalism and the revival of Christianity give practical expression to the work of the Spirit as blowing wind, a description used metaphorically by Jesus Christ in his encounter with Nicodemus in John 3. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus was representative of the old, static, and orthodox religious order, but the Spirit, as blowing wind, represented change: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). In the last half of the twentieth century Harvey Cox had joined “death of God” theologians in predicting the demise of Christianity, but as a result of his encounters with Pentecostalism, Cox has been forced to change his mind. Against the backdrop of the growth of Pentecostalism, he now writes that “today it is secularity, not spirituality, that may be headed for extinction”.1 Indeed, the subtitle of his book Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostalism and the Reshaping of Christianity in the Twenty-first Century captures the thrust of the global religious renaissance led by the Pentecostals and the various charismatic movements spreading across the globe. Cox’s subtitle speaks volumes not only of the significance of Pentecostal Christianity but also of the effect that pneumatic Christianity generally is having on world Christianity. I use the expression “pneumatic Christianity” to refer to any form of Christianity that values, affirms, and consciously promotes the experiences of the Spirit as part of normal Christian life and worship. This allows me to bring into the discussion not only movements that scholars writing from a Western 1

Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995).

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

perspective delineate as Pentecostal or charismatic, but also the many indigenous expressions of Christianity from non-Western contexts that privilege the experiential presence of the Spirit in Christianity but do not necessarily call themselves Pentecostal. This book examines the importance of pneumatic Christianity to renewal movements within the African context. We will consider how these movements have inspired growth and dynamism in the church in Africa and what the implications of this development are for the world church. Pentecostalism, the most globalized form of pneumatic Christianity, belongs to the larger Protestant family, and it shares the traditional evangelical theological emphases on the authority of the Bible, the centrality of the cross, regeneration as the way to Christian salvation, and a call to holiness as the outflow of a new relationship with Christ. In addition to these theological themes, Pentecostal and charismatic movements became the “third force” of Christendom at the beginning of the twentieth century because of the additional emphasis they placed on the experience and power of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostalism developed because historic mainline Protestantism took an intellectual and liberal attitude to the Scriptures and in the process neglected the experiential elements of Christianity. Their attitude has been explained as partly due to Enlightenment culture in which that which could not be proven by science and rationality was not taken seriously. In the process, Christianity suffered setbacks in the West, but the independent and indigenous pneumatic churches from the non-Western world continued to expand. Today, the major heartlands of the Christian faith have shifted from the northern to the southern continents, with Africa as a major hub of world Christianity. There is still hope for the future because even in the secularizing West quite a number of Christian communities have kept the spirit of experiential Christianity alive. There are very dynamic renewal movements the world over, although by and large, it is in the global South and East that these movements have really helped to energize Christianity by giving it a fresh lease of life in the hearts and lives of people. In Africa today, for example, even churches that trace their roots to the work of German and English missions, from London, Basel and Bremen, are all turning to charismatic renewal. The argument of contemporary charismatic movements is that the absence of the dynamic presence of the Spirit from the church, particularly in its older Western contexts, turns it into something other than a place to encounter God. As an enthusiastic form of religion, pneumatic Christianity generally promotes radical conversions, baptism of the Spirit with speaking in tongues, healing, deliverance, prophetic ministries, and other such pneumatic phenomena including miracles and supernatural interventions in general.

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Pentecost and the Renewal of World Christianity Pentecostal revivalism, the most globalized form of pneumatic Christianity, is driven in part by a statement made by Peter. After hearing Peter preach so powerfully on what God has accomplished in Jesus Christ, the people asked the apostles: “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter responded: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39). Pentecostals took this promise seriously, and they not only appropriated it for their Christian lives but also shared its message with people outside their own geographical locations. Until the middle of the twentieth century, Pentecostalism remained a religion on the margins of world Christianity. Today it is impossible to talk about world Christianity without reference to Pentecostalism. That in 2008 the John Templeton Foundation, through the University of Southern California, made available US$3.5 million for research on Pentecostalism worldwide is an indication of how important this stream of Christianity has become as a world religion. In Fire from Heaven Cox explains the importance of Pentecostalism in terms of its experiential orientation: The story of the first Pentecost has always served as an inspiration for people who are discontented with the way religion or the world in general is going. They turn to it because it is packed with promise … It is about the experience of God not about abstract religious ideas, and it depicts a God who does not remain aloof but reaches down through the power of the Spirit to touch human hearts, therefore … in our present time of social and cultural disarray … Pentecostalism is burgeoning everywhere in the world.2

Christianity is itself a world religion and discussions of its growth and dynamism in non-Western contexts cannot be divorced from developments taking place in other parts of the globe. It is not for nothing that in the twentyfirst century many faculties of theology and seminaries are appointing professors of world Christianity, who help to interpret prophetically the changing face of the faith globally. A useful example of the way in which Western and non-Western churches are influencing each other is how Anglican churches in Africa are leading the way in the rebellion against the authority of the worldwide Anglican Communion in the debate over alternative sexual lifestyles ordination. The differences have been so sharp that one African schism inspired a visit to Central Africa by the archbishop of Canterbury in October 2011. In the same vein, the current recession of Christianity in the modern West must be interpreted against the backdrop of its accession in nonWestern contexts.

2

Cox, Fire from Heaven, 4–5.

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It is when we consider such dynamics of change that Spirit-inspired, or pneumatic Christianity, becomes important. I take the position that the pneumatic orientation of non-Western Christianity accounts in significant measure for the growth and dynamism of the faith in these contexts. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Christianity has developed primarily as a nonWestern religion and its public face is pneumatic in outlook. The growth of the church in Africa, as elsewhere in the non-Western world, draws attention to the theological truth that the presence of Jesus Christ in the life of the church continues through the work of the Holy Spirit. Frank Macchia is a Pentecostal theologian who has written several useful books on the Holy Spirit. Against the backdrop of the Acts of the Apostles as a historical account of the Holy Spirit and of the great renewal that the Spirit accomplished through the early disciples, he writes that to the apostles, “God was so real” that “they lived daily in the awareness of his presence and guidance” and this included God’s visitations “with undeniable signs of divine favor and power”.3 This experiential presence of the Holy Spirit, captured for us by Macchia, is a promise that has been fulfilled through Pentecost and is now being experienced by the church as an existential reality with eschatological implications. Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity is important to understanding world Christianity because even in most Western contexts where the Christian presence is thought to be on the decline, churches of Pentecostal and charismatic persuasion, including many immigrant churches that possess a charismatic culture,—pneumatic churches as I call them—are doing well. Thus sociologist of religion David Martin describes “the astonishing rise of Pentecostalism and its associated penumbra of charismatic Christianity” as “the largest global shift in the religious marketplace” over the last half century.4 Wherever it has appeared, Pentecostalism, as my chapter title suggests, appeals to a biblical promise at the end of the Gospel of Luke, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49), and to its fulfilment in the Acts of the Apostles in terms of experiential legitimacy, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This “clothing with power”, Macchia explains, was a divine act dependent not on human standards of experience but on divine standards. He describes being clothed with power as essentially self-transcendence motivated by the love of God so that the individual feels especially inspired to give himself or herself to others in whatever gifting God has created within.5 Being clothed with power 3

Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 13. 4 David Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), xvii. 5 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 14.

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means being empowered for service among God’s people. The church is empowered for living witness in its community life, its inspired proclamation, and its multiple ministries in the Spirit. Pentecost and the Charismatic Experience Pentecost aims at revivalism and the renewal of world Christianity. Its emphasis in the modern world is on revivalism in the Christian life as a lived experience of the Spirit that must be renewed time and again. Contemporary manifestations of Pentecostalism are often classified in terms of “charismatic renewal” as a result of their general orientation towards the restoration of the gifts of the Spirit, which include speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, visions, and revelations to the heart of dry denominationalism and moribund churches. One of the key texts inspiring charismatic renewal worldwide is the vision of dry bones encountered in Ezekiel 37. In most popular Pentecostal interpretations of that passage, the “valley of dry bones” refers to moribund Christianity or dead churches paralyzed by neglect of the fundamental biblical truths of regeneration by water and the Spirit, by moral permissiveness, and by relativism that reduces the Bible into mere text rather than an active and living truth of divine inspiration. Thus for most believers in charismatic renewal, what God said to the valley of dry bones as articulated by Ezekiel, he says to the contemporary church not yet touched by his Spirit: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life” (Ezek. 37:5-6). In this passage, “breath” is a metaphor for the Spirit of God. Thus in the charismatic experience, as Jürgen Moltmann notes, “God’s Spirit is felt as vitalizing energy … In the Holy Spirit the eternal God participates in our transitory life, and we participate in the eternal life of God. This reciprocal community is an immense outflowing source of energy. We have called the energies of the Spirit which we charismatically experience vitalizing energies, because they bring us to life.”6 The reference to the experience of the Holy Spirit as the source of “vitalizing energy” explains why, in addition to the traditional symbol of the Dove, Pentecostal/charismatic communities greatly cherish the Spirit in terms of Fire and the Eagle. Pentecostalism is a movement that is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It differs from other streams of Christianity by its affirmation and conscious promotion of the experiences of the Holy Spirit in church life. The Bible does not directly use the eagle as a symbol of the Spirit, but that image has been incorporated into contemporary charismatic discourse because it represents the aspirations of contemporary Pentecostalism as a movement 6 Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 195–96.

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seeking to trade-in its “depths for heights”, to use the words from the advertisement of one charismatic church in Ghana to advertise its revival program. The Spirit as fire not only burns chaff and purifies to make holy, but he also provides the inspiration needed to revive and renew the church. The dove may be gentle but fire is a source of energy, and the eagle is depicted as a bird with super power and energy and able to soar to unimaginable heights. The expression “charismatic” comes from charismata, meaning “gifts of grace”. “Charismatic” is used to refer to “renewal prayer fellowships” and analogous movements operating within and without historic mission denominations. Their aim is the revitalization of church life through the restoration of the charismata pneumatika, the graces of the Spirit, to its worship life (1 Cor. 12-14). That is why, I submit, Pentecostal/charismatic or pneumatic Christianity has developed as a religion with a global culture that values, affirms, and actively promotes the experiential presence of the Holy Spirit as part of normal Christian life. There are three main reasons why pneumatic Christianity has become the religion of choice in contemporary nonWestern Christianity, which includes Africa and the African diaspora: (1) its emphasis on personal transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit; (2) its emphasis on the experience of the Holy Spirit with specific manifestations that make worship both a heartfelt and body-felt experience; and (3) the interventionist nature of charismatic theology, which is seen in healing, deliverance, and prayer for breakthroughs in life. The bottom line in all three of these factors is the critical importance of religious experience as of both personal and corporate value for religious people. In Reinventing American Protestantism Donald Miller refers to the contemporary churches that articulate a charismatic culture as “new paradigm churches”. His meaning is evident in his account of the sort of experiential religious culture that these churches represent: “These new paradigm churches … are changing the way Christianity looks and is experienced. … Appropriating contemporary cultural forms, these churches are creating a new genre of worship music; they are restructuring the organizational character of institutional religion; they are democratizing access to the sacred by radicalizing the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers.”7 The heart of the distinctive appeal of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity “lies in its empowerment through spiritual gifts offered to all” and which can be experienced as present reality.8 This is what Miller means when we wrote of the democratization of access to the sacred. One could even say that Pentecostalism must be understood as an ecclesiological experience rather than as just a denominational movement, because it brings together people with shared experiences of the Holy Spirit. A major strength of charismatic renewal 7

Donald E. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1. 8 Martin, Pentecostalism, 1.

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is its lay orientation, which means that the Holy Spirit democratizes access to charisma and ministry belongs to all, not just to the ordained. The implications of the democratization of spiritual gifts are outlined by South African professor of Pentecostalism Allan Anderson: This mass involvement of the “laity” in the Pentecostal movement was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its success. There was no need for a theologically articulate clergy, because cerebral and clerical Christianity had, in the minds of many people, already failed them. What was needed was a demonstration of power by indigenous people to whom ordinary people could easily relate. This was the democratization of Christianity, for henceforth the mystery of the gospel would no longer be reserved for a select privileged and educated few, but would be revealed to whoever was willing to receive it.9

Like Anderson, Macchia recognizes that a global shift is occurring today toward a new Christendom with its greatest strength in the non-Western world. This new Christendom, he notes, tends to “encourage charismatic, widely participatory, and missions-minded congregations”. The strength of this renewed Christendom, he points out, is not in its sense of tradition or theological brilliance, “but in a powerful experience of communal praise, liberation, and mission”. In his words, “this renewal tends towards an energized laity active in the realm of the Spirit in diverse and unique ways to build up the body of Christ and to function as witnesses for Christ to the world”.10 Pneumatic revivals take place both inside and outside existing churches and denominations, no matter how recently founded they may be. Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian Donald Gelpi writes that “the charismatic experience finds expression in a variety of spiritual gifts which are granted by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the entire community”.11 Pentecostal/charismatic Christians believe that wherever it occurs, “Pentecost” does so in fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel (2:28f.), and that signs and wonders must accompany the ministry of today’s church as they did in the ministry of the apostles in Acts. Pentecostals/charismatic or pneumatic Christians “like to feel that they are alert to God’s signs and wonders of whatever kind, wherever they have occurred, are occurring now, and will occur in the future.”12 The bottom line is that we cannot explain the rise of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity and its attraction for young people in 9

Allan H. Anderson, “Global Pentecostalism in the New Millennium”, in Allan H. Anderson and Walter J. Hollenweger (eds), Pentecostals after a Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 214. 10 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 158. 11 Donald L. Gelpi, Pentecostalism: A Theological Viewpoint (New York: Paulist Press, 1971), 83. 12 David B. Barrett, “Signs, Wonders, and Statistics in the World of Today”, in Jan A. B. Jongeneel (ed.), Pentecost, Mission, and Ecumenism: Essays in Intercultural Theology (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992), 188.

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particular without reference to the activity of the Holy Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit is a Spirit of renewal (Titus 2) and so when the church becomes too bureaucratized and set in its ways and fails to confront new challenges with a relevant message, God raises up prophets to speak his word afresh and groups in whom his Spirit brings forth afresh his authentic fruits. Miller’s words are very apt here: [Not] only are the new paradigm churches doing a better job of responding to the needs of their clientele than are many mainline churches, but—more important—they are successfully mediating the sacred, bringing God to people and conveying the self-transcending and life-changing core of all true religion. They offer worship in a musical idiom that connects with the experience of broad sectors of the middle class; they have jettisoned aspects of organized religion that alienate many teenagers and young adults; and they provide programming that emphasizes well-defined moral values and is not otherwise available in the culture. In short, they offer people hope and meaning that is grounded in a transcendent experience of the sacred.13

It is with this understanding that I wish to approach themes and religious practices of the new pneumatic Christian movements that I examine in this study. These pneumatic reforms have taken almost a century to take root in African historic mission Christianity. On one hand, adherents of charismatic renewal groups, who approve the Holy Spirit-inspired experiences described above, use terms such as “refreshment of the Spirit”, “charismatic renewal”, “revival”, “the movement of the Spirit”, or “restoration of the church”. On the other hand, those who dislike pneumatic Christianity term it “emotionalism”, ”enthusiasm”, or even “occult”.14 What is new in pneumatic Christianity is not necessarily the occurrence of particular pneumatic phenomena, but rather “the articulation and organization in corporate Church life of what has over the centuries been known only spasmodically in isolated instance”.15 Africa and the Renewal of Christianity as a Non-Western Religion True to the predictions of writers on Christian history and mission who include David Barrett, Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh, Kwame Bediako, and Ogbu Kalu, Africa has developed as a major heartland of world Christianity in the twenty-first century. This transition from the margins to the centre of world Christianity is a privilege that Africa shares with the other non-Western contexts of Asia and Latin America. The accession of non-Western Christianity has coincided with the recession of the faith in the modern West. At the same time as church infrastructure in the West is being sold for non-Christian 13 14

Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism, 3. David Middlemiss, Interpreting Charismatic Experience (London: SCM Press, 1996),

1. 15

Simon Tugwell, Peter Hocken, George Every, and John O. Mills, New Heaven? New Earth? An Encounter with Pentecostalism (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1976), 22.

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purposes, warehouses and cinemas in Africa are metamorphosing into meeting places for churches. And churches of Pentecostal/charismatic persuasion are leading the way in the renewal of Christianity as a non-Western religion. Africa has become a hotbed of Pentecostal/charismatic activity. It would not be wrong to say that although Christian evangelization took place under the auspices of historic mission denominations, Pentecostalism in both its older classical and newer charismatic forms has now taken over as the representative face of Christianity in Africa. John Taylor has very aptly summarized the role of God the Spirit in the growth of Christianity in Africa: “In Africa today it seems the incalculable Spirit has chosen to use the Independent Church Movement for another spectacular advance. This does not prove that their teaching is necessarily true but it shows they have the raw materials out of which a missionary church is made—spontaneity, total commitment, and the primitive responses that arise from the depths of life.”16 The type of Christianity that inspired this observation by Taylor was that represented by the older independent indigenous churches of Africa. “Spontaneity, total commitment, and the primitive responses that arise from the depths of life”, characteristics of those earlier churches, are also important parts of Pentecostal spirituality in modern Africa. Except in Southern Africa, these older African Independent Churches are no longer paradigmatic of African Christianity, and elsewhere I have discussed the reasons for their decline.17 However, their religious and theological emphases on practical salvation, charismatic renewal, innovative gender ideology, and oral and interventionist theologies have found new lease of life among contemporary Pentecostals on the continent. Their emergence led to the renewal of Christianity in Africa and inspired the process of “pentecostalization” currently underway in contemporary African Christianity. Charismatic Renewal and the Church Today The restoration of charismata pneumatika, gifts of the Spirit, as part of normal church life can be understood theologically as “the reactivation in Christian community of levels and capacities of the human spirit that have long lain dormant in Christian life”.18 Whether we refer to them as renewal, restoration, or revival movements, the single most important characteristic of these charismatic movements is the experience of the Holy Spirit. Herein lies too the explanation of renewal provided by insiders. Arnold Bittlinger very accurately points to how charismatic renewal must be understood in terms of a response to the staid, silent, orderly, and overly rational approach to the faith inherited 16 John V. Taylor, The Go Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1972), 54. 17 J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics: A Study of Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 18 Tugwell et al., New Heaven?, 22–23.

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from the Western mission enterprise of the early nineteenth century.19 It is interesting that most of the immigrant churches emerging in Europe have a charismatic culture, as the work of Gerrie ter Haar and of Claudia WährischOblau attests.20 The Holy Spirit is the source of renewal, change, and empowerment. Charismatic renewal movements belong to the larger pneumatic traditions that are manifest in three main forms across the world. (1) New Pentecostal Churches: many of these churches have developed mega-size congregations; they are led by charismatic personalities who preach motivational messages and take very modern approaches to worship; they appeal greatly to upwardly mobile young Christians who are disenchanted with the denominationalism and clericalism of the past; (2) trans-denominational Pentecostal fellowships like the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International and Women Aglow movements. These are lay movements that encourage “responsible church membership”, a policy that has helped to facilitate renewal within historic mission; and (3) renewal movements within non-Pentecostal historic mission denominations. The unifying factor across all three forms is the experience of the Holy Spirit as God’s agent of renewal and the source of those graces that Paul very aptly describes as charismata pneumatika, gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12 and 14). One of the earliest books to be published on neoPentecostalism, as I refer to the different streams of renewal movements collectively, is Richard Quebedeaux’s New Charismatics: The Origins, Development, and Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism (1976). In that work Quebedeaux defines neo-Pentecostalism as follows: Neo-Pentecostalism, though grounded in the same religious experience (variously interpreted), differs markedly from its Classical forerunner and counterpart. In principle, Charismatic Renewal is a “trans-denominational” movement of enthusiastic Christianity that emerged and became recognizable in the “historic” denominations … It is theologically diverse but generally orthodox, and is unified by a common experience—the baptism of the Holy Spirit—with accompanying charismata … to be used personally and corporately in the life of the church. Evangelistic in nature, the movement is genuinely reformist in character …21

Classical Pentecostalism had developed into denominations very quickly. The rise of neo-Pentecostalism marked the beginning of disenchantment with religious traditions and conservatism within Christianity and the erosion of denominational loyalties. The essential nature of neo-Pentecostalism is “trans19

See Arnold Bittlinger (ed.), The Church is Charismatic (Geneva: WCC, 1982). Gerrie ter Haar, Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe (Cardiff: Cardiff Academic Press, 1998); Claudia Währisch-Oblau, The Missionary Self-Perception of Pentecostal/Charismatic Church Leaders from the Global South: Bringing Back the Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 21 Richard Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics: The Origins, Development, and Significance of Neo-Pentecostalism (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 5. 20

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denominational” because the experience of the Holy Spirit is understood “to transcend denominational walls, while it clarifies and underscores what is authentically Christian in each tradition without demanding structural or even doctrinal changes in any given church body”.22 In his study of charismatic renewal movements in Ghana, Cephas Omenyo points out that “whilst these groups have become catalysts for renewal in some denominations, they have also been the cause of conflict and misunderstanding in others”.23 With the gradual integration of charismatic renewal phenomena into historic mission church life, a “charismaticization” of Christianity is currently underway in African Christianity. This process is evident not only in the adoption of Pentecostal/charismatic media cultures, but also in the programmes and liturgical reforms occurring in historic mission Christianity. In the words of Omenyo, “members of the various charismatic renewal groups are determined to remain in their ‘impoverished’ churches and to revitalize them with the introduction of Charismatic/Pentecostal spirituality”.24 Historic Mission Churches and the Challenge of Renewal As I noted above, some critics of charismatic renewal phenomena or pneumatic Christianity have identified them as occult, a useful springboard for us to recall how the Musama Disco Christo Church (MDCC) started in Ghana. The MDCC, one of the biggest and oldest African instituted churches, began in the then Gold Coast, now the Republic of Ghana. Its name means “Church of the Army of the Cross of Christ”. Around 1923, when Ghanaian Methodist catechist William Egyanka Appiah started speaking in tongues, seeing visions, prophesying, and healing the sick through prayer, he and his sympathizers were “firmly ordered” by the Methodist Church authorities to stop what were described as their “occult activities” because, as Christian Baëta has summarized it, “the Methodists were not like that”.25 Almost a century later, most historic mission churches have started to accommodate charismatic renewal groups and phenomena within their ranks because their very survival has come to depend on how open they are to a charismatic ecclesiology and culture. The success of independent churches like Egyanka Appiah’s MDCC in the early years is evident in the fact that historic mission churches in Africa were pressured into renewal by the drift of their members into Spiritual or Aladura

22

Quebedeaux, New Charismatics, 6. Cephas N. Omenyo, Pentecost Outside Pentecostalism: A Study of the Development of Charismatic Renewal in the Mainline Churches in Ghana (Amsterdam: Boekencentrum, 2002), 7. 24 Omenyo, Pentecost Outside Pentecostalism, 7. 25 Christian G. Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana: A Study of Some “Spiritual” Churches (London: SCM Press, 1962), 35. 23

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(“people of prayer”) Churches. A 1965 Presbyterian Church of Ghana Synod report records, “it must be of interest to us that the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) is proportionally best represented [in the Spiritual churches] including even some Church agents”.26 Ironically, the Methodist Church Ghana, studying the same Spiritual and Aladura Church phenomenon, would conclude in a 1968 Conference report that Methodists “had become the principal patrons” of these independent churches. Whether these churches were patronized mainly by Methodists, Roman Catholics, or Presbyterians, the bottom line was that a considerable number of the membership of historic mission denominations did also maintain allegiance to their mother churches for Sundays. During the rest of the week, however, the same members went in search of Christian spirituality that made sense in a precarious African environment with its belief in malevolent forces thought able to harm human health and impede progress. The panic that followed the success of Ghana’s Spiritual churches is evident in the synod proceedings and the conference reports of the Presbyterian and the Methodist churches as they considered what to do about their own Christianity. The PCG Synod was quite honest in its assessment of the situation and responded by setting up a committee in 1965 to study the phenomenon of charismatic renewal and advise the church on what steps to take. The PCG Synod committee clarified its mandate as “an expression of the concern of the Church about the large numbers of people who leave the Presbyterian Church in order to join a Spiritual church or to attend meetings of healers and prophets, and secondly, about groups forming themselves within the Church which often adopted similar practices usually unfamiliar to Presbyterian Church life”.27 In the PCG, “practices usually unfamiliar to our church” referred basically to those aspects that I have identified as the religious features of pneumatic Christianity: speaking in tongues, healing and deliverance sessions, holding of all-night vigils characterized by loud extemporaneous mass prayers, the use of choruses (instead of hymns), prophecies, visions, revelations, and other pneumatic phenomena associated with Pentecostal/charismatic worship services. People joined the Spiritual churches because these churches provided indigenous ecclesial contexts in which the pneumatic phenomena that faced resistance within the PCG enjoyed freer expression. One of the conclusions of the PCG Synod Committee is thus very instructive for our purposes: “A large number of Christians join them because they are disappointed with their former churches. They complain that the worship there is dull and that there is no ‘spiritual power’ … and that there is not sufficient prayer in the old churches.

26

Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Minutes of 37th Synod Report, 29–31 August 1966, (hereafter, PCG Synod Report 1966) 44. 27 PCG Synod Report 1966, 41.

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They therefore seek a younger, more zealous and more “spiritual” fellowship.”28 The responses of Ghana’s historic mission churches to the phenomenon of charismatic renewal are revealing for our discussion. The Synod Committee of the PCG acknowledged the veracity of the complaint that Presbyterian worship was “dull and lacked vitality”, and that as a result, members were filling the vacuum in their liturgical lives elsewhere. Reference was made to groups “forming themselves within our Church”, which shows that the groups concerned were grassroots movements through which ordinary lay people had taken their spiritual destiny into their own hands. This development has deeper implications for lay involvement and ecumenism. And finally, the PCG Synod Committee and the MCG Conference both submitted that their churches should recognize the internal renewal groups in order to curb the loss of members to independent Spiritual churches. As a result of such observations, from the 1970s charismatic renewal prayer groups started enjoying more tolerant responses from the historic mission churches in which they operated. “No Longer Orphans”: The Holy Spirit and the Presence of Christ Pneumatic Christianity has to do with encountering the Holy Spirit as the dynamic presence of Christ in the church. To encounter the Spirit, therefore, is to encounter Jesus Christ, and this calls for what I sometimes refer to in my Pentecostal Studies lectures as a “pneumatological Christology”. “Pneumatology” is the theology of the Holy Spirit and “Christology” is the theology of the life and work of Jesus Christ; “pneumatological Christology” therefore means an understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit that is informed by an appreciation of the person and work of Jesus Christ. One of the clearest statements on the personality of the Holy Spirit is found in John 14:18, where Jesus says: “I will not leave you as orphans but I will come to you.” The dictionary definition of an “orphan” is one who has been left without support, usually through the death of parents. In other words, Jesus was telling his disciples, “I will not leave you without support”. Jesus was speaking in the run up to his Passion, which culminated in the withdrawal of his physical presence from the world; the disciples would no longer have the benefit of his physical presence. “Before long the world will not see me anymore but you will see me …” was how Jesus put it to them (John 14:19). In effect the phase of God’s self-disclosure in which the Word became flesh that the disciples could physically touch and see, during which they could communicate and engage with Jesus Christ, was virtually coming to an end with his death on the cross. According to Jesus, however, that withdrawal of physical presence was not going to mark the end of his presence in the world, an idea he expressed in

28

PCG Synod Report 1966, 42.

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the statement, “I will not leave you as orphans but I will come to you”. But how did Jesus Christ return to the disciples? Jesus Christ fulfilled the promise to “return” to the disciples in the Presence of the Holy Spirit. In other words, a proper understanding of the Spirit must see the Spirit in terms of “God’s continuing Presence in the world”. He remains among those who believe in him to continue the ministry of God as revealed in Jesus Christ in very specific ways. First, the Holy Spirit is Comforter/Counsellor. Encapsulated in this understanding is the Holy Spirit as “God’s empowering presence”. A classic illustration is found in Exod. 33:1217, where Moses tells God that unless he has company, he will not continue the journey with Israel as leader. In the end, God gives Moses company, but not in the form of another human being. He gives Moses God’s Presence. That Presence is none other than the Holy Spirit.29 Second, the Holy Spirit is teacher. Jesus was recognized to teach with authority. If the Holy Spirit was going to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ, then it was logical to expect that he would take that which was of Christ and make it clearer to the people of Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes clear that which is true of Jesus Christ because he is “the Spirit of truth” (John 15:13). In other words, when the Holy Spirit is present, he never contradicts anything that Jesus has said or represents. Jesus represents God, for as he noted: “I am here not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” The Holy Spirit is therefore among us to exercise the will of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Third, the Holy Spirit reminds us of what Jesus has taught and represents. Anybody who needs a “reminder” has limitations. That the Spirit of God is supposed to remind his disciples of what Christ had taught is an indication that human beings have limitations. In Isaiah 49:15, the prophet could ask whether a mother’s tender care towards the child she had borne could cease. Yes, she may be forgetful, but God is different and so he says through the prophet, “I will not forget you”. Human beings forget, but God is beyond the logic of forgetfulness and therefore one of the works of the Spirit is to remind us of the truths of God. For this reason it is only in the Spirit that the lordship of Jesus Christ can be recognized (1 Cor. 12:13). It is only by the Spirit that we can confess Jesus as Lord, because the Spirit who inspires the confession is the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. How then does the Holy Spirit continue the work of Jesus Christ among his people? The answer can be summed up—in “ministry”. Jesus called it “greater works”. Greater works does not necessarily mean that the accomplishments of Christians will be greater than the accomplishments of Jesus. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends”, Jesus said. Jesus was God who laid down his life for us, so what can we do that would be greater than what Christ has already done? Jesus worked as God in human form, but we work as 29

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Strange Warmth: Wesleyan Perspectives on Ministry Renewal and Discipleship (Accra: Asempa Publishers, 2011).

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human beings with all the accompanying limitations of the human person. No matter how much a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, that person does not become divine; he or she remains human. It is in this light that we can comprehend the weaknesses, misinterpretations, and misapplications of Scripture, the moral failures and the like that show up in pneumatic or Pentecostal Christianity as discussed in this volume. If a human being could be so filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that by the enabling strength of the Spirit he or she could accomplish things that only God can accomplish in Christ, then that would amount to greater works. To perform greater works is to perform above human limitations—and that is possible only through the presence and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, who is the continuing Presence of Jesus Christ among those whom he has called. In the midst of these accomplishments we see human failure and weakness at work, indications that perfection comes only with the return of Christ. Conclusion: Spirit Renewal and Ministry I started these reflections on the rise of Pentecostalism not by narrating history, but by noting that the Pentecostal movement draws our attention to the importance of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church today. I am aware that there are all sorts of criticisms of the movement, but on the whole I take a very positive view of pneumatic Christianity. The impressive congregations some pneumatic Christian churches have built, the attractiveness to our upwardly mobile young people, the kinds of media ministries they have developed, and the religious menu they constantly roll out for the public tells me that unless the older churches raise their game, their future will not be that bright. In conclusion, Africa has learnt much from European theology, but Europe in turn may need to learn a few things from the types of immigrant charismatic communions working in their midst. In the words of WährischOblau, “instead of feeling threatened by the New Mission Churches and rejecting their criticism of ‘mainline’ Protestantism as fundamentalist and culturally irrelevant, the Protestant churches … could in grateful joy, perceive the work of the Holy Spirit outside the confines of their own organized pastoral activities, and recognize the genesis of new churches and congregations on European soil as ‘the grace of God’.”30

30

Claudia Währisch-Oblau, “We Shall be Fruitful in the Land: Pentecostal and Charismatic New Mission Churches in Europe”, in André Droogers, Cornelius van der Laan, and Wout van Laar (eds), Fruitful in this Land: Pluralism, Dialogue and Healing in Migrant Pentecostalism (Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Boekencentrum, 2006), 46.

Chapter 2

Signs of the Spirit: Worship as Experience

In this chapter, I reflect on corporate worship in African Pentecostal/charismatic experience. Cecil M. Robeck, himself a Pentecostal leader of the classical tradition, has defined worship as “what we do when we encounter God”.1 Worship as encounter with the Spirit of God in Christ informs the arguments of this chapter. These ideas emerge from worship experiences in Pentecostal churches and my personal observations, and in particular, from Pauline thought on the nature of worship as charismatic activity. Corporate worship, I will argue, is the most important single area in which the impact of Pentecostalism or pneumatic Christianity on expressions of the faith has been felt. Spirit-inspired worship is what makes pneumatic Christianity, including its African versions, unique. The chapter reflects on three of the most important ingredients of Pentecostal worship: the place of tongues, or glossolalia, the role of spiritual gifts, and finally, Pentecostal/charismatic corporate worship as encounter with a living God. Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity, as discussed in the previous chapter, provides a visible expression of the current exponential growth in African Christianity.2 One of its unique features, observable in most gatherings, is the very expressive, expectant, dynamic, exuberant, experiential, and interventionist nature of worship. In fact, it is through the blessings of its experiential worship that Pentecostalism has had its most significant influence on world Christianity. Cox, who speaks very highly of this innovative worship, understands well the experiential and expectant nature of Pentecostal worship. He writes, “[Pentecost] is about the experience of God, not about abstract religious ideas, and it depicts a God who does not remain aloof but reaches down through the power of the Spirit to touch human hearts in the midst of life’s turmoil”.3 Pentecostal worship is informed by its belief in the experience of the Holy Spirit and by the normalization of charismatic experiences in religious practice. These experiences include speaking in tongues, revelations, prophecies, healing, exorcism or deliverance, and other pneumatic phenomena that are interpreted as the descent of the Spirit upon worshippers. For Pentecostals, worship offers an auspicious context in which to encounter a 1

Cecil M. Robeck, Jr, The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Pentecostal Movement (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 131. 2 Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics. 3 Cox, Fire from Heaven, 5.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

living and transforming God. The prayers, music, word, and ministration that follow the message together offer the appropriate religious menu on which the people of God can draw in order to experience the signs of the Spirit and receive from a benevolent God who wants his children to prosper in the world. In contemporary African Pentecostalism, exclamations of “I receive it”, for instance, are popular spontaneous responses to proclamations of blessings that fall from the lips of the pastor or worship leader. Pentecostal corporate worship is the context for experiences of the joy of the Spirit, healing, prophetic messages about destinies, revelations concerning impending dangers, and deliverance from an array of negative emotions, burdens, and encumbrances, for example, about visas to travel abroad and the like. Those familiar with the focus of African traditional religions can readily appreciate that not only spirit possession is a critical part of indigenous worship, but also the ends to which rituals are directed—abundance, life, health, vitality, protection, and prosperity. These needs are similar to those with which people come to Pentecostal services. In other words, one way to understand the popularity of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity in Africa, as I argue in this chapter, is to look at how its understanding of worship connects very much with African traditional religiosity. My underlying argument, then, is that although Pentecostalism is a global movement, there are specific ways in which African Christians have innovatively appropriated its very experiential and versatile spirituality to serve contextual needs. For example, when Ghanaian Christians leave older historic mission churches for Pentecostal/charismatic churches, they do so partly because in the latter, they walk into new forms of worship that not only are considered to be more biblically based and contemporary, but also are familiar to indigenous religious traditions. Ghanaian musicologist J. H. Nketiah once submitted that in African traditional worship there is greater freedom of movement, spontaneity, and gaiety than one finds in most Christian churches, where the atmosphere is formal and where pews, altars, and pulpits restrict movement.4 There are attempts at liturgical modification in the older churches through the introduction of “praise and worship” segments into their otherwise liturgically rigid services, but on the whole, Pentecostalism definitely offers something more traditionally relevant in worship than the historic mission churches are willing to allow and accommodate. Understanding Worship Worship is the highest form of religious expression. It is the outflow of the encounter with divinity. As the functional aspect of religious belief, worship is 4

J. H. Nketia, “The Contribution of African Culture to Christian Worship” in Ram Desai (ed.), Christianity in African as Seen by Africans (Denver: Alan Swallow, 1962), 114.

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offered to that which for a person or religious community is ultimately real. We worship divine beings firstly for who they are and secondly for what they mean to us. In the Christian Scriptures worship implies offering homage or adoration to God, the source of being and the architect of human salvation. The first four books of the Old Testament Decalogue deal, for example, with the relationship to God and why cultic allegiance in terms of worship should be owed exclusively to him: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God … You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain … Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (Exod. 20:2-8)

Worship as a function of religion therefore takes place in the context of salvation/liberation, which bespeaks “the transformation of our human situation from a state of alienation from the true structure of reality to a radically better state in harmony with reality”.5 Thus we read in Exodus that following deliverance through the Red Sea, the children of Israel “sang this song to the LORD … ‘The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him” (Exod. 15:2). Elsewhere the Psalmist also worships God as the source of his being: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14). The aggregate meaning of all these submissions is that Yahweh must be worshipped not only because he is the creator God but also because he is the source of the salvation/liberation of his people (cf. Ps. 103). Walter Hollenweger, the doyen of academic study of Pentecostalism, places the matter in context when he notes that for the Pentecostal believer, the fundamental experience necessary to salvation is conversion, or regeneration.6 In effect, true worship in the Pentecostal sense has its foundation in the experience of the individual whose life, it is expected, will be presented to God as a daily “living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1). Those who gather for worship will be people with shared experiences in terms of their encounters with Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Under the new covenant, worship encapsulates the total response of the church and her members to God’s unrepeatable initiative in Jesus Christ. For, as the Apostle Paul would have it, it is in God that “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Thus worship is essentially the celebration of the acts of God in history as

5

John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 10. 6 Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 247.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

articulated in the Christ event.7 New Testament worship, judging from Pauline thought, was a participatory response to God’s goodness. “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly”, he writes, “as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Col. 3:16). All actions—whether verbal or non-verbal, public or private, ordered or spontaneous, symbolic or imaginative—through which Christians respond to God in Christ as the source of being, life, and existence thus constitute worship. And in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul places these activities within the gathering of the church to worship. He takes it for granted that the ingredients of worship will emanate spontaneously from the church’s experience of the Spirit of God among his people. Worship, as a continuous experience in the anointing of the Holy Spirit is, I argue, the heartbeat of Pentecostal Christianity. In this vein Allan Anderson identifies with Robert Anderson’s reference to Pentecostalism as “a movement concerned primarily with the experience of the Holy Spirit and the practice of spiritual gifts”.8 Anderson concludes that because Pentecostalism has its emphasis in “experience and spirituality”, any definition of the movement based solely on formal theology or doctrine may be inadequate.9 Worship in Pentecostal Experience Pentecostal worship, wherever it is found, comes with certain unique features, experiences, and practices. Robeck, whom we encountered at the beginning of this chapter, provides the following description of how corporate worship worked in the historical context of the Azusa Street Mission, which took place in Los Angeles between 1906 and 1915 and has virtually become a paradigm for contemporary forms of Pentecostal worship: The intensity of their encounter with God led many at the mission to respond in ways that before their encounter they could “only imagine.” It was a lifechanging moment, a transformative time that produced a range of responses. There were those who, “surrounded by His glory” at the mission, broke into dance. Others jumped, or stood with hands outstretched, or sang or shouted with all the gusto they could muster. Others were so full of awe when they encountered God that their knees buckled—they fell to the floor, “slain in the Spirit.” Some spoke, rapid-fire, in a tongue they did not know, while others were struck entirely speechless.10

7

Franklin M. Segler, Worship: Its Theology and Practice (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1967), 8. 8 Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14. 9 Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 14. 10 Robeck, Azusa Mission, 131.

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For a useful example of how “experiential worship” works in the practice of Pentecostalism at the corporate level, consider this personal observation from one of the contemporary Pentecostal churches burgeoning in Ghana. During my visit one Sunday, the Living Streams Ministries International was concluding a twenty-one-day prayer fast programme. Characteristically, the service started with spontaneous mass prayers. Many, including the leader of the session, prayed loudly in tongues. The service moved quickly into the segment referred to in Pentecostal liturgy as praise and worship. This element of the worship involved the singing of choruses accompanied by high amperage keyboard music with jazz instruments, hand clapping, and vigorous youthful dancing, or hallelujah-dancing as it is called. When the worship hit fever pitch, the tempo of the music was reduced. With appropriate gestures— hand raising, prostration, kneeling, weeping, and other symbolic and emotional expressions—people literally abandoned themselves in worship before God. The songs, a blend of locally composed and internationally known gospel-life tunes, affirmed God as holy, awesome, powerful, and majestic. The praise and worship session concluded with further extempore mass prayers, which were summarized by the leader. The choir was then invited to sing before the message, as the sermon is usually called. The chosen piece concluded with words, “When I behold your ways in my life I will praise you till the end of my days”. This refrain was repeated several times over until things suddenly got out of hand. Members of the choir went ecstatic. Some screamed and others wept uncontrollably. There were slayings in the Spirit too as worshippers fell onto the floor under the intoxicating influence of the anointing Spirit. Many members of the choir, overwhelmed by the palpable anointing at the meeting, simply cried and cried. The congregation too was infected. Worshippers praised the Lord in any way and language they felt led to do, but mostly in tongues. There was singing in the Spirit, that is, singing in tongues, from several locations in the room. When the commotion ended, the pastor mounted the podium and declared that the Lord’s visitation had been great and wonderful. Members shouted in approval. The experience, he continued, must be considered enough blessing from the Spirit of the Lord. That meant there was no need to preach. The pastor went on to ministration, that is, to pray for those who wanted to be healed of various ailments or needed God’s grace in any area of their lives. The blessing was pronounced after ministration and members departed. This experience at the Living Streams Ministry International, if it had occurred during nonPentecostal worship, would have appeared to be disorderly worship or disruptive conduct in church. For these Pentecostals, however, the commotion was a sign of something more profound—divine visitation in worship. Pastor Eric Kwapong is widely acknowledged in Ghana as a leading exponent of Pentecostal/charismatic worship. He was very instrumental in spreading the phenomenon of “praise and worship” within the new Pentecostal churches in Ghana and at one point in the late 1990s opened a school to teach

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

worship pastors how to lead effectively. Pastor Kwapong’s ministry as a leader of worship is described on the blurb of his book True Worship Experience as often characterized by “a strong manifestation of God’s tangible presence resulting in spiritual, emotional, physical healing and transformation.”11 In the book itself, Kwapong writes that anytime true worship takes place, something significant happens, for, as he explains, “worship touches the very heart of God”.12 Consequently, if we do not see significant things happening in our gatherings, then something must be wrong with our worship. “Significant things” in this context simply means manifestations of signs of the Spirit— prophecy, words of knowledge, visions, revelations, individual experience of general release from bondage, and the edification of God’s people. The thought that Pentecostalism is an experiential religion par excellence is also present in the writings of James Dunn. According to Dunn, the challenge that Pentecostalism poses to traditional church spirituality, liturgy, and ecclesiology can be summed up in two words: “experience” and “ministry”. Experience in this context refers to “the rediscovery that when we talk of the Spirit in Biblical terms we are talking also about the inspiring, transforming, and empowering experience of the grace of God in the life of the believer and of the church”. Pentecostal/charismatic renewal, Dunn explains, “has challenged us to recognize the importance of the emotional and non-rational in a fully integrated faith and life” and “to give place to these less structured and less predictable elements in our worship”.13 Dunn articulates the importance of experience as follows: [The] whole Pentecostal phenomenon has to be credited for reminding the traditional churches of the importance of this dimension in Christian faith and life. This is the undeniable force of the multitudinous personal testimonies on the subject—of the first Pentecostals, of Chilean Pentecostals today, of individuals who have become alive in the Spirit/spirit through the charismatic renewal while remaining within older ecclesiastical traditions, and so on. The dimension of personal experience within the totality of Christian discipleship is ignored to our common peril and impoverishment.14

Elsewhere Cox also captures a representative contemporary Pentecostal/charismatic worship situation for us when he describes his experiences with Pentecostals. In each church, he notes, the worship followed a specific pattern, which he later came to expect. This pattern involved the use of high amperage music, voluble praise, bodily movement including clapping and

11

Eric Kwapong, True Worship Experience: Entering into the Presence of God (Lanham, MD: Pneuma Life Publishing, 2001). 12 Kwapong, True Worship Experience, xiv. 13 Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 81. 14 James D. G. Dunn, “Born Again: Baptism and the Spirit—A Protestant Response”, in Jürgen Moltmann and Karl-Josef Kushel (eds), Concilium: Pentecostal Movements as an Ecumenical Challenge (London: SCM Press, 1996), 110.

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swaying, personal testimonies, sometimes prayers “in the Spirit”, periods of intense prayer for healing, and a parting song.15 Pentecostal Worship and Primal Spirituality Hollenweger observes that Pentecostalism has its roots in Black Religion. He concludes from this that this stream of Christianity has been doing well in places like Africa because the oral nature of Pentecostal theology is consistent with primal piety. This oral quality, according to Hollenweger, is located in the orality of liturgy, the narrativity of theology and witness, and maximum participation at the levels of reflection, prayer, and decision-making, which generates a reconciliatory form of community. Additionally, he recognises the inclusion of dreams and visions in personal and public forms of worship, where they function as a kind of “oral icon” for the individual and the community. and an understanding of the body-mind relationship that is informed by experiences of correspondence between body and mind.16 In Fire from Heaven Cox also takes up the matter of the affinity between Pentecostalism and primal piety. Primal piety, according to Cox, “touches on the resurgence in Pentecostalism of trance, vision, healing, dreams, dance, and other archetypal religious expressions”.17 Yet Pentecostalism in Africa is generally very hostile to African traditional religions. In other words, there may be something more significant at work than has been captured by Hollenweger and Cox. The presence of archetypal religious expressions in Pentecostal worship in Africa in particular is an indication that what Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako has perceptively termed “primal imagination” transcends primal religions. As I have tried to point out with regard to traditional spirit-possession in Africa, wherever it is found on the continent, Pentecostalism functions within a certain worldview that resonates with indigenous religiosity. In urban Africa, traditional religions as overt religious forms may be receding under pressure from the Christian advance, but their values, beliefs, and realities have found new life of their own in the way Pentecostal religion, or even indigenous Christianity in general, is practised. Bediako makes this point clear, using as illustrations the powerful healing and deliverance ministries of Prophet William Wade Harris and former Roman Catholic archbishop of Lusaka Emmanuel Milingo. He demonstrates forcefully how these two African charismatic persons developed their theological ideas on healing, exorcism, and pastoral care “consciously in relation to the thoughtpatterns, perceptions of reality and the concepts of identity and community

15

Cox, Fire from Heaven, xvi. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 18. 17 Cox, Fire from Heaven, 82. 16

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

which prevail within the primal worldview of African societies”.18 These primal modes of religious expressions are more pronounced in non-literate traditional cultures such as those of Africa. In these cultures, theology is located in the everyday activities of life because there are no distinctions between sacred and secular realities. On how this is reflected in Pentecostal worship, I refer once more to the words of Hollenweger: [The] most important element of an oral worship is the active participation of every member in the congregation, even if this amounts to several thousand people dancing, singing, praying individually and collectively, playing all kinds of instruments … and appreciating or judging the sermon with inspiring shouts or critical remarks and questions … The Pentecostals thus demonstrate that the alternative to a written liturgy is not chaos, but a flexible oral tradition, which allows for variations with the framework of the whole liturgical structure …19

The key aims of such worship, as outlined in the Pauline epistles, are to ensure participatory celebration that strengthens or builds up God’s people. In other words, worship, as Paul consistently argues, must be participatory, and it must aim at edifying the saints, especially in the use of pneumatic phenomena. Music, including spontaneous singing, is a key component of the action. The pneumatic manifestations of Pentecostal worship are popularly referred to as performances of the Spirit. These performances are understood to stand in historic continuity with the experiences of the early church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. For Pentecostals, the Holy Spirit not only possesses people during corporate worship but also saturates the atmosphere with his presence. Reference has already been made to the importance of the spirit world to African traditional worship. Spirit possession is critical in this endeavour, for during African festival celebrations, possession by spirits constitutes the highest point for participants. The important ingredients of Pentecostal worship—praise, adoration, blessing, and thanksgiving of God in spontaneous singing and voluble prayer in words and tongues accompanied by appropriate gestures—thus easily strike responsive cords in the African religious imagination. Indeed, going by the admonitions of Paul, worship in the early church seems to have consisted of the singing of hymns, ministry of the word, relating of divine revelations, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, revealing of words of knowledge, and prophesying (1 Cor. 14:26-39). In Fire from Heaven Cox submits, and rightly so, that Pentecostalism is the most experiential branch of Christianity. It is, Cox writes, “a protest against ‘man-made creeds’ and the ‘coldness’ of traditional worship”. From its beginnings in the Acts of Apostles 18

Kwame Bediako, “The Primal Imagination and the Opportunity for a New Theological Idiom”, in Kwame Bediako, Jesus in Africa: The Christian Gospel in Africa History and Experience (Yaoundé and Akropong-Akwapim: Editions Clé and Regnum Africa, 2000), 86. 19 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 271.

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to wherever it can be found in contemporary African societies, Pentecostalism by its experiential and participatory style of worship comes across as a protest movement against dry denominationalism. While the beliefs of historic mission churches may be embodied in codified creeds, formal theological systems, icons, and ordered liturgical structures, those of Pentecostalism are usually “embedded in testimonies, ecstatic speech, and bodily movement”.20 It is pertinent to point out though, as Bediako helps us to appreciate, that “the primal imagination can surface anywhere”, bringing its own “peculiar gifts” to the shaping of Christian affirmation.21 This process, as I noted in the first chapter, is already underway in the historic mission churches. They have been pressured into different forms of “pentecostalization” in order to ensure their own survival and relevance in modern Christian Africa. Worship and Religious Innovation in Africa Religious innovation in Christian Africa has always put emphasis on worship that is meaningful and relevant. In the African context worship is also an engagement with the supernatural world of inanimate beings and ancestors. When the older African initiated churches (AICs) emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, they were affirmed not only for their ability to incorporate charismatic renewal phenomena into their worship but also for engaging constructively with African ways of being religious. Discerning this resonance between traditional religions and indigenous Christianity, Cox went as far as to describe the AICs as the “African expression of the worldwide Pentecostal movement”.22 The Pentecostal style of worship found in the AICs was so infectious and African in its orientation that it put pressure on historic mission denominations to undertake liturgical reforms in order to stay relevant. These attempts at reforming worship in the older churches have become even more imperative with the rise of contemporary Pentecostalism. The very designation “Spiritual churches”, used to refer to Ghana’s version of the AICs, is, according to Christian Baëta, “intended to signify that in their worship, the groups concerned engage in various activities which (by their own assertion) are either meant to invoke the Holy Spirit of God, or are interpreted as signs of his descent upon the worshippers”. What takes place following “the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the worshippers” is evident in their mode of worship: These activities and “signs” include rhythmic swaying of the body, usually with stamping, to repetitious music … hand-clappings, ejaculations, poignant cries and prayers, dancing, leaping, and various motor reactions expressive of intense religious emotion; prophesyings, “speaking with tongues”, falling into trances, 20

Cox, Fire from Heaven, 14–15. Bediako, Jesus in Africa, 89, 95. 22 Cox, Fire from Heaven, 246. 21

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity relating dreams and visions, and “witnessing”, i.e. recounting publicly one’s own experience of miraculous redemption.23

In Pentecostal worship it is characteristic to have a certain democratization of charisma because under the influence of the Spirit all people can enjoy full participation. Whatever else can be said about them, Russell Spittler writes, Pentecostal/charismatic movements have democratized access to the sacred. He explains that this process results from the value placed on that intensely personal religious experience called “baptism of the Holy Spirit”.24 The Pauline churches, some New Testament scholars agree, were charismatic in the sense that a dynamic presence of the Spirit was manifested in their gatherings.25 This dynamism, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is what we encounter today in the worship lives of African Pentecostal/charismatic churches. Glossolalia in Worship Glossolalia is the Spirit-inspired utterance that Pentecostals believe must accompany the baptism in the Holy Spirit following conversion. Speaking in tongues, as it is popularly called, plays a very democratizing role in prayer and worship. It was evident from the worship service at the Living Streams Ministry International that the gift of tongues allows people to pray in what Hollenweger calls “non-rational meditative language” that is not mediated.26 The arguments over whether speaking in tongues is the only evidence of Spirit baptism do not concern us here.27 Aspects of the experience of glossolalia have a direct bearing on worship. First, tongues constitute unintelligible speech that is basically directed toward God (1 Cor. 14:2, 14-15, 28). Second, although Paul does not forbid the use of tongues in the assembly, he does not encourage its use as a form of public prayer. What Paul makes clear, though, is that spontaneous prophecy could be delivered in tongues and interpreted in the context of corporate worship. Third, Paul held tongues speaking in the highest esteem, as a means of communicating with God. To that end, his reference to

23

Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana, 1. Russell P. Spittler, “Corinthian Spirituality: How a Flawed Anthropology Imperils Authentic Christian Existence”, in Edith L. Blumhofer, Russel Spittler, and Grant A Wacker (eds), Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 6. 25 Gordon D. Fee, Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 108. 26 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 272. 27 For these matters see William W. Menzies and Robert P. Menzies, Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000). 24

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27

“inarticulate groaning too deep for words” in Rom. 8:26-27 must be understood as referring primarily to glossolalia.28 Cox has captured the relevance of glossolalia as a distinctive mode of religious expression for Pentecostal worship: Not only is the ultimate mystery indescribable and its ways unsearchable. Not only is the infinite God unapproachable in mere human language. The even deeper insight of ecstatic utterance is that, despite all this, human beings can nonetheless speak to God because God makes such speech possible. Prayer itself is an act of grace. We are unable to pray, but the Spirit “maketh intercession.” Our corrupt and inadequate language is transformed by God’s love into the tongues of angels … the “excruciating pain” of linguistic atrophy, desiccation, and banality is transfigured, if only momentarily and episodically, into free flowing praise. No wonder the people one sees and hears “praying in the Spirit” in Pentecostal congregations and elsewhere frequently appear so joyful.29

Some of my own most profound moments in Pentecostal worship have occurred when people who possess that grace have sung in tongues. In my experience, singing in the spirit during worship, which invariably means singing in tongues, can lift both the singer and the listeners to another level of spiritual experience. It is an overwhelming and edifying experience that makes the presence of God palpable when it occurs during worship. The phenomenon changes the atmosphere of worship to the extent that the very presence of the living God becomes real. Tom Smail describes the phenomenon of singing in the Spirit in the context of worship as a form of collective religious experience: Singing in the Spirit by-passes the rational faculties; it reminds us that alongside the praise of the renewed mind there is the praise of the renewed heart that, when it is being evoked by the Spirit, expresses not simply our superficial feelings, but engages the deep primal emotions at the hidden center of our being in our self-offering to the living God. Such praises is direct, spontaneous and simple. It escapes from a complicated conceptuality and a second dependence on such liturgical resources as prayer-books and hymn-books, and responds in immediacy and freedom to the contact with the living Lord that the Spirit makes possible and, in joyous serenity, rejoices and mediates upon his poured-out grace and his revealed glory.30

Smail’s description of speaking in tongues in fact reiterates Paul in 1 Cor. 14:14, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.” The last expression of the verse, “unfruitful”, is a word that as Ralph Martin explains, “implies that the human intellect in this kind of ecstatic 28 This point has been forcefully argued by Frank D. Macchia, “Sighs too Deep for Words: Toward a Theology of Glossolalia”, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 1 (1992), 47–73. 29 Cox, Fire from Heaven, 96. 30 Tom Smail, “In Spirit and in Truth: Reflections on Charismatic Worship”, in Tom Smail, Andrew Walker, and Nigel Wright, Charismatic Renewal (London: SPCK, 1995), 109–110.

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praying lies dormant, contributing nothing to the process of articulating thoughts into words … It suggests an enraptured fellowship with God when the human spirit is in such deep, hidden communion with the divine Spirit that ‘words’—at best broken utterances of our secret selves—are formed by a spiritual upsurge requiring no mental effort.”31 I am not oblivious to the fact that in the assembly of the church or of God’s people, rational prayer is expected to take precedence over irrational utterances. The restriction of tongues to private prayer by Paul means that for him “worship takes on its true character when it is corporate, or at least expressed in a way that is related to the growth and enrichment of the entire body of Christ”.32 As I have sought to argue, however, speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, still has a place in worship. It enables individuals so empowered with that grace to “speak mysteries” unto God. When it occurs as a means of relating prophecy during worship, it also allows God to communicate to his people. Returning to Bediako’s argument that the primal imagination could surface anywhere, it is pertinent to point out that at the courts of African traditional priests, communication to supplicants actually takes place in similarly unintelligible speech. In Akan priesthood, shrine priests usually communicate in the language of the gods and it is left to the osofo, or shrine assistant, to translate what Nana, the deity, is saying to the supplicant through the priest or priestess. So in African traditions such communication from the supernatural realm is taken seriously because it is the realm of power, destiny, and transparency. In the Pentecostal Christian context, that God can grant one person utterance to prophesy in tongues during worship and another person the grace to interpret is profound testament to the fact that God really is immanent when it comes to Christian worship. This immanence of God is further testimony to worship as the context for experiencing the signs of the Spirit. It is a fairly common occurrence in Ghanaian Pentecostal worship that leaders and members pray and prophesy in tongues especially in very dire and desperate situations, when answers are needed to make tough choices or God’s intervention is needed for the solution to crises. Charismata Pneumatika in Worship Closely related to the significance of tongues in Christian worship is the use of what Paul describes as charismata pneumatika, graces of the Spirit. When Paul refers to spiritual gifts, he is talking about gifts of grace used in ministry that come from God the Holy Spirit. Most notable in all the evidence on worship in the Pauline churches available to us is the common denominator of the 31

Ralph P. Martin, “Aspects of Worship in 1 Corinthians 14:1-25”, in Robeck (ed.), Charismatic Experiences, 74. 32 Martin, “Aspects of Worship in 1 Corinthians 14:1-25”, 74.

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presence and power of the Holy Spirit as the one who inspires what takes place. In 1 Cor. 12-14 Paul refers to all the various activities discussed there as given by the Holy Spirit. So, for example, the Holy Spirit dispenses the gifts of the Spirit as he wills (12:11); those who speak in tongues also utter mysteries by the Spirit (14:2); speaking of his personal experience Paul prays and sings with his Spirit. It is evident from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians that it is expected that the church as the gathered people of God will be charismatic. The expression “charismata” comes from Paul’s writings, and he puts the emphasis on the divine character of the gifts. Thus in 1 Cor. 14:1-12, for instance, he highlights the place of prophecy in Christian worship. Prophecy, according to Ralph Martin, is “a spirit-gift that aims to bring God’s truth to bear on human lives with a view to their understanding and growth”. Unlike speaking in tongues, which is essentially communion of an individual with God, the prophetic ministry is one that “builds up, and exhorts, and comforts”.33 When the church meets for worship, the Spirit is expected to manifest his presence through the phenomena that I cast as “signs of the Spirit” in the title of this chapter. In Pentecostal/charismatic services participants worship in expectation. This distinctive feature of Pentecostal worship can be explained in light of the integration of charismatic experiences into Christian gatherings. The hallmark of excellent gifts according to Paul is the edification of the congregation. The creation of space for the use of spiritual gifts enables spontaneity in worship and encourages people to be freely functional in their gifts of grace to bless and edify fellow worshippers. This integration of spiritual gifts in worship also raises the issue of participation. In the description that Paul gives of worship in 1 Cor. 14:26, there appears to have been a great deal of Spirit-led spontaneity on the part of the whole community.34 The worship activities described by Paul, according to Gordon Fee, had both vertical and horizontal implications because they were directed towards God on the one hand and towards the community on the other. In Fee’s words: “prayer represents speech that is directed toward God and prophecy represents speech directed toward the community. Similarly, the singing in Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:18-20 involves ‘teaching and admonishing one another’ while also offering thanksgiving to God.”35 Participation in worship is a participation in ministry because the essence of ministry is to be open to the Holy Spirit. Those who are open to the Spirit then become mediums of his grace to others. When worship as ministry touches others, they are always edified and the purpose of gathering as God’s people is also fulfilled. The elements of Pentecostal worship we have discussed are not alien to the primal imagination. It is not being suggested that African Pentecostals 33

Martin, “Aspects of Worship in 1 Corinthians 14:1-25”, 72. Gordon D. Fee, “The Holy Spirit and Worship in the Pauline Churches”, in Gordon D. Fee, Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 95. 35 Fee, Listening to the Spirit, 96. 34

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deliberately seek to entertain elements from traditional piety in their styles and forms of worship. However, the specific African religious contexts within which these churches function and their innovative approaches to worship reveal deep affinities wth primal ways of being religious. As Kwesi Dickson points out with particular reference to music in traditional religion, “worship would have much less meaning if it did not center round a significant amount of the kind of stirring music that generates religious emotion”.36 In traditional religion, as in Pentecostalism today, drums, music and dance work together to invoke the presence of the supernatural realm into the natural. Thus drumming, dancing, “speaking in strange tongues”, prophesying, and other such manifestations of exuberance in worship are all critical features that are as much a part of Pentecostalism as they have always been of traditional African religious festivals. Worship as Encountering God Paul Tillich indicted Protestantism for replacing ecstatic experiences in religion with doctrinal and moral structure.37 Even before Tillich, Rudolf Otto in his classic work The Idea of the Holy had bemoaned the fact that orthodox Christianity had not been able to keep the non-rational element in religion alive. According to Otto, orthodox Christianity had failed to recognize the value of the non-rational dimensions of religion and by this failure “gave to the idea of God a one-sidedly intellectualistic and rationalistic interpretation”.38 One of the biggest problems that African Pentecostals have had with historic mission Christianity is the virtual emptiness of the latter’s worship. Writing as a leader of Pentecostal worship services, Pastor Kwapong alludes to this character when he notes that worship that is done because of tradition and modelled on liturgical formulae can be hypocritical, ritualistic, empty, and devoid of God’s true presence.39 Pentecostal worship is about encountering God. As a result of its orientation towards experiencing the immediacy of God’s presence and manifestations of pneumatic phenomena, Pentecostal/charismatic worship is very therapeutic. Through its process of ministration, experiences of healing, for example, are mediated to worshippers through the laying on of hands. Usually this element of the worship will follow the message of the day, in order to emphasize that the message that is preached works. In a context where the search for health is

36

Kwesi A. Dickson, Theology in Africa (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984), 111. 37 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–63), 3:117. 38 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923), 3. 39 Kwapong, True Worship Experience, 3.

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a deeply religious issue, healing constitutes one of the most important ministries that draw people into Pentecostalism. Worship in the African traditional religious context is built around an ardent desire to communicate with and experience the felt presence of the supernatural. Its key emphases are spirit possession, spontaneity, and inspiredutterances prophetic utterances. When a deity possesses a person in Akan religious traditions what follows is an intimate relationship between possessor and the possessed. The Akan traditional priest—whether male or female— comes into that office through an involuntary act of possession by a deity. Subsequently the priest or priestess, who is considered quintessentially the wife of the deity, engages in cultic dance and in the process communicates the mind of the spirit to the worshippers. African religions pay a great deal of attention to the search for divine intervention in a precarious environment of perilous spirits and witches. Through the acts of possession and consultation the needs of the people are presented to the deity for action. The following that religions enjoy in African societies such as Ghana therefore depends very often on the particular religion’s ability to deal with the evil forces and powers with which people believe they contend on a daily basis. On that score, Pentecostalism has proven popular in Africa because by integrating healing and exorcism into worship through ministration, it provides ritual contexts within which people may experience God’s presence and power in forceful and demonstrable ways. Music plays a critical role in this therapeutic and edifying process of Pentecostal/charismatic worship. In many of the local Pentecostal/charismatic choruses the Holy Spirit, Sunsum Kronkron, comes to work among his people when they gather for worship. In one song he brings ayaresa (healing), ogyee (deliverance), and enuonyam (glory) to those who wait upon him. In another locally composed Pentecostal chorus, the Holy Spirit, in keeping with biblical imagery, is ogya (fire), mframa (wind), and adom nsu (water of life): as fire he purifies, as wind he fills, and as living water he restores life to dry deserts and lands suffering from drought. Pentecostals worship in expectation that in the midst of the singing and prayer the Holy Spirit will visit and that people will encounter his presence as he does so. It is a mode of religious expression that appeals very much to African religious sensibilities because of its experiential and therapeutic nature. In the words of Hollenweger, “it should be clear to the theologian that the place where wholeness and healing may be expected … is the Christian community. Health and sickness are not private; they belong to the realm of public liturgy and for those who need help.”40 Pentecostalization through Worship in Africa One of the key achievements of Pentecostal/charismatic worship is its influence on historic mission church modes of worship. Let me illustrate the point by 40

Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 229.

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returning to the response of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) to the rise of the Pentecostal renewal phenomena in Ghanaian Christianity. As I noted in the previous chapter, the Synod of the PCG meeting at Akropong-Akwapim in August/September 1965 appointed a committee to look into why large numbers of people were leaving the PCG to either join Spiritual churches or attend the meetings of prophets and healers. After some introspection, the committee came to the conclusion that “a large number [of those from the PCG who join the Spiritual churches] do so because “they are disappointed with their former churches. They complain that the worship there is dull, that is, there is no ‘spiritual power … and that there is not sufficient prayer in the old churches. They therefore seek a younger, more zealous and more ‘spiritual’ fellowship.” The committee then goes on to draw a distinction between PCG worship and Spiritual church worship: The worship [of the Spiritual church] is appealing, and people take an active part in it and obviously enjoy it. Sermons are usually interrupted by hymns and hallelujah, or Amen shouts. The service is enriched by dancing, clapping of hands and the use of rhythmic instruments like hand drum, banjo and cymbals. The quality of their church-music and preaching may be poorer than in our church, but is much more appreciated by people who can enjoy it for hours.41

In addition to the observations above, the PCG committee referred to Bible teaching, healing, and miracles that were present in indigenous Pentecostalism that was proving attractive. In indigenous Pentecostal worship, the report noted, a number of signs are shown in order to demonstrate to everybody that the Holy Spirit is present and working through the leader and that they too could receive the Holy Spirit, through the assistance of this leader. The report was very critical of the Spiritual churches, accusing them of holding services that were too emotional and peddled false prophecies. In spite of the criticisms, the PCG tasked itself to try and improve its worship, Bible study, and prayer life in order to retain its membership. This deliberate integration and tolerance of pneumatic phenomena in historic mission Christianity is what has led to the virtual pentecostalization of worship in the historic mission denominations in Ghana today. To see the practical results let us consider the example of the Grace Presbyterian Church at Akropong-Akwapim in Ghana. The place where Basel Mission work took off early in the nineteenth century, Akropong-Akwapim is the “religious capital” of the PCG. There are two PCG congregations here, the original Christ Church and the newer and more charismatic Grace Presbyterian Church. The congregation of Christ Church has to a large extent maintained its traditional Presbyterian outlook, but the lay leader of the Grace congregation, catechist Aboa Offei, has literally turned the church into a charismatic church. Here worship is typically Pentecostal and there is provision for healing,

41

PCG Synod Report 1966, 42.

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deliverance, and other interventionist procedures usually found in Pentecostal settings. The church has become very popular and opened up to nonPresbyterians also. That such religious innovation is allowed to proceed unhindered by the Presbyterian Church authorities at Akropong-Akwapim, of all places, is a sure indication of the extent to which historic mission congregations in Ghana have opened up their services to the Pentecostal experience. This step, it must be added, has not been taken at the expense of their Presbyterian religious identity. Conclusion In Ecstatic Religion, I. M. Lewis writes that “belief, ritual, and spiritual experience are the cornerstones of religion and the greatest of them ... is spiritual experience”.42 The distinctive style of Pentecostal/charismatic worship, with its emphases on experience, introduces a non-negotiable element into Christian worship. As I have argued in this chapter, it is precisely because of its charismatic nature that Pentecostal worship has been a key factor in the phenomenal expansion of Christianity on the African continent. The expression “the anointing was great” is a saying commonly used by Pentecostals to describe worship situations in which God is felt to have visited his people in tangible ways. In Pentecostal thought, then, to worship is to respond to the Holy Spirit as God’s inspiring, transforming, assuring, healing, and empowering presence. Indeed Pentecostal/charismatic renewal movements and churches constitute a critique to the staid and over-formalized liturgical forms of worship found in historic mission denominations. In the new type of pneumatic Christianity burgeoning in Africa, God has raised a new breed of churches that are pointing the way to the recovery of worship as the context for encountering a living God who truly inhabits the praise of his people.

42 I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession (3rd ed.; London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 1.

Chapter 3

Jericho Hour: Prayer as Theological Interventionist Strategy

This chapter examines contemporary Pentecostal understandings and practices of prayer as means of religious interaction between the natural and supernatural realms. In Pentecostalism we are dealing with a stream of Christianity that believes very much in the power of the spoken word, and prayer must be positive, bold, and decisive to be effective. Unlike in historic mission church liturgy, in the Pentecostal church, the Christian approaches God’s throne with authority and not as a sinner seeking pardon and pleading for crumbs. Prayer is understood to have the power to stir the supernatural by decimating the powers of evil and releasing the anointing of the Spirit. Thus in Pentecostal thought, prayer is an activity inspired primarily by a certain understanding of the workings of the Holy Spirit as the believer’s source of empowerment. Bishop Charles Agyin-Asare of Ghana is founder of the Word Miracle Church International and is widely acknowledged for his ministry of miracles. He begins his book Power in Prayer with reference to the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer: Pray without ceasing is the clarion call of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is the breath of the Christian. Everybody needs to inhale and exhale. In the natural realm, we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. In the same way, we inhale oxygen in the spiritual realm and exhale spiritual carbon dioxide. The more you give and minister in the things of God, and the more you keep going as a Christian you exhale and if you are going to keep alive in the realm of the Spirit it is very important that you exhale. As God is a giver, he does not inhale, He always exhales. He exhales his power and His breath to us and as we pray we inhale God’s breath.1

The breath of God is synonymous with the Spirit of God, so the point made by Agyin-Asare is that in prayer the Spirit of God is inhaled so that one can exhale power. In the Acts of the Apostles the Spirit of Pentecost, as James Dunn notes, is pre-eminently the prophetic Spirit, the inspirer of speech, and for Pentecostals this speech includes the verbalization of prayer.2

1

Charles Agyin-Asare, Power in Prayer: Taking your Blessing by Force (Hoornaar, Netherlands: His Printing, 2001), 7. 2 James D. G. Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit: Pneumatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 213–14.

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One way in which Pentecostals exhale this power is by praying in tongues, and as we shall see in the course of this chapter, within African Pentecostalism it is widely believed that tongues are very powerful in dealing with crisis situations. Pentecostal prayer must be understood within a range of settings, in particular live worship, prayer vigils, revival services, and evangelistic crusades. A number of weekday prayer services and all-night vigils have also developed within African Pentecostal churches, in a bid to create ritual spaces for supernatural attention. Additionally, the sick and troubled seek prayerful interventions at healing camps and centres where people may be quarantined for various lengths of time according to their needs. With the increasing use of communications media in Pentecostal churches, prayer has also been commercialized. Recorded prayers are sold for public consumption on compact disc and in other such forms, to be played at home, in cars, and in shops. The people “inhale” the promises of God as they listen to these prayers and appropriate for their circumstances those aspects that cast aspersions on their enemies. Pentecostal Prayer Sessions: Jericho Hour Jericho Hour is the name of a weekly prayer service instituted by Bishop James Saah of the Action Chapel International (ACI), Accra, Ghana, in 1998. ACI is also the premier contemporary or charismatic Pentecostal church in Ghana, and Jericho Hour takes place in its 5,000-capacity Prayer Cathedral. On the average about 3000 to 4000 people from all walks of life attend Jericho Hour. The meetings are led by either ACI pastors or invited guests, who are mostly in prophetic ministry. The founder of ACI was Archbishop Nicholas DuncanWilliams, whose initiative in establishing such a church in 1979 made him the pioneer of contemporary Pentecostalism in Ghana. His status is generally acknowledged not just in his self-acquired title archbishop, but also by his popular accolade within charismatic Christian circles, the Paapa. DuncanWilliams’s influence as a charismatic archbishop goes beyond Ghana, because of his extensive media ministry and worldwide peregrinations. In early 1998, when Jericho Hour began, Saah was in effect acting as the resident bishop of ACI and as he explains on occasion, he felt God asking him to establish a “prophetic prayer service” where “giant problems would receive giant solutions”. To this day this is how the meeting has been described—“a place where giant solutions await your giant problems”. Jericho Hour started in 1998with fewer than thirty people, but by 2000 the meeting was attracting the huge numbers we are witnessing today. I visit Jericho Hour regularly. It has been so successful in terms of patronage and testimonies that many other churches, including some historic mission churches, have established similar weekday prayer services. Familiar names for the new prayer services include Hour of Divine Visitation, Hour of Grace, Hour of Divine Intervention, Hour of Divine Breakthrough, Hour of Restoration, Hour of Prophetic Unction, and

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others of this ilk. So far, none of these has matched Jericho Hour in terms of either patronage or popularity. The aggregate meaning and reasoning behind the names of these new prayer services is best summed up in the designation of the original service: Jericho Hour. The name comes from Joshua 6, where God instructed Israel under Joshua to march round the city of Jericho thirteen times—once a day for six days and seven times on the seventh day—and see the city fall at the shout of the crowd on the last day. The relevant portions of the text read: On the seventh day they rose early, at dawn, and marched round the city in the same manner seven times. It was only on that day that they marched round the city seven times. And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city” … So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it. (Josh. 6:15-16, 20)

In the modern day re-enactment, the walls of Jericho are those problems— whether physical or spiritual—that prevent people from breaking through in life. Jericho Hour is the place to shout, blow a trumpet, trample on the enemy, or curse your problems. Participants determine their own postures in prayer, although most people stand throughout the three-hour meeting. Jericho Hour is a place of spiritual warfare, where people wrestle with God for his blessing and wrestle with their enemies for their conquest. Agyin-Asare of Word Miracle Church International, who runs a similar service called Perez Dome on Wednesday mornings in his cathedral, describes these forms of prayer in terms of “wrestling”. With reference to Eph. 6:12 he explains: “This wresting is fiercer and more dangerous than the World Wrestling Federation matches in America because here you are dealing with unseen beings, more powerful than human beings … it is not everything that is happening around you that is physical. The devil wants you to believe the problem is caused by those around you but the root cause can be dealt with by prayer.”3 What happens at Jericho Hour qualifies as wrestling of a religious kind. People pray punching the air, standing the feet, rolling on the floor, screaming, blowing whistles, running around, shouting, kicking, and hooting at their enemies. Participants are constantly led to invoke the fire of God upon those standing in their way to progress. Those gifted to do so pray in tongues, others pray in any way and manner that they deem could crumble the “Jericho walls” that enemies have erected in their lives and endeavours. Jericho Hour can be extremely noisy. Noise levels are deliberately increased through the leaders’ use of microphones and by the shaking of cymbals and continuous striking of keyboard notes. All these are permissible because, after all, Jericho Hour is named after an event that involved the blowing of trumpets 3

Agyin-Asare, Power in Prayer, 16.

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and shouting as Israel marched round the city. The sessions begin slowly at 9:00 am. The Prayer Cathedral usually fills up around 10:00 am and, as noted, participants are mostly on their feet until proceedings end with an offering and blessing around noon. The leaders intermittently break into the mass praying sessions to draw attention to some important passage in Scripture, announce a vision, or raise a song. Ebenezer Obadare and Wale Adebanwi have drawn attention to the role that religion plays in African transnational migration prior to actual migration.4 In the words of Ogbu Kalu: “The journey begins with prayers in Pentecostal churches and prayer camps for travel visas, to prayers in immigrant churches for everyday survival needs such as working permits, employment and money for rent mortgage, health insurance, and other bills.”5 Our interest is in the first observation, that the journey begins with prayers in Pentecostal churches. In one Jericho Hour session we had to pause in our praying because there had been a vision of angels distributing airline tickets, fifteen from KLM and fifteen from British Airways. With so many young Ghanaians made to believe through contemporary Pentecostal discourse that their destinies of prosperity lie in international migration, there was much commotion in the Prayer Cathedral as people jumped in the air grabbing those imaginary angelic tickets with the words “I receive it”, “I receive it”, “I receive it” repeated with every jump. The God of the contemporary Pentecostal imagination has become, among other things, a “visa God”, and at Jericho Hour the prayers for opportunities to travel occur in the same breath as those asking for marriage, business, health, and employment. The issues prayed on are many and varied, but in my years of observation, it seems to me that the single most important focus is on inveighing against one’s enemies, that the power of God might flow into human endeavours. Thus the prayers are mostly imprecatory. Prayer and Pentecostal Experiential Spirituality Studying prayer allows one to understand Pentecostal Christianity through its major strength, its focus on the experiential aspects of religion. In his foreword to Pentecostals after a Century, Harvey Cox refers to the Pentecostal movement as one that “relies on the direct experience of the Divine Spirit rather than archaic creeds and stately rituals”.6 Cox had made this point made earlier also, in his work Fire from Heaven, in which he argues that 4

Ebenezer Obadare and Wale Adebanwi, “The Visa God: Would-be Migrants and the Instrumentalization of Religion”, in Afe Adogame and James V. Spickard (eds), Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New Africa Diaspora (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 31–48. 5 Ogbu U. Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 282. 6 Harvey Cox, “Foreword”, in Anderson and Hollenweger (eds), Pentecostals after a Century, 7.

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Pentecostalism is “reshaping Christian spirituality” in the twenty-first century.7 I understand Pentecostals and charismatics to possess the same experiential spirituality. John Goldingay has placed this spirituality, which I term experiential, within the historical context of the rise of charismatic movements in the West: It has been suggested that its rise came at a time in the 1960s when evangelicalism had become intellectualist with its stress on right doctrine and an appeal to the mind. It had thus become vulnerable to a takeover by a movement which emphasized experience of God and the emotions, or had become in need of the counterbalance of such an emphasis.8

Historically the situation in Africa has not been any different. Whereas in evangelical Christianity it became customary to warn people against the expression of feelings and emotions in worship, Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity chose a different path with its free expressions of noise, tears, smiles, and laughter in God’s presence. Pentecostalism, like the various charismatic movements that are its progeny, generally affirms that God made us not just thinking but also feeling and acting beings, “created to love God with mind, heart and life”.9 Prayer is one area in which this difference between Pentecostalism and its older compatriots is evident. In the older liturgical traditions, prayer is read and God is approached through the voices of others in written prayers. The repetition of the Lord’s Prayer that summarizes liturgical prayer is, for example, never part of any Pentecostal service. Quoting Agyin-Asare: When Jesus taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, He was not teaching them a prayer to be recited by rote, as that will only take them two minutes or less to complete. If he expected that they would pray all night long as He often did, then he could not teach them a prayer that would last only two minutes or less. Instead, Jesus was showing them the pattern of prayer they were to follow.10

Apostle Michael Ntumy is the former chairman of the Church of Pentecost (CoP), the single largest Protestant denomination in Ghana. He explains that late Apostle James McKeown, the missionary figure associated with the church, taught its members to use spontaneous prayers. McKeown’s explanation was that written prayers were usually the prayers of people whose circumstances at the time of writing might not have been the same as those of other Christians. He therefore suggested that it would be better for members of CoP to speak to their heavenly Father from their heart. According to Ntumy, McKeown also argued from Hebrews 5:7 that Jesus prayed aloud and

7

Cox, Fire from Heaven. John Goldingay, “Charismatic Spirituality: Some Theological Reflections”, Theology 99 (1996), 179–80. 9 Goldingay, “Charismatic Spirituality”, 180. 10 Agyin-Asare, Power in Prayer, 27. 8

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Christians must pray in imitation of the Lord.11 The text in question reads: “Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear.” Prayer in the new streams of Christianity is expected to be original, long, sustained, and spontaneous; it is not articulated through inapplicable collects written in postReformation Christian Europe and still in use within certain historic mission churches in Africa. André Droogers talks about how in the African context charismatic Christians bridge dichotomies that cerebral religions create in the relationship between body and mind by means of the normalization of charismatic experiences such as prayers for healing in worship.12 In African Christianity, this normalization started with the older African Initiated Churches (AICs) and Clifton Clarke serves us well in explaining how this worked in practice: [It] was very evident that during the singing, dancing, and worshipping, the adherents became overwhelmed with the presence of Christ, spoke in tongues and prophesied. Often while the believers were “slain in the Spirit“, they uttered “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!” This appeared to be an indication that something more than just experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was taking place … Among … AICs, however, worshipping and praising God in corporate ecclesia is a means of drawing closer to Christ mediated through the power of the Holy Spirit … Through songs and prayers, worshippers are able to pour out all their sorrows and wants before Christ, who is very close to them during the act of worship.13

The key expressions in this quotation include “experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit” and being able to “pour all their sorrows and wants before Christ through songs and prayers. The point is that the experiential nature of Pentecostal worship or spirituality occurs in part through the nature of prayer, especially within the context of what Clarke refers to here as corporate ecclesia. Prayer as experience does not necessarily refer to those physical activities of shouting, throwing the limbs, and running around that are associated with Jericho Hour. It very much has to do with prayer that is an outflow of the experience of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues or the expression of emotions as a result of feeling the presence of the Spirit. Additionally, experiential prayer is spontaneous and deals very much with issues that flow from the exigencies of life, rather than the repetition of prayers 12

André Droogers, “The Normalization of Religious Experience: Healing, Prophecy, Dreams and Visions”, in Karla Poewe (ed.), Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 33–49. 12 André Droogers, “The Normalization of Religious Experience: Healing, Prophecy, Dreams and Visions”, in Karla Poewe (ed.), Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 33–49. 13 Clifton R. Clarke, African Christology: Jesus in Post-Missionary African Christianity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), 70, 71.

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that are already documented. Quoting Agyin-Asare on the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread means praying for your job, praying for open doors, praying for financial breakthrough and other things.”14 Pentecostals do not read collects at their services, as noted earlier, and much of what is in this chapter therefore comes from observations and experiences within real and active Pentecostal contexts in Africa. Understanding prayer this way is important because, to cite Cox again, “knowing the gods and demons of a people and listening to their prayers and curses tell us more about them than all the graphs and statistics one could assemble”.15 Prayer and Charismatic Authority Interestingly, although in principle Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity democratizes access to the sacred especially when it comes to prayer, persons with the anointing or charisma to pray, such as prophets, pastors, and the specially anointed, are also highly valued for their effective prayers. The charismatic leader provides what has come to be known in Ghana as sunsum akwankyere, spiritual direction, which may include not just diagnoses and prescriptive solutions to problems but also periods of fasting and prayer needed for breakthrough. The ability to offer special prayers or intercessions is recognized as a spiritual gift that may be used for the benefit of the wider Christian community. This perception is particularly evident at the specialized prayer places that include healing camps and institutionalized prayer services such as Jericho Hour. The problems dealt with by the healing camps and the thaumaturgy’s that are in charge range from ill health and barrenness to unemployment and business failure. What the patients have in common is the belief that that their problems are spiritually caused and that the cure is the superior power of the Holy Spirit and the blood of Christ. In keeping with Christian theological understanding, Pentecostals pray “in the name” of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. The invocation of the name of Christ means that prayer is offered on the merits of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and so both the cross and the blood of Christ may be deferred to in prayer, depending on the situation at hand. The fire of God and the blood of Christ are called upon in imprecatory prayer sessions in particular, to burn people or rebuke them as the case may be. Mass spontaneous prayer that is characteristic of Pentecostalism everywhere has its source in the experiential nature of the movement. Overwhelming evidence from Pentecostals suggests that experiences of the Holy Spirit move people to fast and pray by creating in them the desire to do so. Indeed, what makes Pentecostal worship unique is usually the inspiration of the felt presence and experience of the Spirit. The high points of those experiences are when 14 15

Agyin-Asare, Power in Prayer, 38. Cox, “Foreward”, 12.

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messages of prophecy come through during times of worship. These messages almost always signal that God is among his people in the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is generally understood as able to lead people in any direction or to become manifest in unpredictable ways. This understanding makes Pentecostals uncomfortable and critical of worship life that appears too ordered. What I have referred to as mass spontaneous prayers seems to be more in keeping with the character of the workings of the Spirit than are previously written liturgical prayers that curtail spontaneity and exuberance. In Pentecostalism we are dealing with a highly experiential movement in which prayer features strongly in experiences of the Spirit. This is not the same thing that one observes within historic Christian liturgical traditions and therefore when forms of worship characterized by extemporaneous, expressive, hyperemotional, and sensational styles of praying are seen within historic mission church settings, public- or conservative-minded members conclude that the church is becoming pentecostalized. The pneumatic phenomena that accompany prayer constitute essentialist and normative elements of Christian worship as far as Pentecostal spirituality is concerned.16 The general audience’s attribution of essentialist features to Pentecostalism, Droogers writes, is a consequence of people’s experience with the ways in which Pentecostals make themselves visible in the public sphere.17 One of the ways in which we discern “essentialist” and “normalized” elements in Pentecostal religion, I suggest, is through modes of praying and prayer language. A study of physical practices in prayer and the use of language reveals a number of worldviews that drive the spirit of prayer in Pentecostalism. Firstly, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of tongues create among other things a stronger urge to pray and to do so for longer periods. Secondly, the experience of the Spirit gives the believer the power and authority to pray and take dominion over situations, places, and powers. Thirdly, it is expected that prayer will be engaging and so in addition to the required atmosphere, which must be spiritually charged through background music and noise, the prayer itself must be bold, expressive, spontaneous, extensive, and delivered with charismatic authority. This approach to prayer through charismatic authority—an invocation of power to cancel the effects of evil—is what I have in mind when I refer to Pentecostal prayer as being interventionist. I am not alone in thinking of Pentecostalism as possessing an interventionist theology. I quote here Goldingay: “‘Experience of God’ is not just emotional experience. It is the 16

André Droogers, “Essentialist and Normative Approaches”, in Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, André Droogers and Cornelis van Laan (eds), Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 30–50. 17 Droogers, “Essentialist and Normative Approaches”, 39.

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experience of God acting. The charismatic movement … emphasizes that God is involved in our world. Its understanding of this involvement is characteristically interventionist: it emphasizes the irresistible power of God to do things, especially to bring healing.”18 It is against the backdrop of this interventionist theology of prayer that contemporary Pentecostals talk about prayer in terms of a spiritual warfare. Pentecostal theologians agree that in Rom. 8:26-27 Paul endorses praying in tongues because through such prayer the Spirit helps believers to overcome the weakness evident in the limitations of their language as they seek to communicate with God. Gordon Fee takes the matter further by noting that praying in the Spirit is also God’s provision for his people in another area of their weakness, the ongoing struggle against principalities and powers. In his words: Besides the defensive armor provided by the gospel, Paul urges the believers to use their two “spirit weapons” as they engage the enemy: the message of the gospel (penetrating the enemy’s territory and rescuing people who are captive to him) and “praying in the Spirit” (Ephesian 6:18-20). Here in particular the Spirit is our true friend and aid. Precisely because we do not know how to pray as we ought, we do need to lean more heavily on praying in/by the Holy Spirit to carry on such spiritual warfare more effectively.19

In the non-Western primal imagination, the Pentecostal theological concept of spiritual warfare is useful. In these contexts worldviews that hold that supernatural evil has always been hyperactive within the natural order are very strong. When the older churches were busy dismissing the Spiritual churches’ attention to the presence of evil, which they saw as psychological delusion and a figment of backward pagan imagination, their grassroots members were frantically repairing to these new movements for help. Wilma Davies gives this description of Pentecostal prayer in the Argentine Pentecostal context: “After claiming protection the church goes on the offensive against Satan’s hold on people’s lives. This spiritual warfare is first and foremost aggressive prayer against Satan’s activities, as spiritual entities must be defeated in the spiritual realm before people can respond to the preaching of the gospel. Prayer was understood as both defensive and offensive and vital to winning the battle.”20 The rise of healing camps, prayer vigils, national intercessory ministries, and so on can all be explained in terms of the Pentecostal/charismatic understanding of prayer as the main arsenal in spiritual warfare. Through its creation of opportunities for prayer, Pentecostalism makes possible ritual contexts—which

18

Goldingay, “Charismatic Spirituality”, 181. Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit and the People of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1996), 148. 20 Wilma Wells Davies, The Embattled and Empowered Community: Comparing Understandings of Spiritual Power in Argentine Popular and Pentecostal Cosmologies (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 150. 19

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is what the prayer camps and prayer services are—that enable patrons to come to terms with their problems and receive help for them. Prayer, Warfare and Goliath Hermeneutics In African Pentecostalism generally, much prayer is directed against supernatural evil realities. Such prayers occur in situations of exorcism and healing and deliverance because, as I point out in this section, the powers that oppress and possess people deprive their victims of health, wealth, and wellbeing. Even poverty in some situations and lack of progress in life generally may be held to be demonically instigated. There is therefore a close relationship between warfare prayer and prosperity. This linkage is governed by the worldview, also found in African traditional culture, which holds that things do not happen by chance. African traditional gods and spirits have survived in the Christian worldview as demons responsible for various setbacks in life. In the African context generally, religion serves practical soteriological ends. Thus the raison d’être of all sacrifices, offerings, and supplications is rain and fertility, wellbeing and power, healing, safety in childbirth, and the preservation of life. Laurenti Magesa records the rationality behind prayer in African traditional religions: “When life is threatened or weakened, prayer is most abundant, both private and public prayer: prayer is a means of restoring wholeness and balance in life. In African religion, prayer is comprehensive, requesting the removal of all that is bad and anti-life in society, and demanding restoration of all that is good. Nothing less satisfies the African religious mind.”21 This character of prayer is in keeping with traditional African spirituality, which recognizes a transcendent dimension to life, a dimension that is experienced in the midst of everyday activities. Charismatic testimonies are meant as proof that God does indeed exist and delivers on his word to those who are faithful in their Christianity through the payment of tithes and offerings. In dwelling on the reality of the promises of God and his faithfulness to deliver, charismatic Christianity gives practical expression to the nature of God borne out by the Scriptures: God is the source of wealth, potentialities, and abilities, and the believer must acknowledge that unless God approves of an endeavour it will fail (Ps. 75:7, 10). This is an understanding of religion that has never been far from traditional culture. That the good news of Christ includes enjoying the practical fruits of God’s grace is a view shared also by Allan Anderson: “But is not the good news the fact that Christ has potentially won the victory for us over sin and all forms of human misery; and that he desires us to enjoy the fruits of that victory here and now—including forgiveness of sin, peace with God and man, and his material provision? In 21

Laurenti Magesa, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 195.

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other words does not the New Testament promise us enjoyment of God and his gifts?”22 Africans believe in personal effort, but supernatural realities have a determining role in whether one’s endeavours succeed or come to ruin. To question as heretical this view of God as faithful, reliable, powerful, and the source of all one is and has is to question a key emphasis in the African Christian view of God.23 The success of the charismatic churches, seen particularly in their attractiveness and respectability, is in my view an important index of the sort of theology that appeals to Ghanaian religious consciousness. Testimonies often include acknowledgement of God as the source not only of wealth but also of health, employment, promotion, opportunities to travel abroad, secure family life, and personal satisfaction and fulfilment. These are things that Western society can take for granted because opportunities abound and society is structured to cater for the welfare of its citizens. Demons are not easily overcome and in contemporary Pentecostalism they are metaphorically described as Goliaths. Books on the Goliath metaphor from the charismatic stable and currently on the market include one by a Nigerian Pentecostal Leke Sanusi, Goliath Killing Prayers, and one by Daniel and Barbara Ahia-Armah of Ghana, Goliath Can Fall.24 The subtitles are equally instructive: Sanusi’s is subtitled How to Overcome Every Giant of your Life and the Ahia-Armah’s Victory In Spite of Opposition. The preface to Sanusi’s Goliath Killing Prayers lays out the philosophy that sees the problems of life as “Goliaths”: “Goliath still exists. Although he was slain by David several thousands of years ago, his spirit lives on. Someone said, ‘Goliath has children.’ I tend to agree. The children of Goliath are the spirits he represents today and those spirits are the giants standing tall against you, desperate to deny you from the fulfillment of our God-given destiny.”25 The book defines Goliath as any stubborn problem that keeps threatening, troubling, and tormenting your life. This problem, the author explains, could be anything from sickness to a particularly trying situation. It could be an opposition or perhaps a recurring negative pattern in the circumstances of one’s life.26 In other words, if a problem denies one progress and prosperity, it must fit the metaphor of being like Goliath. In African Pentecostal publications on the subject, the five stones that David picked to defeat Goliath represent the letters in the name of J-E-S22

Anderson, “Prosperity Message”, 80, 81 (italics in original). It is a very regular feature in the traditional mission churches for people to give financial donations and other forms of donation to the church in appreciation to God for childbirth, recovery from illness, passing of examinations, and other endeavours for which God’s intervention had been sought. 24 Daniel and Barbara Ahia-Armah, Goliath Can Fall: Victory In Spite of Opposition (Accra: Honeycomb Publications, 2005). 25 Leke Sanusi, Goliath Killing Prayers: How to Overcome Every Giant of Your Life (London: Oraword Publishers, 2003), xviii. 26 Sanusi, Goliath Killing Prayers, 10. 23

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U-S, and a whole arsenal of “Goliath Killing Prayers” has been developed to help overcome those stumbling blocks that prevent prosperity. Two prayers from Sanusi’s work read “Lord, expose the Goliath of my life and prepare me for battle against him in the name of Jesus; Holy Ghost show me clearly the weapon in my hand for slaying my Goliath in the name of Jesus”.27 Chapter two of Sanusi’s book is simply titled: “Goliath is Not of This World”, which means that Goliath problems are of supernatural nature. The Ahia-Armahs state: It is important to note that beyond the natural pressures of life, tossed by scary billows and tempests, we are also confronted even more significantly by a very serious spiritual battle that rages on for the entire period of our stay on this planet. There is no ceasefire, no truce, no quarter given and absolutely no rest involved … What makes this battle principal is that its outcome determines what takes place in the physical … This indeed makes spiritual warfare the greatest fight for every human being.28

Warfare prayers needed to overcome the Goliaths of life are expected to be aggressive, long, and sustained. This is where all-night prayer vigils and extended daytime prayers like Jericho Hour come in. A weekly Friday evening all-night prayer vigil held by Pastor Ampiah-Kwofie’s Global Revival Ministries at Accra’s Baden Powell Memorial Hall is as well attended as Jericho Hour, and the focus of the prayers and discourses on them are the same as those at Jericho Hour. Here Nana Osei, a charismatic prophet, is usually the star of the evenings. Osei reveals people’s prophetic destinies and the identities of the negative Goliath powers thwarting their efforts; he then prays for them, reversing negative destinies, cursing the powers and evil, and invoking God’s prosperity. It is common for these extended prayer meetings to be described in terms of the exertions of childbirth. Hence the oft repeated statement in the midst of corporate prayer, “travail until you prevail”.29 In a study of the interface between religion and migration Rijk van Dijk explains that in the ritual contexts of prayer, “travel”, “passport”, and “visa” are perceived as belonging to the same realm and discourse of treatment and healing as other types of affliction and misfortune and therefore qualify as topics for the attention of the prayer leaders.30 As with tithing and offerings, as we shall see in chapter five, prayer cannot be divorced from the message of prosperity underlying the theological orientation of contemporary Pentecostalism. International travel and the acquisition of visas are very much 27

Sanusi, Goliath Killing Prayers, 8–9. Ahia-Armah, Goliath Can Fall, 3. 29 This is the title of my unpublished paper on prayer services held in Ghana to support national elections in 2004 and 2004. I visited a number of such services in Pentecostal church settings and on each occasion the leaders urged on members to pray by asking them to “travail until you prevail”. 30 Rijk A. van Dijk, “From Camp to Encompassment: Discourses of Transsubjectivity in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora”, Journal of Religion in Africa 27 (May 1997), 146. 28

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on the prayer agenda because going abroad is an open door for material prosperity in popular contemporary African thought. Not only do witches and demons make it difficult for people to travel, but those who have succeeded in travelling avail themselves of the resources of prayer that Pentecostal leaders with the requisite charismatic authority offer them. It is therefore common practice for people in London, New York, Rome, Hamburg, and other such favourite diaspora locations for Africans to phone-in to radio stations requesting prayer on account of their struggles for employment, proper documentation, and lack of medical facilities in an increasingly hostile Western world as far as immigrants are concerned. In other words, the whole of life becomes for many people a field of spiritual warfare. This understanding of life, Christianity, and ministry in terms of spiritual warfare comes from Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:11-12: “Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” In the African context, as I have sought to demonstrate, this text takes on added significance because of the traditional beliefs in witches, evil powers, and other negative supernatural forces that work against human progress. The late Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako pointed out that early twentieth-century African itinerant prophet William W. Harris was successful because he took the primal imagination regarding the presence of evil powers seriously. He therefore engaged with that worldview in preaching the Gospel and dealt with the influences of negative forces by prayer. It is this demonstration of power that won Prophet Harris the accolade “Black Elijah”, and Garrick S. Braide, his counterpart in the Niger Delta, “Elijah II”.31 Prophet Braide was considered so powerful that words falling from his lips were received as charged with supernatural power.32 Prayer as warfare is not new to African Christianity, as we see from the development of the Spiritual churches. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when these older AICs started, three main aspects made them religiously different from their older historic mission compatriots: prayer, prophecy, and healing. The creation of ritual contexts and the quarantining of the sick to undergo extensive prayer sessions of healing started in the Gardens of the Church of the Twelve Apostles and the Mercy Grounds of the Celestial Church of Christ. Both of these churches belong to the older tradition of AICs. The creation of prayer camps within contemporary Pentecostalism therefore 31

See Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995); for Prophet William W. Harris, see David A. Shank, Prophet Harris: The “Black Elijah” of West Africa (Leiden: Brill, 1994); for Prophet Garrick S. Braide, see Lamin O. Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983). 32 Sanneh, West African Christianity, 182.

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amounts to reinvention of something that has always been at the heart of indigenous Christianity in Africa. To place the matter within its proper historic religious context, this is what Christian Baëta writes of Ghana’s Spiritual churches: Thus I see them as engaged in a prodigious struggle to prove the reality of spiritual things in general and of the biblical promises in particular, taking these in a fully literal sense. They are in great earnest; with an intense concentration of all their energies and a glowing desire, they are knocking, so to speak, on the doors of the other-earthly world with the most urgently-felt needs of their followers, and in the keenest possible expectancy are waiting for an answer.33

Anybody who is familiar with African Pentecostal prayers within a corporate setting will identify that Baëta’s “prodigious struggle of the Spiritual churches to prove the reality of spiritual things and the biblical promises” is still present with us, whether we are talking about classical Pentecostals or contemporary Pentecostals. Praying in the Spirit Pentecostals are distinguished from other streams of Christians by the teaching that all Christians may, and indeed should, experience a baptism of the Holy Spirit after being born-again. This doctrine, referred as the doctrine of subsequence or initial evidence, flows from the conviction that the Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost and they spoke in tongues. This experience is seen as paradigmatic of all Christian experience related to the encounter with the Holy Spirit.34 Pentecostalism is a movement of prayer and even its most coveted experience arising out of Spirit baptism, the speaking of tongues, is basically for praying. On the theological import of tongues, Gordon Fee has stated: [One] prays in tongues from a position of weakness, because we “do not know how to pray as we ought.” At such times we desperately need the Spirit to help us, for the Spirit to pray through us what is in keeping with God’s purposes … By praying through us in tongues, the Spirit is the way whereby God’s strength is made perfect in the midst of our weakness—which is where the ultimate strength lies for the believer … Such praying is thus freedom and power, God’s power being perfected in the midst of our weakness.35

Pentecostal prayers are primarily distinctive because of the practice of praying in the Spirit or speaking in tongues, as it is popularly called. Pentecostals generally understand praying in the Spirit to mean one thing, and one thing only—to pray in tongues. This understanding differs from the typical Evangelical position in which praying in the Spirit could mean a broader form 33

Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana, 135. Menzies and Menzies, Spirit and Power, 109. 35 Fee, Listening to the Spirit, 118, 119. 34

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of prayer. Thus James Packer holds that praying in the Spirit includes four elements which he identifies as (1) seeking, claiming, and making use of access to God through Christ (Eph. 2:18); (2) adoring and thanking God for his acceptance through Christ and for the knowledge that through Christ one’s prayers are heard; (3) asking for the Spirit’s help to see and do what brings glory to Christ, knowing that both the Spirit and Christ himself intercede for us as we struggle to pray for rightness in our own life (Rom. 8:26-27, 34); and (4) the Spirit leading the believer to concentrate on God and his glory in Christ with a sustained, single-minded simplicity of attention and intensity of desire that no one ever knows save as it is supernaturally wrought. On the specific meaning of tongues as praying in the Spirit, Packer notes that “this is prayer from the heart, springing from awareness of God, of self, of others, of needs, and of Christ. Further, “whether it comes verbalized, as in the prayers and praises recorded in Scripture, or unverbalized, as when the contemplative gazes Godward in love or the charismatic slips into glossolalia, is immaterial. He (or she) whose heart seeks God through Christ prays in the Spirit.”36 Parker’s broad definition of praying in the Spirit would make praying with the mind difficult to define because except for the reference to “charismatic slips into glossolalia”, everything said here must be true of all authentic prayer. In my thinking what distinguishes prayer as a Pentecostal spiritual activity from the understanding of prayer in other Christian traditions is the Pentecostal insistence that praying in the Spirit is distinguished from ordinary prayers by praying in tongues. Christians baptized in the Spirit, according to classical Pentecostal teaching, must speak in tongues and the experience must be sustained in one’s prayer life. To that end, Macchia has argued forcefully that praying in tongues is a sign of human limitation; the Spirit intervenes by interceding for the person praying with what Paul refers to as “groans too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).37 Macchia’s argument is one that most Pentecostals, including their African compatriots, would embrace wholeheartedly. In addition to comprehending speaking in tongues as a sign of Spirit baptism, however, contemporary Pentecostals also have a particular understanding of the circumstances within which tongues must be used. Preachers regularly use it to break into their sermons in order to enhance the impression that what they preach is Spirit-inspired or even God-breathed. Tongues are also used as means of spiritual warfare. Simon Chan records in light of his personal observations that “some modern charismatics may have conceived of tongues as means of grace in rather crude, quasi-magical terms, as when they say that speaking in tongues ensures that the message is properly 36 James I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in our Walk with God (Revised ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 67–68. 37 Frank D. Macchia, “Baptized in the Spirit: Towards a Global Pentecostal Theology”, in Steven M. Studebaker (ed.), Defining Issues in Pentecostalism: Classical and Emergent (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2008), 13–28.

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and cryptically encoded by the Holy Spirit so that the principalities and powers of the air will not be able to intercept it. Tongues are the language for spiritual warfare!” The exclamation mark at the end of Chan’s quotation is an indication of doubt, and indeed, he deems this use of tongues as akin to “popular medieval superstitions about the sacraments”.38 Tongues may be abused, but there is no need to be so dismissive of the subjective religious experiences and expressions of others. I too have observed such so called quasi-magical uses of tongues in Ghana, and there is no reason to believe they necessarily amount to wrongful uses of the gift. Consider for example the near-tragic experience of Apostle Ntumy, a former chairman of Ghana’s Church of Pentecost. Ntumy was viciously attacked by a machete-wielding assailant one evening in front of his official residence in Accra. “As the man raised the machete to strike me”, he explained, “I fell into a drain by the road side. I started speaking ‘our tongues’ and as soon as I burst out into tongues, the man jumped onto his motorbike and fled.” He added, “the tongues saved my life”. The use of tongues, in addition to prayer and prophecy, is considered a very potent form of prayer during crisis. Packer notes how “charismatic Christians stress that the Christian’s life is truly supernatural, in the sense that Christ through the Spirit enables believers to do what by nature they could never have done”.39 Although Packer is talking about Spirit-empowered living, the point he makes about empowerment adequately describes those precarious situations in which people, because of the gift of tongues, are able to boldly pray away crises. It is generally believed that in the process of exorcism, for example, tongues confuse the demons because whereas they may understand plain language, they cannot understand tongues. Those with the ability to pray in tongues are therefore more successful at dealing with stubborn demons than those without this gift. At Jericho Hour, as in other prayer situations, tongues are employed extensively to deal with the presence of negative supernatural powers that may be working against those praying. Speaking in tongues sustains the Pentecostal belief in spontaneous prayer. The CoP, like most classical Pentecostal denominations, stresses the need for every believer to experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues. Tongues are a source of empowerment for Spirit-filled believers and are used in Pentecostalism in at least three principal ways: for private prayer, for prophecy, and for exorcising evil spirits. According to Apostle Ntumy, [Praying in tongues] is indeed indispensable not only for empowerment in evangelization but also for protection against evil spirits. The deduction behind this assumption is that since the Holy Spirit, through the speaking of tongues helps one to pray even when one does not know what to pray for in one’s 38

Simon Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 78. 39 Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, 151.

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weakness (Romans 8:26), when one prays in tongues the Holy Spirit takes care of every aspect of one’s needs.40

The theological theme of power, which we have seen identified with tongues, is forcefully present in Pentecostal prayer observed within the African context. This holds true whether that prayer is offered in tongues or with the mind. Strategies of Prayer Very distinct strategies are often thought to make certain prayers more effective than most. The fundamental requirement is faith, but additionally, prayers are considered more effective if they are based on Scripture, said in tongues, proclaimed with authority, militant, use words that resist the devil, and ask for the fulfilment of specific promises. An important strategy in African Pentecostal prayer is the cursing of evil, especially known and imaginary enemies. Following this strategy, prayer in contemporary African Christianity has tended to become increasingly imprecatory in tone. The need for spiritual warfare has led to several other developments worth discussing within the context of prayer in contemporary Pentecostalism. These developments include the establishment of prayer teams, generally referred to as “prayer warriors”, and the subsequent emergence of prayer camps established purposely as centres of supernatural intervention to deal with problems of ill health and other existential concerns, fears, anxieties, and insecurities. In other words, the strong attention to prayer in Pentecostal spirituality has generated new sets of practices, strategies, and institutions within African Christianity more generally and within contemporary expressions of faith in particular. Prayer strategies have developed with the establishment of prayer places of different sizes and appearance where people can assemble to pray. The Achimota Forest in Accra and a rock cave at Sakyidumase and the Atwea mountains, both in the Asante Region of Ghana, have all become places of warfare prayer for various categories of person but almost always led by pastors and people of Pentecostal persuasion. In Nigeria, the Redeemed Christian Church of God and the Living Faith Church Worldwide or Winners’ Chapel have built huge prayer camps along the Lagos-Ibadan Highway, which seat up to 50,000 people at a time. These prayer places are part of a strategy to translate the dominance of spiritual spaces into the physical realm and to get people to articulate their deep-seated needs and concerns before God in ways that suit Pentecostal understandings of prayer. The prayers that take place in these places of prayer pilgrimage have an essentially Pentecostal character and the public knows the difference in the characterizations. In August 2006, TV3 news from Ghana aired a short 40

Ntumy, “Church of Pentecost”, 39.

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documentary showing how the Achimota Forest had been turned into prayer grounds led by various charismatic pastors and personalities. Ten different camps had been created under various trees in the forest. One of the hosts of the prayer meetings—held between Monday and Saturday—responded to a question from the film crew about why he led people to pray in the forest. His answer was very biblical: “God reveals himself in the forest. He did so through Moses and we believe that this place being a forest, God will reveal himself to us too.”41 Many of these prayer meetings eventually become incorporated as churches, which is how a number of these contemporary African Pentecostal ministries have become institutionalized as churches. These spaces on mountains and forests help those who pray, especially those who shout and move around, to do so without inconveniencing the public. The core reasons for choosing these locations as places of prayer are, however, religious in nature. These sites are considered places of supernatural revelation and encounter. Their names are very revealing: Shiloh, Canaan, Bethel, Jericho, Sinai, Gethsemane, and so on and so forth. In the Scriptures, in all these places somebody was brought to an encounter with God and in almost every case a need was met. Their modern day reinventions are places to wait and to travail before God. It is normal for prayer within a Pentecostal context to start with the standard phrase “Father in the name of Jesus … ” and then after a few lines of praise and acknowledgment of the almightiness and power of God drift into taking authority in the name of Jesus to deal with the circumstances that confront the person praying. The blood of Christ is considered a very potent means of dealing with evil and reversing curses, and its power is frequently invoked in prayer for those purposes. In almost every situation spontaneous prayers are preferred to liturgically ordered prayers, making it easier for tongues to be introduced at points in the prayer. These days, African Gospel artists have also introduced tongues speaking into recorded music. It is also common to find locally produced gospel music CDs and DVDs, especially those referred to as “worship songs”, in which extensive praying in tongues occurs as part of the music. Imprecatory Prayer Strategies There is much that goes into those three hours of Jericho Hour and at this point it may be useful to illustrate its practices in the light of personal observations. The last meeting of 2009 fell on a Thursday. The meeting began with the leader, Bishop James Saah, telling the participants that this world is controlled by words and that, in light of the date, every negative word spoken against us 41

The interviewer was Nana Aba Anamoah of TV3: the documentary was made at a time when the government of Ghana was thinking of relocating the Accra Zoo to the forest to make way for a partial rehabilitation of the zoo.

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needed to be reversed. One of the rituals of Jericho Hour is for the person leading worship to give members words with which they can respond; on this occasion the participants were offered the following: In the name of Jesus I cancel and counter any negative word spoken against me by witches and by my enemies and I enforce the will of God [followed by mass praying]. My defence is in God; we are declaring that we cross over and every wickedness will come to an end, in the name of Jesus! Today the last devil must come down. Any devil that troubled me in 2009 must come down. Today the devils in my family are coming down. Holy Ghost, I declare that any devil in my house is coming down in the name of Jesus!

Amidst the mass prayer Bishop Saah also made declarations. In the year 2010, he declared, money will shift from one account to the other. There shall be financial breakthroughs. Money could go into wrong hands, but in 2010, there will be a shift. You are going to be a landlord; there will be financial blessings; you will marry; you will receive divine favour, properties, riches, contracts and breakthroughs … There is going to be a shift in all these areas.

At Jericho Hour there is no intentional break for people to sit down and listen. Bible expositions and exhortations are all done in between the prayers, so after the declarations one of the leaders picked up the microphone and used the story of Ephraim and Manasseh to illustrate the fact that there was going to a shift of divine favours in 2010. In the story concerned, Joseph had brought his two sons to be blessed by his father Jacob, who was then blind. It was customary to lay the right hand on the older son, and Joseph positioned his sons accordingly: And Joseph took both of them, Ephraim on his right toward Israel’s left hand and Manasseh on his left toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them close to him. But Israel reached out his hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the first born … When Joseph saw his father placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head he was displeased; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head … But his father refused and said “I know my son I know …” (Gen. 48:13-17)

When using this passage in the context of the focus on the prayer session, the leader completely demonized Joseph, who, we were told, symbolizes those around us who “open their mouths against our blessings”. In the rest of the prayer, we had therefore to inveigh against all “Josephs” in our lives, even if they were our fathers or mothers. We were told that “any mouth that is open against you even if it is your mother, may they shut their mouths” and then had to repeat the following: “It does not matter whose mouth is open against my blessing, may the Lord shut their mouths.” Even Judas, we were then informed, was asked to shut his mouth when he complained that the perfume poured at the feet of Jesus was too expensive and should have been sold and the proceeds

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given to the poor. Based on this interpretation of “mouth shutting” we were led into mass praying against those whose mouths were open against us. “Somebody wants to help you, then they open their mouths to stop it”, the leader said, and then promptly added, “Lord, shut their mouths because 2010 is our year of celebrations”. Bishop James Saah was at this time holding the lead microphone. With his eyes closed he spoke directly about an instant vision he was seeing at that very moment: “this bird must die; this evil bird must die”. The import of this vision would not have been lost on the African participants at the meeting, because in our context witches and wizards are believed to be nocturnal creatures who fly like birds in the night to harm others. The visions were therefore narrated as a means of inspiring us to intensify our prayers, and that is what exactly happened. Suddenly the focus shifted to a boy standing in the crowd. The bishop pointed to him saying, “I see you in America; you will go to school in the USA and return to deliver your family from poverty”. Then we returned to the words of prayer and declarations that were either to be repeated or responded to. On this occasion, participants had to respond with “overthrown” as the bishop named the evil powers that needed to shut their mouths: BISHOP: The bird from my father’s and mother’s house CONGREGATION: Overthrown! BISHOP: Demonic and satanic occupants of my house CONGREGATION: Overthrown! BISHOP: Any illegal occupant sitting on my finances CONGREGATION: Overthrown! BISHOP: Anybody sitting on my marriage and breakthroughs CONGREGATION: Overthrown!

Now it was time “to soak fingers” in the “blood of Christ” to “pierce the eyes of those who hate us”. With fingers soaked in the imaginary blood of Christ through prayer offered from the platform, people thrust their fingers forward to spiritually pierce the eyes of envious relatives and friends who were stumbling blocks to their blessings. Prayer and Power The account here is typical of what happens at Jericho Hour. The focus of the prayers at Jericho Hour, as indeed at a number of these services that have sprung up in Ghana and Nigeria in particular, centre on the theme of power in both its positive and negative forms. People go to Jericho Hour to seek God’s power—available through the name of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit—for health, employment, acquisition of visas for international travel, business contacts, promotions at work, employment, success in examinations, money to buy cars or build houses, business, marriage, and other such concerns that give salvation a very existential significance. At Jericho Hour the powers who impede the achievement of these goals are dealt with. Participants are

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involved in a spiritual war because there are real and imaginary forces, modern day “Josephs”, who open their mouths when human blessings are at hand. For this reason imprecatory prayers or prayers of vengeance feature very prominently among African Pentecostal prayers. In his study of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, led by Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, arguably the largest single contemporary Pentecostal church in Africa, Asonzeh Ukah explains the twelve principles of prosperity that the pastor outlines for his people. The tenth key to prosperity, which is of interest to us in this chapter, is “Prepare for War”. Ukah quotes the reason for this preparation for war from Adeboye’s sermon on the subject: Your money is in the hands of the wicked ones; they are not going to let it go gently. You are going to fight to get it; you are going to war to get your blessing from the hands of those who are holding it … We are going to say since wealth belongs to my Father (God) and what belongs to my Father belongs to me, we are going to decree that money must change hands … Anyone trying to withhold my blessing today, Lord, set fire to his buttocks. Anyone sitting on my promotion, put fire under him.42

I share Ukah’s observation that the concluding imprecatory statement of Pastor Adeboye’s prayer as quoted here is significant because it is “anchored on the traditional belief that wicked people such as witches and sorcerers have the metaphysical power to restrain one from advancing in career or in material wellbeing”.43 We have noted from the example of Jericho Hour that through prayer, power may be obtained for healing, deliverance, exorcism or defeating demons, overcoming enemies, gaining promotions in life, securing favours, living a victorious Christian life, building and growing a church, and even taking control of physical and spiritual spaces. Emeka Nwankpa, a prominent Nigerian Pentecostal, belongs to a group known as the Intercessors for Africa, who pray in order to undo satanic strongholds in African countries. He recounts the following revealing experience in relation to the belief in the power of prayer: In May 1993, four of us leaders in Intercessors for Africa traveled from our annual conference in Harare, Zimbabwe to do prophetic praying in a neighboring African country. At the border the immigration authorities refused us entry. We drove back sixty kilometers to a safari hotel and spent a good part of the night and early morning waging spiritual warfare against the spirits that resisted us the previous day at the gate of that nation. By noon the next day … we returned to the same border. This time we were allowed entry with apologies

42

Quoted in Asonzeh Ukah, A New Paradigm of Pentecostal Power: A Study of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2008), 193. 43 Ukah, New Paradigm of Pentecostal Power, 193.

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In other words, whether they are human or supernatural, evil powers will always crumble under the force of the almighty power of the Spirit in order that the definite authority that God makes available in Jesus Christ may be experienced. Prayers are therefore focused in particular to bring God’s intervention against what is believed to be the works of the devil, and the blood and the name of Jesus have special significance.45 Theology of Prayer In the Pentecostal mindset, prayer, authority, and power go together. It is an important requirement that Pentecostal prayers must be authoritative, for several reasons. Firstly, Jesus cast out evil spirits in an authoritative voice; secondly, by the experience of the Holy Spirit, the believer is granted the same authority over powers of evil that Jesus gave to his disciples; and thirdly, the words of believers are supposed to have performative power. Thus in contemporary African Pentecostal Christian media usage, pastors, prophets, and other leaders mediate the power of God to listeners and watchers through radio, television, and internet. Some have published actual prayers or explained ways of praying in books and pamphlets. As we encountered above, in recent years recorded CD prayers have been on sale for those who want to absorb such prayers into their spirits, as it is put, and make them their own. Packer provides a telling description of the experiential modes of Pentecostal/charismatic worship as compared to the staid, silent, and orderly forms found in historic mission churches: There is an emotional element in the makeup of each human individual … Charismatics understand this, and their provision for exuberance of sight, sound, and movement in corporate worship caters to it …What makes charismatics more demonstrative, however, is not lack of reverence for God, but fullness of happy love for Jesus Christ and Christian people … Granted, charismatic forms of emotional expression can easily become an exhibitionist routine, but then cool bodily stillness, with solemn fixity of face, can equally easily be the expression of a rigid, heartless formalism … by Scriptural standards there is no doubt that a disorderly liveliness, the overflow of love and joy in God, is preferable to a tidy deadness that lacks both.46

I have observed and participated in what Packer here refers to as a “disordered liveliness” at several charismatic meetings, including Jericho Hour. 44

Emeka Nwankpa, Redeeming the Land: Interceding for the Nations (Accra: Africa Christian Press, 1994), 24–25. 45 Emmanuel Kingsley Larbi, Pentecostalism: The Eddies of Ghanaian Christianity (Accra: Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, 2001), 257. 46 Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, 151.

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The basic understanding of Pentecostalism is that prayer has the power of transformation and change. All forms of resistance to the message of the Gospel, the work of evil spirits and powers, situations of ill health and possession, difficult endeavours, and times of fear and impossibility can all be overcome by the power of prayer. Specific instances in Scripture give rise to the confidence of Pentecostals in the power of prayer. One of the most important passages tells of when the disciples congregated to pray following the injunction placed on them by the religious authorities not to preach in the name of Jesus: And being let go, “they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them … Now Lord, look on their threats, and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word, by stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus”. (Acts 4:23, 27-30; NKJV)

This episode of prayer helps Pentecostals to sustain the belief in the relationship between prayer and manifestations of the power of God. For we are told that after the disciples had prayed, “the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness” (v. 31). Ntumy speaks of how certain African medicine shrines and cults retreated in the face of prayers by the CoP. In 1956 two of these shrines, Tigare and Brekunde, are said to have ceased operating following an evangelistic campaign at Aduamuah in the Kwahu district of Ghana. After pre-campaign CoP prayers against the supernatural powers that could cause the shrine priests to go into trances and enable them to perform acts of divination, such events never recurred. Ntumy reports how a group of CoP believers prayed at Osramani, in the same region of Ghana, prior to an evangelistic crusade specifically targeting the shrines of Karhaw, Nanguri, and Yentumi. He reports that two days before the crusade the Kachaw priest who usually danced in fire clothed in a raffia skirt tried to display his powers. The skirt caught fire and the priest sustained terrible burns as a result of which he never practised again.47

47

Ntumy, “Church of Pentecost”, 63.

Chapter 4

The 12/70 Paradigm Shift: Ecclesiology in the New Charismatic Ministries

One of the major aims of the contemporary Pentecostal movement has been to reintroduce into church life what has been described as a “dynamic charismatic spirituality”.1 In Christian terms the expression “charismatic” means extraordinary abilities or graces traceable to the workings of the Spirit. It comes from charis and refers to embodiments of grace. Charismata pneumatika, graces of the Spirit, in the Pauline context relates to those gifts of the Holy Spirit that are a sign of the presence of God among his people. Thus charismatic spirituality has everything to do with the manifestation of charismata in worship and ministry. When carried to its logical conclusion with an embrace of all its implications for spiritual activity, that which is charismatic often translates into an ecclesiology that takes manifestations of the Spirit seriously. When believers are allowed the space to use their graces of the Spirit in ministry, the church becomes a living entity in which ministry belongs to all and not just to a clerical order. My intention in this chapter is to relate this Pauline understanding of ministry to the ecclesiology of contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. All Pentecostals believe in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, but the democratization of charisma in the life and ministry of the churches is more pronounced within contemporary Pentecostalism than, say, in the average classical Pentecostal denomination. The data for contemporary Pentecostal ecclesiology comes through observations in churches and the writings of some of the movement’s leaders. The chapter also attempts to show how this ecclesiology can be understood against the backdrop of the biblical material on the relationship between the Spirit and the church. We have noted that being an essentially enthusiastic movement, Pentecostal Christianity is characterised generally by renewal attributable to the activity of the Holy Spirit. Contemporary Pentecostal ecclesiology offers important appreciations of the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit through new communities of God’s people that brings into being.

1

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology, Soteriology and Theology of Mission (ed. Amos Yong; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002), 109.

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Tradition, Spirit and Ecclesiology For the older mission denominations, the ecclesial independence that comes with the experiences of the Spirit has been hard to take, and this accounts for some of the pejorative terms and expressions that the older independent churches attracted in the early years of the twentieth century. The truth is that lack of recognition for the gifts of others stands as the single most important reason for the establishment of indigenous Pentecostal ministries in Christian Africa. Historic mission denominations, on account of their doctrinal pedigree, historical connections to Christian Europe, and finely defined liturgical traditions, tended to limit understandings of ministry to ordination. Ministry in these older churches has been virtually monolithic. There is usually also a fine distinction made between the lay and ordained members of the church. Pentecostalism acknowledges clerical roles too, but on the whole, it remains a grassroots lay-oriented movement. Often the preferred designation is “pastor”, which places the emphasis on functionality rather than on position. The belief in apostolic succession exists in Pentecostalism only in relation to the presence and power of the Spirit. Observers of Pentecostal ecclesiology are wont to point to the fact that the movement has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to get the rank-and-file church member involved in ministry. Indeed, church-growth specialists have identified as the number one reason for the remarkable growth of Pentecostalism the unique ability of such churches to mobilize the laity for aggressive evangelism.2 In Spreading Fires, Allan Anderson provides concrete examples of how the initial experiences of the Holy Spirit in Azusa Street led to worldwide evangelism and mission by ordinary people inspired by the fires of the Spirit.3 The manifestation of gifts of the Spirit as a grassroots experience, which is particularly evident in contemporary Pentecostalism, tends to emphasize functioning within particular graces in which the members minister to communities of believers. In Ghana, as I have noted in African Charismatics, this characteristic explains why the movement is popularly designated Charismatic Ministries (CMs).4 In principle, ministry is defined by gifts, and therefore in terms of ecclesiology, contemporary Pentecostals tend to be somewhat more lay oriented than the hierarchical priesthoods of the older denominations. In chapter two, we saw how James Dunn summarizes the challenge which charismatic renewal poses to the wider church in terms of two apt expressions: ministry and experience. He uses experience to refer to “the rediscovery that when we talk of the Spirit in biblical terms, we are talking also

2

For these observations see Gary Tyra, The Holy Spirit in Mission: Prophetic Speech and Action in Christian Witness (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 117. 3 Allan Anderson, Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007). 4 Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics.

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about the inspiring, transforming, and empowering experience of the grace of God in the life of the believer and in the church”.5 Ministry is therefore defined within the context of the experiences of the Spirit as expressions of grace.6 The biblical foundations for these definitions of ministry include Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 12:7: “to each grace has been given for the common good” (cf. Eph. 4:7). Dunn explains: Paul envisages the local church as the body of Christ, as a charismatic community, where each member, by definition, has a function within the body, a role within the community of faith. To define the church as Christ’s body is to define each member as a functionary within that body, and is to define each member as a charismatic in that sense … by charisma Paul means any function, word or action, which contributes to the corporate life of the believers in any place … Consequently, any and every word, any and every act that in and through which the Spirit of God brings the grace of God to concrete expression is in Paul’s terms, a charism.7

The new community comes under a diversity of metaphors. They include flock, sheep, body of Christ, living stones, temple of the Holy Spirit, salt of the earth, light, and people of God. Of these images, I dwell on the membership of the church as “living stones”, which I relate to the metaphor of “temple”, which shows how the experience of the Holy Spirit helps in the appreciation of charismatic ecclesiology as both biblical and contextual in nature. Frank Macchia tells of how the church, ekklesia, as defined by the Spirit or Presence of God, is linked to the metaphor of temple: “The church thus has its being in the ecclesial Spirit who is also the missionary Spirit. The Spirit in the koinonia and empowered mission of the church seeks to draw humanity into communion with God and to inspire a sighing for the day when all creation becomes the temple of God’s presence to the glory of God.”8 There are many books written by charismatic pastors on the Holy Spirit and the church. From amongst all of these works, I have been working with those of one of the most illustrious, respected, popular, and articulate leaders of the movement, Pastor Joseph Eastwood Anaba. Anaba is the founding pastor of the Fountain Gate Chapel International, based in Bolgatanga, Ghana.9 Those familiar with Ghana’s socio-economic terrain know that Bolgatanga is in the north, precisely, in the Upper East regions, which remain to this day the most 5

Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 81. Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 83. 7 Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 81. 8 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 156. 9 Joseph Eastwood Anaba trained as a pharmacist in 1986 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Like a number of leading charismatic pastors in Africa, he has deep roots in the Evangelical movement and he served as a leader of the Ghana Fellowship of Evangelical Students (GHAFES) during his student days. GHAFES is the tertiary institutions’ equivalent of the Scripture Union, which is found mostly in secondary schools. 6

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underdeveloped part of post-independent Ghana. For an indigene of the north with a background in traditional religion to come out of the circumstances of that region and establish one of the most successful Pentecostal churches in sub-Saharan Africa can only be explained in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit. In the ministry of this pastor, I discern a reflection of Macchia’s apt words, “the Spirit embraces us or fills us with the divine presence in order to sanctify us and empower us to be living witnesses to Christ as the Son of God and the Spirit Baptizer. When God surrounds and fills us with the divine presence, it is so that we can give of ourselves back to God in worship and witness.”10 Anaba is in great demand as an international revivalist, especially within contemporary African Pentecostal churches both on the continent and, especially, in African immigrant churches in Europe and North America. He has within the last two years given active expression to this belief in charismatic ecclesiology by stepping down as general overseer of the ministry he founded, handing over leadership to someone who he thinks has better graces at administration. In addition to his gifts as a revivalist, Anaba has an impressive collection of publications, which contain mainly messages that he has delivered at revival meetings. His books differ from all others because he, unlike other authors from the charismatic stable, writes his own works. African charismatic pastors publish extensively. Their books belie the Western image of theology as a rather abstract and theoretical pursuit undertaken largely by trained professionals. Conventional systematic theology often uses language and concepts beyond the reach of most ordinary folk. Books such as those discussed in this chapter are written for the edification of ordinary members, and they articulate the issues from experience. They may not be academic material in the real sense of the term, but nevertheless, many contain insightful theological reflections on the Christian faith from Pentecostal/charismatic perspectives and experiences. They are useful as sources of primary data for understanding the nature of contemporary popular Christian thought in Africa. Contemporary African Pentecostal Ecclesiology In writing on African-initiated Christianity scholars tend to overstress the place of the Holy Spirit in these indigenous churches as the source of power for overcoming other malevolent spirits. This focus, David Ngong has noted, tends to overshadow other ways by which the Spirit of Christ could be working in Africa.11 In this chapter I draw attention to the important ways in which the experience of the Holy Spirit is redefining ecclesiology through contemporary African Pentecostalism. Africa’s contemporary Pentecostals, like the new 10

Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 159. David Tonghou Ngong, The Holy Spirit and Salvation in African Christian Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), 33. 11

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paradigm churches of North America described by Donald Miller, have democratised access to the sacred by “radicalising the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers”.12 I approach African Charismatic ecclesiology through two of Anaba’s major works, God’s End-Time Militia and The 12/70 Paradigm Shift.13 God’s EndTime Militia was written within the context of religious, political, and socioeconomic changes that occurred in Ghana during the period from the mid1970s to mid-1980s, as the initial contemporary Pentecostal churches emerged out of the shadows of the evangelical non-denominational fellowships of the period. As a result of a combination of factors that included military dictatorships and corruption, African countries were experiencing serious economic downturns. These hardships, aggravated by natural disasters, engendered apocalyptic visions in the minds of Christians, who looked to divine intervention for help. Traditionally, Africans take a problem-solving approach to religion, and as the troubles defied human comprehension, various intercessory groups cried to God for help. Those so inclined rushed to biblical prophecy for assistance in understanding the signs of the times. The situation bred much social unrest and triggered a number of military revolutions in Africa, during which many lives were lost. One ramification was a popular demand for God’s intervention made at prayer meetings that yielded a multiplicity of creative new Christian movements in Ghanaian society. Religious people, including Christians, invoked the causal relationship that Africans generally perceive between personal and communal evil or suffering, on one hand, and sin and demonic activity, on the other, as an explanation for the plight of the country. These explanations of mystical causation gained currency in light of the moral ineptitude that was being exhibited, particularly among public office holders. Others taught that the pouring of libation to traditional deities amounted to national idolatry, which God was avenging by turning his anger upon the nations of Africa. Thus the rise of contemporary Pentecostalism in Ghana coincided with the first populist military insurrection, led by the then flight lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings in 1979, the “June Fourth Revolution”. In the period from 1978 to 1983 independent Ghana was confronted with one of its harshest economic crises. The closing years of the government of the Supreme Military Council (1972–79), following years of mismanagement, threw Ghana into economic, social, and moral chaos. This chaotic situation was made worse by severe droughts that hit the country, resulting in bush fires throughout the nation, famine, poverty, and squalor. Ghanaians had to queue for basic essential 12

Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism, 1. Eastwood Anaba, God’s End-time Militia: Winning the War Within and Without (revised edition; Accra: Design Solutions, 1997 [1993]); Eastwood Anaba, The 12/70 Paradigm Shift (Desert Leaf Publications, Bolgatanga, Ghana. 2005). 13

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commodities such as milk, sugar, rice, toiletries, and fuel. The moral situation was discouraging. Prophecies abounded in those days, with the unanimous theme that God was calling the nation to repentance. When seen in the light of Old Testament salvation history, the call to repentance had a measure of theological credibility. A favourite verse of Scripture, which inspired many prayer meetings at that time, was 2 Chr. 7:13-14: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Jerry John Rawlings, then a junior officer in the Ghana Air Force, made his first intervention in Ghanaian politics in 1979, and his initials, J. J., promptly became an acronym for “Junior Jesus”, an indication of the popularity of his first revolution and the religious interpretations given to it. Rawlings handed over to a civilian administration under President Hilla Limann that same year, only to usurp power again on 31 December 1981. His promise of immediate recovery in the economy did not materialise. The problem was further aggravated in 1983 by the repatriation from Nigeria of hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians who had gone to the proverbial Agege in search of a better life. The already overstretched food resources of the country had to be stretched further to cover the returnees. But what has all this to do with the popular ecclesiology associated with modern African Pentecostalism? The Charismatic Churches and Revolutionary Rhetoric Contemporary Pentecostalism, beginning in 1979 with the Christian Action Faith Ministries led by Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, was born during the lifetime of the two Rawlings revolutions. In the religious context, developments in Ghana were reminiscent of those of the early nineteenth century Second Great Awakenings in North America, in which new religious innovators democratised access to God by encouraging religious spontaneity and by refusing to defer to the interpretation of Scripture of learned theologians.14 In Ghana and Nigeria the militaristic idiom of the two revolutionary eras in Ghana became similarly part of the hermeneutic of contemporary Pentecostalism. As the title of Anaba’s book suggests, the new Pentecostals were seen as “God’s End-Time Militia”. They had been called by God to wage the war for which the historic mission churches had, presumably, not been able to take responsibility. The concept of militia was itself borrowed from the designation of one of the paramilitary organisations set up after the Rawlings coup, the Peoples’ Militia. The subtitle Winning the War Within and 14

Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratisation of American Christianity (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 57.

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Without, is revealing of the extent to which developments in the nation were linked to the activities of the supernatural realm. The “war” was not just economic or moral. Supernatural agents were believed to have instigated that war, and the new charismatics held that what was needed to fight it was a new army of persons—God’s End-Time Militia—who were alive to their spiritual responsibilities. In overt reference to the role of the contemporary Pentecostal churches as far as church life is concerned, Anaba writes that some churches exist for continuity but the charismatics were born for change.15 In a spirit of disdain for tradition similar to that of Rawlings, the emerging leadership of charismatic churches castigated the traditional mission churches as cold, dead, bookish, and moribund institutions that had no sense of the supernatural. They were dismissed as having lost sight of God’s purposes for the nation. An important motivation behind the message of God’s End-Time Militia was that just as the Spirit of God moved over chaos and restored order, the church also needed new direction, instruction, training, and motivation.16 The legitimacy of unbelieving ministers with bookish theological training pastoring God’s flock was called into question. The born-again within the older churches were continually challenged to come out of them and be separate. The new charismatics thus challenged the traditions of the fathers and the dry denominationalism that characterised the older ecclesiology. In line with this position, Anaba suggests that the established churches with their “good social standing” had become too ceremonial and had thereby lost their power. For that reason, God had kept his word, Anaba claimed, and poured out his Spirit on ordinary people to work for him in ministry.17 The implications of these observations for Christian mission are profound for, as Hodges asserts in The Indigenous Church, “the faith which Pentecostal people have in the ability of the Holy Spirit to give spiritual gifts to the common people … has raised up a host of lay preachers and leaders of unusual spiritual ability”. Such democratisation of spiritual gifts, as Hodges further notes, played a major role in the spectacular spread of Pentecostalism.18 The historic mission churches had been living mostly on past glory. The high level of clericalism and the routine processes of incorporation into the church through the sacraments of infant baptism, confirmation, and first communion had created a large body of nominal Christians for whom religious experiences of the born-again type were alien. In the process, the churches had alienated a whole generation of young people whose denominational loyalties had been eroded through years of association with conservative evangelicalism 15

Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, ix. Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, x. 17 Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 3. 18 Quoted in Walter J. Hollenweger, “Crucial Issues for Pentecostals”, in Anderson and Hollenweger (eds), Pentecostals after a Century, 167–77. 16

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of the Scripture Union kind. In God’s End-Time Militia, Anaba likens the traditional churches to the regular army who, as a result of complacency, compromise, and ineffectiveness, had been overthrown by the new movements, just as Rawlings had overthrown first the military government of the then Supreme Military Council in the first coup and subsequently the democratically elected government of Dr Hilla Limann. The new Pentecostals, by contrast, were likened to the Civil Defence Organisation (CDO) set up by the Rawlings revolutionary government as a grassroots paramilitary movement to champion the cause of the revolution.19 Anaba notes that because the members of the CDO are selected from the ordinary citizenry, they are better disposed to identify with the feelings of the people they are called upon to help. In a euphemistic reference to the traditional churches, he writes that the “regular army” has become too distant from the people. The long period of training and confinement to barracks have alienated them from the people. “In a similar manner many ministers of the gospel and church folks”, he notes, “have become so confined to their little islands, that God has [had] to raise a fresh breed of militia-men from the midst of the people.”20 In direct comparison with the traditional churches, therefore, the CMs for Anaba, constituted God’s end-time militia, raised up in the end-times to replace “institutionalised Christendom”.21 Those enlisted in God’s end-time militia, with their short, non-academic, and less recondite and sophisticated training, were supposedly better equipped because they were armed to engage the forces of evil not with cerebral theology but with the Spirit of God.22 In Anaba’s words, when ministers with seminary training become complacent and lackadaisical “a new breed of ministers without formal education is raised as a back-up force”.23 The point of this hermeneutic is the declaration of the democratisation of charisma, or the priesthood of every believer. The regular army, bureaucratic and set in its ways, had thus lost the ability to deliver God’s word with power. God had now raised up ordinary men and women and had given them spiritual gifts for a more spiritually relevant, challenging, and dynamic ministry.24

19

Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 4–5. Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 4–5. 21 Sermon notes from Anaba’s preaching, August 1993. 22 Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 4. 23 Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 3. 24 The impact of this new form of ecclesiology on the historic mission churches is seen in the rise of charismatic renewal groups within them—the Bible Study and Prayer Group of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, and the Methodist Prayer and Renewal Programme—through which the spiritual gifts of ordinary members are deployed for the whole church. 20

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The 12/70 Paradigm Shift in Ecclesiology Anaba’s 12/70 Paradigm Shift continues the understanding of ecclesiology as ministry in the body of Christ according to spiritual gifts first discussed in God’s Endtime Militia. God, Anaba notes, initiated the move of the seventy to augment that of the twelve to keep the spiritual momentum alive.25 This sequel to God’s Endtime Militia was written at a time when Ghana had enjoyed full parliamentary democracy for almost two decades. God’s Endtime Militia—the new Pentecostal churches—were also a generation old. Concerns were being raised about the personality cults and institutionalization of charisma that was emerging within the movement after just thirty years. A number of early charismatic leaders had now taken on episcopal titles, beginning with the pioneering founder of contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa, the late Benson Idahosa, who migrated from Pastor to Reverend Doctor and then to Reverend Professor. At the time of his death, in 1998, Benson Idahosa was Archbishop. Nicholas Duncan-Williams of Ghana took the same path, and when he ordained one of his assistants as Bishop sometime in 2003, it was obvious that he himself wanted to move higher. He became Archbishop. In response to these developments, Anaba says, God released “an explosive revelation of the ministries of the twelve and the seventy apostles of Christ” into his spirit.26 Likening the developments within contemporary Pentecostal ecclesiology to the “complacency of the twelve with their twisted perspective of life and ministry”, he notes: The twelve apostles were distracted by non-essentials and their momentum dwindled under the pressure of negative egoism and sinister idiosyncrasies. The move of God in the ministry of the seventy was instituted by Jesus to sustain the revival because the twelve apostles were beginning to major on the minor issues of life.27

The reference to “the minor issues of life” has to do with the ways in which the leadership of contemporary Pentecostalism was gradually becoming like their older compatriots in the historic mission denominations, in which ministry was a monopoly of the clergy. This background is important as an indication of the extent to which part of the leadership of contemporary Pentecostalism wanted to guard the integrity of an ecclesiology that gave them an identity different from that of the older churches. Anaba’s writes, The twelve monopolized spiritual mandate and power and were obviously intoxicated with their success in ministry. After the call of the seventy and their first assignment, Jesus noticed sings of over excitement. He immediately

25

Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, ix. Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, ix 27 Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, ix. 26

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In Anaba’s understanding, Jesus did not abandon the twelve but rather extended the “grace for ministry participation”, Anaba he calls it, “to a wider range of people”.29 The paradigm of the twelve, he explains, stood for the moves of the special few while the paradigm of the seventy stood for the moves of the masses. The twelve, he notes, represented “spiritual government”, meaning the original custodians of ministry, but the seventy represent a form of restoration in which God endows other people with gifts, or “spiritual power” to serve the body of Christ. He makes the ecclesiological point clear in the following quotation: In the present move of God we are beginning to have a situation reminiscent of the day of Jesus—the monopoly of the power of God by just a few people is broken. In the recent past the Body of Christ was characterised by “superstars” who claimed to be God’s special vessels. They enjoyed a lot of publicity which they mistook for priority attention from God. Like Elijah these people thought they were the only people God could use … Ministers who appear on television and those who attract crowds are usually tempted to think that besides them there are no other people God is using … God does not limit His power and wisdom to special people. He is the God of all flesh and loves to empower all His children.30

The point of the 12/70 paradigm shift ecclesiology, from the pattern of the twelve to the pattern of the seventy, is therefore that there has been a democratisation of ministry, as I like to refer to it. This ecclesiology, according to Anaba, “is about functioning and not positions”.31 The whole argument of the book is that through the outpouring of his Holy Spirit, God empowers the masses for ministry and, as Anaba rightly points out, that is how the words of the prophet Joel “and I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” must be understood.32 Thus Anaba’s point in these two works and in several others—that members of the militia were recruited from the ordinary citizenry without military sophistication but were trained within a short period to serve—is therefore instructive for our understanding of contemporary charismatic ecclesiology. The outpouring of the Spirit, according to Joel, was for the empowerment of “all flesh.” Ordinary people, including women, menservants, and maidservants who may count for nothing in the hierarchical ministerial structure of the church, are equipped through the common experience of the eschatological

28

Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, xii. Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, 14. 30 Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, 14, 15, 16. 31 Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, 19. 32 Anaba, 12/70 Paradigm Shift, 16. 29

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Spirit so that they may also exercise their ministry gifts within the body of Christ. Historically, as Gordon Fee has argued forcefully but soberly, the church has now fallen into a model of ecclesiology that maintains a sharp distinction between the laity and the clergy. The ministry has been “professionalised”.33 But such clericalization of the church runs counter to the model in the New Testament, and particularly to Pauline ecclesiology, in which every member of the body of Christ is expected to have a ministry. Indeed, the very metaphor of “body” used with reference to the church suggests different but coordinated functions. Unlike the biblical model in which an identifiable leadership was simply part of the whole people of God, in the contemporary church, the clergy exist apart from the people, and the gifts and ministry of the church have been monopolised by a professional clergy. Ghana’s new charismatic leaders still desire the aura and power that their ordained counterparts in the established Roman Catholic and Protestant churches so much cherish. This has received expression recently in that elevation of prominent charismatic leaders to the offices of bishop and archbishop. In my view, however, when it comes to the gifts and graces of ministry, the charismatics have done better at democratising charisma so that those with ministry gifts are given the space and opportunity to minister as part of the whole people of God. The charismatics give practical expression to the priesthood of all believers. The attitude whereby established Christianity is denounced as irrelevant, however, is not untypical of Pentecostalism in general. In their zeal to establish themselves as God’s new paradigm for Christianity, charismatics have tended to throw the baby away with the bath water. Many CMs in Ghana are now realising their error in dismissing theological training and academic work as irrelevant to Christian mission. Not only are CMs now setting up Bible schools to train prospective pastors, but they also draw some of the teachers for these Bible schools from among the clergy of historic denominations that were previously considered “spiritually dead”.34 Christians as Stones In my judgment, the metaphor from Peter of Christians as “living stones” is also based on the understanding that the church must, in principle, be constituted by people of the Spirit. The relevant text reads, “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to 33

Fee, Listening to the Spirit, 121–46. Two instances are the Theology Department of Central University and the Bible School of Action Faith. A significant number of the lecturers are drawn from Trinity Theological Seminary, where most of the pastors of traditional mission churches are trained. 34

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him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4-5). A stone is a lifeless object that only becomes useful when a stonemason finds the appropriate use for it. In this context, the human person may be an ordinary stone and God is the Stonemason. The difference between the ordinary stone and the metaphoric stone as it applies in reference to Jesus Christ lies in two areas. First, Jesus himself is referred to as “the living Stone” who was rejected by those who treated him as an ordinary stone. But we learn from Peter that Jesus “was chosen by God”—the Stonemason—“and precious to him” (1 Pet. 2:4). Second, in the passage, the Christian community in relation to Jesus Christ is also referred to as “living stones”. This means that as stones, believers cannot be divorced from the life and ministry of the ultimate “living Stone”, Jesus Christ our Lord. It is important to know why the Bible provides certain metaphors, such as stones, to refer to the people of God. Stones are used to build, and God the Master Builder and Architect builds the Christian community into a spiritual house. Paul explained this process to the Ephesians: For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph. 2:18-22)

Therefore, the Christian community is referred to as stones because God is building it into a structure in which he can dwell by his Spirit. In Stephen’s sermon to the crowd waiting to stone him to death, he declared that “the Most High does not dwell in houses made by men” (Acts 7:48). Quoting Isaiah (66:1-2) in part, Stephen posed the critical questions that should guide our understanding of how ordinary stones become living stones: However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things?” You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it. (Acts 7:48-53)

Three issues confront us in these verses. The first is a statement of fact: the Most High does not live in houses made by men. Second, the questions were posed by the Most High himself: “What kind of house will you build for me?

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Or where will my dwelling place be? Has not my hand made all these things?” And third, Stephen’s judgment on the people exposed their culpability in the death of Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High God. The Jews had focused their attention on the physical temple, but Stephen pointed them to a more profound truth that they had missed: “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” (Acts 7:51). What does this statement have to do with the fact that God does not dwell in physical houses built with ordinary stones and with his question regarding the sort of dwelling that would be built for him? If, as Stephen said, the Jews had “resisted the Holy Spirit”, they had not allowed the Spirit of God to indwell them and control life and ministry. If the Holy Spirit does not indwell God’s people, his presence will not be felt in the church either. That which turns ordinary stones into living stones and could then be used to build an appropriate temple or house for God is the Holy Spirit. Without his presence, the church as the place where God dwells by his Spirit is full of ordinary stones, rather than living stones. “The Spirit, the Giver of Life” John’s gospel account answers the question of how God dwells among his people, the church: If you love me, you will obey what I command [you will not resist me]. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans [I will not leave you empty]35; I will come to you … If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:15-18, 23)

God does not live in houses built with human hands because he wants to dwell in his people and he does so by the presence of the Holy Spirit. He wants to be present in the power of his Spirit when his people gather in worship. That is why the Holy Spirit has been termed “God’s empowering presence”. In the Nicene Creed, the Holy Spirit is referred to as “the Giver of Life”. He gave form or life to a chaotic mass when he hovered over it at creation (Gen. 1); he gave life to a model of clay at the beginning of humanity (Gen. 1-2); he gave life to dry bones in a valley (Ezek. 37); and he gave “life” to a group of timid and despondent disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2). The Spirit of God is indeed the Giver of life. Thus through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, the individual Christian and, by extension, the church are transformed from ordinary stones into what Peter calls living stones. Living stones, according Peter, are hewn out of one Living Stone. That Living Stone, Jesus Christ, makes the Holy Spirit, 35

Author’s note.

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who is the Giver of life, available to those who believe in him. The same Holy Spirit then turns ordinary stones into living stones used to build temples in which the Triune God can dwell. Elsewhere in Ephesians 4 Paul makes a direct connection between Jesus Christ, who with God gives the Spirit and his graces to the church: It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (Eph. 4:11-16).

The expression “he” in this passage refers to the “source” of the ministries listed by Paul. Literally what this means is that the “source” of the ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, is Jesus, the Christ. That is why in 1 Cor. 12:3b Paul noted, “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit”. Jesus himself told the disciples that the Holy Spirit will work to bring glory to him: “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 16:15). Indeed Paul makes a direct connection between the ascension [glorification] of Christ and the granting of gifts to human beings or the church. In Eph. 4:7, we have these words: “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” What is the nature of this grace that Christ has apportioned or shared? The answer is in Eph. 4:8: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts unto men.” If Paul says “but to each of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it” and then proceeds to note that “when he ascended on high” Christ “gave gifts unto men”, then it means in his theological understanding graces and gifts are synonymous expressions. Jesus Christ as the Source of Ministry The Ascension of Jesus Christ is very important to Christian theology and that is why it is captured in the historical creeds of the church. There are three reasons for its significance. The Ascension indicates first, that Jesus Christ belongs to the realm of supreme power; second, that Jesus Christ has assumed an intercessory role on behalf of humanity; and third, that Jesus Christ has a continuing ministry in the world. One way to appreciate that ministry is to look at it through the “gifts of grace” given to believers. Indeed in the Gospel according to John, it is “from the fullness of his grace” that Jesus Christ blesses his people, as we read in John 1:16, “From the fullness of his grace we have all

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received one blessing after another”. From the testimony of John the Baptist we understand that Jesus Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. This means there must be no doubting that as far as Christian ministry and the gifts of the Spirit are concerned, the working of the gifts must be seen as Christ being at work among his people. Ultimately then, the use of the gifts of the Spirit in ministry must bring glory to God, who revealed himself in Jesus Christ. For the evidence of the gifts is an indication that Jesus Christ continues to exercise his ministry in the world through the presence of the Spirit: “I will not leave you as orphans”, Jesus said, “I will come to you” (John 14:17). And Jesus Christ is with his church through the Presence of the Holy Spirit. One way to see this is to appreciate the workings of the Spirit through the gifts that he gives to Christians. Ministry and the Charismatic Challenge Two main recurring themes can be discerned in the self-definition of the new churches as offered by Anaba. These themes are also evident in the nature of contemporary Pentecostalism generally. First, God has raised the new churches as his end-time militia, to empower members to fight Satan and the forces of darkness, considered to be obstacles to the world’s redemption. Through victory over these forces, God’s people will be free to enjoy the abundant life that God promises in Christ. Of concern here is how the self-definition of the charismatics marks out their concept of ministry as different from that of existing Christian traditions, a difference that is the second main theme in their self-definition. Anderson articulates the concern of contemporary Pentecostals about the over-concentration of ministry gifts in the hands of clergy when he writes of the importance of the “Holy Ghost experiences” of ordinary people in the spread of Pentecostalism: This mass involvement of the “laity” in the Pentecostal movement was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its success. There was no need for a theologically articulate clergy, because cerebral and clerical Christianity had, in the minds of many people, already failed them. What was needed was a demonstration of power by indigenous people to whom ordinary people could easily relate. This was the democratisation of Christianity, for henceforth the mystery of the gospel would no longer be reserved for a select privileged and educated few, but would be revealed to whoever was willing to receive it and pass it on.36

The people God has raised as his end-time militia are not trained specialists like priests but “commoners” who through their experience of God’s Spirit share in the work of ministry. The CMs thus constitute a new priesthood born of the Spirit. Through this end-time militia, God is supposedly carrying out a revolution by overthrowing human traditions from the Church. “Human 36

Anderson, “Global Pentecostalism”, 222

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traditions” here refers to the over-concentration of “priestly power” in the hands and personalities of ordained clergy, who may not necessarily be people of the Spirit.37 As Juan Sepúlveda points out with respect to the nature of the Pentecostal experience generally, “The constitutive act of the Pentecostal movement is the offer of a direct and particularly intense encounter with God which makes possible a profound change in the life of the person who experiences it … Through the Holy Spirit, God makes himself directly accessible to the believer who seeks him, thus destroying the necessity of every kind of external priestly mediation.”38 By extension, such democratisation of ministry includes the de-legitimisation of the reliance on what Mircea Eliade calls “hierophanies”, that is, special sacred places, sacred persons, private home altars, or sacred objects and images considered to be imbued with special power to mediate the sacred or the presence of God.39 Indeed, Paul seems to discount such mediated access to God when he speaks of the Christian as “the temple of the living God” (2 Cor. 6:16). The religious innovation of the CMs is thus the democratisation of religious experience. Theologically, the CMs emphasise that the experience of the Holy Spirit is personal and direct and does not need to pass through any priestly filter. The whole point in Anaba’s hermeneutic is that in contemporary Pentecostalism, God has democratised spiritual gifts, rendering reliance on any kind of priestly mediation unnecessary. The key phrase here is unmediated accessibility. The speaking of tongues is above all else a symbolic illustration of this conviction that all people can access God in an intensely personal way, as are also seeing visions and prophesying. In the words of Anaba: Every believer is called by God as a Priest, King, Prophet and Soldier. The problem has been that most of the functions of the Church as a divine priesthood have been abandoned to ministers of the gospel. Believers also look on helplessly as the ministers or clergy monopolise divine authority given to us to rule as kings, casting out devils, healing the sick and exercising authority.40

Leaders in the CMs are expected to possess what Ghanaian charismatics refer to constantly as “the anointing”. The anointing is not restricted to pastors or leaders but is available to everybody who is in ministry or serves God’s people in any capacity. So even the singer or worship leader, according to Anaba, must know that the ministry imposes a demand on him to pray, study, be holy, be diligent and be sober. He must know that the ministry also imposes 37

Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 97, 100. Juan Sepúlveda, “Reflections on the Pentecostal Contribution to the Mission of the Church in Latin America”, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 1 (1992), 100. 39 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Significance of Religious Myths, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1959), 11– 12. 40 Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 1. 38

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restrictions on him not to live in sin, not to be found jesting, talking foolishly, living in indolence, acting in gross disregard for spiritual authority, backbiting, and possessing any unhealthy attitudes towards team mates. People are depending on your ministry to be blessed and you cannot let them down.41

He has a word also for the ushers whose work must be perceived as a form of ministry: Ushers must be in the Spirit too. As you take hold of the hands of people to welcome them to the service they must feel the waves of the love of God. Remember you are ushering people into the presence of God, and this makes it imperative for you to have a foretaste of the glorious presence in worship and prayer before the meeting. You can’t usher people into an atmosphere unknown to yourself. Many ushers are like signposts or bill boards which direct thousands of people to a place but remain stationary themselves.42

Everyone, no matter how insignificant his or her contribution, is considered within a traditional hierarchical atmosphere of ministry as having a role to play in the mission of the church. Mission has been defined as knowing what the Creator-God is doing in the world and allowing him to co-opt us into the enterprise. And what is God doing in the world? According to the parameters set for the ministry of Jesus, God is healing lepers, restoring the sight of the blind, preaching the good news to the poor, and bringing release to those who are bound. This ministry, in the context of the charismatic emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, is to be undertaken not only by those who are considered specially trained and endowed, but even by those who usher worshippers into God’s presence. As Anaba records when he writes of the role of ushers, people with demons must start getting delivered at the entrance, as ushers take hold of them. If the laying on of hands by the pastor brings healing and deliverance, then the handshakes of the ushers should produce results too.43 When the priesthood of all believers is given full expression in the church, ministry will belong to all: When the glory comes in and everything is done under the cloud, there will be no particular time for healing and impartation of anointing. It will happen as people are ushered in, as the choir sings, as the offering is being taken and as the preaching goes on.44

In Ghana’s new charismatic churches, those in leadership are expected to demonstrate evidence of the fullness of the Spirit in special measures that stem from that leadership. The special anointing of the pastor makes for differentiation and often determines the choice of place of worship. But as far as spiritual gifts are concerned, the leader cannot present himself or herself as the expert, as the concept of ministry in the CMs shows. Anybody at all may 41

Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 14. Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 14–15. 43 Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 15. 44 Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 15. 42

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stand up at a charismatic meeting to prophesy, relate a vision, or invoke the name of Jesus to heal the sick. In any one charismatic church, there could be people with the gifts of prophecy, healing, interpretation of tongues, visions, and so on. Thus, in the ecclesiology of the CMs, “your spiritual gift determines your ministry”, an indication that the purpose of charisms is to service the body of Christ, as Anaba points out: Every believer is God’s mouthpiece, and we, as his ambassadors must declare his word with boldness. I appreciate the place of the five-fold ministry. Without these gifts of men we cannot move, nevertheless they were put there to equip and motivate the saints and not to monopolise the ministry (Eph. 4:12).45

The understanding is that ministers will lead in the body of Christ by virtue of their special calling, but in that leadership lies the fact that they are expected to inspire others in the employment of their gifts. This ecclesiology, seen in the praxis of charismatic spirituality, challenges traditional understandings. Personal experiences of the Spirit through being “born again” and being filled with the Spirit are important to the theology of the CMs in Ghana. The experience of God who is Spirit and who is Holy brings renewal to the individual and to the church in the form of transformation and empowerment. The CMs present the paradigm of Pentecost as an event whose continuing relevance helps the church to integrate experience as an indispensable ingredient into developing dynamic ministries. Any individual who has experienced the Spirit is a minister and can, therefore, minister to others through his or her charisms, including natural abilities and talents. The fact that renewal straddles all denominations is indicative of the fact that gifts of ministry are not tied to particular individuals or church traditions. This understanding of ministry as evidenced in the self-definition of the CMs challenges the traditional interpretations in which the ministry is a term reserved for ordained ministers and their functions. Dunn argues that this traditional understanding is limiting because it restricts the concept of the “priesthood of all believers” to a reserved area that remains “unaffected in practice by the assertion that priesthood belongs to all believers”.46 The selfdefinition of the CMs, in contrast, affirms that priesthood does belong to all believers, leading to an inclusive mode of ministry. This explains why the principle of ministry in the CMs dispenses with dependence on mediatory services, “cultic” centres, and substances as sources of spiritual power. This democratisation of charisma or ministry is built on the dominant theological image in Pauline ecclesiology of the church as the body of Christ. Here each member is expected to function using his or her spiritual gift, in order that the body can function charismatically.47 This democratic, diffused, 45

Anaba, God’s End-Time Militia, 1. Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 83. 47 Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 82. 46

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and inclusive praxis of ministry is premised on the Pauline meaning of charisma as functions, words, or actions that contribute to the corporate life of the charismatic community.48 Paul not only highlights the diversity of spiritual gifts, he also emphasises the role that every Christian has to play in their practical manifestation and functioning. If charisma is not the preserve of a few, it is also not, according to Dunn, restricted to particular sets of clearly defined gifts, for whatever word or act mediates grace to the believing community is charisma.49 In practice, the CMs create room for the recognition of people who are specially anointed by God to provide leadership, by recognising the regular ministries as listed in Eph. 4:1112.50 The important point here is that in the midst of the recognition of the ministry of those called to lead, practical expression is also given to the ministries of the laity, whose active role in the body of Christ, in the context of the shared experience of the Spirit, is duly also recognised. In my view the democratisation of charisma has made the style of ministry within contemporary Pentecostalism a grace-oriented one in which, instead of relying on hierarchies of ministers or on so-called extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, the laity have been mobilised on the basis of their spiritual gifts and talents to minister in the power of the Spirit in leading worship, in personal evangelism, healing, and deliverance, and in other ways. The many Bible schools that have sprung up among contemporary Pentecostals are not exclusively for training for pastoral ministry. Conclusion There is much reference in traditional Western Protestant ecclesiology to the priesthood of all believers and to the ministry as belonging to the “whole people of God”. In spite of this, the ordained clergy in these churches hold a virtual monopoly over things pertaining to ministry, just as the prophets of the older AICs tended to monopolise access to spiritual gifts. Within the ecclesiology of the CMs, however, the basis of ministry becomes a person’s encounter with the Spirit and not theological competence or dynastic succession. Macchia even strikes a relationship between Spirit-inspired ecclesiology and the spread of Pentecostalism as a non-Western religion: [There] is globally a shift occurring today toward a “new Christendom” that has its greatest … strength in the southern hemisphere and that tends to encourage charismatic, widely participatory, and missions-minded congregations. Multiple and extraordinary gifts among ordinary Christians such as prophecy, exorcism, and divine healing are emerging as far more relevant to the vibrancy of the 48

James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1990), 110. 49 Dunn, “Ministry and the Ministry”, 82 (italics in original). 50 Dunn, Unity and Diversity, 112.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity missionary church globally than North American and European theologians labouring under the challenges of the Enlightenment could have ever imagined. The strength of this renewed Christendom is not in its sense of tradition or theological brilliance … but in a powerful experience of communal praise, liberation, and mission. The renewal tends toward an energized laity active in the realm of the Spirit in diverse and unique ways to build up the body of Christ and to function as witnesses for Christ to the world.51

The emphasis on experiencing the Spirit and making use of one’s gifts in ministry that stands as one of the key factors accounting for the growth of the CMs may also ensure their survival from this generation to the next.

51

Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 158.

Chapter 5

“For Open Doors”: Interpretations of Giving

This chapter examines giving as a religious practice and its theological presuppositions and implications within contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. The matter is approached through the principle of “sowing and reaping” popularized in Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa by North American televangelist Oral Roberts through his media programmes. In contemporary Pentecostalism, as I will discuss below, giving is linked to the material and spiritual prosperity of individuals and nations. Nimi Wariboko develops a number of models to explain the rise of prosperity teaching in African Pentecostalism. One of these is what he calls the covenant paradigm, which argues that God blesses people and nations according to either the covenant of giving or the covenant of good efforts. Usually, though, in African Pentecostal teachings the two go together, as Wariboko explains: According to this theory, the individual’s prosperity, which starts with ceaseless sacrificial giving of giving or time and effort to the church will lead to national development. Irrespective of the overall state of the national economy, poverty is a religious problem caused by a lack of faith or trust in God’s promise. Thus Christians demonstrate their faith in God to turn around their bad economic circumstances by giving financial and other material resources to the church.1

In the same text, Wariboko refers to how people believe that prosperity comes to those who sow gifts inspired by “quasimagical” worldviews, in the hope that they will reap God’s promises.2 My understanding is that the covenant of sowing and reaping in Pentecostal teaching, as I demonstrate below, is anything but sacrificial. Contemporary Pentecostal prosperity teaching is based on transactional, not sacrificial, giving. Its ardent proponents include Kenneth Copeland and other word-of-faith preachers. Copeland argues from the story of the boy who brought five loaves and two fishes to Jesus that the miracle could not have taken place if the boy had not been willing to give his own meal. He claims speculatively that the boy was rewarded with the

1 Nimi Wariboko, “Pentecostal Paradigms of National Economic Prosperity in Africa”, in Katherine Attanasi and Amos Yong (eds), Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The SocioEconomics of the Global Charismatic Movement (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2012), 37. 2 Wariboko, “Prosperity Paradigms”, 37.

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twelve baskets of leftovers.3 Copeland’s interpretation of the biblical story might not necessarily be paradigmatic of the hermeneutics of every prosperity preacher, but the principle of sowing and reaping underlying the interpretation is certainly widespread within contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. The following observation from the report Faith, Health and Prosperity, edited by Andrew Perriman, is instructive at this point: Undoubtedly the arguments about giving can be self-serving. The tacit assumption is that a good proportion of people’s giving will be channeled into the Word of Faith ministries. We are also frequently left with the impression that giving has been made just another excuse for greed. If you want a nice watch, why don’t you give one away and be expectant for your nice one to come in? If you want a nice car, why don’t you sow for one, then you can be expectant for a new car?4

The designation “contemporary Pentecostalism” refers to the spirituality of the new Pentecostal churches that have burgeoned in Africa since the last three decades of the twentieth century. For the purposes of this chapter, their most important features include iconic charismatic leaders, modern and fashion conscious outlook, contemporary worship forms, extensive use of modern media technology, and messages of existential success and material prosperity. Related to the practical outworking of the message of prosperity are the various forms of giving encouraged in this new type of Pentecostal Christianity. Tithes, offerings, gifts to men and women of God, often cast as sowing and reaping, have become a virtual subculture within contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. The principle of sowing and reaping is frequently presented in very “formulaic and utilitarian terms”, and as Perriman notes, “the practice of naming a seed in order to gain a particular blessing” is only one example of how this theology works.5 Giving in tithes and offerings and, in particular, gift giving to charismatic leaders have acquired significant sacramental implications for the new churches in Africa.6 Giving as Transactional: Christian and Traditional Giving, it is generally preached within contemporary Pentecostalism, stimulates divine responses to human desires. This has led to what I describe in this chapter as “transactional giving”. This type of giving is reciprocal, and 3

Andrew Perriman (ed.), Faith, Health and Prosperity: A Report on “Word of Faith” and “Positive Confession” Theologies by ACUTE: the Evangelical Alliance Commission on Unity and Truth Among Evangelicals (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003), 53. 4 Perriman, Faith, Health and Prosperity, 54. 5 Perriman, Faith, Health and Prosperity, 53. 6 See for instance chapter 6 of David Maxwell, African Gifts of the Spirit: Pentecostalism and the Rise of a Zimbabwean Transnational Religious Movement (Oxford: James Currey, 2006).

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Christians are taught to expect appropriate redemptive uplifts from God when tithing obligations are faithfully fulfilled. A telling illustration of this transactional giving occurred in July 1998, during my doctoral fieldwork in Ghana. I worshipped at a branch of Pastor Mensa Otabil’s International Central Gospel Church in Takoradi. Coincidentally, that Sunday’s service climaxed a weeklong revival meeting. The speaker was one Prophet Ewusi-Brookman. This concluding segment of the revival week was an “anointing service”. In these services, worshippers are anointed with olive oil for various breakthroughs in life. Some were encouraged to drink the oil to take care of internal health problems. Following the anointing, it was the turn of worshippers to “bless the man of God” for what his prophetic impartations during the week were potentially to achieve for them. In other words, it was time to reciprocate the anointing upon their lives from which the worshippers had benefitted. In this context “blessing the man of God” meant taking a special “prophetic offering” for Prophet Ewusi-Brookman. A gentleman sitting close by me placed his offering in a previously distributed “prophetic envelope”. He then wrote in the space on the back of the envelope “for open doors”. “Open doors” are the same as “breakthroughs”, and these terms and expressions feature prominently within contemporary Pentecostal discourse. The expression comes from Rev. 3:8, where the glorified Christ says to the church of Philadelphia: “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.” In contemporary Pentecostalism “open doors” are simply “opportunities in life”—education, employment, international travel, marriage, promotion at work, and whatever else people may be desiring God to accomplish in their lives. Although transactional giving occurs on the basis of scriptural interpretation, it takes on added significance within the African context because giving is an important part of religious negotiation in traditional shrines. In African traditional religions generally, ancestors and deities are fed periodically as a way of sustaining cultic relationships that enable the benefits of health, abundance, longevity, and various forms of prosperity to flow from the transcendent realm towards the human realm. It is common—as we will learn from the prophet Malachi about God’s dealing with non-tithers—for personal and communal misfortune in Africa to be explained in terms of non-fulfilment of religious obligations, such as not performing appropriate sacrificial rituals or neglecting ancestors and deities. Thus although the understanding that tithes “opens doors” is based on particular understandings of Scripture, this is a teaching that resonates very strongly with the primal imagination in Africa as well. Akans, Yoruba, Igbo, and other such traditional groups give to benevolent transcendent helpers in order to create the auspicious circumstances for the realization of material blessings.

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Indigenous Resources and Historical Mission At the beginning of the modern missionary movement in Africa, in the early years of the nineteenth century, the average missionary was considered wealthy.7 Missionaries invested financial resources in churches they founded, but they also introduced the culture of giving in these indigenous churches. Thus giving, whichever form it takes, developed as part of church culture in Africa. That early twentieth-century African Initiated Churches ran on internally generated funds was indicative of the importance of giving money as part of Christian mission. Indeed, their early designation as independent churches stemmed from their being self-sufficient financially and administratively and, to some extent, theologically. There are a number of traditional reasons why Christians are expected to give money to the church. Firstly, giving is part of Christian worship; it is understood as an element of one’s total response to God for what he has accomplished in Christ. Secondly, Christians give to support the physical and social programmes of the church, such as evangelism and mission. Thirdly, and this relates to Pentecostalism in particular, giving has reciprocal value in attracting blessings into the lives and endeavours of the giver. So Paul tells the church at Corinth: The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work … He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness (2 Cor. 9:6-8, 10 NRSV).

My concern in this chapter will be with the third understanding of giving, that is, with the development of reciprocal or transactional interpretations of giving within contemporary Pentecostalism. Although not developed here in any systematic manner, the questions that guide the discussion include, What are the biblical and theological foundations and understandings of tithes and offerings in contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa? What is the relationship between the teachings of contemporary Pentecostalism and the development of transactional giving within this stream of Christianity? Why do people feel obliged to give money and gifts to their charismatic leaders? What related theological issues arise from reciprocal giving in contemporary African Pentecostalism? And finally, what are the implications of transactional or reciprocal giving in Christian mission among contemporary Pentecostals? These are issues that have attracted some significant attention within Christianity generally and within Pentecostalism in particular, and here we 7

For an important resource on the relationship between missionary organizations and money, see Jonathan J. Bonk, Missions and Money: Affluence as a Missionary Problem (revised ed.; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011).

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attempt to examine them within the context of contemporary Pentecostal religious practice in Africa.8 Tithes and Types of Offerings There are two regular modes of giving or fundraising in contemporary Pentecostalism, as in many other churches and fellowship meetings: the payment of tithes and the collection of regular offerings. In some congregations there can be multiple collections at the same sitting. Generally giving in church is a reinvention of the Old Testament idea of sacrifice, in which worshippers come to worship with something to give to God. In accordance with the usage in Deuteronomy 26, for example, some churches refer to the tithe as the first and best fruit. At the Lighthouse Chapel International in Ghana the words “first and best” are inscribed behind membership tithe cards. Here the bishop also often talks about the offering or tithe “booster”, which is understood as an additional gift offered over and above an originally conceived donation and is meant to attract additional blessings. On occasions on which I have observed offerings being boosted, the original offering is held in the right hand and the booster in the left; the leader of the service prays over the offerings before they are collected by the ushers. The tithe is of particular importance in Pentecostal spirituality. Its biblical foundations, the Old Testament idea of the tithe, is understood in modern religious terms as ten percent of an individual’s total income. The offering refers to the regular collection taken during times of worship. At worship services the usual regular or normal offering is followed by the love, project, or some other collection, designated for a specific purpose beyond those things requiring routine expenditure. In Pentecostal giving, the act, whatever form it takes, is usually described in terms of seed sowing for which harvests may be expected. When seeds are sown, the faithful are taught to expect various forms of harvest, understood in terms of money, jobs, promotions, health, children (or fruits of the womb as they are called), and other such blessings and breakthroughs. The saying “offering time”, to which worshippers respond “blessing time”, was introduced into African church life through the contemporary Pentecostals. During offering time, collection bags, bowls, or baskets may be passed round by ushers, although it is not uncommon for worshippers to be required to proceed in an orderly way to place their money in containers provided for the purpose at vantage points, usually at the front if the congregation is not too large. Like offerings, modes of tithing differ among Pentecostal churches; but the bottom line is that tithes and offerings are understood as very important religious responsibilities placed by God upon the Christian. 8 For an important study on tithes see David A. Croteau (ed.), Perspectives on Tithing: Four Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2011).

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Regular collections have always been part of worship in African Christian religious services. The Pentecostals, however, have popularized tithing within Christianity, turning it into some sort of sacramental duty. Tithes and offerings are not mere Christian responsibilities but means of securing God’s graces in the endeavours of life. The popularization of tithes in Africa developed when Pentecostals started making direct connections between tithes and offerings, on one hand, and material blessings in health and wealth, on the other. Tithing also became popular as a result of the large sums of money that Pentecostal churches brought in through this mandatory mode of religious giving. It is therefore not only Pentecostals who insist on the religious value of tithing these days. Although the ideas developed here in respect to tithing come out of Pentecostalism, they are also applicable, to various degrees, in other Christian churches. Giving: Biblical Foundations of a Christian Responsibility The debate over tithing, as David Croteau points out, properly falls under the issue of the relationship between Mosaic Law and Christians.9 The first reference to tithing in the Law of Moses is found in Lev. 27:30-33, All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord. If persons wish to redeem any of their tithes, they must add one-fifth to them. All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord. Let no one inquire whether it is good or bad, or make substitution for it; if one makes substation for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy and cannot be redeemed (NRSV).

The text describes things that were liable to tithing: produce from the land, grain, fruit, and every tenth animal from the herd or flock. The instructions are very specific. The Levites were to receive the tithe from the Israelites because they were not getting an inheritance of land in Canaan (Num. 18:30-32). Based on his encounter with the enigmatic Melchizedek in Gen. 14:18-20, Abram (later renamed Abraham) is usually referred to as a pre-Mosaic tither. The text reads, in part: “Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram … Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” The “everything” in the text referred to spoils that Abram had taken in war. Contemporary interpretations usually follow up on Jacob’s bargain with God. Jacob had become a fugitive after usurping the birthright of his brother Esau. Jacob had, during his wanderings, spent a night at a place called Luz, which he later renamed Bethel—the Lord is here and I did not know it— because of a profound religious experience of the presence of God at the

9

Croteau (ed.), Perspectives on Tithing, 2.

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location. Jacob even erected a memorial pillar at the place and then concluded that act of worship with the following vow: If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give onetenth. (Gen. 28:20-22 NRSV)

We note that the theology of tithing has been founded mainly on such biblical stories and texts from the Old Testament. In fact, tithing is the only Christian topic taught in contemporary Pentecostal churches for which the biblical support come overwhelmingly from the Old Testament. The cardinal passage is Mal. 3:8-12. The full text reads: Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, “How do we rob you?” In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.

Prior to the Mosaic law Abraham gave ten percent of the spoils of war to Melchizedek. Jacob also promised to give ten percent of his increase if he was safely protected by God. Several other forms of tithe, as Croteau points out, appear in the Old Testament, including the cattle tithe, the Levitical tithe, the priestly tithe, the festival tithe, and the charity tithe.10 In the New Testament at least four passages mention the tithe. One of them, Matthew 23:23, has Jesus chastising the Pharisees for religiously tithing but neglecting the equally important faith matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (cf. Luke 11:42). Tithing is referred to also in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18, in which the Pharisee, wanting to justify himself before God mentions among other things, “I give a tenth of everything I get” (Luke 18:12). For many believers in tithes the ultimate New Testament passage on the issue is Heb. 7:1-10. It refers to the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek in terms that connect a pre-Mosaic practice with Christians under the new covenant. Those who use this passage to justify tithing typically focus on verse 8: “In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living.”

10

Croteau (ed.), Perspectives on Tithing, 16.

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Interpretations Interpretations of whether every penny of the tithe must necessarily go to the church where one worships or whether it can be split and distributed as one feels inclined differ among Christians who tithe.11 There are also inconclusive debates regarding whether the tithe must be paid on gross or net income. This is always a challenge for ordinary people who work within the informal sectors of the economy. In the various independent churches there are even debates on whether the proceeds from church tithes should go directly to the pastor or to the church as an institution. In Mal. 3:10, Yahweh charges his people to “bring the full tithe into the storehouse”. The expression “full tithe” has come to mean “gross income” for some. “Storehouse” has been interpreted by some pastors as referring to their homes, as modern equivalents of the abode of the Old Testament Levites, and that therefore the tithes are to go them personally. Whatever the position on these matters, it is Pentecostal churches generally and contemporary Pentecostals in particular who insist on the payment of tithes as a doctrinal practice. Some churches record payments but others do not, basing their collection on the trust that members would be faithful to God in their payment. In almost every case, however, it is taught that the nonfulfilment of such a sacred responsibility has negative consequences in the affairs of the Christian, sometimes even in the form of generational curses. The aggregate meaning of the various interpretations of giving is that offerings must be given out of freewill but that from God’s viewpoint, tithes are mandatory. There are even contemporary Pentecostal churches in which the tithe must be accompanied by a copy of the tither’s pay slip. The basic teaching, then, is that God mandates all Christians to tithe, and for the contemporary Pentecostal churches under study here, the calculation must be based on gross, not net, income. Regular offerings and tithes, as I noted earlier in this chapter, constitute two separate levels of giving. A third level consists of cash and other gifts that go to the man or woman of God as a modern day Levite. This individual may be a preacher, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or anybody else who by virtue of what he or she does in the church is seen as representing God in mediating religious experience.12 We encountered a useful example of this form of giving earlier in the chapter, in the collection taken for Prophet Ewusi-Brookman during the revival meeting. If you give to support the ministries of such people, you are sowing a seed that it is thought will yield compound interest. In some churches, this form of giving directly to a man or woman of God has been institutionalized into a “Pastors’ Appreciation Day”. During these special 11

For summary positions see David W. Jones and Russel S. Woodbridge, Health, Wealth and Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ? (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2011), 155–58. 12 See, for instance, Paul Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy (London: Hurst, 2004), 62.

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occasions people bring material gifts and money to sow as seeds in the lives of their charismatic leaders. Associated with pastors’ appreciation days are the celebrations of particular events in their lives, at which funds may also be raised for them. In particular, landmark birthdays and wedding anniversaries are marked.13 A fourth level of giving occurs within the networks of friendship among ministers who visit each other’s churches as guest preachers or lead revival meetings in varying contexts, both national and international. This type of giving is different from the regular love offering to which everybody has to contribute. The host pastor signs a cheque—call it an honorarium—for his guest. If a man or woman of God visits a church, he or she must be blessed with this form of love offering. Often either a separate offering for the guest is taken or he or she is given a cheque from church coffers, but in most cases both will occur. At the human level, this type of giving is also reciprocal, because what a visiting preacher receives determines what is received when the visit is returned. On occasion, pastors and prophets of various Pentecostal churches have been accused of using this system of love offering to scratch each other’s backs in a process of indirect personal enrichment. The Importance of Tithing in Pentecostalism For contemporary Pentecostal congregations in Africa, tithes bring in substantial amounts of money. This income has enabled many of them to stay independent of foreign-mission financial support. Churches also fund their often-grandiose building projects and media ministries from these tithes. There is therefore a pragmatic aspect to the seriousness with which contemporary Pentecostals insist on the payment of tithes and reciprocal giving. It is virtually impossible to run a church or embark on any form of Christian mission without money. With all kinds of recession in the northern continents and the decline of Christianity in those contexts, the decision by independent churches and contemporary Pentecostals in Africa to be financially independent has proven prophetic and is very admirable. The founder of the International Central Gospel Church, Pastor Mensa Otabil of Ghana, claims that one of the reasons for his calling into ministry was to challenge the church in Africa to be financially self-sufficient:

13 In the early 1980s, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams of the Christian Action Faith Ministries in Ghana received the gift of two Mercedes Benz cars from a member who turned out to be a drug baron and was later jailed in the United States of America. About a decade later Pastor Mensa Otabil’s receipt of the birthday gift of a Mercedes Benz car from his church, the International Central Gospel Church, also in Ghana, raised some furore among members of the public as an example of what was considered the emerging extravagance within the new contemporary Pentecostal churches.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity When the Lord called me to pioneer a church, He impressed on me strongly to found a church that would not be tied to the apron-strings of a foreign mission board. The Lord called me to teach my congregation to stop looking to Europe or America as their source of supply but to cultivate a new spirit and ethic of national development. I fully believe that wherever God puts you He has enough resources in place to take care of your needs. As a result of that conviction, our church has pursued a vigorous policy of indigenous financing and government.14

The insistence on the payment of tithes is so strong that one Ghanaian pastor is said to have claimed during a broadcast of his television programme that non-tithing Christians were worse than armed robbers. Armed robbers steal from human beings, he noted, but non-tithers steal from God. Whatever the status of this anecdotal statement, there is no doubt that funds raised, whether through tithing, offerings, or special fundraising events, enable the new Pentecostal churches to fund their very expensive programmes and projects, which include the establishment of private universities, television and radio ministries, and the very large cathedrals and worship auditoriums that many of them have been able to build. Many of the pastors also have access to money and have very comfortable lifestyles that include the building of palatial homes and the use of luxurious cars. In Nigeria some like Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, also known as Winners’ Chapel, have followed the example of American televangelists by purchasing personal jets. Bishop Oyedepo preaches that God called him specifically to make his people rich, and one way of doing so is to teach them about the blessings that come from faithful tithing. It is now fashionable for the average contemporary Pentecostal pastor to travel first or business class and for his children to be born and educated abroad. The United States of America is the destination of choice. It is therefore important to understand how the theology of tithing and offerings is linked directly to the theology of prosperity in contemporary Pentecostalism. Giving and Prosperity We have noted that in contemporary Pentecostalism, giving and prosperity are closely related. In a very interesting book entitled The Coming Wealth Transfer, the Nigerian charismatic pastor of the London-based Kingsway International Christian Centre makes the connection between giving and prosperity as follows: Giving is a principle of prosperity in contradiction to secular opinions, but which provokes the blessing of the Lord … It opens the windows of heaven, it

14

Mensa Otabil, Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia: A Biblical Revelation on God’s Purpose for the Black Race (Accra: Altar Media, 2004), 8, 64.

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rebukes every financial devourer, and it stops them dead in their tracks. Giving becomes your powerful seed for a future harvest.15

Pastor Ashimolowo considers that freewill offerings and tithes perform different functions: “The freewill offering is what determines the inflow of blessings after the tithe has opened the windows.”16 In other words, payment of tithes may not be enough to ensure the outpouring of God’s blessing. It must necessarily be accompanied by a regular freewill offering. In contemporary Pentecostal discourse, need, lack, misfortune, affliction, and poverty are constantly linked to lack of faithfulness in tithing and freewill offerings. The pastors and their spouses and children have become real-life examples of the faithfulness of God to those who give towards his work in tithes and offerings. Ashimolowo had in mind the Malachi passage when he referred to the “financial devourer” in the statement quoted above. In typical and traditional African interpretations, such devourers would include witches and wizards, envious relatives, demons, and those with evil supernatural abilities to derail others in their financial affairs and other forms of progress in life. Traditional witchcraft beliefs generate popular stories about money mysteriously disappearing from wallets, money safes, and closets, for which people seek supernatural intervention, some from shrine priests and others from deliverance Pentecostal pastors. When Christians are faithful in their tithing, God insulates them and their endeavours from devourers, so that they can prosper in health and in wealth. Paul Gifford quotes one Ghanaian charismatic bishop as preaching: God has always forbidden mankind from taking everything. God has given us everything, but he sets limits. Achan (Joshua 7:21-25) brought trouble upon Israel by taking what was God’s: if you don’t pay your tithes you are bringing trouble on yourself … When you take God’s tithe you bring yourself under a curse. You prevent God from being able to bless you … If you tithe, you will succeed … As you pay your tithe, people will look at you and say “You are blessed” … If people are going to give a job, you are the one they look for because you are not taking what belongs to God.17

In an article that deals with factors that account for growth in Pentecostal movements, Luther Gerlach and Virginia Hine cite reciprocal giving as an important factor. They explain the nature of such giving in this stream of Christianity from the North American perspective thus: “Pentecostal financial activity is personal and reciprocal, in the sense that money is given as a ‘loveoffering’ in direct proportion to the importance of the non-material gift that the donor feels that he has received through a particular evangelist or teacher in a

15

Matthew Ashimolowo, The Coming Wealth Transfer (London: Mattyson Media, 2006), 193–94. 16 Ashimolowo, Coming Wealth Transfer, 196. 17 Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity, 62.

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specific group situation.”18 This means not only that Pentecostals give tithes and offerings to the church as an institution, but also, as we have noted, that giving directly to a man or woman of God generates blessings for the giver. This idea is founded on the principle of sowing and reaping through which contemporary Pentecostals articulate their understanding of giving. Tithes, offerings, and gifts to a man or woman of God are considered seed sowing. The bigger the seed, the bigger the harvest. Pastor Ashimolowo therefore teaches that “giving increases our credit account with God” and that “the force of financial blessing is released as we give money”.19 In his words, “giving is the planting of a financial seed in order to experience a financial harvest”.20 He justifies such statements by appealing to Paul in 2 Cor. 9:6, which I also cited earlier: “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (NRSV). Quite a number of other biblical references are used to support the teachings on tithes and offerings and especially the underlying transactional philosophy on which they are founded. The wealth of Abraham and Jacob is explained in terms of their faithfulness in the payment of tithes: Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek and Jacob had promised to give God a tenth of all his acquisitions if God protected him in his wanderings. That in Malachi God curses agricultural produce as punishment for the non-payment of tithes and offerings is used to shore up the teaching that most misfortunes that befall Christians are due to their reneging on tithing obligations. An important statement by Jesus Christ used to support the theology of transactional giving is Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” In another case of transactional giving similar to that discussed earlier in this chapter, I was at Jericho Hour, the weekday prayer service held at the Action Chapel International (ACI) Prayer Cathedral. After the regular offering, participants were supposed to sow a further seed. These were the words of prayer that sowers were to repeat after the leader, before the offerings were deposited into the receptacles provided: “Offering, I place you into the offering bowl. I want you to return to me in USA dollars; return to me in euros; return to me yen; return to me in pounds sterling; return to me in rupees; in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”21 Other innovative ways of giving, apart from the payment of tithes, offerings, and giving to the anointed of God, can be 18

Luther P.Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine, “Five Factors Crucial to the Growth and Spread of a Modern Religious Movement”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 1 (1968), 29. 19 Ashimolowo, Coming Wealth Transfer, 190, 192. 20 Ashimolowo, Coming Wealth Transfer, 192. 21 Jericho Hour, Action Chapel held every Thursday from 9:00 am to 12 noon. At the time, the Ghanaian cedi was more valuable than the Indian rupee, and I wondered whether the bishop leading the service knew that.

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identified in contemporary Pentecostalism. It is now standard practice, for example, for members touched by a preacher’s message or moved by it in any way simply to walk forward in the middle of a sermon and place an offering at the feet of the preacher. Givers may just place the money and return to their seats; the more common practice, though, is for them to kneel, lie prostrate, or squat on the platform and say a silent prayer over the offering before returning to their seats. In those circumstances song ministration or preaching may have touched a raw nerve in the life of somebody, who in response, comes to sow a seed either in thanksgiving for something the Lord has done already or in expectation that a need will be met. This follows the same principle of sowing and reaping, and with a movement that is not shy of extravagance and flamboyance in the use of material things, people have sowed buildings, air travel tickets, luxurious cars, jewellery, computers, clothes, footwear, and other such material objects in the lives of men and women of God, in anticipation of God’s blessing and favour in return. Tithing and Non-Tithing Christians An important and fascinating book on the difference that tithing makes in life comes from the publishing stable of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills of Lighthouse Chapel International, headquartered in Ghana. Heward-Mills’ theology of tithing can be read from the cover image on his book Why Non-Tithing Christians Become Poor and Tithing Christians become Rich.22 In this illustration of two halves, the top half is a picture that looks like a Haitian slum after its heaviest earthquake; the bottom half is a picture of a new gated neighbourhood with a posh house smarting a swimming pool. The top picture represents poverty and devastation and the lower picture wealth and wellbeing. It is important to keep in mind that in contemporary Pentecostal discourse, as I have tried to show above, there is an inseparable relationship between tithing and prosperity in all its forms. Heward-Mills opens his book on tithing with the following revealing statement: Prosperity in its basic form consists of someone sowing a seed and later harvesting the returns. Not paying your tithes separates you from this most basic principle of sowing and reaping. When you do not pay your tithes you harm your finances because you take away the foundations of your prosperity.23

The statement is followed by a list of reasons why non-tithers become poor. Among other reasons, Heward-Mills notes, non-tithers become poor because they have nothing to harvest, they do not attract blessings into their lives, they 22

Dag Heward-Mills, Why Non-Tithing Christians Become Poor and How Tithing Christians Become Rich (Wellington, South Africa: Lux Verbi. BM, 2009). 23 Heward-Mills, Why Non-Tithing Christians Become Poor, 1.

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are cursed, “devourers” constantly eat their wealth, the fruits of their fields are constantly destroyed, or they lose their fruits before they get a chance to harvest. Bishop Heward-Mills does not discount hard work and the rewards that accrue from it. However, for him, even hard work can fail to produce the needed returns, if the person working hard does not fulfil tithing obligations. He concludes from his analysis that “tithing is a major key to real prosperity”, because God promises to sustain the gains that those who tithe make from their hard work.24 The second part of Heward-Mills’ book contains a number of ideas important for our purposes too. Those who tithe “activate the laws of sowing and reaping”; chapter fifteen is dedicated to this understanding of tithing. Chapter sixteen teaches that those who tithe “make God build a house for them”, which means they receive material rewards for their “investments in tithes”. Chapter seventeen records that those who tithe “provoke God’s graciousness”. Here graciousness is understood in terms of kindness, benevolence, generosity, compassion, lenience, understanding, and mercy.25 In the same chapter, the author notes: To be gracious to someone is to show charm, kindness and a warm generosity of spirit. God will show you kindness and generosity when you help to fulfill his vision. Graciousness speaks of the kindness and warm courtesy shown by a king to his subjects. God will extend warm courtesies to you as you take up His greatest task.26

One of the “greatest tasks” referred to here relates to the payment of tithes and offerings in support of the work of ministry. Testimonies At the heart of Pentecostal spirituality is the theology of experience. This explains why testimonies, for example, play a key role in verifying how the message of Pentecostalism works in everyday life. It is impossible to hear a sermon on tithes without hearing how tithing has actually worked in the life of the person preaching it or in the lives of members of the congregation. We return to Jericho Hour, the Thursday morning prayer service at Action Chapel International in Ghana. It has been so successful since it started some fifteen years ago that the model has been adopted by many charismatic churches in the country. Testimonies constitute an important part of Jericho Hour. At one meeting a young woman gave a testimony regarding how tithes had worked in her life. She testified,

24

Heward-Mills, Why Non-Tithing Christians Become Poor, 7. Heward-Mills, Why Non-Tithing Christians Become Poor, 134. 26 Heward-Mills, Why Non-Tithing Christians Become Poor, 135. 25

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Coming to Jericho Hour on Thursday morning has never been a waste of time. I have been coming for at least four years and one day I pledged Five Million Cedis for the support of the pastors. The following Monday I received a call to pick up a Ten Million Cedis cheque. From August 24 to September 4, God gave me a holiday in Cape Town. I was able to go back to law school. More than half of the people in my class failed their examinations and were withdrawn but I passed. I also have a UK visa to continue with my law studies. Someone also donated $25,000 to assist me establish a non-governmental organization to help young people in need. An “angel” has also whispered to me that I am to expect a gift of $40,000 within the next two months. All this has happened because of Jericho Hour.27

Bishop James Saah of ACI, who leads Jericho Hour, commented, “This testimony is not normal”. I understood him to be saying that although the young woman’s faithfulness in tithes and offerings was what had yielded the material returns of which she talked, the blessings of tithes do not come just in terms of material acquisition. They are also manifest in good health that extends to those around the tither, especially offspring. This shows that there is a relationship between tithes and offerings on the one hand, and the contemporary Pentecostal belief in prosperity and generational curses on the other. Indeed, Gifford has argued that the whole healing and deliverance ministry within this new type of Pentecostalism comes in response to the shortfalls of prosperity teaching. Giving and Mission in Contemporary Pentecostalism The use of modern media methods to communicate religious messages is an important aspect of Pentecostal self-definition. Significant attention is given to communications about giving and the close relationship between the fulfilment of tithing obligations and salvific rewards for the believer. One cannot attend a service in any of the many new independent Pentecostal churches in Ghana without receiving the impression that money is important in religion. Here, for example, is a selection of writings that have been displayed in the auditoriums of a number of Pentecostal churches: “Giving is a seed you sow, not a debt you pay”; “financial breakthroughs are released through the application of the keys of giving: be a faithful steward (1 Corinthians 4:2)”; “sow constantly for a constant harvest”; “be not deceived, God is not mocked … (Galatians 6:7)”; “giving is living”. That a significant number of these slogans are written boldly in exotic colours and placed at vantage points in places of worship in order to achieve certain visual effects is a pointer to the importance that Pentecostals attach to this spiritual exercise of giving. A number of contemporary Pentecostal preachers also teach that God will dispossess unbelievers of their wealth and give it to those who will employ that wealth for the purposes of Christian evangelization and mission. Thus Pastor 27

Jericho Hour, September 2006.

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Eastwood Anaba, of the Fountain Gate Chapel, considers that it is contrary to God’s will for unbelievers to be rich. He picks up this subject in one of his many publications. Unbelievers, according to Anaba, have “possessed the land” illegally and this illegality must be ended, hence the title of his book, Breaking Illegal Possession: Dislodge the Enemy and Possess the Land! “Land” here refers to public space, physical land, or any other resources that may be used to advance the course of mission. Anaba teaches that in this era of worldwide commitment of the church to evangelism, “the church must have the material possessions and wealth needed to propagate the Kingdom of God”.28 The understanding is that wealth in the hands of unbelievers promotes Satan’s agenda, but God is putting “the land” back into the hands of his chosen people: “Believers must move in quickly to take possession. God is rearranging things to favor his people.”29 The teaching that God literally takes the wealth of unbelievers in order to enrich believers must also be understood within the mindset of prosperity for faithful Christians, especially in tithing obligations. God acts thus, in order that wealth can be channelled into support for evangelistic programmes. Since unbelievers may be unwilling to provide this support, God intends to deprive them of their wealth and give it to believers. Carried to its logical conclusion, this hermeneutic suggests that God exists to serve the monetary needs of believers in order that his kingdom might expand. The North American televangelist Morris Cerullo, for example, teaches that God can use only his children, “his chosen vehicles of financial blessing”, to finance the end-time harvest.30 The view that God takes money from unbelievers to enrich believers is ardently preached by some, without any regard to restrictions placed by Jesus on the material logistics of his disciples on their mission tour (Matt. 10:8-10). Discipleship, Stewardship and Theology of Giving The teaching on giving has generated within African Pentecostalism more broadly an incredibly high sense and spirit of generosity, unparalleled in the history of the church in Africa. That all resources belong to God in the same way that our bodies belong to him as temples of the Holy Spirit is certainly an important theological position. Christian discipleship encapsulates yielding one’s life to God in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit living a holy life for him. This Christian discipleship is also a call to stewardship, which means Christians must have a holistic sense of giving, which is made possible by first

28

Eastwood Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession: Dislodge the Enemy and Possess the Land! (Bolgatanga: Desert Leaf Publications, 1996), 46. 29 Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession, 49. 30 Morris Cerullo, Total Provision, Continual Supply: God’s Promise for his People (San Diego, CA: Morris Cerullo Ministries, 1990), 18.

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bringing their lives and affairs under the lordship of Jesus Christ. That is what Paul recommended in the case of the materially poor Macedonians: We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints—and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us (2 Cor. 8:15 NRSV).

It is revealing that Paul refers to the spirit of giving as a form of “grace” that is granted by God. Only the grace of God can move people to give even when they are going through affliction. In the case of the churches of Macedonia, they gave with “abundant joy” and a “wealth of generosity” even though they were in a state of “extreme poverty”. The motive for giving was as important as the spirit for giving; in the words of Paul, the Macedonians sought the privilege of “sharing in this ministry to the saints”. The grace of giving, as discussed by Paul in the passage, was an outflow of something fundamental that is often missed in the teaching on tithes that identifies a transactional motive for giving. The members of the churches in Macedonia “gave themselves first to the Lord”. In other words, their giving of money flowed out of a sense of belonging to God and of being part of God’s mission by contributing to the resources needed for it. God may have chosen to bless them in other ways too, but in the context within which they gave, the Macedonians seem to have been moved by the sense that “belonging to God” was sufficient blessing and therefore provided the primary reason for their giving of their substance towards his work. I believe that even in the midst of extreme poverty and deprivation, there may have been areas of life in which they felt the graces and goodness of God. Judging by the way their state of poverty is described, we cannot look at their circumstances and conclude that they were extremely poor because they had not fulfilled their tithing obligation, as that cover picture on the book Why Non-tithing Christians Become Poor seems to be suggesting. Further, as Wariboko suggests, this transactional understanding of giving feeds peoples’ greed and consumerist values: “The more prosperity preachers can connect savory religious visions to the social and aesthetic values of the society, the more the idea of the divine is transformed into a drive-by window that fulfills orders. After months and years of this kind of production of desires and dreams, consumerism and greed take their abodes in their victims’ deep unconscious, where they are very difficult to control.”31 When dealing with Old Testament issues in the light of the New Testament it is important to ask, “How does Christ’s coming allow the true significance of 31

Wariboko, “Prosperity Paradigms”, 40.

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old covenant features to come to the surface in the new covenant?” In response, Reggie Kidd notes, “Jesus does indeed call for something more radical than a tenth of our income. He calls for everything.”32 That the teaching on tithing rarely espouses biblical material in light of the teaching of Jesus Christ gives cause for concern. The case for the theological importance of giving as an act of Christian stewardship is made by Paul using the model offered by Christ. That model, which we also encounter in the Christological hymn in Phil. 2:511, is that Christ gave himself unconditionally for our salvation: “I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich (2 Cor. 8:8-9 NRSV).” This is how Christ, who is the fulfilment of the Law, fulfils the Old Testament religious practice of tithing. He gave his very life in a generous act of love, not simply to make tithing Christians materially wealthy and non-tithers materially poor, but so that we can be rich towards God. Some of the most faithful Christians in the world, especially in non-Western contexts, remain some of the poorest people on the planet. Their circumstances are called into question when it is taught that tithing is a magical key for unlocking God’s material wealth, which is then understood in terms of material extravagance and luxurious living. The holistic sense of giving that I advocate extends into the Christian’s relationships, just as the churches of Macedonia raised funds for mission. These resources were sent through Titus so that others might benefit from the ministry and mission of Paul. The attitude of Paul towards the relationship between ministry and money remains the best approach to take: “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God” (2 Cor. 2:17). In contrast to the transactional meanings that have been read into biblical giving, in the New Testament Jesus Christ sought to broaden the lessons on giving when he taught, “give, and it shall be given onto you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Luke 6:38). When read from Matthew, this admonition is preceded by the call to forgive and to love. Thus although giving, or tithing in this case, is good Christian practice as far as worship is concerned, in these passages Jesus was teaching about how to relate to one another in community through love and forgiveness. Pentecostals do not necessarily speak amiss when they apply the passage in Luke 6:38 to fundraising, whether in tithes or other offerings. However, to consistently interpret this verse exclusively in terms of tithing or giving money is to do serious injustice to the biblical narrative and the issues of social justice that Jesus was trying to raise. In the words of Reggie Kidd: 32

Reggie Kidd, “Tithing in the New Covenant? ‘Yes’ as Principle, ‘No’ as Casuistry”, in Croteau (ed.), Perspectives on Tithing, 105.

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The Pharisees’ scrupulousness at tithing masked a fundamental lack of generosity, for they preferred giving a fixed percentage of crops to the more demanding, a more radical, and more important use of their resources to pursue justice and mercy and love for God … Theirs was religiosity that technically looked right because they were coloring inside the lines, doing as much as was formally, legally, contractually required. But Jesus shattered this pretense.33

In the new covenant Christians offer a proportion of their wealth as the Lord’s rightful due in view of his claim on all that they are and all that he has entrusted to them. When such giving is inspired by the love of Christ, it does not come in calculated percentages intended to fulfil old covenantal obligations in new covenantal terms, but is generous beyond measure in the full knowledge that Christ gave his life for human salvation. In the words of one Methodist offertory hymn, “We give Thee but Thine own; Whatever the gift may be; All that we have is Thine alone; A trust O Lord from Thee” (William W. How, 182397). Our tithes and offerings thus “imitate” Jesus’ offering, and we find convergence between more important matters without neglecting others.34 Our money at the altar is not a payment but a symbolic expression of ourselves, which means that giving is part of our worshipful response to God’s love in Jesus Christ. Giving as Worship In the Old Testament, to use a summary provided by Kidd, the tithing system made provision for worship by ensuring that there was regular financial support of the ministry of the tabernacle and temple (Num. 18:21-23) and by calling on all Israelites to come together for a feast in the presence of the Lord God (Deut. 14:22-23). The tithing system, as Kidd further explains, also safeguarded just governance by demanding that support of the sanctuary and its personnel trumped governmental claims to the tithe (cf. 1 Sam. 8:15, 17) and by ensuring adequate compensation for Levites and priests whose call to service precluded their share of landed estates (Num. 18:20-21).35 Additionally, tithing ensured relief for the poor, foreign residents, orphans, and widows as well as the Levites (Deut. 14:28-29). Tithing therefore formed a response to God for his goodness as well as relationships with others, which enabled the maintenance of both the vertical and horizontal relationships that must characterize meaningful worship. It is expected that this worshipful response to God’s goodness will be sustained under the new covenant against the backdrop of the new understanding of giving demonstrated by Christ. Transactional giving within the Christian context as purchase of divine grace needs to give way to a sense 33

Kidd, “Tithing in the New Covenant?”, 107. Kidd, “Tithing in the New Covenant?”, 119. 35 Kidd, “Tithing in the New Covenant?”, 104. 34

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of giving as an inseparable part of worship. To that end, there are three main ingredients for Christian worship. The first is the verbalization of who God is and what he means to us. In the opening verses of Psalm 103, for example, the Psalmist expresses praise to God in words, saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me; bless his holy name”. He goes on to recount exactly what the Lord has done, he “who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s”. Similarly, Paul urges the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God” (Col. 3:16). Secondly, that such verbalization of worship must be accompanied by gestures is a very important part of Pentecostal worship. Mercifully, it is the Pentecostals who do this so well, with their Spirit-inspired movements of hand raising and hand clapping, kneeling, bowing down, lying prostrate, or even jumping and running around, all within the context of corporate worship. Thirdly, we must worship God with our material gifts, and this is where tithes, offerings, and even the provision of material support for others come in. An important text from the Psalms supports my understanding of Christian worship as encapsulating all three—words, gestures, and material gifts. What shall I return to the LORD for all his bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people. (Psalm 116:12-14 NRSV)

Here the Psalmist is responding to something that God has already accomplished and reflects on how he might show his gratitude. What he decides to do amounts to holistic worship, because he decides firstly, to “lift up” the cup of salvation, secondly, to “call on the name of the Lord”, and thirdly, to “pay vows in the presence of his people”. So seen literally, here is the use of a gesture—lifting up—the verbalization of God’s goodness—calling on the name of the Lord—and the giving of material gifts—paying the vows in the presence of his people, that is, within the context of the assembly of God’s people for worship. Similarly, to use the words of one hymn writer, as Christians “we sing the praise of him who died on the cross”, we bow down before him and raise our hands in worship, and we give our tithes and offerings as an inseparable part of our worship. From then on, we continue to trust God for his grace that he will bless us and bless the work of our hands. Christological Hermeneutics in Tithing On almost every theological issue, it is important that we apply Christological hermeneutics. This simply means that the Bible must be interpreted and applied

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with the Christ factor in mind. Jesus Christ, as far as the new covenant goes, is the single most important factor of biblical interpretation. He is the one who came to fulfil the Law of Moses. When the Christ factor is removed from the interpretation of Scripture, Christianity loses its defining model and could become like Islam, in which giving is a routine religious duty. One of the main problems with over-reliance on the Old Testament in the teaching on tithes is that it makes the practice too pharisaic (Luke 11:42-43). In other words, it makes it an outward religious practice devoid of inward affection and reliance on God’s grace. That is what the Pharisee who was in the temple to pray attempted to do, that is, he tried to buy God’s grace with his religious observations, including the payment of tithes. There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to pay tithes as part of Christian duty, but to build this act on a teaching of transactional giving to God is to fail to take account of the workings of the grace of God in human lives and circumstances. In transactional giving, God is sometimes treated as a business partner who has no choice but to acquiesce to the demands of those who have fulfilled their side of a bargain by paying their tithes and by putting a bigger offering in a collection bowl. Jacob must not necessarily be treated as an honourable man, as modern charismatic preachers are wont to do, sometimes with reference to his promise to pay tithes to God. His response in Gen. 28:22 can even be understood as an attempt to bribe God. He seemed to be adept at negotiation and even sent gifts to bribe Esau—gifts intended to placate Esau’s anger against him.36 It is in the nature of God to take the dishonoured in order to make them into people of honour for his own glory, and that is what happened in the life of Jacob. Jacob was touched by grace. Tithing was a religious duty under the old covenant and although there is nothing wrong with making promises to God, the fulfilment of our obligations to God must not be made contingent upon whether or not he acts in our favour. In the case of Jacob, it must be kept in mind that he was running away from his crimes against Esau. It is only a gracious God who forgives the sins of a man who was running away from wrongdoing, and yet Jacob wanted to use his tithes in a self-serving way, to secure favours of which he might have been undeserving. We see this all the time in modern Christianity. In one Pentecostal church the pastor challenges members to pay tithes consistently and faithfully for three months and then to come for their money if they do not experience the expected benefits or blessings. What “blessings” consist of in this context depends on individual expectations; these expectations, we fail to realize, could be outside the will of God. The theological problems with such an approach to giving in general and to payments of tithes in particular are first, that for most people who take up such challenges, “blessing” is seen in terms of material things only; second, that 36 David A. Croteau, “The Post-Tithing View: Giving in the New Covenant”, in Croteau (ed.), Perspectives on Tithing, 61.

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giving is seen only in quantitative terms; and thirdly, that giving becomes divorced from worship. The most dangerous aspect of this understanding of giving is that giving becomes synonymous with simony, the practice in which Simon the sorcerer sought to buy the power of the Holy Spirit with money. Peter’s rebuke to Simon is very instructive for our purposes: “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money!” (Acts 8:20 NRSV). The transactional approach to giving also challenges the sovereignty of God to determine the destiny of people. The bottom line in Christian giving as seen in the ministry and teaching of Christ is that the left hand should not necessarily see what the right hand is doing. Giving must come from the heart and must not be done to win public approval by outward piety. If one pays tithes with the intention of coming for a refund if God does not bestow the expected blessings, one is treating God like a customer service point. In Western countries goods are constantly returned because customers are not satisfied with a product. If tithes are treated that way, then one may ask in what spirit the tithes were paid in the first place. Packer points out that a whole technique for business relations has been built up in recent years on the principle of putting the other person in a position where he cannot decently say no. This, he says, has confirmed modern men and women in a belief that has animated pagan religion ever since there was such a thing—namely, that we can repair our own relationship with God by putting God in a position where he cannot say no. In my thinking, this is what Jacob tried to do with his promise to give God a tenth of his earnings. Ancient pagans, Packer notes, thought to ensure the return from their gods by multiplying gifts and sacrifices; modern pagans seek to do the same by churchmanship and morality.37 In the words of Packer, Ancient paganism thought of each god as bound to his worshippers by bonds of self-interest, because he depended on their service and gifts for his welfare. Modern paganism has at the back of its mind a similar feeling that God is somehow obliged to love and help us, little though we deserve it … He is not obliged to pity and pardon; if he does so it is an act done, as we say, “of his own free will”, and nobody forces his hand.38

Similarly, although it may not have been an intended aim, in contemporary Pentecostal practice generally, giving has acquired a much wider connotation than the payment of tithes and offerings to the church as part of worship. In addition to the regular tithes and offerings, members are encouraged to give gifts to the men and women of God because, they are taught, when such individuals are supported, the people can be blessed. The truth is that there is blessing in giving, but transactional giving undercuts God’s power and sovereignty. As I have pointed out, Pentecostal giving is like some forms of 37

J. I. Packer, Knowing God (twentieth anniversary edition; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 131. 38 Packer, Knowing God, 132.

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sacrifice in traditional religions in being reciprocal in nature. This reciprocity in religious giving found in African Pentecostal thought raises fundamental questions that as yet remain unexplored in the growing literature on African Pentecostalism. African religious culture very much believes in the efficacy of ritual actions. The work of Benjamin Ray on Yoruba religious traditions provides a clear example of this.39 Most rituals, in much of Africa, are assumed to have efficacious effects. In the context of this chapter, it is significant that Ray notes that “prayers and offerings not only say things, they are supposed to do things”.40 In African traditional religions, offerings not only remove evil but also create the auspicious circumstances for the realization of very practical salvific ends. In his very useful essay, Ray has explored the connections between the desire to rectify unhappy destinies within traditional Yoruba contexts and the reinvention of these approaches to life in African revivalist or Aladura (praying people) Christianity. He writes: Yoruba go to their shrines to seek cures for their ills, answers to their questions, and guidance to their lives. This pragmatic, ritually centered view of religion, characterized by Robin Horton’s aptly chosen terms “explanation, prediction and control,” is not only fundamental to Aladura Christianity, it is fundamental to most other African independent churches as well. Given this pragmatic religious attitude, the pursuit of human well-being in the world requires considerable ritual effort. For the Yoruba, achieving full self-actualization means obtaining the traditional “good things” or “blessings” (ire) in life: children, prosperity, health and long life.41

Writing on Asante ritual and cultural communication, Ghanaian religious anthropologist Pashington Obeng provides another example when he notes in the case of a woman who had gone to give a thank offering at a traditional shrine that “the ritual empowers and assures her that [the deity] will give her more money to build houses and own more property”.42 Although reciprocal giving as found in African Pentecostalism appeals to its biblical precedents, the principle also resonates with what we encounter in traditional religious thought in Africa. Christ: God’s Indescribable Gift A further problem that relates to the missing Christ factor in tithing is that those who tithe and yet go through pain and disappointment are left confused. The theology of the cross is missing from contemporary Pentecostal understanding 39

Benjamin C. Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion”, Journal of Religion in Africa 23:3 (1993), 266–91. 40 Ray, “Aladura Christianity”, 268. 41 Ray, “Aladura Christianity”, 268–69. 42 Pashington Obeng, Asante Catholicism: Religious and Cultural Reproduction among the Akan of Ghana (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 47.

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of giving. The way tithing is taught takes us back to pre-Reformation days, when people literally paid for the grace of God through the purchase of indulgences.43 Paul concludes his teaching on giving by describing Jesus Christ as God’s “indescribable gift”. We give to God not necessarily to buy his grace, favour, or some heavenly harvest reserved for tithers, but because giving is part of worship and we live in expectation of God’s grace. In Africa some small-scale businesses are collapsing because of the influx of cheaper alternatives from China; market forces are working against others due to recession in Europe; ill health, drought, the effects of internecine ethnic conflicts, and other such misfortunes afflict indiscriminately, working against both Christians and non-Christians. In these times of anxiety and difficulty, the Christian is kept by the grace of God, and it is important not to give the impression that every single misfortune is spared tithers and afflicts non-tithers. Some pastors who preach transactional giving, such as Kingsway International Christian Centre’s Matthew Ashimolowo, seem to be aware that the magic of sowing and reaping does not necessarily work all the time. To this end, there is a disclaimer in his book The Coming Wealth Transfer that needs to be cited in full: The advice contained in this material might not be suitable for everyone. The author designed the information to present his opinion about the subject matter. The reader must carefully investigate all aspects of any business decision before committing him- or herself. The author obtained the information contained therein from sources he believes to be reliable and from his own personal experience, but he neither implies nor intends any guarantee of accuracy. The author is not in the business of giving legal, accounting, or any type of professional advice. Should the reader need such advice, he or she must seek services from a competent professional. The author particular disclaims any liabilities, loss or risk taken by individuals who directly or indirectly act on the information contained therein. The author believes the advice presented here is sound, but readers cannot hold him responsible for either the actions they take or the result of those actions.44

Unless required by law for every publication, such a disclaimer would have been unnecessary if the teaching in the book itself was theologically balanced. The general tenor of the teaching of the New Testament is that we give to God faithfully and trust him for his grace in life, knowing that if we sow sparingly, we reap sparingly and if we sow bountifully, we reap bountifully. But that is not a magical formula, because God’s hand cannot be twisted in our favour; to think otherwise is to challenge God’s sovereignty. The promises of God come true by his grace and we can only trust him to fulfil these promises through his own indescribable gift, Jesus Christ who is Lord and Saviour.

43

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700 (London: Penguin, 2004), 31, 154–55. 44 Ashimolowo, Wealth Transfer, 2.

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Conclusion Contemporary Pentecostalism has achieved much within African Christianity. But one of the greatest challenges in its approach to Scripture and life is its inability to articulate a proper response to misfortune and deprivation. Life has its joys and its pains. Unfortunately, however, the pains are mostly shelved by the leadership. Ordinary members who are faithful with their tithes have not been helped to come to terms with the fact that although everybody may expect that God will let things go well, sometimes life can take painful courses. Gifford notes how the relentless stress on victory by contemporary Pentecostals in Ghana means that negative realities can only be rejected. When things are not going too well, we do not have to retrieve our tithes in anger and disappointment with God; God must be trusted for his grace to turn the most difficult of circumstances around in our favour.

Chapter 6

Calvary to Pentecost: The Cross and Prosperity

John Stott, whose Cross of Christ has proved to be one of the most influential books on the cross in the last century, points to the Last Supper as a memorial instituted by Jesus to dramatize neither his birth nor his life, neither his words nor his works, but only his death. Stott draws from this that it was above all by his death that Jesus wished to be remembered. He concludes by considering the centrality of the cross in Christianity: “There is then, it is safe to say, no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus.”1 Stott concludes one of the most important chapters of the book by submitting that the cross “enforces three truths—about ourselves, about God and about Jesus Christ”. Firstly, he explains, nothing reveals the gravity of human sin like the cross; secondly, the cross reveals that God’s love must be wonderful beyond human comprehension; and thirdly, the cross shows that the salvation of Christ must be a free gift.2 In another volume, Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar reiterates the profound truth that “if theology is to be Christian, then it can only be a theology which understands in dynamic fashion the unsurpassable scandal of the Cross”.3 These are not truths with which any evangelical mind would disagree with and yet within contemporary Pentecostal theological discourse, direct engagement with the truth of the cross often tends to be one-sided by going for its material blessings and often disregarding its shame, something that Jesus never did (Heb. 12:1-2). The title of this chapter is a reworking of the following statement by Tom Smail, a leader in the European charismatic fraternity: “The way to Pentecost is Calvary; the Spirit comes from the cross.”4 Smail explains that he uttered this statement in prophetic tongues at a public meeting of charismatic leaders. When it was interpreted by another participant, the statement, he notes, confirmed things that had been at the centre of his thinking. This episode followed an earlier personal process of renewal that had led to an experience of

1 John Stott, The Cross of Christ (twentieth anniversary edition; Nottingham: InterVarsity Press, 2006 [1986]), 81. 2 Stott, Cross of Christ, 98. 3 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter (trans. Aidan Nichols; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 56. 4 Tom Smail, “The Cross and the Spirit: Towards a Theology of Renewal”, in Smail, Walker, and Wright (eds), Charismatic Renewal, 56–57.

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Holy Spirit baptism.5 Smail points out that most Christians would agree that there is a relationship between the spirit and the cross. This connection between Pentecost, representing the outpouring of the Spirit, and the Passion, representing the death of Christ on the cross, has good biblical foundations. In Peter’s Pentecost sermon, for example, he declares: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross … Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, who you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:22-23, 36)

Those who draw attention to the connection between cross and Spirit include Jürgen Moltmann, who writes that “Easter points unequivocally to the cross” explaining that “having established the church in His blood [Jesus] fortified it on the day of Pentecost with special power from on high”.6 When it comes to contemporary Pentecostal theology, however, the emphases of the movement on experience, glory, and power make it difficult for the full meaning of the cross in relation to Pentecost to be sustained. There have been serious concerns among many theologians and critical observers that particularly in light of its prosperity-gospel culture, contemporary Pentecostalism does not engage constructively with the theology of the cross of Christ. An important insight on this matter comes from Gordon Fee: [Even] though God has promised the vindication of his own, He has seldom promised immediate vindication. For example in Hebrews 11:32-39, some by faith saw great victories; but others by faith were destitute. But they are all commended for their faith. And these words were spoken to encourage believers who themselves had “joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property” (Hebrews 10:34), but who were now about to lose heart. Immediate vindication, however, is not promised them, only eschatological.7

This chapter discusses aspects of the teachings of contemporary Pentecostalism in the light of the theology of the cross. In talking about the cross in relation to Pentecostalism we will have in mind teachings and practices relating to the message of prosperity as they are understood within contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. When we talk about prosperity in relation to the cross, it should not be understood to mean that Christianity 5

This chapter was originally presented at a consultation on Martin Luther in contemporary Christianity held at the Missionsseminar, Hermannsburg, Germany, 4–6 December 2009. I thank the participants for their input in helping me develop the ideas further into a book chapter for this volume. 6 Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 86. 7 Gordon D. Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 1985, 2006), 13.

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promotes poverty and defeatist attitudes to life and that the cross simply means coveting a life of suffering as a form of spirituality. “Prosperity gospel” is used here to refer to the popular teaching that material things and wellbeing constitute the only sure indicators of God’s favour. For ardent exponents of the prosperity gospel, any form of misfortune is an indication of the presence of supernatural evil in one form or another. The sort of prosperity gospel critiqued here therefore is one that promotes materialism, sometimes of the kind that Jesus attacks in the Gospels. That kind of prosperity message, I will contend here, fails to engage with hard realities and on occasion fails to provide pastoral care for those whose circumstances may not be reflective of its brand of success. And as I have tried to show from the start, I am not alone in this thinking. In a preliminary but very important article on this subject, Martin Mittelstadt, himself a Pentecostal, discusses the fact that at both the scholarly and ecclesial levels, the Pentecostal tradition has neglected to address and to apply the role of the Holy Spirit in contexts of suffering and persecution.8 His article provides concrete evidence of how the martyrdom of a Pentecostal missionary in the Congo in 1964 led to the successful planting of a church that has thrived to the present. Mittelstadt sees suffering and martyrdom in the course of Christ as part of Luke’s pneumatology. The Lucan Jesus, who brings salvation and is received by many, is also the same person who is rejected, leading to opposition to both him and his followers.9 In the words of Mittelstadt: Luke’s contribution to the story of Jesus does not end with the death and resurrection of Jesus as in the other Gospels … as Jesus’s followers share their understanding of Jesus as Savior and Lord, they are met not only with acceptance but also with rejection. This rejection comes in the form of hatred and persecution, similar to the lot of Jesus himself. When they are maligned, arrested, and flogged, when they are forced to choose between denial and safety or confession and pain, it is the Holy Spirit who inspires their actions and words, as Jesus promised …10

The martyrdom of Stephen is one of the most popular examples of suffering by those who although filled with the Holy Spirit had to suffer humiliation, persecution, and death for the sake of the Gospel. At one point in the Lukan narrative the apostles are even found rejoicing that they have been found worthy of “suffering disgrace” for the sake of Christ (Acts 5:41). When empowered by the Spirit, Mittelstadt concludes, “the life of a witness becomes continuous with the life and suffering of Jesus (Acts 14:22)”.11 8 Martin William Mittelstadt, “Spirit and Suffering in Contemporary Pentecostalism: The Lukan Epic Continues”, in Steven M. Studebaker (ed.), Defining Issues in Pentecostalism: Classical and Emergent (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2008), 144–73. 9 Mittelstadt, “Spirit and Suffering”, 155. 10 Mittelstadt, “Spirit and Suffering”, 157. 11 Mittelstadt, “Spirit and Suffering”, 159.

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The Message of the Cross Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter not just because the Holy Spirit was going to have a ministry that was continuous with his, but also because he expected his followers to go through times of distress during which they would need a companion in the form of his spiritual presence. Thus although Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, that does not mean that the Christian life itself must always be a life of suffering. The Christ who called for self-denial in discipleship was the same Lord who promised his followers that those who believe in him, if they ask, seek, and knock, will have their needs met. Jesus Christ promised abundant life (John 10:10). As long as we live in this transient and imperfect world, however, suffering comes to people, sometimes indiscriminately. It may be due to sin, Satan, evil spirits, wrongful choices that we make ourselves or that are made by others on our behalf, or even acts of nature. The God of the resurrection and the power of Pentecost must not be dissociated from the God of the cross; he is the same being who also identifies with weakness and shame. It is precisely because Jesus knew that the circumstances of some would be more difficult than the circumstances others, that he made pastoral care an important qualification for entry into the Kingdom of God (Matt. 25:31-46). Moltmann has drawn attention to the fact that what makes the Gospel a pure message of joy and an unequivocal call to freedom is Jesus’ offering of himself, his vicarious suffering and death in abandonment by God.12 This message of the cross is outlined by Paul and is also found in historical theology, as we see here from Moltmann and will later in this chapter see also in Martin Luther and John Stott. To begin with, in the very first chapter of the epistle to the Corinthians, Paul sought to draw attention to the centrality of the cross in the message of the Christian faith: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God … Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. (1 Cor. 1:18, 22-25)

In the course of this chapter, we will see how certain contemporary Christians, like the Jews and Greeks mentioned here by Paul, simply refuse to come to terms with the fact that God could choose a path of shame and humiliation to serve his purposes. In the early years of contemporary Pentecostalism in Ghana some even refused to celebrate Good Friday, claiming that from the resurrection, God gave a new beginning and that we dishonour God when that which reminds him of the pains of crucifixion is celebrated. The 12

Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 85.

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truth of the matter is that the message of the cross was in conflict with the emphases on success, victory, promotion, power, elevation, and breakthrough that were being churned out from the platforms of the new churches. The message of the cross is one that gives thanks to God for victories but puts them in perspective, knowing that calamity, misfortune, pain, poverty, and deprivation can also, at least for the Christian, serve as means of experiencing the glory of God. The experience of Paul provides an important paradigm of what this could mean: To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

On account of the type of prosperity outlined above, the cross tends to be explained monolithically in contemporary Pentecostal hermeneutics as a symbol of victory, power, and glory. It is definitely empowering to encourage people to resist evil in the name and power of Jesus. People are taught not to allow evil to cower them into submission. However, it is a different matter when they are also made to believe that problems only come to those who are not Pentecostal/charismatic Christians, or are not Spirit-filled, or have not been faithful in tithes and offerings. The implications of such teaching for suffering and shame and God’s identification with it through Jesus Christ do not feature much in charismatic preaching. The message of the cross as Paul came to understand it had to do with God’s choice of a symbol of shame and its path of humiliation to mediate salvation. The process of salvation, James Dunn explains from the Pauline perspective, is “the outworking of Christ’s death as well as his life, a sharing in his sufferings as well as in the power of his resurrection”, and unless this two-sidedness of Paul’s soteriology is appreciated, it is bound to be misunderstood.13 The Cross in Contemporary Pentecostalism The triumphalism associated with contemporary Pentecostalism makes it difficult for the movement to appreciate the inseparable relationship between what Smail calls “the renewing and empowering work of the Spirit” on the one hand and “the center of the gospel in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ” on the other. Contemporary Pentecostal discourse usually dwells around words to do with victory, power, breakthrough, and winning and on other such terms and expressions that deliberately create the impression that the Spirit-filled Christian becomes almost completely insulated from certain 13 James D. G. Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit: Christology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 205.

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misfortunes that afflict other people. This is why at the beginning of the movement in the late 1970s, the words “worse”, “poorer”, and “sickness” were removed from wedding vows and replaced with “best”, “richest”, and “prosperity”. In other words, contemporary charismatic theology is very much a theology of glory that deliberately shuts out of fellowship and theological discourse those whose circumstances in life do not reflect sufficiently victory and power. He Restores my Soul As we consider how this theology of power and glory comes through the movement’s activities, let us look at the following personal experience. I was called upon without notice to speak some words of exultation at the funeral of a former student of mine who was also a leader of contemporary Pentecostalism in Ghana. The pastor, then forty-four years old, had formerly been a member of the Action Chapel International, but had left that church under not so pleasant circumstances to start his own Pneuma Life Church International. The church was doing quite well when I preached there on Christmas Day in 2009, but by Christmas 2010, the pastor had been called home to glory. The funeral was a public event that was attended by about one thousand mourners, if not more, and it was celebrated in typical charismatic or contemporary Pentecostal style. In short, the funeral was the celebration of the life of a charismatic pastor who was well known. All the speakers were wellknown pastors from charismatic churches, and the bottom line of all their messages was that our late friend had now “disembarked” from a plane at the end of his journey. Each speaker called for applause sometime during his or her message and then again at the end of the delivery. I was moved by the celebratory tone of the funeral, but I was also reflecting on the fact that not one of the speakers had paid attention to the plight of a young widow who was mourning the father of her young children. When I was invited to speak, I told the congregation not to applaud at any time during my presentation. At that point it was not clear to me whether the applause was for the eloquence of the speaker or in appreciation of God for the words they were hearing. I liked the celebration of the pastor’s life, but the applause and screams had gone overboard and for me were becoming inappropriate for the occasion. The immediate family members had been traumatized, and it did not appear to me that the pastors cared too much about that. My short message was addressed to the widow and her three children, who were all below twelve years of age. “Jesus will restore your soul”, I found myself saying. The original words come from Psalm 23, where the Psalmist says the Lord “restores my soul”. I explained that such restoration is needed after a period of trauma, and the widow was obviously traumatized by the sudden death of a pastor, husband, and father whom she had described in the elaborate funeral brochure as her “best friend”. It was clear from her tribute

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that there were hard questions on her mind regarding the sudden death of her husband. “The only one who can restore your soul in these circumstances”, I noted, is the Lord Jesus Christ who himself knows what trauma looks and feels like. That was the reason why Jesus cried from the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ It is for the same reason that Jesus committed his mother Mary to John for comfort. At that point Mary may have forgotten, but a prophecy given by Simeon at the presentation of Jesus Christ in the temple had come true: ‘… and a sword will pierce your own soul too’.” The conclusion to my short address was this: God had called our friend home to glory, but the trauma that this had brought in its wake was not going to be taken away by applause. The widow and her children were going to need the comfort and restoration of the Lord, who knew trauma on the cross. So might the Lord restore the traumatized soul of this widow and all who are deeply affected by this death and who would be left to pick up the pieces when everybody had left the funeral grounds to return to their homes and businesses. The place was quiet and I knew the point had been made. Martin Luther and the Cross Alister McGrath, writing on the cross in Luther’s theology, notes: “In the very things which human wisdom regards as the antithesis of deity—such as weakness, foolishness and humility—God stands revealed in the ‘humility and shame of the cross’.”14 None of the earlier speakers at this funeral wanted to engage directly with the pains and agony that this early death had brought to those directly affected by it. The funeral of a young pastor known for his exploits in the healing and deliverance ministry and by contemporary Pentecostal standards in every way a representative of success smacked of weakness and failure. I have heard some charismatics teach that anybody who dies before age seventy does so outside the will of God. So it is common for early deaths to be constantly cursed in this new type of Christianity as resulting from curses. Suffering is not ordinarily coveted and yet certain contemporary ecclesial traditions leave themselves without adequate responses for those who suffer. Martin Luther and John Stott, who, as we have seen, was an advocate of a theology of the cross in contemporary Christianity, both draw attention to the fact that when the cross is undermined in Christian preaching and life, the faith is emptied of its meaning and power. Luther comes into the equation because in his theology of the cross, he contrasted what he called theologia crucis, “theology of the cross” with theologia gloriae, “theology of glory”. The theology of the cross of Christ is basically opposed to the theology of glory and 14 Alister E. McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther’s Theological Breakthrough (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 149.

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power, as a standalone in Christian discourse. Luther’s distinction between theologia crucis and theologia gloriae provides a guide for understanding theology through the central symbol of Christianity. According to Tom Smail, Luther knew that the sinful hearts of men were always looking for ways to evade the cross. In Luther’s theology of the cross, God has revealed himself and it is the task of the theologian to discern this revelation on God’s terms, not on the basis of human speculation. A fundamental category of Luther’s theology of the cross is that God can make himself known through suffering. God is revealed in the passion and the cross of Christ and yet, according to Luther, he is not immediately recognized as God.15 The truth of the matter is that in the main, the average contemporary Pentecostal has been brought up to believe in a God of success and power. People therefore find themselves at a loss when things happen that do not smell of success. The story of the funeral that I have narrated is just one example of what usually happens when calamity befalls people. God’s purpose and will is not discerned in these things, but even more problematically, other than as candidates for deliverance, victims receive very little attention in preaching. In contrast to much of contemporary Pentecostal thought, Luther’s theology of the cross teaches that beneath the humility and shame of the cross of Christ lies concealed the power and the glory of God. For Luther then, genuine theology and knowledge of God are found in the crucified Christ, and the cross “shatters human illusions concerning the capacity of human reason to discern God in this manner”.16 In many ways contemporary Pentecostal theology, we have noted, promotes a theology of glory with sometimes very little to say to those who are weak or suffering. At a recent church service in a Pentecostal church in Accra, a Nigerian preacher informed the congregation that God had told him to take the day’s offerings in USA dollars, for God was about to do something big in their lives. As I noted in the chapter on giving, this approach to theology has developed into a subculture within African Christianity to a point where in some churches the size of the giving determines the delivery of prayers. In their bid to promote this new-found theology of glory, some churches may even be straying into the sale of indulgences, something that Luther attacked vehemently in the process of reformation. In an analogous essay written within a contemporary Pentecostal context, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen writes that theologia crucis has emerged as the theme underlying all of Luther’s theology. In this theology Luther, Kärkkäinen notes, attacks a false kind of thinking about God and man, “the theology of glory”, by pointing to the decisive importance of the cross of Christ, where we meet the suffering God. In contrast to the charismatic theology of glory, Kärkkäinen explains, Luther’s theologia crucis takes seriously God and human beings and 15 16

McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, 149. McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, 150.

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their relationship held in tension in a world filled with sin and suffering.17 Theologia crucis also introduces two opposite kinds of love: God’s love that is directed towards sinful men and women who are nothing in themselves; and human love that always seeks its own best. Implications of the Cross for Contemporary Pentecostalism It is time to examine how African neo-Pentecostal theology with its emphasis on success, promotion, and prosperity responds to a theology of the cross. Within the African context contemporary Pentecostal movements are doing extremely well. As renewal movements, they have been described as movements of reformation in their own right by scholars like Allan Anderson.18 Nevertheless, they have developed a certain penchant and proclivity for things that reflect glory and power, which includes seeing material acquisitions as reflective of God’s favour almost to the total exclusion of any discussion of why people suffer. On the interface between a theology of the cross and a theology of glory, Smail writes: Much preaching and teaching in the renewal nowadays—perhaps in contrast to its earlier beginnings—consist more of testimonies to and anecdotes about the present-day works of the Spirit than of expositions of the word of Scripture … Bolstered up by what has happened to us and by the testimonies of others, we can easily come to see ourselves as living in a world of supernatural power that leads us from triumph to triumph where the weak, desolate sufferer of Calvary has been left far behind or at any rate has ceased to dominate the scene.19

Speaking specifically to the African context, one of Africa’s foremost theologians, Kwesi A. Dickson, surmises that no matter what the cultural perspective might be, the matter of the death of Jesus Christ and its significance cannot be ignored. Christians everywhere, and from whatever cultural background, he notes, must react to the central belief in the cross of Christ.20 At the heart of God’s revelation is the work and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the cross is the means by which the divine salvific agenda was executed. At the same time, Pentecostals remind us that to be a Christian is not just to be a sinner justified by grace, not just to embark on the long process of sanctifying moral transformation into the likeness of Christ; it is also to be empowered by the Holy Spirit and endowed with his many and varied gifts for mission. That 17 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Theology of the Cross: A Stumbling Block to Pentecost/Charismatic Spirituality?”, in Wonsuk Ma and Robert P. Menzies (eds), The Spirit and Spirituality: Essays in Honor of Russel P. Spittler (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 152–53. 18 Allan H. Anderson, Africa Reformation: African Initiated Churches in the Twentieth Century (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001). 19 Smail, “The Cross and the Spirit”, 56–57. 20 Kwesi A. Dickson, Theology in Africa (London: Darton, Longman and Todd; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984), 185.

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kind of message can be empowering, especially if considered in light of the manifesto of Jesus Christ as written in Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This theology of liberation has been presented by many in a one-sided fashion that overlooks the high and painful cost of discipleship of which Jesus also spoke. As a result, success and promotion, wellbeing and empowerment, fruitfulness and breakthrough theologies have become the dominant themes of neo-Pentecostalism. Such an emphasis finds fertile soil in Africa because traditional religions themselves constitute survival strategies that attempt, by whatever means possible, including the cursing of real and imaginary enemies, to exterminate obstacles to power and prosperity in order to achieve wellbeing in this life. The question that arises is how theologia crucis has been understood within the context of African neo-Pentecostalism with its emphasis on prosperity, success, and triumphalism, an emphasis that is partly informed by the instrumental purposes that religions serve in African traditions. There is no doubting the fact that in the African context, Pentecostalism has contributed to the growth of Christianity and to making Africa one of the major heartlands of global Christianity. Yet in spite of Pentecostalism’s massive contribution to the modern reformation and to renewal of the church, as Smail points out, the disproportionate neo-Pentecostal emphases on success and prosperity “make it difficult to recognize the close and intimate relationship between the renewing and empowering work of the Spirit and the center of the gospel in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus”.21 Such a failure, Smail continues, creates imbalances for neo-Pentecostal theology because, as he notes, “we are indeed rejuvenated and empowered at Pentecost, but we are judged, corrected and matured at the cross”.22 For those Pentecostals who are now used to the prosperity or name-it-and-claim-it message, Kärkkäinen suggests it might be helpful to hear the following words from Martin Luther: He, however, who has emptied himself through suffering no longer does works but knows that God works and does all things in him. For this reason, whether God does works or not, it is all the same to him. He neither boasts if he does good works, nor is he disturbed if God does not do good works through him. He knows that it is sufficient if he suffers and is brought low by the cross in order to be annihilated all the more.23

Allan Anderson, arguably one of the leading voices in the academic study of the global Pentecostal movement, has referred to twentieth-century African initiatives in Christianity as an “African Reformation”.24 Most of these 21

Smail, “The Cross and the Spirit”, 54. Smail, “Theology of the Cross”, 54. 23 Kärkkäinen, “Theology of the Cross”, 158. 24 Anderson, African Reformation. 22

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movements belong to the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, but Anderson’s designation is relevant because they share Luther’s call for a Christianity that emphasizes the authority of the Word of God, the weightiness of sin, the graciousness of Christ, the vitality of faith, and the spiritual nature of the church.25 Luther was concerned to show how Christian theology had arrived at its main ideas, and he was clear that the primary source of Christian theology was not the scholastic tradition but the Bible. Parker explains the centrality of the Word of God to Luther’s theological ideas: “The phrase ‘the Word of God’, or the ‘Word’ simply, is a key-phrase in Luther’s thought. It meant to him, not just the Scriptures formally regarded as inspired … but something wider— namely, the message and content of the Scriptures, that is, the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the sum and substance of what God has to say to man.”26 The gospel concerning Jesus Christ is a gospel of the cross, once a symbol of shame but now of hope and salvation. Every person is called upon to take up his or her cross in a spirit of self-denial and follow the Lord. Jesus Christ is gracious, and Luther stressed that the incarnation, lowly manhood, and patient suffering of the Son of God all prove that his attitude towards humankind is really one of overflowing love. That love is what sent Jesus Christ to the cross, and Luther was right to point to the cross and the humiliation, suffering, and uncertainties associated with it as being at the heart of the Christian message. Since its adoption as the main symbol of the Christian faith and Christian identity, the cross has been the source of many Christian debates and interpretations at both the popular and theological levels. The neo-Pentecostal overemphasis on material prosperity, breakthroughs, power, health, wealth, and success as indicators of God favour has the potential to undermine the central message of the cross in demonstrating God power or glory through weakness. One of the factors that gave rise to neo-Pentecostalism in Ghana was the emergence of evangelical youth musical groups like the Calvary Road Incorporated, Joyful Way Incorporated, New Creation, and Come Back [to Jesus] Incorporated. Calvary Road eventually became a church but the name was later changed to Harvesters International, the name that this neoPentecostal or charismatic ministry, as they are popularly called in Ghana, still bears. In a personal interview with some members of the group, I asked what had necessitated the change of name from Calvary Road to Harvesters. They responded that “Calvary” was a problematic word associated with agony, pain, and suffering. In most African traditions, as we also encounter in Old Testament thought, names have a way of affecting life’s circumstances. The members of Calvary Road had come to believe that the overall impact of the name Calvary on their members had not been very positive: “our 25 26

James I. Packer, Honoring the People of God (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999), 3–12. Parker, Honoring the People of God, 5.

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members were struggling too much in life”, one member told me. So the name was changed to something more positive, “Harvesters”, which suggests that members will continue to “harvest” the good things that God has ordained for those who believe in him. It is not my suggestion that the new churches should focus on poverty and self-demeaning terms and expressions because after all, the death of Christ also symbolized victory for those who believe in him. What is of concern here is the overemphasis on themes of power and glory that makes those who go through pain and suffering feel they remain outside God’s grace, protection, and care or are even under some kind of judgment for their non-fulfilment of Christian obligations, especially the payment of tithes and offerings. These difficulties with the cross of Christ are not unique to African Pentecostalism, but I argue that the African worldview in which religion is a survival strategy and in which faithful religiosity is rewarded with abundance, prosperity, and increase has to some extent influenced Pentecostal thought forms on the meaning of the cross in unique ways. Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity, Kärkkäinen rightly points out, has (re)introduced to Christian spirituality an ideal of victorious Christian living, an intensive faith expectation, and emphasis on spiritual power to overcome life’s problems. To that end, he explains, the Pentecostal/charismatic movement would lose something very crucial if it stopped talking about faith, healing, power, miracles and, for the neo-Pentecostals and charismatics in particular, material prosperity through the principles of positive confession, faith, and sowing and reaping. Yet the downside of this overemphasis on physical success is also described by Kärkkäinen: What has been much more problematic to Pentecostals/charismatics is the negative side of the Christian life: disappointments when the healing did not come, agony when one faces the death of a loved one despite prayers of faith, the tragedy of financial breakdown, and so on. In fact, many Pentecostals and charismatics have been left with few options: either to deny experiences that seems to shatter one’s faith, to blame oneself or other persons involved for the lack of faith, or to give up one’s faith. Pentecostal preachers do not often tackle the problem of prayers unanswered or faith disappointed. Rarely does one find in Pentecostal/charismatic periodicals honest consideration of life situations where a prayer of faith was either not answered or was bluntly rejected.27

In African neo-Pentecostal churches and programmes, the main indicators of God’s approval are often luxurious cars, frequent trips abroad on first-class tickets, palatial homes, and in not a few cases, testimonies of good health without any hint of illness. In the process of “healing and deliverance”, which is aimed at releasing people from blockages to success and prosperity, individuals have also been encouraged to change their traditional African names because those names, it has often been discerned, carry negative 27

Kärkkäinen, “Theology of the Cross”, 151.

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connotations that follow people through life. “Bediako”, which means warrior, some teach could lead to a person “warring” his or her way through life; “Abebrese”, which means agony, could translate into a life of pain and suffering; and in one case “Fraenyiwa”, or loss of eyesight, was supposed to have led to actual blindness in the carrier of that name. The theology of name change means that the story of Jacob’s encounter with the angel at which his name was changed to Israel and the story of Jabez, whose name meant “sorrow” but who asked God for expansion to his territory and that he might be free of sorrow, receive good mention in Pentecostal/charismatic preaching. In one intriguing but sad case, one African Pentecostal church refused to be responsible for the funeral service of a Ghanaian member because he had passed away before the “biblically mandated” minimum age of seventy years, as promised in the Psalms. Interestingly, the deceased had died during an armed robbery, and in African traditions those who die such violent deaths are not classified or honoured as ancestors. By refusing to take responsibility for the funeral of a member for that reason, the church had actually unknowingly taken the same stance as would traditional religions, because in those traditions violent deaths are often associated with the breach of taboos and curses resulting from evil deeds. “Dominion” is a key expression in the neo-Pentecostal theology of glory and of power, as a reference to a Spirit-led ability to be on top or win all the time. In the process, those whose circumstances do not speak to power, wealth, strength, and victory and who need encouragement in the Lord are left without testimonies. Smail concludes from his observation of the neo-Pentecostal overemphasis on power and success that “a spirit who diverts us from the cross into a triumphant world in which the cross does not hold sway may turn out to be a very unholy spirit”.28 That may sound harsh given the sometimes empowering nature of this gospel that encourages people to work hard in order to better their lives in contexts of poverty, squalor, and deprivation. Nevertheless, the shift from theologia crucis to theologia gloriae does not completely fit the purposes of God in Christ. In accounting for the shortfall between reality and reward, African neoPentecostals have generated a series of healing and deliverance rituals to take care of those demons perceived to be responsible for every lack of progress in life. The basic idea of deliverance is that a person’s prosperity in life can be hampered by demonic powers even though that person is a Christian. Ardent exponents of this idea generally teach that demons gain a foothold in human lives by entering through “demonic doorways” such as adulterous relationships, participation in ancestral rituals, curses from enemies, association with nonChristian religious movements, sin, traditional names, pornographic materials, and sin. The array of demonic doorways often means that nobody can be excluded from the possibility of some form of possession or oppression by 28

Smail, “The Cross and the Spirit”, 58.

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demons, and so the problems of life come to be understood principally as the work of demons. Gifford explains why such teaching has gained much currency in Africa: “It is possible to view the rise of deliverance theology as a response to or mutation in the face of the shortfall of faith preaching. Faith preaching in so many cases cannot be said to have worked. Faith did not bring about all that was promised. Deliverance still allows the emphasis on success, as long as something more than faith is added.”29 This has itself led to deliverance fixes in which some people move from one healing camp to another in search of the causes and, therefore, the antidote to whatever evil destinies are perceived to be ahead of them. Even Jesus Christ has been reinvented in some neo-Pentecostal theologies as one who not only wore designer robes but also rode into Jerusalem on the most luxurious means of transport of his day. In juxtaposition to teachings that undermine Luther’s theologia crucis, we learn from Smail that there is a closer connection between the passion of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit than one might think. Jesus Christ was named as God’s sacrificial lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29-33) and yet it is in “going away” following his death on the cross that Jesus fulfils his promise of a new Comforter, the Spirit of truth who will be with the disciples forever. Smail concludes that the Spirit is the Spirit of Calvary; the power by which the Spirit works is the same kind of power as that with which Jesus defeated the powers of evil when he shared our suffering and shouldered our sin on the cross. Again, following the resurrection, it is the same crucified hands that are outstretched to impart the presence of the Spirit.30 Conclusion Pentecostal scholar Kärkkäinen begins the essay to which I referred earlier by quoting Luther on the cross: “Now it is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross.”31 Luther’s criticism of the disproportionate emphasis on the glory of the Christian faith began with the way in which the papacy taught nothing concerning the blessed saints of God “except to cover them with extravagant praise and laudation, and to praise them for exalted devotion and celestial joy”. This neglected the fact that the saints had once been human beings on earth and had felt and suffered the adversities, misfortunes, and frailties of humans. In consequence, Luther noted, the saints 29

Paul Gifford, “The Complex Provenance of Some Elements of Africa Pentecostal Theology”, in André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America (London: Hurst, 2001), 73. 30 Smail, “The Cross and the Spirit”, 59. 31 Kärkkäinen, “Theology of the Cross”, 150–63.

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were “turned into idols and men have been taught to call upon them, instead of the Lord Jesus Christ, as intercessors, mediators and helpers in need, to the shameless blasphemy and denial of our blessed Savior and high-priest, Jesus Christ”.32 Similarly, according to Luther, Mary as the mother of Jesus Christ is falsely imagined and exalted as if she had never suffered temptations, faltered, or failed in reason. Luther avers that God deals with his saints in manners that may be contrary to human reason and that “the more highly he endows them with grace and exalts and honors them, the deeper he thrusts them into sorrow and suffering, yea, even into dishonor, shame and desertion: Human reason would undoubtedly teach and advise God not to permit his own Son to be shamefully and ignominiously dealt with as a murderer and malefactor, and allow his blood to be shed, but rather see to it that the angels should bear him on their hands, all kings and nobles fall at his feet and render him all honor. For human wisdom consists in this, that is neither sees, nor seeks, nor desires anything except that which is high and precious, and that which brings honor; and again, neither shuns nor flees from anything more readily than dishonor, contempt, suffering, misery, and the like.33

He points out that God reverses the order that belongs to the human realm and deals with his own Son harshly through the cross in a way that goes against the grain of human thought. It is for the same reason that Paul refers to the way of the cross as being “the foolishness of God”, in accordance with Jewish thought and by extension with human thought more broadly. Human reason suggests that a deliverer will conquer by might and power rather than succumb to humiliation and death in a way reserved for common criminals. The mind of Christ differs from the minds of men and women, for though he was in the form of God, Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but rather he “emptied himself” and took on “the form of a servant” (Philippians 2). This is a step that even Peter failed to appreciate, as is shown by his attempt to discourage Jesus from proceeding to Jerusalem, where it seemed only arrest, humiliation, pain, and death awaited him. Luther concludes that God permits afflictions to come upon his loved ones not necessarily from wrath or lack of grace, “but from motives of great grace and mercy, in order to show us how, in all things he deals with us in a friendly and paternal manner and how faithfully he cares for his own and so guides them that their faith may be more and more exercised and become stronger and stronger”.34 In conclusion, Smail cautions that uncritical and unqualified use of power language can create the impression that every single struggle in life can very easily be prayed away or even that we can simply confess our way into success 32 Martin Luther, “The Cross and Severe Suffering”, in John Nicholas Lenker (ed.), Sermons of Martin Luther, vol 2: Sermons on Gospel Texts for Epiphany, Lent and Easter (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1906), 32. 33 Luther, “Cross and Severe Suffering”, 33. 34 Luther, “Cross and Severe Suffering”, 39.

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and prosperity. The Gospel of Christ can be very empowering because through the cross Christ defeated the powers of evil. But the influence of the powers of evil is not taken away in every case as such; in some circumstances, we are given grace through the cross so that we can bear the difficult circumstances of life with dignity and thereby lead lives that testify to God’s goodness. God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). If the example of Paul is anything to go by, then, as Smail has written, God’s purpose in such situations is not always to take us out of what is threatening to hurt or destroy us, but is sometimes rather to take us through it. Our ultimate victory comes not from escaping evil but from being given the ability to endure and bear it, the way that Jesus bore it on the cross, so that the death that was its ultimate destructive onslaught upon him became the way to his own Easter victory and to the world’s salvation.35

35

Smail, “The Cross and the Spirit”, 65.

Chapter 7

Unction to Function: The Reinvention of the Theology of Anointing

As the title of this chapter suggests, the process of anointing can be described as an unction that enables people either to function in their gifts or to make progress and succeed in what may be described as a physically and spiritually precarious world.1 In Pentecostal/charismatic discourse, anointing is usually a metaphor for the presence of power. Whether a charismatic leader’s anointing is heavy or light, for example, depends on how powerful a ministry that person has. It is all based on consistent results from prayer in situations such as healing or exorcism. In that sense, to be anointed may be to be empowered. The anointing of God may enable a person to perform miracles or preach in a way deemed effective because it draws many people to Christ. Anointing can also be present in a specific location, for example in a place of worship where people feel the presence of God at a particular moment. The application of olive oil to people and places has become a very important means of imparting anointing in contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. This chapter explores the practices, teachings, benefits, problematic aspects, and perils of anointing in contemporary Pentecostalism. Much of the data in this chapter, as for the Pentecostal phenomena discussed in other chapters, is obtained from my first-hand encounters, in this instance in anointing services held in Ghanaian churches. I use also a number of books written by charismatic pastors on anointing, which, as I will demonstrate here, has developed into a sacrament in Pentecostalism. I draw in particular on my favourite charismatic author, Eastwood Anaba, and on his two books The Oil of Influence and Extra Oil.2 A sense of the meaning of anointing can be obtained from a paragraph in Extra Oil in which Anaba provides an exposition of the Parable of the Ten Virgins narrated by Jesus:

1

This chapter is an expanded and updated version of an earlier publication on the subject of anointing and the use of anointing oil in contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. See J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, “Unction to Function: Reinventing the Oil of Influence in African Pentecostalism”, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 13:2 (April 2005), 231–56. 2 Eastwood Anaba, The Oil of Influence (Bolgatanga, Ghana: Desert Leaf Publications, 2000) and Extra Oil: Keys to Super-Abundance (Bolgatanga, Ghana: Desert Leaf Publication, 2002).

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity Demonic activities are on the ascendency. Incurable diseases are on the increase. The demands of ministry are escalating. We need extra anointing. There isn’t much time to warm up before the anointing flows. The “now-needs” are calling for the “now-anointing.” Several ministers are overwhelmed by the demands of their ministries. Some die early while others fold up their ministries and find something else to do. Jesus was extra-anointed. He was super-anointed. He did not spend two full days casting out one demon. His anointing was quickacting and highly effective. The church cannot continue to spend so much time on little cases of deliverance with inadequate results. A powerful, precise and yet peaceful anointing is God’s will for us. There is too much struggling in our walk in the anointing. This ought not to be so. It is not by might nor by power but by His Spirit.3

Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy, arguably Africa’s most accomplished television miracle and prosperity evangelist, has written The Oil and the Mantle, which, as the book’s subtitle suggests, unveils “the mysteries of material mediums” in the Christian walk of faith.4 That Pastor Chris, as he is popularly called, uses this book to denounce the institutionalization of the use of oil in churches, only reveals the extent to which the practice has become part of the self-definition of contemporary Pentecostalism. The use of olive oil as a material substance for healing and empowerment is not new in African pneumatic Christianity. It started with the older independent church prophets but, as I discuss here, has developed as a subculture within African Christianity, with anointing services now taking place in many historic mission churches too. Thus although the chapter discusses the phenomenon of anointing and the use of anointing oil from Pentecostal perspectives, much of what is said is true of African Christianity generally. As I have stressed throughout this book, Pentecostal religion in Africa is popular because it takes indigenous worldviews of mystical causality and extraordinary evil seriously. Though its emphasis on the experiences of the Holy Spirit, it also democratizes access to the sacred and purveys an interventionist piety that helps ordinary people cope with the fears and insecurities of life, with the “demonic activities” and “incurable diseases” referred to by Anaba in the quotation above. With “extra oil” to generate the required levels of anointing, such problems could be dealt with easily. The quotation concludes with reference to the work of the Spirit because the oil is usually a sacramental metaphor for the power of the Spirit. Thus the experience of the Holy Spirit, as we will see below, is understood in terms of the possession of “the anointing” by individual leaders, and it is that empowerment, granted by God and “increased” through the spiritual disciplines of fasting and prayer, that determines the effectiveness of a person’s charisma and ministry. Anointing prayer services, which are examined as part of this 3

Anaba, Extra Oil, 29. Chris Oyakhilome, The Oil and the Mantle: Unveiling the Mysteries of Material Mediums (Randburg, Gauteng, SA: Love World Publishing, 1999). 4

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chapter, are constantly held in order to make supernatural interventions effective in the lives of people. These services rank among the most popular religious programmes advertised by African Pentecostal movements. The worldview underlying anointing helps to extend the appeal of Pentecostal spirituality within a context where religion is expected to serve very practical ends that include the conquest of evil and the restoration of health and wholeness. Anointing in Context It must be recognized from the outset that anointing is seen as the power of the Holy Spirit in action, as Anaba records: The anointing oil is not synonymous with the Holy Spirit. However, when it is taken from common use and assigned to spiritual purposes it becomes a medium for the transmission of spiritual power. The presence of the Holy Spirit in a place and working of the Holy Spirit in the life of the person carrying the oil, allow the oil to be used by God as an instrument of power.5

Oral discourse makes evident a three-fold understanding of anointing in contemporary African Pentecostal thought: (1) that the anointing oil is applied during prayer for healing the sick; (2) that anointing is used for empowerment and this includes fortification against supernatural evil and for effective Christian ministry and leadership; and (3) that through its ability to reverse the effects of evil, anointing helps people, objects, and places to function so that success and prosperity are realized. I will now take these three points and consider them in turn, to see how they are understood in contemporary Pentecostal practices. First, the most common use of the expression “anointing” occurs when olive oil is applied to the physically or spiritually sick, accompanied by prayer. This application of olive oil is usually done on appeal to biblical precedent, such as Mark 6.13, where we are told that the disciples of Jesus “drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them”. The most commonly cited text in support of the practice of anointing the sick with oil comes from James 5.14-15, for this text is particularly significant for Pentecostals when it comes to using oil as a means of healing: “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.” In a very useful exegesis of this text, John Thomas has noted that “of the many New Testament passages which advocate divine healing, this is the only text which describes a procedure to be followed”. Thomas proceeds to discuss the relationship between sin and sickness because of the concluding 5

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 20.

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words, that if the patient who is being prayed for has sinned, that person “will be forgiven”.6 For our present purposes, however, it is important to note from his conclusion that in this text James advocates a continuing ministry of healing that incorporates anointing with oil at the hands of the elders and fervent praying in the expectation that healing will result. Harvey Cox notes of African Pentecostal churches that “the typical disciple comes to such a church for the first time in search of healing, usually for a malady that has resisted either traditional or modern medicine or both”.7 These churches are often innovative in that in Pentecostal belief, the application of oil is not limited to the elders. Ordinary members, if they are so led by the Spirit, may also anoint the sick with oil. When used as a means of healing, oil may, on occasion, be given to the sick person to drink; in my experience this tends to be the case when the ailments have to do with internal organs. Second, among African Pentecostals generally the expression “anointing” is used in close relation to “charisma”. The former term is frequently employed to describe a person whose ministry is so charismatic that it produces tangible results. This is what one charismatic church pastor meant when he described a person to me as having the “unction to function”, that is he was in possession of the requisite anointing that enabled the demonstration of the power of the Spirit. If a person “has the anointing” signs and wonders are believed to accompany his or her ministry, because, as it is often put, “the anointing brings results”. The Most Rev. Charles Agyin-Asare is founder and presiding bishop of the Word Miracle Church International, headquartered in Accra, Ghana. He is considered to possess the anointing in special measure because his ministry is associated with miracles and also his church has seen massive growth since it was established twenty-five years ago. In 2011, they completed the building of a 14,000-capacity cathedral called the Perez Dome, in Accra. The personal testimony of Bishop Agyin-Asare, which I have heard him narrate on several occasions, enables an appreciation of how this personal anointing upon a charismatic leader works. Bishop Agyin-Asare explains the increasing patronage of his church and the miracles that accompany his ministry as due to his being anointed by the American healing evangelist Morris Cerullo. According to Bishop Agyin Asare, his initial attempts at preaching did not convict very many people. He therefore sought a more powerful or anointed ministry in which, as happened for Peter on the day of Pentecost, crowds would response to his altar calls. God, he explains, was to answer his prayer during a 1983 Morris Cerullo School of Ministry held in Accra. Evangelist Cerullo preached through a video link, after which his representative, one Rev. Dr. Alex Ness, anointed those who wanted to experience revivals in their ministries. According to his 6

John Christopher Thomas, The Devil, Disease and Deliverance (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 17. 7 Cox, Fire from Heaven, 246, 247.

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testimony, following this anointing, Bishop Agyin-Asare heard the Lord speak audibly to him, assuring him that his prayers for a more dynamic ministry had been heard. From then on, he says, “I became a new person”, and signs and wonders have followed his ministry since. Today, he testifies about anointing with passion, as that which brought his ministry to life. Eastwood Anaba captures this thought succinctly when he notes that: When the anointing comes upon a man or rises up within him he will feels strong urge to speak and to touch people. This will result in people getting born again; falling under the power and getting healed as he touches them ... The anointing distinguishes you from other people by imparting the seven-fold character of the Holy Spirit into your life.8

It is this use of anointing to which I refer when I write of the empowering effect of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Third, the express anointing is used in the context of special services held in order to mediate to people the presence of God in the power of the Spirit. “Anointing for Change” and “Anointing for Breakthrough” are only two of the various types of anointing that may be available through anointing services. At these anointing services, worshippers can expect to realize success and prosperity in their lives. Through the application of olive oil and prayer, evil is reversed in the lives of people, even of nations and communities, so that they are empowered to deal with the difficulties of life. Nimi Wariboko classes the Nigerian charismatic pastor Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners’ Chapel as one of a new breed of Pentecostals leaders who advocate an “excellence model” of prosperity. This model argues that Africans have failed in economic terms because there are too few sane, resourceful, and patriotic managers who can bring together and develop the right talents to orchestrate development in the various spheres of the economy. In the words of Wariboko, “Anyone who has listened attentively to his messages or carefully read his books will not fail to notice that his self-proclaimed divinely inspired task is a thinly veiled call to all Africans to conquer poverty and recover their human dignity by professionalism, actualization of the potentialities, and unflinching commitment to excellence.”9 What Wariboko does not say, though, is that even as he applies professionalism for prosperity, the import of the supernatural is never far away from Oyedepo’s practices. Bishop Oyedepo visited Ghana from 30 July to 2 August 2002 in order to host a weeklong programme dubbed “Maximum Impact Summit”. The essence of the programme, according to the personal invitation I received, was to “promote personal productivity; reconstruct values systems for productive living; and propagate fundamental principles for socio-economic revolution”. The link between supernatural anointing and prosperity is not difficult to see. The invitation concluded with a

8 9

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 28. Wariboko, “Pentecostal Paradigms”, 43.

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charge to potential participants: “It is time to wake up the sleeping giant in you; you are born to influence your world.”10 The programme, when it finally unfolded, concluded with an anointing service that attracted about 10,000 people. Individuals were asked to anoint themselves at the appropriate point in the service. The most fascinating part was when Bishop Oyedepo, using a typical African libation prayer form, poured oil on the ground, declaring that by this act the land of Ghana had been anointed to be productive and her people blessed to prosper in all they did from then on. Anointing Services An important thesis of this volume is the observation that Pentecostalism, especially in its African expressions, advocates a very interventionist theology. This means healing and exorcism, or deliverance, in particular, tend to be very important aspects of its spirituality. The success of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity in Africa has lain largely in its ability to propagate itself as powerful and efficacious in enabling people to be set free from the dangers and troubles of life. The worship and teaching of these churches have by and large been geared towards experiencing the effective presence of the Holy Spirit. Christians have been urged to experience, and have experienced, God in their midst in demonstrable, even tangible, ways. The extensive use of olive oil in African Pentecostalism must be understood, therefore, against the backdrop of the desire to effectively mediate God’s presence in power, healing, deliverance, and protection against the evils of life. Typically, anointing services at Winners’ Chapel, to use a specific example, begin with praise and worship in song, which is followed by mass extemporaneous prayers, testimonies, and preaching of the word before the service culminates in the anointing with oil. Members are required to bring their own bottles of oil to the service and most purchase some at the premises. The popularity of the anointing services generates a huge market in the sale of olive oil and the white handkerchiefs that are used in the victorious dancing times that conclude the anointing services. During an anointing service officiated by Bishop George Agyeman, the Ghanaian pastor now in charge of Winners’ Chapel Ghana, members were asked to repeat the following words just before the application of the oil: Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word I believe your word I believe the picture you’ve painted of me 10

The programme was held at a property then owned by the Living Faith Church Worldwide, also known as Winners’ Chapel. The church suffered a secession in 2007 and now operates as two separate congregations, one under its founder, David O. Oyedepo, and the other led by Bishop George Agyeman, the Ghanaian pastor who led the Accra secession.

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I believe the picture of redemption that I have seen I believe in the [power] of the anointing oil as a yoke destroyer It is written that it shall come to pass that day that the burden shall be lifted The burden shall be lifted from off my shoulder and the yoke from my neck The yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing. Right now, I believe that as this oil comes to my forehead Every satanic yoke on my life shall be destroyed I am walking out of this service today a free person Today is my long-awaited day of liberation My destiny is released today and I walk out of here a free person Today, as this oil comes upon my head, what is written will come to pass: “Touch not the Lord’s anointed”; and “do my prophets no harm” Today as this oil comes upon my head, no devil can molest me anymore No devil can abuse me anymore I am a free person by the power of the Holy Spirit Thank you, Jesus. Amen11

Following the above declarations, worshippers were invited by Bishop Agyeman to pour a little oil into their right palm, place the oiled palm on their forehead, and “begin to prophesy your freedom”. As we learned earlier, in the chapter on prayer, in charismatic Christianity, words are widely believed to have performative effect. It is believed that what a person speaks during the routines of life will come their way eventually. This is part of the principle of sowing and reaping, which we have also seen used to interpret tithing and giving in Pentecostal hermeneutics. To “prophesy your freedom” in the context of the anointing service at Winners’ Chapel therefore meant that the worshippers were to make positive verbal declarations concerning their own life and destiny, renouncing sin and cursing any evil that might seek to interrupt the endeavours of their life. The process of declaring success and renouncing evil was very aggressive and serious, with people stamping their feet and moving about, as each declared his or her freedom from any bondage that might be holding them back. In the midst of the declarations, Bishop Agyeman also screamed through the microphone, telling the worshipers, “possess your liberty”, “be set free”, “be released”, and so on. I leave the concluding segment of the declarations to Bishop Agyeman himself: I decree your eternal liberty from every satanic hold today Go forth as a free person in the name of Jesus Begin to break forth on the right and break forth on your left in all your pursuits In the name of Jesus Every satanic resistance to your liberty, I command divine judgment to strike Your marital destiny is revealed in the name of Jesus Your health is released from satanic torture in the name of Jesus Your businesses and careers are released from satanic hold in the name of Jesus Your ministry, your election, your calling is released from all satanic pressures in the name of Jesus 11

Italics are mine, for emphasis.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity Your children are released from satanic manoeuvring in the name of Jesus Every force of barrenness and miscarriage is destroyed in the name of Jesus Every marital spell that will not allow you as a man to marry, as a woman to get a man to marry; Every marital spell that is around your life is destroyed in name of Jesus. Every mark of the devil on your life is destroyed today in the name of Jesus You are free. The remaining days of your life are declared regret free from today. And so shall they be.

Anointing is thus used primarily in the context of the physical application of olive oil, either to persons to effect healing or to objects to positively transform their condition. This understanding includes the use of oil in ordination services. People are anointed when they are sick, but they are also anointed when they have needs requiring supernatural intervention. Physical objects may also be anointed, particularly to restrain evil influences upon them, for example, to reverse the presence of evil in haunted homes. The concept of anointing demonstrates very forcefully the strong relationship that exists in African thinking between sin and evil, on the one hand, and sickness and suffering, on the other. God’s favour is required if success is to be achieved in in life, and the anointing, which symbolizes the presence of the Spirit, helps activate God’s presence in the lives of believers. In the words of Pastor Anaba: The anointing is not a spiritual pot of all placed in the spirit of the believer. It is the personality, power and glory of the Holy Spirit released in the believer and upon him to saturate his spirit, soul and body so that he can operate and live like Jesus on earth.12

Anointing services are special worship services during which olive oil is applied to various parts of the body, or even sometimes taken orally, in order to bring healing, reverse misfortunes, or empower people for successful living, as the situation requires. In the case of Pentecostal media preachers, olive oils may even be placed on radios and TV sets during broadcasts, in order to infuse them with power sent through the airwaves for the mediation of health and power. The oils may then be applied to ailing body parts or drunk as spiritual prophylactics. For those who seek the anointing, it is expected that their lives, ministries, and other endeavours will come under the influence of the Spirit in one way or another. In keeping with the worldview informing Pentecostal anointing services, such services frequently conclude with participants waving white handkerchiefs—a sign of victory in African religious colour symbolism—and singing choruses of victory over the devil, witches, demons, and difficult life circumstances, a victory that is to be realized through the process of anointing. A favourite chorus in these times goes as follows: We conquer Satan We conquer demons 12

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 18.

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We conquer principalities We conquer powers Shout hallelujah!

At Jericho Hour, held in the Prayer Cathedral of Action Chapel on Thursdays thousands of people from all walks of life come together to pray that God will bring the problems of their lives down. The walls of Jericho fell, as narrated in the book of Joshua; at Jericho Hour the worshippers too seek for God to set them free, from sickness, debts, unemployment, barrenness, and other forms of evil. Testimonies are given every Thursday by those who have received answers to their prayers, and the dramatic transformations they relate simply lead to increased patronage of the services. These are walk-in services at which people can pray, share their problems with leaders and pastors, and get anointed with oil if needed, and then return to their daily affairs with the assurance that God is in control as they face the challenges of life. From discourses on anointing, we learn that people are anointed with oil not just for prosperity, protection, healing, open doors, or opportunities, but also for vengeance and general release. Advertising the Anointing Anointing services are usually advertised, and they have become an important avenue through which Pentecostalism spirituality has been diffused as an alternative to the religion of historic mission churches. Handbills on these services circulate widely. A sample of these handbills read: Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries Presents: 3 Days Great Deliverance and Anointing Service. Ministering: Dr. Daniel K. Olukoya. Date: 17th -19th December 2000. Time 6:00pm Daily. Pentecostal Rock Chapel International Presents: “Breaking your Ancient Yoke.” Speaker: Pastor Frederick Yeboah. Date; 18th – 24th August 2002. Time: 9.00am – 12pm and 6pm-8pm daily. There will be Special Anointing Service on Sunday 24th August 2002. Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo and Kingsway International Christian Center (KICC) Ghana Request the Pleasure of the Company of Mr/Mrs/Mr and Mrs/Miss/Dr/Rev/ … to a Special Anointing Service on 17th November 2002 at 8:00am at KICC Dominion Center, Spintex Road, Accra, Ghana. Theme: “Raising Champions–Taking Territories.” Action Chapel International Presents Impact 2003. Theme: “Outbreak of Power in New Dimensions.” Dates: 30th November – 7th December 2003. Host: Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams. Convention 2003 Global Revival Ministries invites you to 6 Days of Apostolic Impartation. Theme: “A Fresh Move of God.” Date: Friday 26th December 2003–1st January 2004. Prophetic Session 8.00am – 1.00pm; Evening Revivals 6.00pm-9:00pm. Host: Rev. Dr. Robert Ampiah-Kwofie. Speaker: Rev. Eastwood Anaba.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity Revival, Revival, Revival: Seek the Word Ministry International invites the General Public to a 5-day Revival Encounter with the Lord Theme: “Lord Remember Me.” Date: 10th -16th November 2003. Time: 8.00am-1.00pm. There will be a special anointing service on Sunday. Onyame Wo Tumi [God has Power] The Logos-Rhema Foundation Prayer Network invites you to the 12th Ghana National Prophetic Prayer Congress. Theme: “Ruling with God in the Affairs of Men.” Date: November 25th –December 2, 2001. Time 6:00pm-9.00pm each day. “Come and be equipped to be an Effective Instrument Relevant to God’s Prophetic Program for Ghana and the Continent of Africa.” Host: Rev. Abubakr Bako. Speaker: Rev. Don Blevins.

I have italicized some of the words in the advertisements to draw attention to the importance of anointing at these services and programmes. Even when not explicitly stated in the advertisement, most of these special programmes conclude with some form of anointing for participants. The use of oil at Pentecostal/charismatic meetings has become so widespread that in Ghana, oil is now more often commercially advertised for its religious than its culinary purposes. One such advertisement, which used to run on all of Ghana’s television stations from the early 2000s, presented Borges Olive Oil as being useful not only for cooking, but also for anointing. The advertisement then encouraged churches looking for potent anointing oils to buy the Borges brand. The person featured as the advocate of the supernatural properties of Borges Olive Oil was Ghana’s celebrated Pentecostal gospel-life artiste Dinah Akiwumi. Another such advertisement that has fascinated the Ghanaian public is one in which another brand of olive oil is advertised simply as being able to effect “powerful anointing”. The setting for the advertisement is a charismatic worship service. The pastor, with a bottle of oil in hand, beckons a young female congregant towards the front. He pours a generous amount of oil in his hands and anoints the woman’s forehead. In order to indicate the power of the anointing to viewers, the woman’s reactions are those commonly associated with powerful anointing: she has dazed eyes, a shaking body, and weakening limbs and gradually succumbs to falling to the floor under the weight of the influence of the oil or Holy Spirit; her experience is that commonly known as being slain in the Spirit. Anointing, Healing and the Primal Imagination In Africa, healing is a function of religion, not only in traditional religions, but also in indigenous expressions of Christianity. Cox describes African independent churches and movements as the indigenous expression of the worldwide Pentecostal movements that “provide their followers with the weapons of the Spirit they need to fight back against the forces of evil as they manifest themselves in disease and discord”. In their religious activities, Cox further notes, “these indigenous Christian churches provide a setting in which

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the African conviction that spirituality and healing belong together is dramatically enacted”.13 In a work on the same churches and movements but of an earlier date, Harold Turner also noted that these movements stress two aspects of the totality of Christian belief: The first pneumatological, for the Godhead is envisaged as present and powerful through the Holy Spirit, who reveals the will of God and the destiny of the individual, guides through dangers, and fills men with new powers of prophecy, utterance, prayer and healing. The prophet has these charismata in a special degree … The second basic emphasis in the realm of belief may be called soteriological. Those who have rejected both the spirits and deities of the traditional pantheon, and the medicine-man with his magical powers and techniques, have turned to the Christian God for their salvation when in trouble and for their protection from the host of evil forces that surround them.14

The pastoral strategy of the first pneumatic churches, which appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century, was to produce rituals of healing and deliverance by combining prayer with the supply of herbs, oils, perfumes, and potions for love and success at school, in business, and employment, and indeed for all the endeavours of life. We should note the importance not just of healing in the theology of these older independent churches, but also of the centrality of the prophet as the anointed person though whose ministry healing comes into effect. These are features of indigenous Christianity that strongly mirror traditional religious belief systems. In Prophetism in Ghana, Christian Baëta talks about how in the older independent indigenous churches of Africa, emphasis was laid, to the total exclusion of all other matters, upon the activity of the Holy Spirit in enabling certain men and women to predict future events, warn of impending misfortunes, detect evil-doers, and above all to cure illnesses. Biblical prophetic precedence leads to the belief that the anointed person of God possesses special ability to read people’s destinies and bring communications from the supernatural realm concerning how life should proceed in various circumstances.15 The emphasis on healing in particular encouraged masses of people to seek refuge in these churches when they first emerged as Christian alternatives to traditional shrines. The two basic theological emphases of Christian belief identified by Turner in the spirituality of Africa’s pneumatic churches underscore how traditional and biblical understandings of salvation have been reinvented in modern African Pentecostal/charismatic movements in ways that stress the importance of interpreting salvation in both experiential and practical forms. In an African context, in which religion serves as a survival strategy that provides ritual context for the struggle against supernatural evil, the popularity of Pentecostal 13

Cox, Fire from Heaven, 246, 247 Harold W. Turner, Religious Innovation in Africa: Collected Essays on New Religious Movements (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979), 98. 15 Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana, 15. 14

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anointing services has defied denominational barriers. In talking about the phenomena of anointing and the use of anointing oils, therefore, we are talking about religious developments that have been de-regularized over the years, becoming virtually a sub-culture within African Christianity. This is in itself unsurprising, because in Africa generally, one form of religion does not necessarily negate another. In their search for answers people easily accumulate in their personal world as many religious resources as they deem appropriate for their salvific needs. In Pentecostal theology, it is accepted that the Holy Spirit is the one who anoints, heals, or empowers, and the anointing, if it has to be imparted physically, is mediated through the application of olive oil accompanied by prayer. Anointing and its Malcontents The extensive use of anointing oil has generated much controversy and debate in the Ghanaian media because of the abuses that have characterized this practice among some Pentecostal/charismatic churches and leaders. The various contexts within which anointing is used can be established from submissions made by critics of the phenomenon, because their criticism concerns not simply the use of the oil but also the wide array of meanings that the concept of anointing as a religious form has acquired in African hands. In one such case, reported by the magazine Ghana Review International, a 24year-old assistant pastor exposed his senior pastor for commercializing the use of olive oils. The assistant pastor alleged that his boss would send him to buy olive oil on the open market for 15,000 cedis per bottle (approximately $2), which he then resold to members who came for anointing at prices ranging from 500,000 to 2,000,000 cedis (approximately $70–$250), depending on the purchaser’s financial status. According to his assistant, in order to generate confidence in the supposed supernatural properties of the oil, the senior pastor gave the church members the impression that the anointing oil had been imported from Israel and that its healing powers were inspired by God.16 The Watchman, a Ghanaian Christian newspaper published by Pastor Divine Kumah, himself a charismatic, also raised concerns, in this instance regarding claims made by the Christian Action Faith Ministry in a Ghana TV advertisement. The concern was about the various things that it was claimed anointing could accomplish in the lives of people. Part of the report noted: There is no doubt many people, pastors especially, are getting worried about new trends in the church in Ghana today. Of particular concern are the use and also this misuse of the word “anointing” and the extent to which some preachers and prophets are carrying the whole issue. A few months ago, one of the big charismatic churches in Accra organized what was called “anointing services.” Ghana Television must have made tons of money carrying the many 16

http.//www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomepage/News Archive; accessed 4 April 2004.

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commercials. There were so many types of anointing mentioned. A long list indeed as one considers “anointing for change,” “anointing for healing,” “anointing for breakthroughs,” “anointing for ...name whatever”; even “anointing for vengeance!” Whilst the word “anointing” by itself does not create too much controversy among Christians, the worry is about what is becoming a fashion is now—anointing oil. People are being made to think that olive oil has a kind of magic in it, because someone says some prayers over it. Once you anoint your body, your car, house, machine or whatever with it, there is a transfer of some kind of supernatural power into those things so anointed. Even worse, people are being made to drink the anointing oil so that they can receive their healing or miracles.17

These concerns, occasioned by over-reliance on and unorthodox uses of oil and indeed of other such instrumentalities of prayer, are genuine, and they must not be taken lightly. The older independent churches of Africa were very notorious for their dependence on and commercialization of therapeutic substances, especially “Florida Water” (a strongly scented perfume), which virtually became a fetish in the hands of church members. Contemporary Pentecostals generally denounce these older independent churches for their over-reliance on African traditional religious strategies of healing, but current indications are that some of these practices are creeping into the healing ministries of some modern African Pentecostal churches and leaders. Anointing and Testimonies The scepticism amongst the Ghanaian public and in the media that has accompanied the extensive use of olive oil is not unfounded. There are many circumstances in which the use of oil has been controversial, even appearing magical in the way the oil has been applied and the sorts of thing it is claimed the oil is able to do. However, that people are benefiting from anointing as a sacramental procedure for mediating the grace of God is also not in doubt, as testimonies from beneficiaries often declare. In his book Mystery of the Anointing, Bishop Oyedepo illustrates with several testimonies what the application of olive oil has accomplished. One such testimony is recounted as follows: I was born with a sickle-cell disease and for a long time I had suffered many things. In February 1994, at the Anointing Service of the monthly Breakthrough Seminar, Bishop Oyedepo told us to take a cupful of the anointing oil, that it would mean divine health forever. I said “Lord that is it! It is going to be forever!” I forgot all about it, until the day we had to go for a laboratory test ... One week later, when I collected the result, my blood group read AA. To the

17

Divine Kumah, “Anointing: Is Olive Oil Replacing Florida Water?” Watchman, 15– 28 September 1996. “Florida Water” here refers to the extensive use of such liquids by the older independent churches for therapeutic purposes, a practice that was heavily criticized by the Ghanaian public as belonging to the occult.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity glory of God, my blood group, which on the 17th of September 1980 read genotype SS, now reads genotype AA.

My personal participation in anointing services has brought to my attention many such testimonies from people for whom the application of olive oil has worked. Cripples have walked, barren women have given birth, and various tumours have disappeared as the result of the application of oil following prayer. At the 2003 annual Convention of Saints, held at the Royalhouse Chapel, one of the most popular and largest new Pentecostal churches in Accra, the weeklong programme concluded with an event that was cast as “ordination, impartation and anointing”. One of the ordained deacons testified that he had joined the new church because he was anointed with oil by the founder, Pastor Sam Korankye Ankrah, and following the anointing had received healing from a heart disease. In another such testimony, a pastor told me how he was “led by the Spirit” to let a couple stand in olive oil, which he poured on the floor of their living room during prayer. The couple was looking for a child after several years of marriage. The pastor says he received a revelation that their inability to have a child on their own had been instigated by witchcraft in the man’s family. As he told me, after the prayer, the couple were both slain in the Spirit and fell in the oil, and exactly a year after that incident, the couple had a child. The pastor cast his interpretation of the incident triumphantly in the following words: “The powers of darkness were disengaged from the affairs of the couple and made vulnerable through the power of the anointing.”18 In the streets of Accra today, there are “anointed hands” hairdressing salons and barbershops, and drivers assure passengers of safe travel on precarious roads by writing “under the anointing” on their vehicles. That even secular business concerns tap into the genre of a religious movement to enhance the image of their products in the eyes of the public reveals much about how important this phenomenon and the purposes it serves have become in the popular religious context. Anointing and Power As we have noted, the anointing is virtually synonymous with the power of the Holy Spirit. The impression one receives when participating in anointing services and listening to testimonies of what the oil has accomplished is that anointing is used in reference to the power of God in action through his Spirit. In the context of Pentecostal theology, the power of God is taken as made available for ministry, in accordance with the promise of Jesus, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:8). To this end, Bishop Oyedepo writes that every believer requires the anointing for 18

This story was told by a pastor studying Pentecostalism with me during my years as adjunct lecturer in Pentecostal Studies at the Central University College, Accra, Ghana in 2003.

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sustenance, performance, success, breakthrough and fulfillment’. Levels of anointing, Pastor Oyedepo continues, also make the difference in the degree of impact preachers make on audiences, and thus “two people may preach the same message but have different results”.19 The line between anointing and power appears to be very thin indeed. This power is authenticated in objects and persons by virtue of their becoming influential and effective. Anointing, it is believed, can take the form of God’s abiding presence that empowers a person to function in his or her gifts of grace. It can also be received through previously blessed olive oil that is used as an aid to healing or empowerment, especially during ordination. The oil supposedly “upgrades the authority” of the pastor’s tongue and “makes your words effective when you speak, causing the things you declare to come to pass”.20 Pastor Anaba gives the following account of what occurred at a meeting where he had been invited to minister because the growth of the particular church had stultified: I was led on one night to walk around the church building praying in tongues in order to break every hindrance to the progress of the church. That night the power of God was very strong as we sat in the presence of the Holy Ghost. Many souls were won to Jesus ... At certain points in the meeting people fell under the power as they took hold of my cufflinks, touched my shoes and clothing. Several were healed. Offerings were taken under the anointing and the figures were great.21

Once the anointing builds up at a meeting, it is expected that there will follow healing from diseases, deliverance from demons, and prophecies and speaking in tongues, and that some of those present will fall under the power of the Spirit or have other violent reactions, as the people are blessed and demons struggle against the loss of their grip on their victims. In conversations with Ghanaian charismatic Christians regarding how they felt after services where such pneumatic manifestations had occurred, people almost always used the phrase, “the anointing was great”. The anointing thus seems to be a performative force/element in the power of the Holy Spirit. It comes across as being akin to what G. van der Leeuw describes in the phenomenology of religion as “the power of God poured out and absorb” and which enables recipients to perform miracles and operate in “the gifts of grace”.22 In the words of Anaba, each time the holy oil was poured upon someone something happened. In Oil of Influence Anaba writes,

19

David O. Oyedepo, Anointing for Breakthrough (Lagos: Dominion Publishing House, 1992), 63. 20 Oyedepo, Anointing for Breakthrough, 173. 21 Anaba, God’s End-time Militia, 10–11. 22 G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 35.

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Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity The anointing promotes. It elevates. If men are still looking down upon you and don’t count you amongst the worthy people in the community, you are missing the great influence of the anointing ... The anointing is not given for use in Heaven. It is given to make your life on earth relevant ... The anointing elevates you so that you can elevate the weak, poor and oppressed.23

In the anointing theology expressed in the sermons of the new Pentecostals, the healing in Acts 5:15 as Peter’s shadow fell on the sick is explained in terms of the anointing upon his life. It is the anointing on Paul that made it possible for handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched his body to heal sicknesses and drive out evil spirits (Acts 29:11). In other words, the anointing accomplishes; it makes things happen. The anointing oil, therefore serves as means of empowerment for the fulfilment of one’s ambitions by helping the anointed to overcome the obstacles of life. The very practical ends towards which religions are directed in Africa are evident here in the requests that are made during the mass declarations—requests for children, employment, healing, progress, prosperity, and a general deliverance from evil and from the supernatural forces that impede one’s progress in life. Every New Year’s Eve, there are all-night prayer vigils in Ghanaian churches. One of the central rites in Pentecostal/charismatic churches at this time is to anoint worshippers in order that they may gain the needed strength and grace for the ensuing year. That the anointing is done at the dawn of the New Year is very significant. If baptism and the Lord’s Supper celebrate the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of the Christian and the church, the anointing with oil celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the empowerment of the Christian and the church for life and ministry. Anointing Oil: Symbol of the Holy Spirit The use of oil as symbol of anointing recovers for modern African Christianity a substance found in the Bible, where it is a symbol of divine blessing. Anointing with oil is used metaphorically, to symbolize the bestowal of divine favour, and thus when the head of the Psalmist is anointed with oil, certain favourable consequences of divine origin follow, including “goodness and mercy” and defeat of one’s enemies (Ps 23:5; 92:10-11; 105:15; Isa. 45.1). Anointing with oil equips God’s people, especially leaders, for divine service by the Spirit of God (1 Sam. 10:1; 16:13; Isa. 61:1; Zech. 4:1-14; Acts 10:38; 1 John 2:20, 27). In the Old Testament, anointing with oil also indicated holiness, ordination, or consecration unto God (Gen. 28:18; Exod. 28:41; 30:22-38; 2 Sam 2.4; 1 Kings 1:34; 19:16). From the biblical perspective, then, the application of olive oil as anointing is a sign that draws upon the anointed person the abiding presence of God the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, objects were anointed with oil in order to set them apart for use in the service 23

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 126–27.

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of Yahweh. Kings, prophets, and vessels and other items used in the temple for worship were all anointed with oil in order to consecrate them to the Lord. Moses was instructed to prepare a “sacred anointing oil” to be used to anoint the place and items for worship and also the priests. It is also the anointing that sets Aaron and his sons apart as priests (Exod. 30:30). Whatever is anointed is consecrated so that it can be set apart for use in the service of the Lord. In other words, whatever is used for worship must bear the character of God, who is holy. The anointing oil that is in wide use among Pentecostal/charismatic Christians today therefore represents the Holy Spirit, who endows people with graces, authority, and power and through that sacrament sets them apart for God’s service or ministry. It is the Holy Spirit who anoints, and the application of the oil is meant to be a visible sign of the impartation of God’s empowering presence to his people. First John 2:27 makes a connection between the anointing and the Spirit: “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.” This passage should be considered in tandem with Jesus’ words in the Gospel according to John that “when he the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth ... He will bring glory to them by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 17:1314). The reference to “his anointing teaches you” refers to the illumination of the workings of God and of Christ that the Holy Spirit brings to those born of the Spirit. At the outset of his ministry, Jesus himself referred to the relationship between the anointing and the Spirit when he talked about the Spirit of God having anointed him to fulfil his ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing (Luke 4:18). Above all else, the Holy Spirit is God’s empowering presence that enables Christians to function in their gifting. Thus when a particular individual’s ministry is characterized by signs and wonders, as we noted in the introduction to this chapter, African Pentecostals will often speak of the Spirit’s anointing being great upon that person. In many cases, gifts that seemed to have been lying dormant in people have suddenly come back to life, rejuvenating their ministries in powerful and demonstrable ways, after these individuals have been anointed with oil in services of impartation of the Holy Spirit. Sacrament: Means of Grace Anointing oil is also used in Pentecostal/charismatic ordination services. It may well be that the extensive, practical, and innovative ways in which the charismatic churches are using olive oil, as we have seen, are directing the church’s attention to the sacramental value of oil that has been neglected, particularly in much of modern Protestantism. In the Roman Catholic tradition, oil is used in the ordination of bishops as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In

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Symbols of Catholicism, Robert Le Gall identifies different situations of anointing in the Catholic tradition. The “oil for the catechumens” is meant to give the strength of the Holy Spirit to those who are going to be baptized so that with Christ, they can fight “against the spirit of evil”; the “oil of anointing” is the outward sign used in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick to “relieve the sick with presence of the Holy Spirit”; and then there is the holy chrism, which is a fragment of oil used for anointing during consecration and explained as follows: After baptism, it makes the top of the head of the new son of God. During confirmation, it crosses the forehead. After an Episcopal ordination, it is rubbed into the top of the new bishop’s head; similarly, the hands of a new priest are anointed with it. During the dedication of churches and altars, it is spread over the crosses of consecration and all across the table of the altar. On each of these occasions, anointment with the holy chrism symbolizes the intervention of the Holy Spirit, which takes possession of beings or objects according to their mission or function.24

The Catholic sacrament of Extreme Unction also requires the application of olive oil. Augustine explains a sacrament as “a visible form of an invisible grace”. He theologizes that sacraments do not merely signify grace; they also enable what they signify. This explanation by Augustine, who is believed to have laid down the general principles relating to the definition of sacraments, was expanded in the twelfth century by Paris theologian Hugh of St Victor: “a sacrament is physical or material element set before the external sense, representing by likeness, signifying by its institution and containing by sanctification, some invisible and spiritual grace”. Exploring the relationship between a sacramental sign and the grace that it signifies, John Calvin emphasized God’s deliberate accommodation of human weakness through the sacraments: God thus makes allowance first for our ignorance and slowness, then for our weakness. Yet, properly speaking, it is not so much needed to strengthen his holy Word as to support our faith in it. For God’s truth is of neither itself firm and sure enough; nor can it receive better confirmation from any source other than from itself. But as our faith is slight and feeble unless it is supported at every point and sustained by every means, it trembles, wavers, totters and finally falls down. So our merciful Lord, by his infinite kindness adjusts himself to us in such a way that, since we are creatures who always creep on the ground, cleave to the flesh, and, do not think about or even conceive of anything spiritual, uses these earthly elements and sets before us in the flesh a mirror of spiritual blessings.25

In sacraments, physical or visible things are used as a means of conveying the grace of God. On the visible as a means of conveying invisible grace, 24

Robert Le Gall, Symbols of Catholicism (New York: Assouline, 2000), 108. Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (2nd edition; Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 497. 25

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Anaba comments perceptively from a charismatic Christian perspective as follows: God sometimes chooses to use physical things as means of transmitting his power. The physical object may be used just once and no more. For example, Jesus used saliva and soil to heal a blind man. There are also cases where the use of the physical object is literally institutionalized in the things of God, for example the use of oil for anointing and healing … We are not to make an idol of the oil, but it must be clear that God in his sovereignty can impart his power into a physical object for the purpose of ministration.”26

The significance of the relationship between anointing with oil and healing as a sacramental procedure is therefore not lost on African Pentecostals, as Anaba’s words evince. The deep theological insights provided by Anaba on the relationship between the oil and the Spirit constitute the same interpretation that is given the sacramental bread and wine at the Eucharist. A sacrament is basically the expression of divine presence through physical objects. At the Lord’s Table ordinary bread and wine are blessed in order that in the hands of the Lord, they may become a means of grace. Merely consuming the elements without recognizing their import comes with dire consequences, as Paul argues in 1 Cor. 11:29. Consequently, all sacraments must focus on the reality of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ and participation in them must help us to discern that reality. When sacraments are rightly celebrated, the church of Christ is built up; a parallel can be found in Psalm 133, where the unity of God’s people is compared to oil that is poured on the head of Aaron and runs down his beard unto his garments. In the sacraments, human beings experience God’s vitality in peaceful, liberated, and liberating community. Through the sacraments, according to Michael Welker, “the presence of God’s Spirit becomes available to the senses” and “a creative process takes place”.27 Anointing and the Democratization of Charisma The idea that anointment with the holy chrism symbolizes the intervention of the Holy Spirit, which takes possession of beings or objects according to their mission or function, is very instructive. Pentecostalism is a very experiential religion, we have repeatedly noted, so when it comes to the Holy Spirit taking possession of beings in particular, the result is more than notional or doctrinal. Transformations occurring in those anointed by the Spirit should be palpable, and people are expected to operate in their spiritual gifts in order that the church can remain charismatically functional. In the hands of charismatic Christians, the dispensation of sacraments such as anointing have virtually been 26

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 19, 42. Michael Welker, What Happens in Holy Communion? (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), 8. 27

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de-clericalized. This practical expression of the Protestant principle of priesthood of all believers also explains why for Pentecostals anointing means something more profound than just the application of oil, as important as that may be. The anointing is religious language signifying the active presence of the Spirit on people and in situations. In African pneumatic Christianity, the use of anointing oils for the purposes of healing and marking the in-filling of the Spirit is not unknown, but it is independent indigenous Pentecost movements that have recovered for the church a more dynamic theological significance of the use of olive oil and the concept of anointing. In African Pentecostalism, anointing with oil is employed not just in times of sickness, but in any situation that requires the intervention of God and his power to save, deliver, and empower. The special anointing of the leader is recognized, but for all members, it is the anointing that enables them to function in their particular ministries or gifts, whether as pastors, church workers, singers, counsellors, Sunday school teachers, or praise and worship leaders. As Anaba puts it, “ushers need this anointing to minister; the singer in God’s house without the rubbed-on anointing will end up entertaining the church instead of edifying them”.28 The church in the New Testament was a charismatic church in which the gifts of the Spirit operated for the building up of the body of Christ. In charismatic experience, gifts of the Spirit are not activated automatically in the lives of those who have been blessed with them. Such people must keep the anointing activated through constant waiting upon the Lord. For most charismatics, waiting upon the Lord entails times of prayer and of reading and studying God’s word. Those who so wait, experience an increase in their level of anointing, enabling them to have effective ministries. Constant flow in the anointing enables a person to bring God’s grace to others through ministry. For example, when singers wait upon God, the singing ministry of the church can bring great blessing and edification to church and not just entertain. Similarly, if preachers flow in the anointing, they preach not merely with “persuasive words of wisdom” (1Cor. 2:4), but their words are also backed with God’s power. The church as we have noted, refers to sacraments as “means of grace”. Grace is that which enables us to rise above human and physical limitations in order to achieve divine purposes. In anointing theology, the understanding is that those who are anointed of the Lord are not only set apart for his use, they are also enabled to serve the purposes for which they are anointed. Anointing—Its Power and Dangers Ritual has a tendency to be repetitive. The repetitiveness required of religious ritual, Ninian Smart notes, “gives great prominence to formulae, and gradually to the notion that the formulae become effective in themselves”, which can 28

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 42.

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impart a manipulative character to ritual.29 The therapeutic effect of rituals in African religions is not in doubt. However, there is danger that such rituals can lead to what might be described as obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Rather than being helped, people become ensnared by the pattern of rituals. They become dependent more on the power of the rite and the person who prescribes it than on the God in whose name and in whose power healing is effected. The result is what Turner describes as the “innocuous use” in independent African Christianity of holy water, oil, or sand as physical agents for divine healing.30 The church loses its significance as a place of fellowship as people come in with only these things in mind. The practice of dispensing substances that are meant to be extensions of faith is fairly widespread among Africa’s pneumatic churches. In one church, Robert Wyllie reports, there is extensive use of prayer cards that are consecrated and sold by the prophet. These prayer cards, when applied to afflicted parts of the body, are supposed to bring healing. Another church had made use of sunsum anhwia, spiritual soap, also designated akodze, armour. There was also sunsum semina, spiritual soap consisting of a compound of ordinary bathing soap and selected herbs that is mixed and then blessed by the founder before being sold to members. These substances, having been consecrated by the prophet, were supposed to be combined with holy water to form a paste that was to be applied to diseased parts of the body to effect healing.31 It is not just the extensive use of such faith practices that concerns critical observers, but also the fact that this constitutes what could become an unscrupulous source of income for the prophets who bless and dispense these prophylactics. In Ghana, the popularity of the anointing phenomenon seems to have brought pressure on some charismatic pastors to seek the anointing through the application of olive oil in order to enhance their own powers. Based on testimonies and results in line with the experiences of Bishop Agyin-Asare, it is believed that powerful anointing may be imparted through the touch of one who possesses the anointing in extraordinary measure. Anointing by Morris Cerullo and Benny Hinn, who also preaches anointing theology, is very much sought after. During a 1995 Benny Hinn “Ghana for Christ Crusade,” for example, a special anointing service was held for pastors at the National Theatre in Accra. Although an admission fee of 10,000 cedis ($7 then) was charged, the 1,500 places available were oversubscribed, with hundreds of people unable to gain entry into the theatre.

29 Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (London: Fontana Press, 1997), 73. 30 Turner, Religious Innovation, 167. 31 Robert Wyllie, Spirit Seekers: New Religious Movements in Southern Ghana (Ann Arbor, MI: American Academy of Religion, 1980), 47, 88.

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Anointing practice is an integral part of Cerullo’s School of Ministry programme and is believed to produce pronounced results in the ministry of participants. Anointing is thought to make a leader’s ministry extraordinarily effective. In Ghana people flock to charismatic churches where they perceive the anointing to be, and at anointing services olive oil is consecrated for smearing on the forehead, pouring on top of the head, smearing on the body, or innovatively applying on anything to which one wants to attract the auspicious presence of God. A similar spirit is found in attachments to the anointing oil. People may carry bottles of oil to church and crusades in order to be anointed, but they may also have little commitment to the fact that the Holy Spirit must be present in a person’s life in an experiential way for that anointing to have meaning. New religious practices have developed around anointing. On occasion people are required to present the symbols of their trade for anointing: travellers bring their passports, office workers bring their pens, seamstresses and tailors bring their scissors, and carpenters bring their tools.32 The stories of the anointing oil that are recounted make the phenomenon sound quasimagical. Paul Gifford writes about how at Oyedepo’s Winners’ Chapel, one person testified that after a pair of shoes belonging to a lost child were anointed, the child returned within seven days. In another case, it was claimed that the application of anointing oil to the engine of a car that would not start brought the vehicle back to life.33 The wild stories accompanying anointing testimonies and claims lead Anaba to rightly caution that great error arises when we do not focus on the person of the Holy Spirit and that people who give extreme attention to the anointing oil may neglect fellowship with the Holy Spirit and the study of God’s word.34 Similarly, Thomas talks about problems that may have arisen from the direction in the book of James that oil could be used in anointing the sick: “James must have anticipated some of these problems, which is why he admonishes that the anointing of the sick should be done ‘in the name of the Lord’ (5.14). To do something in another’s name is to do it with his/her authority and approval … the injunction to anoint ‘in the name of the Lord’, distinguished this type of anointing from magical rites of the day.”35 People who give extreme attention to the anointing oil, as efficacious in itself, stand in danger of neglecting personal fellowship with the Holy Spirit and the need to feed on God’s Word. The words of Eccles. 9:8, “let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment”, may suggest that there is a relationship between the anointing and holy living: “If holiness is required of us every day, everywhere by God, then he also expects us to remain

32

For this ritual see Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity, 59. Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity, 60. 34 Anaba, Oil of Influence, 20. 35 Thomas, Devil, Disease and Deliverance, 28. 33

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in the anointing always”, writes Anaba.36 Paul in talking about the sacrament of Holy Communion also admonishes “self-examination”, because fellowship with God through the Spirit at Communion should not be taken for granted by those who participate in it. A life that proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes is required of those who participate in Communion. One of the main uses of anointing in the Old Testament was to sanctify objects and set them apart for use in the temple or to sanctify individuals for service to God, as in the case of the kings and priests. When oil is used as a means of anointing today, it is expected that recipients will recognize it as a sacrament that requires one to set one’s self apart as God’s agent in the world. Anointing theology has caught on in African pneumatic Christianity because it fits into the traditional perception of religion as a source of power and of religious functionaries as people who must be effective in delivering such power for solving life’s debilitating problems. Yet anointing will itself become a debilitating problem if it is not practised with integrity and theological soundness.

36

Anaba, Oil of Influence, 22.

Chapter 8

Miracle Meal: The Holy Communion

In this chapter, we will look at the importance of Holy Communion in contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa. This is a movement that, as we have consistently noted, has a very strong experiential pneumatology. Unlike its classical Pentecostal compatriots, contemporary Pentecostalism could be described as a revivalist movement. Such movements tend to be less ritualistic in terms of their observance of Christian traditional practices and festivals. However, through the reinvention of traditional Christian institutions like Holy Communion, we can see how this experiential pneumatology is brought to bear on belief in Jesus Christ. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen has in a general but very helpful article drawn attention to the belief, especially prevalent among pneumatic movements, in the role of the Holy Spirit in the mediation of the presence of Jesus Christ at the Holy Communion table.1 For the purposes of this chapter, Kärkkäinen’s observation that mediation of the presence of Christ has historically been linked to physical healing is very important, because that is precisely the interpretation that contemporary Pentecostals in Africa give to Holy Communion.2 In the course of this study, I also came across a publication, by William Artega, that recognises a historical link between revival movements such as the Wesleyan revival of the eighteenth century and understandings of Holy Communion.3 The general tenor of the historical evidence in Artega’s book indicates that revival movements have often taken Holy Communion seriously. He writes very early on in his work that “sacramental worship enhances, sustains, and strengthens revivals”.4 Pentecostal theologian Frank Macchia provides a glimpse into how Pentecostal pneumatology and Christology cohere at the Lord’s Table when he points out that the Holy Spirit “goes out from Jesus Christ to all who genuinely confess him as Lord to a proleptic sharing of the Lord’s Table in the here and now in anticipation of that day”.5 The confession of Jesus Christ as Lord, we will note, is the only condition for 1 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “The Spirit and the Lord’s Supper”, in his Toward a Pneumatological Theology, 135–46. 2 Kärkkäinen, “The Spirit and the Lord’s Super”, 137, 142. 3 William L. De Artega, Forgotten Power: The Significance of the Lord’s Supper in Revival (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002). 4 Artega, Forgotten Power, 13. 5 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 252.

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participation in the Lord’s Supper laid down by the contemporary Pentecostal movements studied here. Encountering the Power of the Spirit at the Meal We must note from the outset that in the Acts of the Apostles a direct connection is made between Pentecost and table fellowship among believers in the presence of the Lord. The life of the new community of believers, according Luke, consisted of four main things: study of the word, active fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42-47). The risen Christ had previously made his presence felt at table with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32). In the following quotation, Macchia makes quite clear the link between pneumatology and Christology in relation to the Lord’s Table: With regard to the Lord’s Supper, it is highly significant that the anamnesis of looking back to Jesus’s death and resurrection as the inauguration of the kingdom in power should involve an epiclesis or invocation of the Spirit. The Christological link between the two is the fact that Jesus poured out his indestructible life in the Spirit on the cross and had it raised again by the Spirit of holiness in order to be the Spirit Baptizer. Without Jesus as the Spirit Baptizer, there is no clear link between anamnesis and epiclesis. In fact, the anamnesis is fulfilled in the epiclesis in the light of Jesus’ resurrection from death to mediate the Spirit.6

In Pentecostal thought, the invocation of the Spirit is at the heart of the meal, and he comes to infuse the elements with his powerful presence that he might intervene in the affairs of life. When the Lord’s Supper is viewed in this light, we even see a close connection between the meal and the theology of prosperity proffered by the new Pentecostals. The bottom line is the active presence of the Spirit at work in the elements, in which the power of Jesus Christ can be seen, in everyday life to bring health, wealth, and protection from enemies. As in previous chapters, the evidence on which I base my discussion here, for understandings of Holy Communion, has been provided by direct personal experiences in various Pentecostal churches. This material will include messages preached on Holy Communion days and testimonies of God’s intervention through participation in Holy Communion. Again I also draw on the writings of charismatic pastors and in this case, in particular on a book on Holy Communion published by Bishop David O. Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, also known as Winners’ Chapel. At Winners’ Chapel, Holy Communion has been instituted as a mid-week service, held on Wednesdays. Gradually other new Pentecostal churches have started emulating that practice, on account of its popularity and heavy patronage at Winners’ 6

Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, 252.

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Chapel. Holy Communion practices, both in form and frequency, differ across contemporary Pentecostals. In almost every case, however, it is stressed that the Lord’s Supper is a source of healing, breakthrough, and general empowerment. In his book The Pentecostal Principle, Nimi Wariboko makes a very important point that goes to the heart of the flexibility with which Pentecostals approach traditional church institutions and practices. Wariboko highlights the principle of “openness” to divine interventions, communication, and surprises. In Wariboko’s words: “The Pentecostal spirit is a way of being that is radically open to divine surprises, always at work resisting obstacles to human flourishing, and committed to creating, broadening, and deepening new possibilities for life.”7 Contemporary Pentecostals have sought to resist traditional understanding and impositions on Holy Communion by reinventing, for example, interpretations, qualifications for admission, and requirements for proper administration, and even the elements used. To use the words of Wariboko, we will see here how the new Pentecostals have sought to create, broaden, and deepen new possibilities for life in their interpretation of this fundamental sacrament. For example, in contemporary African Pentecostal discourse, the sacramental importance assigned to Holy Communion in terms of what it does is no different from the therapeutic and empowering effects of anointing people with oil. In most cases anointing services are even held more frequently than Communion services. The belief in the therapeutic effects of anointing explains why in some cases the anointing oil itself may even be taken orally, rather than simply applied to the forehead or other parts of the body. The elements of Holy Communion and the anointing oil both serve as means of experiencing the power of God through visible substances consecrated for the use of God’s people. For through Holy Communion the power of the Spirit working through the blood of Christ is invoked to bring transformation into lives and situations. The language of power, as Daniel Albrecht points out, has always been part of the spirituality of Pentecostals.8 The Christological meaning of Holy Communion lay not so much in participating in Christ’s suffering and having fellowship with him and the Church Militant, but rather in accessing the potential for human empowerment that comes through the breaking of the body and the shedding of the blood of Christ. Our interpretations of Holy Communion, which was virtually absent from the worship services of the new Pentecostal churches at their beginnings in the early 1970s, should centre on its gradual incorporation into worship mainly on account of its therapeutic and empowering effects. Historic mission

7

Nimi Wariboko, The Pentecostal Principle: Ethical Methodology in New Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2012), 130. 8 Daniel Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/Charismatic Spirituality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 247.

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denominations usually place prescriptions and restrictions on sacraments like Holy Communion in a bid to protect the sanctity of the institution. Pentecostalism, as Wariboko notes, has a “playful character” that “profanes the sacred without abolishing the sphere of the sacred”.9 It deactivates “the aura that attends to the rites and stories (myths) of the sacred sphere”.10 To approach religion playfully, it is explained further on in The Pentecostal Principle, “is to view it as an expression of freedom, a positive assurance that God will make our worship, prayers, and services as he wills”.11 For instance, Wariboko continues, “what gives worship meaning for Pentecostals is not measured by its ability to achieve any goal or celebrate any purpose. It is judged by the Holy Spirit’s involvement in it and it is the Spirit alone who can make it meaningful and fruitful”.12 On the disconnect between the sacraments in general and the religious experiences of young people in particular, consider these observations by James Dunn: “Anyone who has had dealings with those rejoicing in one or other of the manifestations of the Pentecostal experience will be aware of how powerful and poignant the issue is. Young people in particular … who have experienced a quickening of the Spirit/spirit, having often longed for an appropriate sacramental expression of their experience.”13 Thus unlike the historic mission denominations, which have been obsessed with the preservation of the sacredness of the Holy Communion through the rigid exclusion of the denominational and other, the Pentecostal church provided me with no instance in which participation in Holy Communion was a mark of membership. In almost every case people were welcome to participate in Holy Communion as long as they believe in, have accepted, and seek the experiential presence of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour through the power of the Holy Spirit. In contemporary Pentecostalism therefore, the communion table is first and foremost a place of experiential encounter. Breaking Down Barriers in the Holy Spirit This subheading is taken directly from The Church in the Power of the Spirit by Jürgen Moltmann.14 In chapter five of this work, Moltmann discusses the importance of the living remembrance of Christ in the hope of the church towards the kingdom. The living hope in the kingdom leads back to what he calls “the inexhaustible remembrance of Christ”.15 There are many ways in which the church articulates her belongingness to Christ and to one another. In

9

Wariboko, Pentecostal Principle, 131. Wariboko, Pentecostal Principle, 131. 11 Wariboko, Pentecostal Principle, 161. 12 Wariboko, Pentecostal Principle, 161. 13 Dunn, “Born Again”, 114. 14 Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, chap. 5. 15 Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 197. 10

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the baptismal event, for example, as Moltmann explains, the community is linked to the individual who enters the fellowship of Christ and confesses it publicly.16 Indeed, this is why Pentecostals insist on adult baptism by immersion as the proper mode of integration into the church. And the Lord himself directed this relationship to be expressed by means of what traditionally has been called the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Table, the Eucharist, or, most commonly, Holy Communion. In eating and drinking at the Lord’s Table individuals are linked to the community which is visible in these acts.17 Moltmann further points to the importance of the Lord’s Supper as a “sign of the messianic era” that actualizes remembrance of the liberating suffering of Christ. In the Lord’s Supper, he continues, “Christ’s redeeming future is anticipated and his hope celebrated in remembrance of his passion”.18 Moltmann also draws attention to the fact that the “messianic understanding” of the Lord’s Supper is not a mystery cult that the initiated celebrate in separation from their surroundings; it is a public and open meal of fellowship for the peace and righteousness of God in the world. He laments the fact that instead of uniting the church in fellowship, the Lord’s Supper has historically provided occasion for division, and for the misery of schism and denominational conflict. In the words of Moltmann: The very names by which it is called are an expression of the different aspects on which emphasis has been laid and which—when they have been held with absolutism—have destroyed fellowship. Whereas the expressions “the Mass” and “the sacrifice of the Mass” point to Christ’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of the church and of believers, the Protestant expression “the Lord’s supper” stresses the link with Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. The name “Eucharist” puts the meal in the context of divine worship, of praise and thanksgiving. In the ecumenical movement the name “Lord’s supper” has become established usage in recent years because it points to the common Christological foundation of the different church traditions.19

These are important insights not just in illuminating the theological meaning of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper but also in showing how a sacramental activity meant to unite has been made to divide. We will see from the contemporary Pentecostal approach to Holy Communion that not only have new meanings been read into it beyond its being a sacrament for the recognition of the suffering of the Lord, but the movement has also overridden the denominational particularities that it has generated. There are many things that historic Christianity stands to gain by a careful study of Pentecostalism and one of them, I suggest, is the simplicity with which Pentecostals approach rites

16

Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 243. Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 243. 18 Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 243. 19 Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 244. 17

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and rituals that historic Christianity has made so sophisticated that it has alienated upwardly mobile youth people in particular. In a typical contemporary Pentecostal setting what matters is not the theological interpretation that is given to the Lord’s Supper. On the occasions when I have heard the word “Eucharist” used by a Pentecostal pastor or leader, it has been clear that it has been uttered out of fascination with the expression or even to impress the congregation, rather than in a serious theological manner. There is open access at the Lord’s Table in contemporary Pentecostal churches as long as people confess Christ as Lord, and in terms of the theological import of Communion, the most important issue is what participation accomplishes in the life of the communicant. This position may lack theological sophistication, but it must be taken seriously. As Moltmann writes, “Communion with Christ in his supper is obeying Christ’s own invitation, not a Christological dogma. For it is the Lord’s Supper, not something organized by a church or denomination.”20 Holy Communion in Charismatic Church Settings I have noted throughout this work as we seek to understand Pentecostal practices in Africa, that it is important to keep in mind that we are dealing with movements in which experience usually moves ahead of reflection. Pentecostals theologize their experiences. In other words, there is no obligation, as far as one can tell, to follow any particular theologically articulated position in religious practice. As a movement, Pentecostalism can be quite eclectic and so religious practices can be borrowed from other established traditions as long as they do not undermine attempts to be innovative or stifle experiences of the Spirit. Usually the most important point of appeal is the Bible, but my observations suggest that African Pentecostal churches will usually adapt or pursue religious practices that flow out of belief in what works, rather than take on what might be deemed theologically sensible, especially by conservative Christian traditions. I recall one visit to the Royalhouse Chapel in Accra. It was a Sunday in October 2008 and the church was concluding its annual Convention of Saints revival week. The Communion service consisted of a simple prayer over doughnuts, which members took with wine fruit juice. This form of Communion was quite unlike anything experienced in any of the older churches, where the body of Christ must always be symbolized by either bread or wafers. In another instance, a bishop of the Lighthouse Chapel International in Ghana told me that his church believes that the elements of Holy Communion turn into the “actual” body and blood of Christ after consecration. The bishop was oblivious of the fact that he was adopting the Roman Catholic position on transubstantiation. He appealed rather to the words of Jesus Christ 20

Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 244.

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as captured in the Gospels; as he explained to me: “Jesus did not say ‘this is like my body and my blood’, no, he said, ‘this is my body and my blood’ and this made the elements he was holding equivalent to the real thing.”21 Holy Communion is one among a number of Christian celebrations that were marginal to charismatic Christianity when it began in the late 1970s but are now becoming central to the churches’ activities. The celebration of Good Friday has undergone a similar change in status. In the past a number of these contemporary Pentecostals refused to organize worship services on Good Friday on the grounds that the day was associated with pain and suffering. We recall the example given in chapter six above of the Ghanaian church that even changed its name from Calvary Road Incorporated to Harvesters International Church because “the pains of Calvary” were being reflected too much in the daily affairs of its members. The general view was that the resurrection had overshadowed the crucifixion of Christ and that pain should not be commemorated but rather victory celebrated. The situation has changed somewhat and most of the churches concerned now worship on Good Friday. Even then, some have still done away with the traditional dark colours used on that day to symbolize the suffering of Christ. We note that Holy Communion is related to Good Friday, and although this sacrament has been celebrated from the beginning, my observation is that there is now much more attention paid to Communion and it is celebrated more frequently than at it used to be. The most frequent celebrations are once every week; for the majority of churches, however, it is held either monthly or only on special occasions. There are two different types of Winners’ Chapel in Ghana. The smaller one, led by Bishop George Agyeman, seceded from the original church in 2007 following disagreements over ministerial transfers and accountability issues over church property. The Agyeman faction, known as Winners’ Chapel Ghana, has maintained the Winners’ Chapel International practice of celebrating Communion every Wednesday evening. Other churches like Pastor Mensa Otabil’s International Central Gospel Church celebrate Communion on the last Friday of every month. In both cases, as well as in several others, these events are advertised on billboards and on radio and television programmes. The procedure for celebration is usually fairly standard. Service starts with the usual praise and worship time that culminates in word ministration.22 An extempore prayer is said over the elements of Communion and they are distributed by pastors and deacons. The elements tend to be bread or wafers plus some red or wine juice. The elements are packaged together in small

21 Conversations with Bishop Ismael Sam of Lighthouse Chapel International during study for the degree of Master of Theology at the Trinity Theological Seminary, academic year 2008/2009. Discussions took place during the course “Contemporary Issues in Ecclesiology”. 22 See for instance Ukah, New Paradigm of Pentecostal Power, 177.

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disposable plastic cups with the wafer sealed in between two plastic covers on the cup containing the wine juice. The words of administration tend to be a combination of the traditional “this is my body broken for you” and “this is my blood shed for you”, and some other words that invoke the blessing of God upon the elements and point to their potential therapeutic effects in the lives of those participating. Thus at Winners’ Chapel Ghana in March 2011 the words were: “this is the body of Christ, which contains power, eat it and it will give you life and produce signs and wonders in you”; in the case of the wine, “this is the blood of Christ, which contains power and was shed for you; drink it and it will give you life; purify you and produce signs and wonders in you”. An important emerging trend in contemporary Pentecostalism regarding the celebration of Holy Communion is that people in difficult situations are encouraged to bless the elements and take them as Communion. Such situations might involve ill health, but it may be that the believers have met in a prayer meeting or are concluding joint fasts. In other words, the approach to Holy Communion in the new churches tends to be quite arbitrary, not in the sense that it is abused or disrespected, but in the sense that it is taken out of the rigid liturgical mould into which historic Christianity has placed it. This ties in well with Wariboko’s “playful act” of Pentecostalism. To quote Wariboko again: What play does is to take a sacred item from its excluded sphere, emancipate it from its connections to ends, and return it to common use without necessarily abolishing the sphere of the sacred. It “profanes” the item by ignoring its separation and the scrupulousness and attention that attend to its use; or it does so by inappropriate use. To profane in this sense means to deactivate the aura that attends to a thing as being separated and serious and bring it to common use.23

Careful observation would find contemporary Pentecostalism accused of such “profanity” in several areas of ecclesiastical life. These include the “usurpation” of titles such as “Reverend”, “Reverend Doctor”, “Bishop”, and even “Archbishop”, without any recognized institutional approval from either accredited seminaries or denominational bodies. Something similar has happened in the celebration and interpretation of Holy Communion on issues such as who has authority over its consecration and administration. For an illustration of the new interpretations that contemporary Pentecostalism bring to Holy Communion, the second most important sacrament of the early church after baptism, let us look at the teachings of Bishop David O. Oyedepo. Oyedepo does not by any means represent the whole movement, but much of what he stands for here is present to varying degrees in many other contemporary Pentecostal settings.

23

Wariboko, Pentecostal Principle, 150.

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Miracle Meal The Miracle Meal is the title of a book on Holy Communion by Bishop David O. Oyedepo, whom we have already encountered as the founder and leader of Winners’ Chapel International. Oyedepo describes Holy Communion as a “miracle meal” because it “services the body”, enabling beneficiaries to enjoy “physical strength, vigor and vitality”.24 This understanding of this sacrament is in line with the identification of Holy Communion within contemporary Pentecostalism with its therapeutic effects. At the beginning of his discussion of the importance of good food to physical health and wellbeing, Oyedepo argues that “among the benefits of redemption of a spiritual menu is that, it guarantees a sound body and flouring health”.25 Here, then, is Oyedepo’s interpretation of the words of Jesus in John 6:55, “my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed”. For Oyedepo, Jesus was telling the disciples, “I am giving you the highest form of nutrients you will ever need anywhere in the world”.26 This interpretation of the elements of the Holy Communion as the source of physical health and vitality begins from John 6:48-51, I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manner in the desert, yet they died. But there is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Traditionally, this passage has been interpreted in terms of salvation in Jesus Christ and the hope of eternal life that comes with faith in Christ as the only begotten Son of God (John 3:16-17). It is precisely because of the “life” offered by Jesus Christ through his death that those who “eat” his body as alternative manna from heaven do not die. The contrast between the manna that Israel fed on in the desert and the one offered by Christ is clear: whereas those who ate the manna in the desert died, there is a new manna, the living bread of Christ, that brings everlasting life to those who feed on it. In other words, on this earth accepting Jesus Christ brings restoration of relationship with God and in death those who belonged to Christ by feeding on his “body and love” have eternal life with God. Jesus was clear in his teaching on this point as he responded to those who were following him because he had fed the crowd with physical food. He had fed them by the Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias, and moved on from there to Capernaum. In John 6:24 we read: “Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.” Ostensibly they were going to look for more food or bread. 24

David O. Oyedepo, The Miracle Meal (Lagos: Dominion House Publishers, 2002), 6. Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 10. 26 Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 10. 25

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The crowd looking for food did indeed find Jesus “on the other side of the lake” and asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” It was at this point, according to the biblical account, that Jesus drew their attention to the need to search for spiritual food, not temporary physical food: Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has place his seal of approval”. (John 6:25-27)

“Food that endures to eternal life”, as can be understood from Jesus’ statement in John 6:29, is “to believe in the one he has sent”, and the one God sent is Jesus Christ. God gives the true bread because “the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). To make matters more explicit, Jesus declared: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty” (John 6:35). I am not suggesting here—and there is no reason to think thus—that contemporary Pentecostals do not believe in the eschatological importance of the coming of Jesus Christ as the “bread of life”. It is simply that the teaching of prosperity has been so strong that very little attention is given to the issues of heaven, hell, or the Second Coming of Christ in contemporary Pentecostalism. In Oyedepo’s exposition and application in relation to Holy Communion, we are therefore dealing with a new interpretation in which the existential importance of Jesus as “bread from heaven” is privileged over the eschatological implications of his teachings. So, in the interpretation of Oyedepo, the manna God gave Israel in the wilderness was “extraordinary and strange” because the Bible says that “there was not one feeble person among them and their legs were not swollen for the 40 years during which they ate the meal”.27 Those who ate manna in the desert, he explains, received “health and vitality” from it and what Jesus Christ offers today, he notes, is of “a much higher quality than the one they ate”.28 In other words, the new manna seen in Holy Communion is for the promotion of physical health. Oyedepo sustains Jesus’ teaching that he offers “living bread”, which is superior to the physical bread sought by the crowd. In Oyedepo’s thought, however, the superiority of the elements lies more in their ability to offer physical health and vitality than in the eternal salvation that Jesus seemed to have in mind. Thus Oyedopo notes that “something must be supernatural about the bread” because when you “eat and drink such good things, your strength is renewed as the eagle’s”.29 He cites the example of Caleb and explains his renewed strength in terms of the manna he took as part of the pilgrim people of 27

Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 11. Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 12. 29 Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 12. 28

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God in the wilderness. In Josh. 14:11, Caleb is quoted as saying at eighty-five years of age, “I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then”. Although Caleb makes no reference to manna, in Oyedepo’s thought, the vitality in Caleb’s physical strength after eighty-five years is explicable in light of the manna eaten during the desert journey. Oyedepo goes on to explain how he received this new meaning of the Holy Communion through supernatural revelation and that communion has become the source of his own strong physical health and vitality: God showed me the mystery of the communion through the teachings and life of Oswald J. Smith back in 1977. I have been servicing my system with this mystery since then. All my veins and my blood are in perfect order. That is partly why I can stand and lay hands on over 50,000 people in a day without sitting down. I have a food to eat that keeps me going with supernatural strength …When God opened my eyes to the flesh and blood of Jesus, I was so taken with it that I took it virtually every day. It answered to me in detail. All the weakness and sickness in me died and life became increasingly more buoyant. This meal is designed for strength, health, and longevity. If you take it with the correct spiritual perspective, expect to be strong, healthy and to fulfill the number of your days.30

The result of this very existential understanding of Holy Communion is that it has become part of the self-identity of Winners’ Chapel. The church advertises a number of “encounters”, which is the term it uses to describe its services. There is “word encounter”, which refers to a normal church service where the word of God is preached; there is “Holy Spirit encounter”, which usually refers to a special revival meeting; and then there is “Holy Communion encounter”, which in most Winners’ Chapel schedules takes place on Wednesday evenings. Holy Communion achieves quite a number of things for those who participate in it. According to Oyedepo, the elements have the ability to neutralize all poisonous and toxic substances in the human body. In his words: Every dangerous thing that you have mistakenly eaten, which is now ravaging and tearing down up or breaking down your body’s defenses will be neutralized by eating the flesh of Jesus. Any form of poison responsible for partial blindness, deafness, stomach disorder, chest problems, heart disease, blocked arteries, every form of body poison including AIDS, which is the breakdown of the immune system, will be swallowed up in victory by the meal of life.31

An important and innovative part of the celebration of Holy Communion in its new Pentecostal settings is provided by the testimonies that accompany it. When space is made, testimonies centre on the healing miracles that may have occurred following the taking of Holy Communion. The following testimony 30 31

Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 13-14. Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 20-21.

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talks of Holy Communion administered within domestic circumstances after a snakebite had caused swellings: … As I was entering a compound, the lights went off and I had the instinct to turn back, but I took steps further. As soon as I entered, I felt that there was somebody standing behind the wall. Yet, I took a step further and then I felt something being sprinkled into my eye twice. I pointed my torch [flashlight] to see who did that. Behold, it was big cobra about to strike me! Instantly I shouted, “The blood of Jesus!” The snake turned the other way, my vision went blank. The second day, I was rushed to the hospital and the doctor said the poison must have got into my system. We went back home and continued to pray. The next day … I told my brother to prepare the communion based on the scripture that says He [Jesus] gave the communion to His disciples, and their eyes opened. He went ahead and prepared the communion and I took it. As soon as I took it my eyes were opened! However, they were still swollen. Somebody then told me to get milk and use as an absorbent which I did … The swelling cleared!32

It is not just the miracle performed through the taking of Holy Communion that is noteworthy here, but also the fact that the communion took place in a domestic setting. In effect, this amounts to some sort of de-clericalization of Holy Communion, which coheres with contemporary Pentecostal ecclesiology of the democratisation of ministry, which we noted above in chapter four. The blood of Jesus Christ symbolized by the wine juice is considered particularly potent in flushing out diseases and foreign substances from the body. When the daughter of a member of Oyedepo’s Winners’ Chapel swallowed a coin, that member just took a cup of water, blessed it as communion wine in order to “transform” it into the blood of Jesus, and gave it to the girl to drink. The daughter was brought into an actual Communion service the following day and, lo and behold, according to the testimony, the girl excreted the coin.33 Pentecostals and Traditions of Holy Communion The understanding of most contemporary Pentecostals with regard to Holy Communion is fairly orthodox and traditional, in that Holy Communion is celebrated as fulfilment thorough Jesus as the blood of the lamb of the Passover celebration in Exodus. It is understood that Jesus is now the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). What contemporary Pentecostalism brings to understandings of Holy Communion is its ability to directly effect the healing of diseases and the granting of health and wellbeing. Indeed, Bishop Oyedepo believes that members of the early church rarely fell ill because they took Holy Communion regularly:

32 33

Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 23. Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 29.

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In the days of the early Christians, sickness was a stranger in their assembly because they were addicted to partaking of the flesh and the blood of Chris on a daily basis. The mystery gave them mastery over every sickness and disease. The great prescription of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ is the Great Physician’s covenant toast for your total health, soul and body.34

A visit to Winners’ Chapel in Accra for the Wednesday evening Holy Communion service reveals how far contemporary Pentecostals have moved away from traditional approaches to such sacraments. In typical historic mission-church settings, Holy Communion is a highly liturgical service and, most importantly, it is reserved for registered members. Until the mid-1970s some churches belonging to the Reformed tradition in sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana on Holy Communion days first closed the main service so that as in the persecuted early church, dining with the Lord could take place behind closed doors. It is still the case that prior to participation in Holy Communion on Sundays, members of the Presbyterian Church in Ghana have to visit their pastors to undergo what in the Akan language is referred to as nkasaho, literally “talking about”, in effect a system of confession through which people are granted permission to participate in Communion. Each member holds a communion card that has to be ticked by the minister or his lay representative as part of the process. In almost every case certain persons are excluded: Catholics, for example, will not give Communion to those who have not blessed their matrimonial unions in church; mainline Protestants refuse Communion to those married to more than one wife or to married women who are not first wives. Moltmann speaks for the new theological understanding of Holy Communion that we have observed among Pentecostals when he observes that the “Lord’s Supper is not the place to practice church discipline”. He notes that Communion must be seen rather as “the place where the liberating presence of the crucified Lord is celebrated”. When confession and absolution precede the Lord’s Supper, Moltmann further observes, the open, previent invitation of Christ becomes tied to “legalistic injunctions and moral conditions for admission” that make participation in the meal, or to use the words of Oyedepo, the miracle meal, burdensome.35 Moltmann writes from the perspective of the Western ecclesiastical traditions, and these burdensome injunctions, as we have noted above, are present in the African historic mission church communities on account of their links with mission agencies in the early twentieth century. Human-made ecclesial traditions of Holy Communion have been given unfounded biblical and theological justifications that defeat the missional purposes of participation at the Lord’s Table by ordinary Christians. Moltmann is worth quoting again, for his thoughts are very helpful for understanding why 34 35

Oyedepo, Miracle Meal, 63. Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 245.

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contemporary Pentecostals find the approach of their historic mission compatriots to Holy Communion too exclusive and restrictive for comfort: Christ’s original feast of joy is then unfortunately transformed into a meal of repentance where people beat their breasts and gnash their teeth. It is then no wonder if many people excommunicate themselves from the meal, and if even serious Christians experience an unholy dread before the Lord’s Supper. This moral legalism spoils the evangelical character of the meal just as much as dogmatic legalism. We should therefore start from the Lord’s Supper as something done together and openly, and try to explain the moral questions on the basis of this action and fellowship.36

There are additional variations, but for both Catholics and mainline Protestants, Holy Communion is reserved for those who have been baptized and subsequently confirmed as members of their particular church traditions. Until fairly recently, women were supposed to take Communion with their heads covered. Although not part of written church rules, menstruating women are unlikely to attend Holy Communion, their self-imposed exclusion deriving from traditional views that women in that condition are ritually unclean. There were no such restrictions at the Communion services I attended at Winners’ Chapel or any other place. The only requirement is that partakers of Holy Communion must have been born-again, and there is provision for this to happen for those for whom it is necessary, for in the period prior to the blessing of the elements there is always an Altar Call. At Winners’ Chapel in February 2010, the prayer over the elements came after the word and the Altar Call. The prayer was said from a distance, and it simply blessed the elements in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. The pastor praying declared as part of the blessing of the elements that in partaking of Holy Communion “sicknesses will disappear, insomnia will cease, finances will improve; and every expectation of yours will come to pass”. Contemporary charismatic Christianity is doing well in Africa for a number of reasons. The strong charismatic orientation of its leadership is one of these reasons, but the experiential nature of its spirituality and the interventionist nature of its soteriology are also significant. In blessing and administering Holy Communion there is emphasis on what the elements accomplish in the everyday circumstances of people, rather than on membership. Where in a typical historic mission church participation at Communion is a “badge” of belongingness to tradition, in the new charismatic settings participation is a sign of membership in the general body of Christ. At the service on 3 February 2010 at Winners’ Chapel, even those who gave their lives that evening were admitted to Communion. What is important though, is what participation accomplishes.

36

Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 245.

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Conclusion Donald Miller was perceptive when he referred to contemporary Pentecostal Christianity in North America as the “reinvention of American Protestantism”.37 In their worship, ecclesiology, modes of incorporation into church community, and interpretation of the Bible, the new Pentecostals have truly reinvented Protestant Christianity in many ways. The reinterpretation of and open-access approach to Holy Communion are only two ways in which the new Christian movements have made evident the flexibility that comes to the mission of the church through the experiential presence of the Spirit. Not every change that accompanies the playful attitude of contemporary Pentecostalism towards worship is theologically defensible. Nevertheless, within the African context, the democratization of access to the Spirit, the liberalization of institutions like Holy Communion, and the new emphasis on interventionist prayer are an indication of how the new agents of Christian mission may be redefining the faith. Moltmann has challenged those upholding traditional and exclusivist approaches to the Lord’s Supper to justify their attitudes before the face of the crucified Jesus. Hierarchical legalism, he notes, “spoils the evangelical character of the Lord’s Supper just as much as dogmatic and moral legalism”.38 The very lay, flexible, open, and non-liturgical approach that contemporary Pentecostals take to the sacrament of Holy Communion serves to underscore the sense of freedom and democratization that comes with the experiences of the Spirit. Within experiential piety, structure and authority seems to have given way to liberty and freedom. What matters for contemporary Pentecostals in their celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion is not so much the need to follow proper liturgical procedures as the empowering benefits that are obtained from that sacrament because of the power of the Spirit working through the blood of Christ. This inclusive approach to Communion and its virtual demystification through open access are strengths of a Christianity that has proven very attractive to Africa’s upwardly mobile young people, who find the traditions of historic mission Christianity encumbering.

37 38

Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism. Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 246.

Chapter 9

Bible-Believing and Preaching Churches

The emergence of Pentecostal Christianity in Africa had a lot to do with interpretations and understandings of the Bible among local Christians. The more the Bible was read as devotional material, the more indigenous Christians felt that historic mission Christianity was not biblical enough. These reservations concerned in particular the lack of emphasis on the experiences of the interventionist ministry of the Holy Spirit in the application of biblical promises and the practical appropriation of biblical truths. To fill this gap, local Christians belonging to emerging pneumatic movements allowed the Bible to inform their religious practices. In Africa this has been equally true of both older pneumatic movements, such as the early twentieth-century independent churches, and contemporary Pentecostal movements. In the early years of their existence, contemporary Pentecostals also referred to their communities as “Bible-believing” or “Full Gospel churches”, to emphasize the centrality of the Bible in the definitions of their faith. Pentecostal churches of the late 1970s even directly or indirectly referred to the importance of the Bible in their names. In Ghana, Mensa Otabil called his organization the International Central Gospel Church, implying that the Bible as Gospel was to be at the centre of a new stream of Christianity. Before the redesignation of his church as Royalhouse Chapel, Sam Korankye-Ankrah called it International Bible Worship Centre; Charles Agyin Asare’s church is known as the Word Miracle Church International; Nii Tackie-Yarboi’s initiative is called Victory Bible Church. All these churches came into existence within seven years of the establishment of the first such charismatic church in Ghana in 1979. My italicization of the biblically-related terms in the names of this select group of contemporary Pentecostal churches illuminates a conscious attempt by these churches to point to the importance of the Scriptures in their Christianity. The popular designation “Bible-believing church” helped to define contemporary Pentecostals against their historic mission forebears, who were perceived as either neglecting biblical teachings or diluting the biblical message to suit the liberal lifestyles of their members and their indifference to such truths as the experiences of the Holy Spirit. This chapter reflects on the innovative uses to which the Bible is put in popular African Pentecostalism beyond its primary purpose as reading material for Christian edification. Pentecostalism, as André Corten and Ruth MarshallFratani point out, “tends to have a surprisingly open and flexible approach to

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Biblical interpretation”.1 One aspect of this flexibility is that the Bible is allowed to speak to existential situations, as passage are used, sometimes selectively, as a source of interpretation that can be applied directly to situations of interest. Thus a popular explanation offered by young people who left historic mission denominations to join new Pentecostal churches in the 1970s was that in these new charismatic communities “there was emphasis on the Word”. In most cases this meant that preaching and teaching were biblically relevant, even if not always theologically accurate. The following observation from Philip Jenkins addresses the literal interpretation of Scripture in African Pentecostalism succinctly: For one thing, the Bible has found a congenial home among communities who identify with the social and economic realities it portrays, no less than the political environments in which Christians find themselves. For the growing churches of the global South, the Bible speaks to everyday, real-world issues of poverty and debt, famine and urban crisis, racial and gender oppression, state brutality and persecution. The omnipresence of poverty promotes awareness of the transience of life, the dependence of individuals and nations on God, and the distrust of the secular order.2

We will see that in addition to its place in Christian life as the word of God, the Bible in African Christianity generally, but within Pentecostalism in particular, is used in ritualistic ways, as a book of supernatural power.3 Because ritualistic use of the Bible in contemporary Pentecostalism has historic continuities with earlier pneumatic movements, the chapter draws extensively on the reception of the Bible in African Christianity as a sacred book that was also a book of sacred power. Further, it serves to illustrate how African Christians generally continue to emphasize and privilege the pneumatic elements in the Christian faith, which to a significant extent are marginalized in expressions of faith in the West. Historic mission Christianity remains suspicious of explicitly supernatural themes such as Spirit baptism, exorcism, and spiritual healing. In contrast, biblical and theological conservatism, as Jenkins notes, “clearly represent the Christian mainstream across Africa and Asia, while ideas of supernatural warfare and healing need not the slightest explanation, and certainly no apology.”4 Thus in African Pentecostalism not only is the Bible used in historic ritualistic ways, but its promises are also reinvented and applied to 1

André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani, Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001), 5. 2 Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5. 3 See for instance Paul Gifford, “The Ritual Use of the Bible in African Pentecostalism”, in Martin Lindhardt ed., Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of PentecostalCharismatic Movements (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2011), 179–97. 4 Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity, 7.

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contemporary situations. This practice ensures that Pentecostalism remains relevant to the lives of the youthful constituencies that the new churches attract. The Bible in Christian Spirituality The Bible, according to John Bailie, is “the written witness to that intercourse of mind and event which is the essence of revelation”.5 “Bible” as used here thus refers also to what James Packer describes as “the historical tradition of the Judeo-Christian community of faith, honest tradition, celebration and explanation of God’s words and works in history, set forth for edificatory purposes by the various biblical writers.”6 The “witness” itself, to use Bailie’s expression, is a human activity and as such fallible. Nevertheless, the Bible is holy because it is the vehicle through which the Gospel is communicated to those who believe God’s revelation as interpreted in the Christian tradition.7 The “Holy Bible” is thus understood to be synonymous with “Holy Scripture”, as a book that that has supernatural import, and for African Christians generally that which is holy is handled with care and reverence. Holy Scripture is not only God’s witness to himself but also humankind’s witness to God, because as the “revealed word of God” it was articulated by human minds under divine inspiration. In the words of Packer, the “inspired Scriptures” is the book in which “the saving words of God are recorded and explained in a way that is wholly true, trustworthy, and therefore normative for faith.”8 In addition to traditional understanding of the Bible as a sacred book for Christian instruction, it has acquired other uses in African Pentecostalism. One of these is the declaration of biblical promises, especially using the words of the King James Version (KJV), which are considered more powerful than the simpler translated versions such as the Living Bible. Thus as Paul Gifford explains, in contemporary African Pentecostalism the Bible is more than a book written for people of the past or just a historical document; no, it is rather “understood as a record of covenants, promises, pledges, and commitments between God and his chosen”. In other words, in contemporary Pentecostal hands, the Bible is made to speak directly into existential situations, which leads to “performative or declarative use” of its promises.9 The archaic English and weighty words of the KJV carry for users a certain supernatural import that the modern-English versions have lost in the process of translation. The Bible is valued both for what it represents symbolically and for what it contains in terms of instruction. Contemporary Pentecostal 5

John Bailie, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), 111. 6 James I. Packer, Honoring the Written Word of God (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999), 163. 7 Bailie, Idea of Revelation, 117. 8 Packer, Honoring the Written Word, 99–100. 9 Gifford, “Ritual Use of the Bible”, 179, 180.

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preaching selectively picks up key words from the Bible, including phrases and sentences amounting to promises, and plays on them constantly by declaring them fulfilled either in “the name of Jesus” or in the “power of the Holy Spirit”. In an important example given by Gifford, Pastor Martin Ssuna of the World Harvest Church in Kenya, was preaching on the parting of the Red Sea for Israel’s escape from Egypt. In the application of the text, members were led to shout after the preacher: “God, cut off for me … any unproductivity, failure, negativity, confusion, lack, in Jesus’ mighty name. We have passed over. May this day be a pass-away of sickness, failure, poverty and lack, confusion and terror, generational curses and witchcraft, hindrances in your life.”10 Contemporary Pentecostalism, as we have noted in earlier chapters, is very much a Christianity of power and prosperity, and the Bible is used as guidance for those who want to prosper. Consider, for example, how the story of Jacob, a man traditionally understood to be a manipulator and cheat, is reinvented in contemporary Pentecostal preaching as an account of the application of the principles of success and breakthrough. The problem lies with the use of the Scriptures to underscore principles that establish how the Christian life must be lived if divine blessings are to be brought to fruition. The overemphasis on wisdom and the application of principles of success means that the weaknesses of Jacob are overlooked. He is presented as one who simply took advantage of the opportunities around him. The element of grace that makes saints out of the worst of sinners is missing in the exposition of the text. Gordon Fee has observed that the Pentecostal attitude towards Scripture has regularly included a general disregard for “scientific exegesis” and carefully thought-out hermeneutics.11 The choices Jacob made, no matter how morally wrong, are interpreted as “smart moves” or “skillful negotiations” needed to succeed in today’s turbulent, capitalist, consumerist, and competitive world. Eastwood Anaba of Ghana’s Fountain Gate Chapel sets the tone with his observations about why Jacob should not be faulted for cheating, as traditional preaching would encourage: Tradition presents Jacob as a trickster who subverted his brother’s position. He is often misunderstood and misrepresented. His honesty has been questioned because of his shrewd business sense in dealing with his brother … I believe that Jacob bought the birthright from an intelligent elder brother who was responsible for his actions. It was legitimate business they did. Secondly, the character of Jacob qualified him for the birthright above his brother Esau. Jacob

10

Gifford, “Ritual Use of the Bible”, 181. Gordon D. Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent—a Major Problem in Pentecostal Hermeneutics”, in Russel P. Spittler, ed., Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1976), 121. 11

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was hard working. He was also disciplined and had his passions under control unlike Esau who could not handle a brief moment of hunger.12

In the same breath, Jacob was not an ambitious cheat; he simply had a strong sense of his bargaining power, something that Esau lacked, making him unfit to be the firstborn: Jacob possessed a very unusual sensitivity, which made him an ideal carrier of the birthright in the midst of hostile pockets of enemies. He gave spiritual things first place in his life. The bargaining power of Jacob was a strong factor in his accession to the top. He always knew what he deserved and he demanded it. His achievements were not the product of luck and sheer providence. Jacob was not a lucky man but a “lurking man” who seized opportunities any time they showed up.13

In popular African charismatic publications Jacob is contrasted with Esau. In the words of Eastwood Anaba, the life of Jacob “portrays vividly a quest for supremacy” because “he outsmarted Esau and out-paced Laban to grab prosperity and wealth”.14 Mensa Otabil of the International Central Gospel Church pushes the argument further with an interpretation of the lives of Jacob and Esau that has much wider applications for the choices that peoples and nations make: Some observe the various outcomes of life and conclude that it is all a matter of fate and destiny. That man has no control over what the final outcome will be. That is a very sad way to look at life. To think that God created man to just go through life like a robot pre-programmed without options, simply to act in certain predetermined ways is biblically flawed … There are those who work with a value system that is focused on short-term needs and tend to make decisions that seem beneficial today but become disastrous in the future. I call such people and nations, Esaus. On the other hand there are those who work with a value system that is focused on long-term benefits instead of short-term needs. They save what they have today and invest it for the future. I call them Jacobs.15

We find that in contemporary African Pentecostal understanding the end may sometimes justify the means. In the process the mercies and graces of God, which can enable success in spite of personal failures and destructive choices, do not receive the attention they deserve. By dint of hard work and commitment, Mensa Otabil and Eastwood Anaba, like many others in Africa today, have built very impressive religious empires that have attracted praise from the broader public. They have been successful in their chosen fields and are under great pressure from a generation looking for new leadership within a 12

Eastwood Anaba, Quest for Supremacy (Bolgatanga, Ghana: Desert Leaf Publications, 2004), vi–vii. 13 Anaba, Quest for Supremacy, vi–vii. 14 Anaba, Quest for Supremacy, 57. 15 Mensa Otabil, Buy the Future: Learning to Negotiate for a Future Better than Your Present (Accra: Altar International, 2002), 5–6.

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depressed continent to use their preaching to reveal how to be successful in life. It is important to emphasis that the material under consideration here provides no grounds to argue that our two preachers—Otabil and Anaba—are seeking to distort scriptural material. Fee notes that Pentecostals tend to exegete personal experiences.16 The sort of preaching encountered in the reinterpretations of the story of Jacob underscores the innovative attempts of contemporary Pentecostal preachers to preach a gospel that in their eyes addresses contemporary challenges and speaks directly to the concerns of modern African audiences. Any criticism should be read against the backdrop of the preachers’ use of biblical material to serve particular purposes. Anaba seems very conscious of potential disapproval and cautions: “Do not be too quick to read dishonesty into Jacob’s acts. Many believers have specialized in identifying the wrong in people’s acts instead of the vital productive lessons they can they can learn from the act.”17 In the case of Jacob, the attempt to be hermeneutically innovative has led, unfortunately, to certain misunderstandings of Scripture that underestimate forgiveness and grace in God’s dealings with human failure. Biblical Relativism If Christianity is doing well in Africa, it is partly because African Christians do not compromise on the divinity and sacredness of the Bible. All Christians regard the Bible as holy, but for African Christians this holiness is paramount and fundamental to faith. Bailie explains that holiness is an attribute of God himself, from whom Christian holiness proceeds. He notes that in the Bible the adjective “holy” is applied much more frequently to what is other than God— “holy men”, “holy angels”, “holy places”, “holy buildings”, “holy vessels”, “holy writings”, for example—than to God himself. Such objects and persons are holy on account of their connections to a God who is holy.18 In other words, they are “holy unto God”, and they mediate holiness from the supernatural realm to the natural realm of existence, which is characterized by chaos and profanity. In African Christianity generally, and in its pneumatic streams under study here in particular, the holiness of God affects the Bible itself. This association has a bearing on how the Bible is interpreted and preached, and on the purposes it serves beyond edification and Christian education. This approach is entirely at odds with the biblical relativism developed in the Western academy. In the words of Packer, “whenever the Bible is not allowed to have the last word on any matters of belief or behavior, there the Bible is being relativized to human opinion”.19 16

Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent”, 122. Anaba, Quest for Supremacy, 20–21. 18 Bailie, Idea of Revelation, 116, 117. 19 Packer, Honoring the Written Word, 163. 17

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Yet elements of Western scholarship, as I point out below, have relativized the Bible. In the process Christianity has continued to lose its value as a faith with certain moral absolutes. Packer writes that modern Westerners, whether outside or inside Christian communions, find it hard to believe that God can speak to human beings intelligibly in any sense at all.20 One Nigerian Pentecostal preacher who wanted to affirm his strong belief in the Bible told his listeners, “I believe the Bible from cover to cover including the index.” Those who do not take God seriously as Creator, Sustainer, and Provider of the world are also unlikely to take the Bible seriously. Parker recognizes Western limitations: Deistic writers freely suggested that biblical miracle stories and doctrinal formulations sprang from faulty observation and understanding. The Kantian theory of knowledge invalidated any sort of supernatural communication from God, and Kant, ignoring the greater part of the Bible, reduced religion to the “bounds of pure reason”—that is, to ethics without dogma. Schleiermacher, accepting that there were no supernatural communications, denied all knowledge of God except that distilled from the Christian religious consciousness, and taught men to read the Bible as a testament of man’s religious sensibility, rather than as a testimony from a living, speaking, personal creator.21

In contradistinction to this Western liberal position, African Christians, particularly those who belong to the independent indigenous charismatic streams, celebrate the divinity and supernatural status of the Bible. African Christian use of the Bible as a symbol of sacred power—as, for example, when it is placed under the pillow of a sleeping infant to provide protection from evil—does not in any way undermine its didactic use. If the contents of the Bible are to be taken seriously as God’s inspired word, the status of the Bible as a sacred book must first be recognized. The word of God in textual form is essentially material to be read and meditated upon, material that provides guidance through life and in relationships with God (Deut. 6:3). For example, in the Old Testament Joshua’s prosperity and success as a leader depended on the extent to which he paid heed to what was written in the Book of the Law (Josh 1:8). The discovery of the Book of the Law and the implementation of its tenets turned King Josiah’s reign around. Even before it appeared in textual form, the Word of God was to be obeyed, and such obedience led to enjoyment of God’s favour, salvation, and prosperity in life (Psalm 1). In Paul’s instruction to Timothy, the Holy Scriptures make the Christian “wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15). Timothy was therefore enjoined to apply himself to the “public reading of Scripture” and to “teaching”, which would presumably have been based on what was contained in the Scriptures recognized at the time. 20 21

Packer, Honoring the Written Word, 96. Packer, Honoring the Written Word, 95–96.

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Bible, Reformation, Renewal Since the Reformation, the Bible has served as the fundamental source for doing theology in the Christian world. Indeed, theologizing entails reflecting upon and interpreting historical and contemporary experiences in the light of the Word of God. Sound theology therefore depends on sound interpretation of Scripture. The role of the Scriptures in the current phenomenal expansion of the Christian church in Africa is immeasurable. Reformations and renewals occur in the life of the church because God confronts his church afresh through his revealed Word, from which she may have drifted. The fundamental Reformation tenet of sola scriptura stressed the preaching of the Word and drew attention to the Bible as the major source of apprehension of the divine. Reformation theology concentrated on showing that Scripture is necessary for humankind to know God truly. In this vein, Lamin Sanneh points out that “if Protestants showed an eagerness to translate the Bible that is because for them the Bible is a crucial standard of authority”.22 Elsewhere Sanneh argues that the submission of biblical material to the regenerative capacity of African perception is what led to the renewal of Christianity through the independent indigenous churches of Africa.23 Indeed, as we noted at the beginning of this chapter, in contemporary African Christianity, a majority of the young people who drift away from the historic mission denominations to join independently initiated Pentecostal/charismatic churches do so citing the lack of “sound biblical teaching” as a principal reason for their turning their backs on the older churches. In response, charismatic renewal movements have emerged within the older churches and one of their main aims has been to turn the hearts of God’s people to the Bible. The Bible and African Cosmological Ideas Scripture is divine, but its humanity is located in the fact that the text was written by human hands. “This is the mystery of Scripture”, Packer notes, that “here we have a divine reality that has in it more than we can understand, like the mystery of the Trinity and Incarnation.”24 The acceptance of Scripture as the Word of God presupposes its divine status as sacred material. In other words, its contents cannot be divorced from its supernatural character. During a conversation with a colleague at Trinity Theological Seminary on an initial version of this chapter, he shared with me the interesting story of his mother’s symbolic use of the Bible during a personal building project. 22

Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 3. 23 Lamin Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), 180. 24 Packer, Honoring the Written Word, 165.

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His mother was an ardent Ghanaian Presbyterian who, fully aware that such projects needed divine support and protection, buried a copy of the Bible in the foundations of her new house. Her reason for this act, as explained by her son, is most intriguing: “She put the Bible there as the Christian equivalent of what her non-Christian compatriots buried in the foundations of their buildings— traditional charms, amulets, and medicines—as forms of protection and prevention against supernatural evil.” The Bible in the foundations of her home was thus a Presbyterian woman’s substitute for the charms and amulets that unbelievers bury on their properties. In fact, it serves the same purpose in contemporary Pentecostal practice as the anointing oil on a person’s forehead and the elements of Holy Communion in a person’s stomach. In the African universe the supernatural can be hyperactive. Against the backdrop of a worldview that takes supernatural evils like the evil eye and witchcraft seriously, it is not uncommon for people to bury all kinds of protective medicines, charms, and amulets on their properties to secure such places against the presence of evil powers. Birgit Meyer illustrates from the Ghanaian context how people use dzo, medicine, or juju not only to cure bodily ills but also to improve their trade or the growth of their plants, to become invulnerable in war, or to provide protection against evils inflicted upon them by others.25 Her burial of the Bible in the foundations of a private building was a deep theological statement by an African Christian. For her, Christ was the foundation of her building and the Bible carried the necessary supernatural power to show that Christ was the cornerstone of the project. The buried Bible also offered protection against the machinations of those powers that may seek to destroy not only her project but also its occupants when it is completed. The primary use of the Bible is not talismanic, and yet as I seek to point out here, there is a strong connection between the Bible’s talismanic power and the seriousness with which its contents are regarded. If the Bible has lost its place as the source of guidance for public life and morality in the West, it did so by first losing its status as more than a sacred book, through a process of biblical relativism and gradual demystification. Interpreting the Sacred Text Critical hermeneutics have their place in theology, but the unreflective adoption of such academic methods have contributed significantly to the demystification of the Bible and the decline of the Christian presence in the modern West. It is a defining characteristic of evangelical Christianity that the Bible is upheld as God’s authoritative word. In African evangelical Christianity it is common to hear testimonies of how people made the transition from seeing the Bible as a textbook for classes in Bible Knowledge or Religious Studies 25 Birgit Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 70.

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during their school years to understanding the Bible as the “Word of God” for meditation, following their born-again experiences. In almost every case conversion in these instances has meant taking the Bible seriously by treating it with reverence, an attitude that also informs how its contents are regarded. In the history of African pneumatic Christianity many of those who founded churches were completely ignorant of academic study of the Bible. Fee, a former professor of New Testament Studies at Regent College in Vancouver, advocates the integration of spiritual experience with Biblical exegesis. His thoughts on the dangers of the bifurcation between exegetes and the believing community are worth quoting in full: Taking Scripture away from the believing community, the exegete made it an object of historical investigation. Armed with the so-called historical-critical method, he thus engaged in an exercise in history, pure and simple, an exercise that appeared all too often to begin from a stance of doubt—indeed, sometimes of historical skepticism with an anti-supernatural bias. Using professional jargon about form, redaction, and rhetorical criticism, the exegete, full of arrogance and assuming a stance of mastery over the text, often seemed to turn the text on its head so that it no longer spoke to the believing community as the powerful word of the living God.26

If Christianity is growing in Africa, it is partly because in African pulpits and homes, the Bible has found refuge as the authoritative Word of God, not simply because of its contents and but also because of its status as sacred material that must be handled with reverence and awe. If I may reiterate my thesis, for the Bible to be taken seriously, it needs to be understood first and foremost as sacred material, an approach that helps its contents to be taken seriously too, as the source of revelation from a living God. That the Psalmist would pray, “open my eyes that I may see wonderful things out of thy law” (Ps 119:18) suggests that God’s law may be a mystery that can only be unlocked with divine assistance. The conversation between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40 tells of the importance of interpretation or “rightly dividing the word of truth”: “Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked. ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him” (Acts 8:30-31). In this instance, Philip was to unravel the meaning of the text for the benefit of the eunuch. Biblical interpretation is meaningless without a deep appreciation of the sacredness of the material. There is an inseparable connection between the Bible as text and the Bible as sacred material that must be handled with reverential respect. The dynamism of Christianity in contemporary Africa is due in part to the sacredness or supernatural character of the Bible that has been maintained in the African Christian imagination. 26

Gordon D. Fee, Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 8.

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The Bible is holy, and in the African imagination that which is holy exudes power that could even be dangerous. The Bible has been received into African hands as more than a written text for academic study. Beyond that written text and its interpretations, the Bible quickly acquired new and innovative uses as a sacred book with inherent spiritual power. In one of the earliest independent churches in Ghana, a copy of the Bible is kept perpetually on the table from which the prophet speaks. That particular Bible is not read; it simply lies there as a symbol of God’s authority and presence among his people as they gather in worship. It also serves the church as a ritual symbol during healing sessions. Symbolic and talismanic uses of the Bible are therefore quite common in Africa, particularly in independent indigenous Christianity. Writing on the role of the Bible among Nigerian Igbo Christians, Anthony Nkwoka explains succinctly: To the Igbo, the Bible is a living book, the unique Word of God Almighty, Creator and Controller of the universe. Apart from the fact that it is Bible Nso (The Holy Bible), it is the Messenger-gift of an awfully holy and all terrible God and is therefore very different from any other book! An irreverent handling of it is regarded as an insult to God, which no sane person should engage in.27

Nkwoka’s essay focuses on how access to the Bible in the vernacular facilitated the growth and expansion of indigenous Christianity in Igboland. That translations of the Bible into the vernacular contributed significantly to the spread and growth of Christianity in Africa has been a dominant theme in the writings of several scholars including Lamin Sanneh, Andrew Walls, and Kwame Bediako, all doyens in the academic study of Christianity in Africa. One of the most significant contributions of missionary Christianity to the expansion of the faith in Africa was the attention that was given to translating the Bible, in order to make it available in the language of the people. Bediako suggests that the existence of the Christian Scriptures in African languages was the single most important legacy of Western missionary activity. In some cases, as he notes, “the Scriptures became the foundation of a new literacy culture which did not exist previously, and ensured that there did take place an effectual rooting of the Christian faith in African consciousness”.28 The Bible in the Ministry of the Prophet Harris In the ministry of West Africa’s foremost itinerant prophet, William Wade Harris, there were sure indications of the use of the Bible as a source of sacred 27

Anthony O. Nkwoka, “The Role of the Bible in Igbo Christianity of Nigeria”, in Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube, The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 327. 28 Kwame Bediako, ‘Epilogue’, in Ype Schaaf, On their Way Rejoicing: The History and Role of the Bible in Africa (Akropong, Akwapim: Regnum Africa, 2002 [1994]), 244.

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power. We have seen how the ministry of Prophet Harris, clearly the most significant early twentieth-century African prophet, gave birth to many of the pneumatic churches in sub-Saharan Africa. In the most extensive study of Harris, Prophet Harris: The Black Elijah of West Africa, David Shank begins his discussion of the attitude of his subject towards the Bible with the profound observation that “where religion deals with control, manipulation and balance of power, which are perceived as spiritual entities, the power of the book is interpreted in spiritual—that is religious—terms.”29 According to Shank, Prophet Harris always carried a Bible with him, which he used in three main ways: “sacramentally”, by laying it on the heads of baptismal candidates before dismissal; “liturgically”, by reading from it; and “symbolically”, without opening it. In Prophetism in Ghana Christian Baëta also describes how the Bible was used by Prophet Harris in the process of healing. I quote the account here in part: [Prophet Harris] again approaches the agonized soul, opens the tattered Bible and holds it before her face, the while uttering a prayer … He now approaches her for the second time, and once more holds the Bible to her face. She gradually calms down and comes to herself. She is now as helpless as a babe. She takes her seat with others of like nature and awaits baptism.30

The Bible was an important part of the ministry of Prophet Harris, and as we see in these narratives, that role encompassed more than the reading of text alone. Prophet Harris is said to have quoted spontaneously from the Bible and acknowledged that it had aided his preparation for the prophetic ministry. We are told that Prophet Harris was adept in the Old Testament and that he attributed his mastery of it to “divine inspiration”.31 Previously, during his “pre-prophetic” years, Harris had taught the Bible to schoolchildren, so it was possible that he was quite familiar with its contents. Here we are concerned with how he used the Bible, as the written word of God, as an independent prophet outside missionary control. Angel Gabriel had played a leading role in calling Harris to the office of the prophet. According to Shank, Gabriel was therefore perceived by Harris “to be a major interpreter of Scripture during his time of prophecy”.32 Fee points out that without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, biblical exegesis becomes a mere exercise in beating the air.33 The presence of the “supernatural” in hermeneutics is one of the key sources of interpretation of Scripture in African independent Christianity. Shank states simply that “when Harris wanted to communicate his power and authority he 29

David A. Shank, Prophet Harris: The “Black Elijah” of West Africa. (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 214. 30 Christian G. Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana: A Study of some “Spiritual” Churches (London: SCM Press, 1962), 24. 31 Shank, Prophet Harris, 154. 32 Shank, Prophet Harris, 158. 33 Fee, Listening to the Spirit, 7.

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gave the Bible”, even when the recipient was illiterate. As Shank notes, “even illiteracy could not render the Bible powerless”. Harris used the Bible as “a symbol of power”. In independent Christianity, the Bible was “an arm of spiritual conquest independent of its being read and assimilated intellectually and spiritually”.34 The Bible in Popular African Usage Even as children growing up in African schools, we knew that the Bible was a special book with supernatural power that could be used to serve purposes beyond human capacities. “Bible and key,” for example, is a system popular among Ghanaian schoolchildren for finding the perpetrators of petty crimes. When pupils lost their pens, pencils, books, or pocket money, we adopted the “Bible and key” method if there was reasonable suspicion of who might have stolen the items. We began the process by inserting a key into a Bible, which we then tied up with black thread such that the head or handle of the key protruded at some reasonable length from the Bible. The class or playmates of the victim of the crime then came in turn, two at a time, and when both had half of the horizontal handle of the key resting on his or her index finger, a third person called out their names, one after the other, saying, “Bible, if it is so-andso who stole the pen, please revolve.” On most occasions when we put this system into practice, the Bible revolved at the mention of a particular name, whereupon we pounced on the alleged culprit. Most of the time, teachers would punish the class for indulging in what they saw then as “occult” activities. For many Africans, the Bible has come to be something more than a text to be read; it also has supernatural properties that in this case enabled us to catch the perpetrators of crimes. There is no contradiction, at least not as far as popular African Christianity is concerned, between using the Bible as a talismanic object and its principal use as something that is “God breathed” for Christian instruction. Consider the case of Adwoa Yeboa (not her real name), a member of the Church of Pentecost, an indigenous classical Pentecostal church in Ghana. She had been married to Kofi (not his real name) for several years without a child, a situation that in Ghanaian contexts is readily interpreted in terms of the activities of supernatural evil powers like witches. After several miscarriages, Adwoa finally had a child. She believed that witches in her family were envious of her because her husband was wealthy and so had caused all the miscarriages. These miscarriages had led her to the Church of Pentecost, which was known as a very prayerful church, able to pray for people in crisis. The birth of her son was actually an answer to prayer, hence his name, Kofi “Nyamekye” (God’s gift). The belief in witches meant the child had to be protected, so Adwoa kept a Bible constantly opened to Psalm 23 under the pillow of her baby. As she 34

Shank, Prophet Harris, 212.

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explained to me, the Bible, and especially that particular Psalm, protected infants from supernatural evil, including witches and those with evil eyes. In this particular instance, the Bible served as the Christian equivalent of what Adwoa might have picked up from a traditional shrine to protect her baby. Such practices, first observed in the older independent or pneumatic churches and heavily criticized by both the historic mission and contemporary Pentecostal churches, have now been reinvented in various ways, also among newcomers. Thus in talking about the ritual and symbolic uses of Scripture, we are dealing here with not just the older independent churches but also the new Pentecostals, who are reverting to several ritualistic practices that they originally rejected as unchristian. In a very fascinating essay entitled “The Use of Psalms in African Indigenous Churches in Nigeria”, David Adamo provides insight into the innovative and talismanic ways in which the Bible is used in African Christianity. He argues that in the process of conversion, mission Christianity encouraged the indigenous people to throw away all charms, medicines, incantations, forms of divination, sacrifices, and other cultural ways of protecting, healing, and liberating people from the evil powers that fill Nigerian life. What people were left with, he notes, was the Bible: “They did not teach us how to use the Bible as a means of protecting, healing, and solving the problems of life, but by reading the Bible with our own eyes we have found ways of appropriating it for our context.”35 Such indigenous appropriation of the Bible, as we have seen in the example of Adwoa and her baby, involved something more than reading the text for moral guidance. When local Christians gave up their traditional resources of supernatural succour so abhorred by missionary Christianity, the Bible became a substitute for these things. The Psalms, as Adamo explains, were appropriated as protective, curative, therapeutic material for success and material well-being: Yoruba Christians began to feel that there must be more in such a popular white man’s religion that missionaries did not want to reveal to them. African indigenous Christians sought vigorously for that hidden treasure in the missionary religion that was not revealed to them. They sought it in the Bible, using their own cultural interpretive resources. Using Yoruba cultural hermeneutics to interpret the Bible, they found that there was and is a secret power in the Bible, especially in the book of Psalms, if it is read and recited at the right time, in the right place and a certain number of times. They began therefore to use the Bible protectively, therapeutically, and for success to fill the gap left by the Eurocentric Christianity.36

35

David Tuesday Adamo, “The Use of Psalms in African Indigenous Churches in Nigeria”, in Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube, The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 336. 36 Adamo, “Use of Psalms”, 339–40.

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In their use of the Bible the Yoruba Christians located potent words that they could fall on for protection against the perennial problems of witches and all forces of evil, and they discovered rich resources in the book of Psalms that resembled the traditional resources they had been forced to abandon. In African hands the words of the Psalms therefore became the Christian equivalent of what the Akan of Ghana refer to as suman, a protective charm. Suman serve as a prophylactic against all sorts of misfortunes or to improve prospects and further plans for the future. The inherent power of the Bible, as with all sacred substances, could be both helpful and dangerous. On one hand, by washing parts of it to drink, putting it under the pillow of a sleeping infant or tying it around the stomach of a pregnant woman, the Bible became for many a therapeutic means of restoring of health and providing protection. On the other hand, African Christians believe that if the Bible is not treated with the appropriate reverence and awe, it could also bring danger to its handlers. Courtesy of those vernacular translations, African Christians have been made all too familiar with the fate of those who attempted to touch the Ark of the Covenant when they were not authorized to do so. The same principle whereby one places oneself in danger through inappropriate action is seen daily in the courts of law, where Christians are required to swear by the Bible to tell the truth. This use of the Bible is part of the colonial heritage. The practice continues the belief that if a person swears by the Bible and then tells a lie in a court of law, God, in whose name the oath was taken, will afflict the culprit with misfortune or even death. Revelation, Inspiration and Authority The question of authority, that is, by what authority people believe what they believe, is fundamental to every religion. In evangelical Christianity, such authority resides in Christ and the biblical witness to him. One of the things that has sustained the presence of Christianity in Africa is the evangelical approach to the Bible. Evangelical Christianity upholds the authority of Holy Scripture because of its unique inspiration, an attitude informed by the theological understanding of God as a Holy God.37 The conclusions of the apocalyptic visions of John in the book of Revelation contain strong words regarding the treatment of the body of literature that contains the visions that emanated from this Holy God and the consequences of mishandling the holy book: “Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.” … I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of 37 John Stott, Evangelical Truth: A Personal Plea for Unity (London: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 27.

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God as Creator is infinite in his being, while his creatures are finite creatures of time and space. God is altogether beyond humanity; he is the all-holy God who can only be known by revelation. The Bible is thus the book that articulates the meaning of God’s revelation in Christ for the benefit of his creatures. It is expected of Christians that they will take the contents of the Scriptures seriously, and to do this, the Bible, as a sacred book, must be treated with a certain reverence and awe. If the Bible is the word of God, then in the African imagination, it must be endued with power. A contemporary charismatic church leader in Africa is now likely to assume new roles as an “Effecter of Scripture”, which, as Gifford explains, means “presenting himself (and often his wife) as the exemplar of scriptural blessing, and someone you need if you are to realize the scriptural promises in a similar way”.38 Prior to the translation of the Bible into local languages, Africans were already familiar with the perception of the Qur’an as a kratophany, that is, a holy book that had the ability to shed powerful influences either for good or for ill, for that was how the Qur’an, which preceded the Bible in Africa, had been used. The Qur’an was read, but it was also used for various talismanic purposes. In the African traditional context, words, especially if spoken in the name of a supernatural being like a holy God, have performative effects. It is this mindset that has determined how the Bible and its contents have been appropriated in African Christianity. Christianity thrives in Africa because, unlike in Western contexts, the book that defines it has retained much of its mysterious and sacramental value. This approach to the Bible has been inspired by its contents. There are several places in the Old Testament where the written text as the Word of God serves symbolic purposes. Exodus 25 records that the tablets with the covenant law given to Moses were to be placed in the Ark of the Covenant, and Moses told the Israelites: “Tie them [the commandments] as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deut. 6:8-9). One of the best-known symbolic images of God’s Word is located in the experience of Ezekiel at his calling to be a prophet of God: Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe. And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, “Son of Man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. (Ezek. 2:9–3:3)

38

Gifford, “Ritual Use of the Bible”, 188.

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Christian liturgical practices have shown the same reverence for the Bible by using it both as a written text for expository purposes and as a symbol of God’s Word. In Reformed churches in Ghana, for example, an open Bible is often kept on the altar during services as an affirmation of the Protestant principle that God’s Word must be accessible to the people of God. A copy of the Bible is given to candidates for ordination the instruction “Take thou authority to fulfill the office of a minister in the Church of Christ” is spoken. The presentation of the Bible is accompanied by words that seek to draw the attention of the candidates to its primary purpose: “Brethren, give heed unto reading, exhortation, and doctrine. Think upon the things contained in the Holy Bible which we have now delivered unto you.”39 In other words, the ability to take the contents of the Bible seriously is dependent on the weight that is placed on the Bible as the authoritative holy Word of God and its treatment as such. Post-Reformation liturgical practices allow Bibles to be placed in the foundations of a chapel building during the laying of a corner stone.40 Both the historic mission churches of Africa, such as the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, and individuals, as we saw in the case of the Ghanaian Presbyterian woman, have maintained this practice, but with contextualized meanings. The placement of a Bible in the foundations of a chapel serves to symbolize the role of Christ as the Chief Corner Stone, but for many of the Africans who place Bibles in the foundations of their private buildings, the intention is much broader: in the context of the African belief in the powers of evil, the Bible serves also as a “talisman” for protection against powers inimical not only to the completion of the project but also to the well-being of its prospective inhabitants. Beyond Text and Interpretation In the Western world the demystification of the Bible through the historicalcritical method has made evangelicals suspicious of theological studies. For example, until just about three decades ago, when Walter Hollenweger introduced Pentecostal studies as a rigorous academic discipline, Pentecostals were content with the Bible School approach to ministerial formation. Pentecostals interested in the academic study of religion and theology warmed up to Hollenweger because he was sympathetic to their experiential Christianity. Previously, evangelical Christians in the Western world had started their own theological institutions in order to be able to study God’s word in an environment that did not sacrifice serious faith on the altar of academic rigor. 39

“The Order of Service for the Ordination of Candidates for the Ministry”, in The Methodist Hymnbook with Offices (London: Methodist Publishing House, 1933). 40 The Methodist Hymnal (New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1935), 552.

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In this chapter we have seen that popular African Christianity tells a somewhat different story. A careful look at the ministry of Prophet Harris and how he employed the Bible, especially his sacramental and symbolic uses, reveals that these practices were not implemented at the neglect of reading of the text. There is no disconnect between, on one hand, the textual and hermeneutical uses of the Bible and, on the other, the talismanic uses to which African Christians put it. The contention of this chapter has been that their reverential attitude to the Bible has helped African Christians also take its contents seriously. The European Enlightenment virtually demystified the Bible by deeming knowledge of the Bible, and even theology, to be like any other academic discipline; it failed to give due regard to the fact that there is a supernatural and experiential element in Christianity without which the faith falls short.

Conclusion: “The Spirit Moveth”

In these essays and using practical examples as illustrations, I have tried to show that in making choices about their expression of the Christian faith, Africans have historically opted for pneumatic forms. There are both general and particular reasons for the popularity of pneumatic Christianity in Africa. Into the former category falls the fact that the Spirit of God has been in action all over the world, creating a people for God’s name and purposes and renewing staid, static, and moribund Christianity. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the giver of life and renewal, an important function that he performs wherever he is active. In other words, whether we are talking about William J. Seymour’s Azusa Street revival or the evangelistic campaigns led in various parts of Africa by William W. Harris, Simon Kimbangu, Isaiah Shembe, or Garrick Sokari Braide, we are encountering the Spirit of God using indigenous Christians to draw attention to his work of renewal among God’s people. An important biblical description of the Spirit of God in Christ working among his people in the process of renewal is found in Paul’s epistle to Titus. Here Paul refers to the appearance of “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:13b14). Thus not only is the Spirit who is at work in Pentecostal and charismatic movements in Africa the Spirit of Christ, but also an important function that he performs has to do with “purification”. It is precisely because of the cleansing power of the Spirit of God that John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. When the Spirit of God moves, great things happen, things that stand in continuity with biblical precedents that include personal and communal transformations, baptisms of the Holy Spirit, healing, miracles, and other signs and wonders. All these serve to make the point that God in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit is still active among his people. The movement of the Spirit of God in Christian Africa to which I refer here has been evident in the work of the older independent churches, the classical Pentecostal denominations that formed after them, and then the ministries of the various charismatic and contemporary Pentecostal movements. Each of the themes discussed in the chapters of this book serves to illustrate how the movement of the Spirit has changed the face of Christianity in Africa since the days of the establishment of historic mission denominations. Whether we are talking about lay participation in Christian ministry, or tithing and offerings, or new interpretations of Holy Communion, or the emphasis on anointing as a sacrament, we are dealing with interpretations of Christianity and forms of spirituality that take shape as people feel led by the Holy Spirit. For example, a

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new understanding of giving as Spirit-inspired has been generated, and anointing has developed as an important means of grace through which God intervenes in crises and heals his people. In human hands, anything can go wrong. Incorrect interpretations of Scripture and the inability of African prosperity evangelists to relate to the poor must not be taken to mean that the whole movement is an aberration. On this side of the planet, no Christianity is perfect, but the various pneumatic movements and churches allow us to glimpse what it means for the Spirit of God to be on the move. The mere fact that the movements whose spirituality has been under study here have come to the attention of the academy and have forced historic mission churches to undertake reforms is an indication that there is much that is positive about them and that we need to take them seriously. In particular, contemporary Pentecostalism has thrown up some incredibly gifted individuals, pastors, bishops, and general overseers of churches and ministries, who are demonstrating that apostolic succession is about more than laying claim to descent from Peter. In the new Christianity that we have studied here, apostolic succession simply means functioning in the power or anointing of the Spirit in the same way that the apostles did in the early years of the church, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Precisely because of these pneumatic movements, the face of Christianity in Africa has changed perpetually. Some of the movements will survive, others will dwindle, but on the whole these ministries appear to me to be the future of Christianity on the continent. It does not mean that everything they are doing and preaching must be endorsed but that when people and ministries function in the power of the moving Spirit, there is transformation. All the benchmarks of Pentecost are clear in the various aspects of the lives of the pneumatic movements we have studied and for me this is the surest indication that God is at work among his people. The fact that the developments are discernible both continentally and globally shows that Christianity cannot be domesticated by any single ecclesial tradition and no single denomination must consider itself the custodian of orthodox theology. In the experiential movements we have studied here, we see emerging new forms and interpretations of Christian spirituality that go beyond the limits of systematic theology as developed in the Western theology academy. African Pentecostal or pneumatic emphases on healing, worship, lay-participation in ministry, anointing, giving and tithing, and its interpretation of the Bible and application of the Bible to existential situations must all be brought on board in the study of theology. In this attempt to interpret the nature, spirituality, and theology of pneumatic Christianity in Africa, I have relied here very much on personal observations and experiences. In that process I have also criticized the excesses and misinterpretations that have resulted from uncritical approaches to Scripture and experience. I therefore consider it expedient to conclude with consideration of a number of important theological and missional indicators that we need to look for when the Spirit of God is genuinely on the move. I term these signs the

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“benchmarks of Pentecost” because in Africa, every single pneumatic movement has historically appealed to the biblical Pentecost for legitimacy. “Benchmark” simply means a standard or point of reference against which something can be compared or assessed. When I talk about “benchmarks of Pentecost”, I am referring therefore to the criteria from which one could conclude, with some measure of certainty, that the Spirit of God, who worked with and in the apostles at Pentecost, is also at work in the Church today. In other words, how does one judge that the Spirit of God is present or that an experience of Pentecost is giving rise to pneumatic movements in Christian mission? At least five benchmarks must be present, intertwined, to clearly signal that God is present in a place or working within a community by his Spirit. 1. Transformation Into the Likeness of Jesus Christ The most fundamental evidence that Pentecost has occurred in a person’s life or within a community of faith is that lives have been transformed. We encounter this transformation in testimonies heard at Pentecostal gatherings and in people whom we know to have transitioned from sinful lives into active participation in church life. God’s Spirit is qualified by the adjective “Holy”. That which is “holy” is set apart from all profane and secular uses because it is filled with divine presence; St Paul even refers to the believer as a “vessel”. In the Old Testament, the vessels that were used for service in the temple were cleansed through anointment with oil, an indication that among all the vessels that were available, some were set apart for special uses. The priests also had to be set apart through the same process of anointing with oil. In the Bible, oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and when the Spirit comes upon a person or church, he pours into that vessel his very presence and imparts his character of holiness. I believe that John Wesley spoke of this transformation when he said, “my heart was strangely warmed”. He experienced the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit, which helped him to preach and pursue his theological agenda of Scriptural holiness even more forcefully. A church that is filled with the Spirit therefore also preaches very strongly against sin and moral depravity, because the more we experience the presence of the Spirit, the more we love to stay away from sin. African pneumatic movements have always challenged the moral laxity associated with historic mission Christianity, especially at the point when new churches are emerging. 2. Desire for Prayer and Renewal We are told that when Pentecost occurred, the new community of believers did a number of things that included study of the Word and prayer. It is not for nothing that a key manifestation of the Spirit is the ability to pray in tongues.

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There are several uses of tongues, but its primary function is private prayer. When we pray in tongues, Paul says, “we speak mysteries unto God”. In Romans 8:26 Paul talks about the Spirit interceding for us with “groans too deep for words”. The Spirit enables us to pray in tongues, which may be incomprehensible but allow us to communicate with God. The point is that when the Spirit of God is present, he inspires in us the spirit of prayer and this is usually accompanied by a new and intense desire to read the Word of God. An important contribution of pneumatic movements in Africa to the life of the church is found in their drawing of attention to charismatic renewal phenomena, especially tongues, as valid Christian experiences in worship. 3. Empowerment for Active Witness The expression “empowerment” is very important to understanding the place of the Spirit in the lives of renewal movements. Paul makes reference to having been given the “strength” to do all things in Philippians 4:13. We see also that Jesus Christ “breathed” on the disciples at the point of commissioning them after the resurrection, meaning that he empowered them to witness. The presence of the Holy Spirit made their witness effective, as Paul attests also. Indeed in Colossians 1:28, Paul talks about proclaiming Christ and “admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom”. In verse 29, he tells us how he executes that task of admonishing and teaching by labouring and struggling with what he refers to as God’s “energy”, which so “powerfully” works in him. Energy and power go together, so the energy that was at work in Paul and enabled him to perform his ministry was none other than the power of the Holy Spirit. If it lacks this empowerment, the church loses its focus as a witnessing community and relies very much on administrative structures and personal skill. Pneumatic movements in Africa have often reacted to this situation, sometimes even to a fault, by completely ignoring structures considered obstacles to Christian spirituality. These practical facets are important, but for the work of ministry to be effective, even talents need to be “baptized” by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit activates the Presence of God in the believer and in the church, enabling them to engage in active witness, because the granting of the Spirit and the sending of the disciples occurred in tandem. For this reason I explain the ministries of contemporary Pentecostals in terms of the Spirit of God being on the move. 4. Manifestations of the Spirit What I mean by manifestations of the Spirit is what Paul refers to as the gifts of the Spirit. It is unfortunate that the historic mission churches cringe when we talk about the gifts of the Spirit. Until they started tolerating renewal movements, these churches had ceded that part of their ministry to the

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Pentecostals and a few members of charismatic persuasion. The Christian community that the Spirit of God builds is always a charismatic community in which the graces of the Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, healing, prophecy, visions, and revelations, are present. How churches manage to abandon that tradition and opt for one in which the Spirit is virtually excluded from worship and ministry remains a mystery. The church of the New Testament was charismatic and the rise of pneumatic movements in Africa throws out an urgent challenge to the rest of the church to be open to the presence of the Spirit manifest not just in its ministry but also among people of faith. The gifts and manifestations of the Spirit are not denomination specific. They are for the Body of Christ and all Christians belong to that body. 5. Pursuit of Eternal Values When Pentecost came, those who experienced the presence of the Spirit turned their back on the world. They pursued those things that were indicators of Kingdom values, the greatest of which, Paul says, is the virtue of love. Love was reflected in their fellowship; it showed in the way the members cared for each other; and it was evident in the lifestyle they adopted. Our ultimate example of love is Jesus himself, who did not count equality with God as something to be grasped but emptied himself for the world out of love. The Spirit of God births love in the hearts of God’s people and where he displays his presence, love is always present. If understood thus, the collection of tithes and the holding of anointing services, for example, will be devoid of exploitation and showmanship and done to the glory of God. African pneumatic movements testify to the fact that Pentecost is both a historical and present reality. It is a historical reality because it happened as Jesus Christ promised. It is a present reality because we all need to experience our Pentecost as individuals and as a church. Without Pentecost, it is just impossible to function the way God expects us to function as Christians. Similarly, a church that does not have the Spirit of God is never effective as a witnessing community. It may have a form of religion, but usually lacks the power of it! It is the power of the Spirit that has led the presence of Christianity to shift from the global North to the global South, as is testified by contemporary Pentecostalism, the representative face of Christianity in Africa.

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Index

Action Chapel International, 2, 36, 90, 92, 110, 129 Adogame, Afe, 38 African independent churches, 101, 130 Agyin-Asare, Charles, 35, 37, 39, 41, 124, 125, 141 Aladura churches, 11, 101 Anaba, Eastwood, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75, 76, 94, 121, 122, 123, 125, 128, 129, 135, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143, 164, 165, 166 Anderson, Allan, 7, 20, 38, 42, 44, 45, 60, 65, 73, 113, 114 Anointing, 5, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143 Anointing Oil, 136 Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena, 9, 14, 17, 60, 121 Ashimolowo, Matthew, 89, 90, 102, 129 Asonzeh, Ukah, 55 Azusa Street, vii, 17, 20, 60, 179, 189 Baëta, Christian G., 11, 25, 26, 48, 131, 172 Barrett, David, 7, 8 Bediako, Kwame, 8, 23, 24, 25, 28, 47, 117, 171 Bible-believing church, 161 charismatic churches/ministries, 18, 26, 45, 65, 75, 92, 110, 132, 136, 137, 142, 168 charismatic renewal, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 22, 25, 33, 60, 66, 168, 182 Church of Pentecost, 39, 50, 51, 57, 173 Clarke, Clifton, viii, 40, 186 Cox, Harvey, 1, 3, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 38, 39, 41, 124, 130, 131

cross, 2, 13, 41, 53, 98, 101, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 146 Droogers, André, 15, 40, 42, 186, 191 Duncan-Williams, Nicholas, 2, 36, 64, 67, 87, 129 Dunn, James D., 22, 35, 60, 61, 76, 77, 109, 148 ecclesiology, 11, 22, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 76, 77, 156, 159 exorcism, 17, 23, 31, 44, 50, 55, 77, 121, 126, 162 Fee, Gordon D., 26, 29, 43, 48, 69, 106, 164, 166, 170, 172 Gelpi, Donald, 7 Gifford, Paul, 86, 89, 93, 103, 118, 142, 162, 163, 164, 176 glossolalia, 17, 26, 27, 28, 49 Harris, William W., 23, 47, 171, 172, 173, 178, 179 Healing and Deliverance, 2, 5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 55, 74, 75, 76, 77, 89, 93, 111, 112, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 145, 147, 155, 156, 162, 171, 172, 174, 179, 180, 183 Heward-Mills, Dag, 91, 92 historic mission churches, 11, 13, 18, 25, 36, 40, 56, 64, 65, 66, 122, 129, 177, 180, 182 Hollenweger, Walter J., 7, 19, 23, 24, 26, 31, 38, 65, 177 Holy Communion, 139, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 169, 179 Holy Spirit, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26,

194

Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 48, 50, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 94, 100, 106, 107, 108, 113, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 145, 148, 155, 158, 161, 164, 172, 179, 181, 182 Idahosa, Benson, 67 International Central Gospel Church, 81, 87, 151, 161, 165 interventionist theology, 42, 126 Jericho Hour, 2, 5, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 46, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 90, 92, 93, 129 Kalu, Ogbu U., 8, 38 Larbi, Emmanuel K., 56 Lighthouse Chapel International, 83, 91, 150, 151 Luther, Martin, 89, 90, 106, 108, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119 Macchia, Frank D., 4, 7, 27, 49, 61, 62, 77, 78, 145, 146 media, 11, 15, 36, 56, 79, 80, 87, 93, 128, 132, 133 Meyer, Birgit, 169, 188 Miller, Donald E., 6, 8, 63, 159 Moltmann, Jürgen, 5, 22, 106, 108, 148, 149, 150, 157, 158, 159 Musama Disco Christo Church, 11 non-Western Christianity, 4, 6, 8 Nwankpa, Emeka, 55, 56 offerings, 44, 46, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 109, 112, 116, 179 Omenyo, Cephas, 11 Otabil, Mensa, 81, 87, 88, 151, 161, 165 Oyakhilome, Chris, 122 Oyedepo, David O., 88, 125, 126, 133, 134, 135, 142, 146, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157 Packer, James I., 49, 50, 56, 100, 115, 163, 166, 167, 168 Pentecost/Pentecostalism, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 56, 57, 59,

60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93, 94, 101, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 116, 118, 121, 122, 124, 126, 129, 134, 139, 140, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 173, 180, 181, 183 pneumatic Christianity, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 33, 122, 140, 143, 170, 179, 180 primal imagination/worldview, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 43, 47, 81 prosperity, 38, 44, 45, 46, 55, 79, 80, 81, 88, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 106, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 120, 122, 123, 125, 129, 136, 146, 154, 164, 165, 167, 180 Robeck, Cecil M., 17, 20, 28 Sanneh, Lamin, 8, 47, 168, 171 speaking in tongues, 2, 5, 11, 12, 17, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 40, 48, 49, 50, 135, 183 spiritual gifts, 6, 7, 17, 20, 28, 29, 65, 66, 67, 74, 75, 77, 139 spiritual warfare, 37, 43, 46, 47, 49, 51, 55 Taylor, John V., 9, 190 tithes, 44, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 109, 116, 183 transactional giving, 80, 81, 82, 90, 99, 100, 102 Turner, Harold W, 131, 141, 190 Walls, Andrew F., 8, 171 Wariboko, Nimi, 79, 95, 125, 147, 148, 152 wealth, 44, 55, 84, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 115, 117, 146, 165 worship, 1, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42, 52, 53, 56, 59, 62, 71, 74, 75, 77, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 93, 96, 97, 98, 100, 102, 121, 126, 128, 130, 137, 140, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 159, 171, 180, 182, 183 Yong, Amos, 59, 79

REGNUM EDINBURGH 2010 SERIES Series Listing David A. Kerr, Kenneth R. Ross (Eds) Mission Then and Now 2009 / 978-1-870345-73-6 / 343pp (paperback) 2009 / 978-1-870345-76-7 / 343pp (hardback) No one can hope to fully understand the modern Christian missionary movement without engaging substantially with the World Missionary Conference, held at Edinburgh in 1910. This book is the first to systematically examine the eight Commissions which reported to Edinburgh 1910 and gave the conference much of its substance and enduring value. It will deepen and extend the reflection being stimulated by the upcoming centenary and will kindle the missionary imagination for 2010 and beyond. Daryl M. Balia, Kirsteen Kim (Eds) Witnessing to Christ Today 2010 / 978-1-870345-77-4 / 301pp This volume, the second in the Edinburgh 2010 series, includes reports of the nine main study groups working on different themes for the celebration of the centenary of the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910. Their collaborative work brings together perspectives that are as inclusive as possible of contemporary world Christianity and helps readers to grasp what it means in different contexts to be ‘witnessing to Christ today’. Claudia Währisch-Oblau, Fidon Mwombeki (Eds) Mission Continues Global Impulses for the 21st Century 2010 / 978-1-870345-82-8 / 271pp In May 2009, 35 theologians from Asia, Africa and Europe met in Wuppertal, Germany, for a consultation on mission theology organized by the United Evangelical Mission: Communion of 35 Churches in Three Continents. The aim was to participate in the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh conference through a study process and reflect on the challenges for mission in the 21st century. This book brings together these papers written by experienced practitioners from around the world. Brian Woolnough and Wonsuk Ma (Eds) Holistic Mission God’s Plan for God’s People 2010 / 978-1-870345-85-9 / 277pp Holistic mission, or integral mission, implies God is concerned with the whole person, the whole community, body, mind and spirit. This book discusses the meaning of the holistic gospel, how it has developed, and implications for the church. It takes a global, eclectic approach, with 19 writers, all of whom have

much experience in, and commitment to, holistic mission. It addresses critically and honestly one of the most exciting, and challenging, issues facing the church today. To be part of God’s plan for God’s people, the church must take holistic mission to the world. Kirsteen Kim and Andrew Anderson (Eds) Mission Today and Tomorrow 2010 / 978-1-870345-91-0 / 450pp There are moments in our lives when we come to realise that we are participating in the triune God’s mission. If we believe the church to be as sign and symbol of the reign of God in the world, then we are called to witness to Christ today by sharing in God’s mission of love through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. We can all participate in God’s transforming and reconciling mission of love to the whole creation. Tormod Engelsviken, Erling Lundeby and Dagfinn Solheim (Eds) The Church Going Glocal Mission and Globalisation 2011 / 978-1-870345-93-4 / 262pp The New Testament church is… universal and local at the same time. The universal, one and holy apostolic church appears in local manifestations. Missiologically speaking… the church can take courage as she faces the increasing impact of globalisation on local communities today. Being universal and concrete, the church is geared for the simultaneous challenges of the glocal and local. Marina Ngurusangzeli Behera (Ed) Interfaith Relations after One Hundred Years Christian Mission among Other Faiths 2011 / 978-1-870345-96-5 / 334pp The essays of this book reflect not only the acceptance and celebration of pluralism within India but also by extension an acceptance as well as a need for unity among Indian Christians of different denominations. The essays were presented and studied at a preparatory consultation on Study Theme II: Christian Mission Among Other Faiths at the United Theological College, India July 2009. Lalsangkima Pachuau and Knud Jørgensen (Eds) Witnessing to Christ in a Pluralistic Age Christian Mission among Other Faiths 2011 / 978-1-870345-95-8 / 277pp In a world where plurality of faiths is increasingly becoming a norm of life, insights on the theology of religious plurality are needed to strengthen our understanding of our own faith and the faith of others. Even though religious diversity is not new, we are seeing an upsurge in interest on the theologies of religion among all Christian confessional traditions. It can be claimed that no other issue in Christian mission is more important and more difficult than the theologies of religions.

Beth Snodderly and A Scott Moreau (Eds) Evangelical Frontier Mission Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel 2011 / 978-1-870345-98-9 / 312pp This important volume demonstrates that 100 years after the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Evangelism has become truly global. Twenty-firstcentury Evangelism continues to focus on frontier mission, but significantly, and in the spirit of Edinburgh 1910, it also has re-engaged social action. Rolv Olsen (Ed) Mission and Postmodernities 2011 / 978-1-870345-97-2 / 279pp This volume takes on meaning because its authors honestly struggle with and debate how we should relate to postmodernities. Should our response be accommodation, relativizing or counter-culture? How do we strike a balance between listening and understanding, and at the same time exploring how postmodernities influence the interpretation and application of the Bible as the normative story of God’s mission in the world? Cathy Ross (Ed) Life-Widening Mission 2012 / 978-1-908355-00-3 / 190pp It is clear from the essays collected here that the experience of the 2010 World Mission Conference in Edinburgh was both affirming and frustrating for those taking part - affirming because of its recognition of how the centre of gravity has moved in global Christianity; frustrating because of the relative slowness of so many global Christian bodies to catch up with this and to embody it in the way they do business and in the way they represent themselves. These reflections will—or should—provide plenty of food for thought in the various councils of the Communion in the coming years. Beate Fagerli, Knud Jørgensen, Rolv Olsen, Kari Storstein Haug and Knut Tveitereid (Eds) A Learning Missional Church Reflections from Young Missiologists 2012 / 978-1-908355-01-1 / 239pp Cross-cultural mission has always been a primary learning experience for the church. It pulls us out of a mono-cultural understanding and helps us discover a legitimate theological pluralism which opens up for new perspectives in the Gospel. Translating the Gospel into new languages and cultures is a human and divine means of making us learn new ‘incarnations’ of the Good News.

REGNUM STUDIES IN GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY (Previously GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL VOICES series)

Series Listing David Emmanuel Singh (Ed) Jesus and the Cross Reflections of Christians from Islamic Contexts 2008 / 978-1-870345-65-1 / 226pp The Cross reminds us that the sins of the world are not borne through the exercise of power but through Jesus Christ’s submission to the will of the Father. The papers in this volume are organised in three parts: scriptural, contextual and theological. The central question being addressed is: how do Christians living in contexts, where Islam is a majority or minority religion, experience, express or think of the Cross? Sung-wook Hong Naming God in Korea The Case of Protestant Christianity 2008 / 978-1-870345-66-8 / 170pp Since Christianity was introduced to Korea more than a century ago, one of the most controversial issues has been the Korean term for the Christian ‘God’. This issue is not merely about naming the Christian God in Korean language, but it relates to the question of theological contextualization - the relationship between the gospel and culture - and the question of Korean Christian identity. This book demonstrates the nature of the gospel in relation to cultures, i.e., the universality of the gospel expressed in all human cultures. Hubert van Beek (Ed) Revisioning Christian Unity The Global Christian Forum 2009 / 978-1-870345-74-3 / 288pp This book contains the records of the Global Christian Forum gathering held in Limuru near Nairobi, Kenya, on 6 – 9 November 2007 as well as the papers presented at that historic event. Also included are a summary of the Global Christian Forum process from its inception until the 2007 gathering and the reports of the evaluation of the process that was carried out in 2008. Young-hoon Lee The Holy Spirit Movement in Korea Its Historical and Theological Development 2009 / 978-1-870345-67-5 / 174pp This book traces the historical and theological development of the Holy Spirit Movement in Korea through six successive periods (from 1900 to the present time). These periods are characterized by repentance and revival (1900-20), persecution and suffering under Japanese occupation (1920-40), confusion and division (1940-60), explosive revival in which the Pentecostal movement played a major role in the rapid growth of Korean churches (1960-80), the movement

reaching out to all denominations (1980-2000), and the new context demanding the Holy Spirit movement to open new horizons in its mission engagement (2000-). Paul Hang-Sik Cho Eschatology and Ecology Experiences of the Korean Church 2010 / 978-1-870345-75-0 / 260pp This book raises the question of why Korean people, and Korean Protestant Christians in particular, pay so little attention to ecological issues. The author argues that there is an important connection (or elective affinity) between this lack of attention and the other-worldly eschatology that is so dominant within Korean Protestant Christianity. Dietrich Werner, David Esterline, Namsoon Kang, Joshva Raja (Eds) The Handbook of Theological Education in World Christianity Theological Perspectives, Ecumenical Trends, Regional Surveys 2010 / 978-1-870345-80-4 / 759pp This major reference work is the first ever comprehensive study of Theological Education in Christianity of its kind. With contributions from over 90 international scholars and church leaders, it aims to be easily accessible across denominational, cultural, educational, and geographic boundaries. The Handbook will aid international dialogue and networking among theological educators, institutions, and agencies. David Emmanuel Singh & Bernard C Farr (Eds) Christianity and Education Shaping of Christian Context in Thinking 2010 / 978-1-870345-81-1 / 374pp Christianity and Education is a collection of papers published in Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies over a period of 15 years. The articles represent a spectrum of Christian thinking addressing issues of institutional development for theological education, theological studies in the context of global mission, contextually aware/informed education, and academies which deliver such education, methodologies and personal reflections. David Emmanuel Singh (Ed) Jesus and the Incarnation Reflections of Christians from Islamic Contexts 2011 / 978-1-870345-90-3 / 250pp In the dialogues of Christians with Muslims nothing is more fundamental than the Cross, the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Jesus. Building on the Jesus and the Cross, this book contains voices of Christians living in various ‘Islamic contexts’ and reflecting on the Incarnation of Jesus. The aim and hope of these reflections is that the papers weaved around the notion of ‘the Word’ will not only promote dialogue among Christians on the roles of the Person and the Book but, also, create a positive environment for their conversations with Muslim neighbours.

J.Andrew Kirk Civilisations in Conflict? Islam, the West and Christian Faith 2011 / 978-1-870345-87-3 / 205pp Samuel Huntington’s thesis, which argues that there appear to be aspects of Islam that could be on a collision course with the politics and values of Western societies, has provoked much controversy. The purpose of this study is to offer a particular response to Huntington’s thesis by making a comparison between the origins of Islam and Christianity. Ivan M Satyavrata God Has Not left Himself Without Witness 2011 / 978-1-870345-79-8 / 260pp Since its earliest inception the Christian Church has had to address the question of what common ground exits between Christian faiths and other religions. This issue is not merely of academic interest but one with critical existential and sociopolitical consequences. This study presents a case for the revitalization of the fulfillment tradition based on a recovery and assessment of the fulfillment approaches of Indian Christian converts in the pre-independence period.

REGNUM STUDIES IN MISSION Series Listing Kwame Bediako Theology and Identity The Impact of Culture upon Christian Thought in the Second Century and in Modern Africa 1992 / 978-1870345-10-1 / 508pp The author examines the question of Christian identity in the context of the Graeco–Roman culture of the early Roman Empire. He then addresses the modern African predicament of quests for identity and integration. Christopher Sugden Seeking the Asian Face of Jesus The Practice and Theology of Christian Social Witness in Indonesia and India 1974–1996 1997 / 1-870345-26-6 / 496pp This study focuses on contemporary holistic mission with the poor in India and Indonesia combined with the call to transformation of all life in Christ with microcredit enterprise schemes. ‘The literature on contextual theology now has a new standard to rise to’ – Lamin Sanneh (Yale University, USA).

Hwa Yung Mangoes or Bananas? The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology 1997 / 1-870345-25-5 / 274pp Asian Christian thought remains largely captive to Greek dualism and Enlightenment rationalism because of the overwhelming dominance of Western culture. Authentic contextual Christian theologies will emerge within Asian Christianity with a dual recovery of confidence in culture and the gospel. Keith E. Eitel Paradigm Wars The Southern Baptist International Mission Board Faces the Third Millennium 1999 / 1-870345-12-6 / 140pp The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest denominational mission agency in North America. This volume chronicles the historic and contemporary forces that led to the IMB’s recent extensive reorganization, providing the most comprehensive case study to date of a historic mission agency restructuring to continue its mission purpose into the twenty-first century more effectively. Samuel Jayakumar Dalit Consciousness and Christian Conversion Historical Resources for a Contemporary Debate 1999 / 81-7214-497-0 / 434pp (Published jointly with ISPCK) The main focus of this historical study is social change and transformation among the Dalit Christian communities in India. Historiography tests the evidence in the light of the conclusions of the modern Dalit liberation theologians. Vinay Samuel and Christopher Sugden (Eds) Mission as Transformation A Theology of the Whole Gospel 1999 / 978-18703455-13-2 / 522pp This book brings together in one volume twenty five years of biblical reflection on mission practice with the poor from around the world. This volume helps anyone understand how evangelicals, struggling to unite evangelism and social action, found their way in the last twenty five years to the biblical view of mission in which God calls all human beings to love God and their neighbour; never creating a separation between the two.

Christopher Sugden Gospel, Culture and Transformation 2000 / 1-870345-32-0 / 152pp A Reprint, with a New Introduction, of Part Two of Seeking the Asian Face of Jesus Gospel, Culture and Transformation explores the practice of mission especially in relation to transforming cultures and communities. - ‘Transformation is to enable God’s vision of society to be actualised in all relationships: social, economic and spiritual, so that God’s will may be reflected in human society and his love experienced by all communities, especially the poor.’ Bernhard Ott Beyond Fragmentation: Integrating Mission and Theological Education A Critical Assessment of some Recent Developments in Evangelical Theological Education 2001 / 1-870345-14-2 / 382pp Beyond Fragmentation is an enquiry into the development of Mission Studies in evangelical theological education in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland between 1960 and 1995. The author undertakes a detailed examination of the paradigm shifts which have taken place in recent years in both the theology of mission and the understanding of theological education. Gideon Githiga The Church as the Bulwark against Authoritarianism Development of Church and State Relations in Kenya, with Particular Reference to the Years after Political Independence 1963-1992 2002 / 1-870345-38-x / 218pp ‘All who care for love, peace and unity in Kenyan society will want to read this careful history by Bishop Githiga of how Kenyan Christians, drawing on the Bible, have sought to share the love of God, bring his peace and build up the unity of the nation, often in the face of great difficulties and opposition.’ Canon Dr Chris Sugden, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. Myung Sung-Hoon, Hong Young-Gi (eds.) Charis and Charisma David Yonggi Cho and the Growth of Yoido Full Gospel Church 2003 / 978-1870345-45-3 / 218pp This book discusses the factors responsible for the growth of the world’s largest church. It expounds the role of the Holy Spirit, the leadership, prayer, preaching, cell groups and creativity in promoting church growth. It focuses on God’s grace (charis) and inspiring leadership (charisma) as the two essential factors and the book’s purpose is to present a model for church growth worldwide.

Samuel Jayakumar Mission Reader Historical Models for Wholistic Mission in the Indian Context 2003 / 1-870345-42-8 / 250pp (Published jointly with ISPCK) This book is written from an evangelical point of view revalidating and reaffirming the Christian commitment to wholistic mission. The roots of the ‘wholistic mission’ combining ‘evangelism and social concerns’ are to be located in the history and tradition of Christian evangelism in the past; and the civilizing purpose of evangelism is compatible with modernity as an instrument in nation building. Bob Robinson Christians Meeting Hindus An Analysis and Theological Critique of the Hindu-Christian Encounter in India 2004 / 987-1870345-39-2 / 392pp This book focuses on the Hindu-Christian encounter, especially the intentional meeting called dialogue, mainly during the last four decades of the twentieth century, and specifically in India itself. Gene Early Leadership Expectations How Executive Expectations are Created and Used in a Non-Profit Setting 2005 / 1-870345-30-4 / 276pp The author creates an Expectation Enactment Analysis to study the role of the Chancellor of the University of the Nations-Kona, Hawaii. This study is grounded in the field of managerial work, jobs, and behaviour and draws on symbolic interactionism, role theory, role identity theory and enactment theory. The result is a conceptual framework for developing an understanding of managerial roles. Tharcisse Gatwa The Churches and Ethnic Ideology in the Rwandan Crises 1900-1994 2005 / 978-1870345-24-8 / 300pp (Reprinted 2011) Since the early years of the twentieth century Christianity has become a new factor in Rwandan society. This book investigates the role Christian churches played in the formulation and development of the racial ideology that culminated in the 1994 genocide. Julie Ma Mission Possible Biblical Strategies for Reaching the Lost 2005 / 978-1870345-37-1 / 142pp This is a missiology book for the church which liberates missiology from the specialists for the benefit of every believer. It also serves as a textbook that is

simple and friendly, and yet solid in biblical interpretation. This book links the biblical teaching to the actual and contemporary missiological settings with examples, making the Bible come alive to the reader. Allan Anderson, Edmond Tang (Eds) Asian and Pentecostal The Charismatic Face of Christianity in Asia 2005 / 978-1870345-94-1 / 596pp (Reprinted 2011) (Published jointly with APTS Press) This book provides a thematic discussion and pioneering case studies on the history and development of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches in the countries of South Asia, South East Asia and East Asia. I. Mark Beaumont Christology in Dialogue with Muslims A Critical Analysis of Christian Presentations of Christ for Muslims from the Ninth and Twentieth Centuries 2005 / 978-1870345-46-0 / 228pp This book analyses Christian presentations of Christ for Muslims in the most creative periods of Christian-Muslim dialogue, the first half of the ninth century and the second half of the twentieth century. In these two periods, Christians made serious attempts to present their faith in Christ in terms that take into account Muslim perceptions of him, with a view to bridging the gap between Muslim and Christian convictions. Thomas Czövek, Three Seasons of Charismatic Leadership A Literary-Critical and Theological Interpretation of the Narrative of Saul, David and Solomon 2006 / 978-1870345-48-4 / 272pp This book investigates the charismatic leadership of Saul, David and Solomon. It suggests that charismatic leaders emerge in crisis situations in order to resolve the crisis by the charisma granted by God. Czovek argues that Saul proved himself as a charismatic leader as long as he acted resolutely and independently from his mentor Samuel. In the author’s eyes, Saul’s failure to establish himself as a charismatic leader is caused by his inability to step out from Samuel’s shadow. Richard Burgess Nigeria’s Christian Revolution The Civil War Revival and Its Pentecostal Progeny (1967-2006) 2008 / 978-1-870345-63-7 / 347pp This book describes the revival that occurred among the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria and the new Pentecostal churches it generated, and documents the changes that have occurred as the movement has responded to global flows and local

demands. As such, it explores the nature of revivalist and Pentecostal experience, but does so against the backdrop of local socio-political and economic developments, such as decolonisation and civil war, as well as broader processes, such as modernisation and globalisation. David Emmanuel Singh & Bernard C Farr (Eds) Christianity and Cultures Shaping Christian Thinking in Context 2008 / 978-1-870345-69-9 / 260pp This volume marks an important milestone, the 25th anniversary of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS). The papers here have been exclusively sourced from Transformation, a quarterly journal of OCMS, and seek to provide a tripartite view of Christianity’s engagement with cultures by focusing on the question: how is Christian thinking being formed or reformed through its interaction with the varied contexts it encounters? The subject matters include different strands of theological-missiological thinking, socio-political engagements and forms of family relationships in interaction with the host cultures. Tormod Engelsviken, Ernst Harbakk, Rolv Olsen, Thor Strandenæs (Eds) Mission to the World Communicating the Gospel in the 21st Century: Essays in Honour of Knud Jørgensen 2008 / 978-1-870345-64-4 / 472pp Knud Jørgensen is Director of Areopagos and Associate Professor of Missiology at MF Norwegian School of Theology. This book reflects on the main areas of Jørgensen’s commitment to mission. At the same time it focuses on the main frontier of mission, the world, the content of mission, the Gospel, the fact that the Gospel has to be communicated, and the context of contemporary mission in the 21st century. Al Tizon Transformation after Lausanne Radical Evangelical Mission in Global-Local Perspective 2008 / 978-1-870345-68-2 / 281pp After Lausanne '74, a worldwide network of radical evangelical mission theologians and practitioners use the notion of "Mission as Transformation" to integrate evangelism and social concern together, thus lifting theological voices from the Two Thirds World to places of prominence. This book documents the definitive gatherings, theological tensions, and social forces within and without evangelicalism that led up to Mission as Transformation. And it does so through a global-local grid that points the way toward greater holistic mission in the 21st century.

Bambang Budijanto Values and Participation Development in Rural Indonesia 2009 / 978-1-870345-70-4 / 237pp Socio-religious values and socio-economic development are inter-dependant, interrelated and are constantly changing in the context of macro political structures, economic policy, religious organizations and globalization; and micro influences such as local affinities, identity, politics, leadership and beliefs. The book argues that the comprehensive approach in understanding the socio-religious values of each of the three local Lopait communities in Central Java is essential to accurately describing their respective identity. Alan R. Johnson Leadership in a Slum A Bangkok Case Study 2009 / 978-1-870345-71-2 / 238pp This book looks at leadership in the social context of a slum in Bangkok from a different perspective than traditional studies which measure well educated Thais on leadership scales derived in the West. Using both systematic data collection and participant observation, it develops a culturally preferred model as well as a set of models based in Thai concepts that reflect on-the-ground realities. It concludes by looking at the implications of the anthropological approach for those who are involved in leadership training in Thai settings and beyond. Titre Ande Leadership and Authority Bula Matari and Life - Community Ecclesiology in Congo 2010 / 978-1-870345-72-9 / 189pp Christian theology in Africa can make significant development if a critical understanding of the socio-political context in contemporary Africa is taken seriously, particularly as Africa’s post-colonial Christian leadership based its understanding and use of authority on the Bula Matari model. This has caused many problems and Titre proposes a Life-Community ecclesiology for liberating authority, here leadership is a function, not a status, and ‘apostolic succession’ belongs to all people of God. Frank Kwesi Adams Odwira and the Gospel A Study of the Asante Odwira Festival and its Significance for Christianity in Ghana 2010 /978-1-870345-59-0 / 232pp The study of the Odwira festival is the key to the understanding of Asante religious and political life in Ghana. The book explores the nature of the Odwira festival longitudinally - in pre-colonial, colonial and post-independence Ghana and examines the Odwira ideology and its implications for understanding the Asante self-identity. Also discussed is how some elements of faith portrayed in the

Odwira festival can provide a framework for Christianity to engage with Asante culture at a greater depth. Bruce Carlton Strategy Coordinator Changing the Course of Southern Baptist Missions 2010 / 978-1-870345-78-1 / 268pp This is an outstanding, one-of-a-kind work addressing the influence of the nonresidential missionary/strategy coordinator’s role in Southern Baptist missions. This scholarly text examines the twentieth century global missiological currents that influenced the leadership of the International Mission Board, resulting in a new paradigm to assist in taking the gospel to the nations. Julie Ma & Wonsuk Ma Mission in the Spirit: Towards a Pentecostal/Charismatic Missiology 2010 / 978-1-870345-84-2 / 312pp The book explores the unique contribution of Pentecostal/Charismatic mission from the beginning of the twentieth century. The first part considers the theological basis of Pentecostal/Charismatic mission thinking and practice. Special attention is paid to the Old Testament, which has been regularly overlooked by the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic movements. The second part discusses major mission topics with contributions and challenges unique to Pentecostal/Charismatic mission. The book concludes with a reflection on the future of this powerful missionary movement. As the authors served as Korean missionaries in Asia, often their missionary experiences in Asia are reflected in their discussions. S. Hun Kim & Wonsuk Ma (eds.) Korean Diaspora and Christian Mission 2011-978-1-870345-91-0 / 301pp As a ‘divine conspiracy’ for Missio Dei, the global phenomenon of people on the move has shown itself to be invaluable. In 2004 two significant documents concerning Diaspora were introduced, one by the Filipino International Network and the other by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. These have created awareness of the importance of people on the move for Christian mission. Since then, Korean Diaspora has conducted similar research among Korean missions, resulting in this book Jin Huat Tan Planting an Indigenous Church The Case of the Borneo Evangelical Mission 2011 / 978-1-870345-99-6 / 343pp Dr Jin Huat Tan has written a pioneering study of the origins and development of Malaysia’s most significant indigenous church. This is an amazing story of revival, renewal and transformation of the entire region chronicling the powerful effect of

it evident to date! What can we learn from this extensive and careful study of the Borneo Revival, so the global Christianity will become ever more dynamic. Bill Prevette Child, Church and Compassion Towards Child Theology in Romania 2012 / 978-1-908355-03-4 / 377pp Bill Prevett comments that ¨children are like ‘canaries in a mine shaft’; they provide a focal point for discovery and encounter of perilous aspects of our world that are often ignored.¨ True, but miners also carried a lamp to see into the subterranean darkness. This book is such a lamp. It lights up the subterranean world of children and youth in danger of exploitation, and as it does so travels deep into their lives and also into the activities of those who seek to help them. Samuel Cyuma Picking up the Pieces The Church and Conflict Resolution in South Africa and Rwanda 2012 / 978-1-908355-02-7 / 411pp In the last ten years of the 20th century, the world was twice confronted with unbelievable news from Africa. First, there was the end of Apartheid in South Africa, without bloodshed, due to responsible political and Church leaders. The second was the mass killings in Rwanda, which soon escalated into real genocide. Political and Church leaders had been unable to prevents this crime against humanity. In this book, the question is raised: can we compare the situation in South Africa with that in Rwanda? Can Rwandan leaders draw lessons from the peace process in South Africa?

GENERAL REGNUM TITLES Vinay Samuel, Chris Sugden (eds.) The Church in Response to Human Need 1987 / 1870345045 / xii+268pp Philip Sampson, Vinay Samuel, Chris Sugden (eds.) Faith and Modernity Essays in modernity and post-modernity 1994 / 1870345177 / 352pp Klaus Fiedler The Story of Faith Missions 1994 / 0745926878 / 428pp Douglas Peterson Not by Might nor by Power A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America 1996 / 1870345207 / xvi+260pp David Gitari In Season and Out of Season Sermons to a Nation 1996 / 1870345118 / 155pp David. W. Virtue A Vision of Hope The Story of Samuel Habib 1996 / 1870345169 / xiv+137pp Everett A Wilson Strategy of the Spirit J.Philip Hogan and the Growth of the Assemblies of God Worldwide, 1960 - 1990 1997 /1870345231/214 Murray Dempster, Byron Klaus, Douglas Petersen (Eds) The Globalization of Pentecostalism A Religion Made to Travel 1999 / 1870345290 / xvii+406pp Peter Johnson, Chris Sugden (eds.) Markets, Fair Trade and the Kingdom of God Essays to Celebrate Traidcraft's 21st Birthday 2001 / 1870345193 / xii+155pp

Robert Hillman, Coral Chamberlain, Linda Harding Healing & Wholeness Reflections on the Healing Ministry 2002 / 978-1- 870345-35- 4 / xvii+283pp David Bussau, Russell Mask Christian Microenterprise Development An Introduction 2003 / 1870345282 / xiii+142pp David Singh Sainthood and Revelatory Discourse An Examination of the Basis for the Authority of Bayan in Mahdawi Islam 2003 / 8172147285 / xxiv+485pp

For the up-to-date listing of the Regnum books see www.ocms.ac.uk/regnum

regnum Regnum Books International Regnum is an Imprint of The Oxford Centre for Mission Studies St. Philip and St. James Church Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HR Web: www.ocms.ac.uk/regnum

Interpretations from an African Context Pentecostalism is the fastest growing stream of Christianity in the world. The real evidence for the significance of Pentecostalism lies in the actual churches they have built and the numbers they attract. In Africa, Pentecostalism has virtually become the representative face of Christianity with even historic mission denominations ‘pentecostalising’ their otherwise formal liturgical structures to survive. This work interprets key theological and missiological themes in African Pentecostalism by using material from the live experiences of the movement itself. An important source of primary material for instance is the popular books written by the leadership of contemporary Pentecostal churches and their media programs. An example of this is that on account of its motivational hermeneutics the Eagle, rather than the Dove, has become the preferred symbol of the Holy Spirit in this nascent dynamic movement. The interpretation of themes from contemporary African Pentecostalism in this book reveals much about how as a contemporary movement, it is reshaping African Christian spirituality in the 21st century.

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu PhD is Baëta-Grau Professor of African Christianity and Pentecostal Theology at the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon Ghana. His previous publications include African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2005). Cover Picture: Inside the Perez Dome of Bishop Charles Agyinasare's Word Miracle Church International, Accra, Ghana. Used with Permission.

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu has emerged as the foremost African scholar of Pentecostalism since the premature passing away of Ogbu Kalu in January 2009. His writings are prodigious and insightful, and the publication of this welcome new book is no exception. I think it is his best study to date, written with the maturity of a scholar who not only observes but also reflects. He writes with the heart of a Christian teacher for truth. It is all too easy for westerners to observe African Pentecostalism from a distance and be critical of their sometimes bizarre manifestations and emphases on health and wealth in the midst of a poverty-ravished continent. But Asamoah-Gyadu tells it like it is and from the inside, being both a critical and a sympathetic observer.This is a theology of African Pentecostalism as well as a rich description of its inner heart. Based on extensive research in Ghana and elsewhere, with many vivid descriptions of Pentecostal practices observed by the author, interspersed with theological and biblical reflection, and interacting with other scholars worldwide, this book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the rapidly growing and increasingly dominant form of Christianity in the vast African continent. African Pentecostals will recognize themselves in these pages.This is no caricature of their beliefs and practices, but is a faithful reflection of them. From the Foreword by Allan Anderson, University of Birmingham

Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity

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