Product Description

Pentecostalism is the fastest expanding religious movement in the world today. Allan Anderson makes more visible its "non-Western" nature, without overlooking the importance of the movement emanating from North America. Concentrating on its history and theology, Anderson reflects on the movement's development and significance throughout the world. He explores those theological issues that helped form a distinctive spirituality and relates them to different peoples and cultures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #382766 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-19
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 316 pages

Review
"[T]he strength of this book is its breadth of purview...Recommended."
-D. Jacobsen, Messiah College, CHOICE

"Anderson's prose is clear, and his comment to the evidence informs the argument on every page. His is simply the best scholarly introduction to world Pentecostalism on the market today. Church leaders, specialists, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students in missiology and church history will benefit from this penetrating study."
-Peter A. Huff, Missiology

"Anderson's first-rate introduction provides an accomplished single source for Pentecostal studies and it surely will be a key text for many years."
-H. Chad Hillier, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Studies in Religion

"This is an outstanding book that I thoroughly enjoy[ed] reading. I believe that it provides a wonderful introduction to Pentecostalism, and all serious students of this particular arm of Christianity are encouraged to read it."
-Dave Johnson, Pneuma Review

About the Author
Allan Anderson is Reader in Pentecostal Studies at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of five books, including Moya: The Holy Spirit in an African Context (1991), Zion and Pentecost (2000) and African Reformation (2001), and has edited two collections including Pentecostals after a Century (1999) and Asian and Pentecostal (2003).

Customer Reviews

most comprehensive work available
llan Anderson has provided a book for the study of religions and theology which is so far unmatched in the field of pentecostal studies. It gives a comprehensive and yet not too lengthy account of all the developments within world-wide Pentecostalism.
He has widely managed to do without the usual theological lingo, which means that one can read and understand what he talks about also without having undergone theological university courses.
Being a pentecostal Christian himself he is generally very positive towards the subject of the book and avoids polemics even when it comes to the gravest forms of extremist Pentecostalism. This does however not mean, that he is entirely uncritical. He points out some of the weaknesses like the wide-spread pentecostal silence to social issues and social action and points out ways how to overcome that by giving theological reasons.
The special emphasis - that puts this work ahead of other attempts to broadly cover the topic - is on the world wide spread and the different forms of Pentecostalism. He covers Korea and Asian churches as well as the Latin American pentecostal bushfire and places a special emphasis on Africa as well (having experience in South Africa and having seen the situation in places like Nigeria with his own eyes). Also the incredible spread of Charismatic Christianity, especially within the Catholic Church, is taken into account.
With this the author alerts the reader that the wide-spread notion that Pentecostals are primarily a US-American phenomenon is false. At the same time he does not omit the necessary historical background from the holiness movement via Asuza Street to the foundation of the Assemblies of God.
All in all it will be impossible from now on to write major works about pentecostal phenomena without having gone through Allan Andersons account of world-wide charismatic Christianity.