Pentecostalism has traditionally always been other-worldly in the sense that Pentecostals tend to believe that people’s lives are controlled by unseen powers that are responsible for both good and bad. This makes people look for a power that is stronger than those of evil and can ensure that believers enjoy good health and prosperity. Pentecostals find this power in Jesus Christ, who is victorious over all evil powers, and therefore pray that Jesus will save them. For them, life is characterised by suffering and evil, but in Christ they are conquerors, and life is full of concrete blessings. Using songs and sermons, this book shows the main widespread beliefs of the leadership and grassroots members of the Church of Pentecost (Ghanaian Pentecostals) on Christology and evil. It discusses their fear of evil and their finding solace in the power of Jesus. The author supplements this attitude by the biblical calling to help build a just and peaceful society. He thus develops a theology of the public domain in which the church can make a difference by developing its diaconal services, establishing more educational institutions, and helping—together with people who want to collaborate—build a just and more affluent society with good healthcare and a literate and thriving population. This book balances on the interface between traditional African religious ideas and practices and Christian ideals for a more humane society.

This book explores recent developments in South African Pentecostalism, focusing on new prophetic churches. The chapters engage with a number of paradigm shifts in Christology, identified as complementing Christ, competing with Christ, removing Christ and replacing Christ. What are the implications of these shifts? Does it mean that believers no longer believe in Christ but in their leaders? Does it shift believers’ faith towards materiality than the person of Christ? This volume will be valuable for scholars of African Christianity and in particular those interested in the neo-prophetic movement and Christology in a South African context.

The volume of literature in pentecostal theology has quickly become daunting. This brief monograph brings readers up to speed on the characteristics of pentecostal theology in the past and present, as well as its potential in the future.

In Christ and the Common Life Luke Bretherton provides an introduction to historical and contemporary theological reflection on politics and opens up a compelling vision for a Christian commitment to democracy. In dialogue with Scripture and various traditions, Bretherton examines the dynamic relationship between who we are in relation to God and who we are as moral and political animals. He addresses fundamental political questions about poverty and injustice, forming a common life with strangers, and handling power constructively. And through his analysis of debates concerning, among other things, race, class, economics, the environ­ment, and interfaith relations, he develops an innovative political theology of democracy as a way through which Christians can speak and act faithfully within our current context. Read as a whole, or as stand-alone chapters, the book guides readers through the political landscape and identifies the primary vocabulary, ideas, and schools of thought that shape Christian reflection on politics in the West. Ideal for the classroom, Christ and the Common Life equips students to understand politics and its positive and negative role in fostering neighbor love.

The face of African Christianity is becoming Pentecostal. African Pentecostalism is a diverse movement, but its collective interest in baptism in the Spirit and the result of Pentecost in daily living binds it together. Pentecostals read the Bible with the expectation that the Spirit who inspired the authors will again inspire them to hear it as God's word. They emphasize the experiential, at times at the cost of proper doctrine and practice. This book sketches an African hermeneutic that provides guidance to a diverse movement with many faces, and serves as corrective for doctrine and practice in the face of some excesses and abuses (especially in some parts of the neo-Pentecostal movement). African Pentecostalism's contribution to the hermeneutical debate is described before three points are discussed that define it: the centrality of the Holy Spirit in reading the Bible, the eschatological lens that Pentecostals use when they read the Bible, and the faith community as normative for the interpretation of the Bible.

In this book social responsive theological research converges to provide practical theological and ecclesiological perspectives on the growing human dilemma of displacement. The book presents the research of practical theologians, a missiologist and a religious practitioner whose work pertains first and foremost to the (South) African context. The different fields of expertise of the contributors within the broader field of practical theology worked towards a unique compilation of themes, each relevant to the issue at stake. The majority of chapters are theoretically orientated, except where authors refer to empirical work conducted during previous research. The main contribution of this collaborative work is to be sought in the practical theological and ecclesiological perspectives it provides. It engages the critical questions of what kind of church we need, and what kind of care we should provide in the face of the growing predicament of human displacement. The theological and theoretical principles uncovered in the different chapters will be of use to theologians from all theological subdisciplines, as well as to religious practitioners and leaders of faith communities that are challenged with the growing realities of strangers on their doorsteps and in their pews.

The Dialogical Spirit II is a second collection of essays that demonstrates the dialectical contours of Amos Yong's critical pentecostal theology. It is a montage of constructive engagements with various thinkers and ideas in the promotion of theological plurality for the third millennium. With essays on Hegelian dialectics, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, pneumatic missiology, etc., voice is generated for the renewal of relationality and the revival of imagination. Free from the imposition of traditional boundaries, Yong makes his way across differing landscapes of truth in a global environment, gleaning from the activities of reflection and understanding therein. Providing snapshots of Yong's theological development over decades of work, The Dialogical Spirit II further evidences the vitality of pentecostal theology to emerging conversations in constructive and comparative venues.