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African Pentecostalism and World Christianity
Essays in Honor of J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
edited by Nimi Wariboko and Adeshina Afolayan
Series Editors
Dr. Stan Chu Ilo (DePaul University, Chicago, USA)
Dr. Esther Acolatse (University of Toronto, Canada)
Dr. Mwenda Ntarangwi (Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA)
African Pentecostalism and World Christianity
Essays in Honor of J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
African Christian Studies Series 18
Copyright © 2020 Nimi Wariboko & Adeshina Afolayan. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Pickwick Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-6635-3
hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-6636-0
ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-6637-7
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Wariboko, Nimi, 1962–, editor. | Afolayan, Adeshina, editor.
Title: African Pentecostalism and World Christianity : essays in honor of J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu / edited by Nimi Wariboko and Adeshina Afolayan.
Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2020 | African Christian Studies Series 18 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-7252-6635-3 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-7252-6636-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-7252-6637-7 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Pentecostalism—Africa | Pentecostalism | Pentecostals, Black
Classification: br1644.5 w37 2020 (print) | br1644.5 (ebook)
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 09/11/20
Preface and Acknowledgements
African Pentecostalism has always occupied a prominent place in World Christianity. We might even say that the history (in the last fifty years) of World Christianity has been disproportionally shaped, if not defined, by African Pentecostalism. The objective of this volume is to investigate and interrogate the critical junctures at which World Christianity invigorates and is invigorated by African Pentecostalism. The essays of the thinkers gathered in this book interrogate the general relationships between World Christianity and Africa, and the specific interplays between World Christianity and African Pentecostalism. Scholars from multiple continents and countries examine how the theological scholarship and missional works of eminent African intellectual Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu have contributed to the scholarly understanding of how World Christianity has been mediated by its reception in Africa. They also investigate how African Pentecostalism has been shaped by its contact with diverse forms of Christianity in Africa and the rest of the world.
Asamoah-Gyadu is a significant scholar and theologian of African Pentecostalism. His contributions derived not only from scholarly engagements with Pentecostal and Christian practices, but also from a personal involvement through a participant observation as a minister of the Gospel. His entire scholarly outputs have done a lot to redefine the way Pentecostalism in its African incarnation is perceived in the trajectory of World Christianity. And in several other publications on the relationship between African Pentecostalism and the new media technologies, Asamoah-Gyadu has also continued to interpret and reinterpret the multiple ways by which the spread of the Gospel is motivated by the Holy Spirit as well as mass mediation which in turn configures Pentecostal and Christian practices and experience in multiple other ways.
All the contributors to this volume are united not only in their deep and abiding respect for Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu’s influential intellectual impact on the signification of African Pentecostalism. They are also unanimous in their collective enthusiasm in exploring the multidimensional reach of his ideas, arguments and discursive direction, first in the understanding of the extent and limit of African Pentecostalism; and second, in the relationship between African Pentecostalism, global Pentecostalism and world Christianity.
Our gratitude goes first to a friend and colleague, Professor Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, who continues to be a source of inspiration to both the old and new generations of theologians and Pentecostal scholars and ministers all across the world. This volume is a proof that Asamoah-Gyadu has not only generated sufficient ideas and theories to transform our reflection on Pentecostal and Christian practices especially in Africa, but that those very ideas and theories have become the instigation for more reflections. We are also very grateful to all the contributors who responded in record time, and with quality and outstanding essays, to the call for contribution to celebrate this great scholar.
Finally, we appreciate Baker Academic for granting permission to Dr. Craig S. Keener to adapt six thousand words from pages 1550–78 of his 2013 book, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Vol. 2, in chapter 4 of this volume.
African Christian Studies Series (AFRICS)
This series will make available significant works in the field of African Christian studies, taking into account the many forms of Christianity across the whole continent of Africa. African Christian studies is defined here as any scholarship that relates to themes and issues on the history, nature, identity, character, and place of African Christianity in world Christianity. It also refers to topics that address the continuing search for abundant life for Africans through multiple appeals to African religions and African Christianity in a challenging social context. The books in this series are expected to make significant contributions in historicizing trends in African Christian studies, while shifting the contemporary discourse in these areas from narrow theological concerns to a broader inter-disciplinary engagement with African religio-cultural traditions and Africa’s challenging social context.
The series will cater to scholarly and educational texts in the areas of religious studies, theology, mission studies, biblical studies, philosophy, social justice, and other diverse issues current in African Christianity. We define these studies broadly and specifically as primarily focused on new voices, fresh perspectives, new approaches, and historical and cultural analyses that are emerging because of the significant place of African Christianity and African religio-cultural traditions in world Christianity. The series intends to continually fill a gap in African scholarship, especially in the areas of social analysis in African Christian studies, African philosophies, new biblical and narrative hermeneutical approaches to African theologies, and the challenges facing African women in today’s Africa and within African Christianity. Other diverse themes in African Traditional Religions; African ecology; African ecclesiology; inter-cultural, inter-ethnic, and inter-religious dialogue; ecumenism; creative inculturation; African theologies of development, reconciliation, globalization, and poverty reduction will also be covered in this series.
Introduction
The Worlding of World Christianity and African Pentecostalism1
Nimi Wariboko and Adeshina Afolayan
Christianity across the World
Since the inauguration of the concept of World Christianity in the mid-twentieth century, it has gone on to define a multiplicity of the conceptual manifestations of Christianity all across the globe. When it first emerged, its objective was to understand the scope and extent of the Christian community across the globe, and especially to define the understanding of Christian unity and Christian missions.