of continued manifestations of the Spirit’s power. Pentecostals—as their name implies—but also Pietist, Holiness, charismatic and other movements before them—expect such continued blessing and look for the signs of the Spirit described by Luke.94 They see themselves as undergoing the same experience as that of the early church. Luke’s somewhat idealized picture of the early church is directly informing the identity and practice of many newer churches today
We could take one example of a contemporary Pentecostal-charismatic movement to illustrate this. Protestant Christianity in Korea experienced a revival movement in 1903–1907, the period in which Pentecostalism emerged in the USA, and which has much in common with it and other similar movements in Wales, India, and other parts of the world around that time.95 Its effect in Korea was not to create separate Pentecostal churches but to strengthen and indigenize the existing Presbyterian and Methodist churches which were inclined to accommodate it. Because of its parallels with Acts, the revival was described as “the Korean Pentecost” and descriptions of the event are heavily influenced by the account in Acts, chapter 2. For the Koreans and the foreign missionaries who experienced it, this was a watershed moment in which the Koreans understood that they, having the Holy Spirit, were now an autonomous Korean church, and the missionaries came to believe that the Koreans believers really were Christians as much as they were because they manifested the Spirit in the same way.96
A New Approach to Apostolicity
All the autonomous churches in existence to this day, including European ones, have at some point been through such a moment, whether they express it in Pentecostal terms or not. At some point they were recognized as churches in their own right, endowed with the Spirit of God, and therefore able to determine their own futures. We read about such a moment in Acts in the history of the church of Antioch when the mixed community of Jews and Gentiles became a distinct community known as “Christians” (11:26). From this point on in the narrative, Antioch stands in mutual relationship with the Jerusalem church and it becomes an independent center of mission activity.97
It is difficult to determine historically if the original Jerusalem community descended directly from that first Pentecost is extant today. The different churches that exist all over the world, and which we encounter in our ecumenical and mission relations, each have a distinct origin that was after the first Pentecost. The logic of the Pentecostal narrative of the book of Acts is that all “there is no distinction” (Acts 15:9). If other churches also manifest the same signs of the Spirit, then they are Christian every bit as much as those who brought the message to them. They are “filled with the Spirit” and there are no half measures. So, whether it was two thousand years ago, two hundred years ago, twenty years ago, or two years ago makes no essential difference. Their apostolicity is confirmed by the evidence of their baptism in the Spirit. Pentecostals, like other free or independent churches claim apostolicity on the grounds of faithfulness to the apostles rather than the apostolic succession in the sense of a continuous historical line back to the apostles through a series of bishops. If they claim to be filled with the Spirit as we do, then, as Peter asked, what is to prevent us recognizing them as partners in the same mission, brothers and sisters in Christ? (Acts 10:44–48)
Luke’s application of the word “apostle” to individuals is notoriously slippery. At first, he seems to apply it only to the Twelve, who are eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry (1:21–22). But later, both Paul and Barnabas are (14:4, 14) are referred to as apostles. Furthermore, although Stephen and his fellows are appointed deacons in a way that seems to give them an inferior place to the original apostles, Luke gives two of these “Seven”—Stephen and Philip—great prominence in his narrative and it is clear that they combined the waiting on tables with the prayer and preaching that the Twelve apparently considered more important. Noting the prominence and unqualified praise of Stephen particularly, and considering the fact that the Lord Jesus gave considerable importance to waiting on tables, David Pao wonders if Luke is actually criticizing the Twelve here?98 At any rate, it is clear from the narrative that the apostolic function is carried out most fully like people like Stephen, Philip, Barnabas, and later Paul, who were filled with the Spirit of God, regardless of the credentials possessed by the Twelve. Apostolicity is Acts is defined by the evidence of the Spirit at work. Furthermore, the apostles were missionaries, those commissioned with a particular task, sent ones, and missionaries were apostles. Apostolicity then comes down to the question of who has the Spirit that was in Jesus Christ? Who truly manifests the “power from on high” that Jesus promised? (Luke 24:48)
The Indian liberation theologian Samuel Rayan SJ wrote about “mission in the Spirit.”99 Mission is not primarily about the task to be accomplished, the goals and the strategy to get there, it is about the call to be filled with the Spirit. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said Jesus as he announced his mission (Luke 4:18). Mission is not primarily an action but a spirituality, a way of being in Christ. Furthermore, the Spirit in whose power we do mission, and in which Jesus carried out his mission, is sent from the Father and at work in the whole creation. The Spirit in which Jesus was conceived, grew up, was baptized and performed wondrous deeds was already known to the people as the Spirit of God manifest in the prophets, even the Spirit of life itself (Nicene Creed). Since the work of the Spirit is much wider than our particular community, mission can be thought of as “finding out where the Holy Spirit is at work and joining in.”100 This is the gist of the current statement of the World Council of Churches on mission and evangelism, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. It concludes: “We understand that our task is not to bring God along but to witness to the God who is already there (Acts 17:23–28). Joining in with the Spirit, we are enabled to cross cultural and religious barriers to work together towards life.”101
World Christianity: A New Approach to Catholicity
World Christianity
The concept “world Christianity” owes its origins largely to the work of Andrew Walls, whose long career has taken him to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Princeton and Liverpool Hope universities, and to his disciples and colleagues, most notably the late Lamin Sanneh. However, it has been appropriated by others as well and serves several purposes. It is debated whether it is purely descriptive or somehow normative; whether it is an observation or a new paradigm.102
From Walls’s work, world Christianity is partly a neat way of explaining the statistical fact that, somewhere around the year 1970, the number of Christians in the global South began to exceed that in the global North. With this statistic in mind, many have treated world Christianity as a product of European colonialism as if Christianity was a European religion that went global only in the last few centuries. The study of world Christianity tends to be dominated by a historical approach that locates it in the post-colonial and globalization eras. However, Walls, together with Todd Johnson, points out that Christianity is Asian in origin, that its early spread was in multiple directions and that up until the year 923 AD, there were more Christians living south of the latitude of Jerusalem than above it.103
Statistics should not be allowed to determine understanding of Christian faith—there is much more to it than that. Moreover, the sources of such statistics could be questioned as well as the underlying assumptions about what defines a Christian. But the use of numbers is not forbidden in theology—Luke himself concludes the Pentecost story with a head-count (Acts 2:41, 47). They are certainly significant, among other measures of Christian-ness—such as social impact and cultural change—in the study of Christianity.104
Sometimes it is assumed that “world Christianity” represents a sociological alternative to ecumenical theology or church history, and for some theologians this is a reason for dismissing it. It is true that “world Christianity” is a sociological term and that the subject provides a way in which sociologists have been drawn into the study the church or churches. It is also true that the study of world Christianity involves treating Christianity as a social movement and that critical tools from social studies are applied. However, world Christianity is best thought of as a multi-disciplinary topic. Most of the leading figures—such as Walls, Sanneh, Dana L. Robert, Brian Stanley, or Klaus Koschorke—are historians who also take theology very seriously. So seriously in fact that a historian or sociologist might sometimes worry