Spirit-Filled World: Religious Dis/Continuity in African Pentecostalism

280 Pages·2018·2.11 MB·English

by  Allan Heaton Anderson (auth.)

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SPIRIT-FILLED WWOORRLD
Religious Dis/Continuity
in African Pentecostalism
Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies
Series Editors
Wolfgang Vondey
University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK
Amos Yong
School of Intercultural Studies
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, CA, USA
Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies provides a forum for
scholars from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, various global loca-
tions, and a range of Christian ecumenical and religious traditions to
explore issues at the intersection of the pentecostal, charismatic, and
other renewal movements and related phenomena, including: the trans-
forming and renewing work of the Holy Spirit in Christian traditions,
cultures, and creation; the traditions, beliefs, interpretation of sacred
texts, and scholarship of the renewal movements; the religious life,
including the spirituality, ethics, history, and liturgical and other prac-
tices, and spirituality of the renewal movements; the social, economic,
political, transnational, and global implications of renewal movements;
methodological, analytical, and theoretical concerns at the intersection of
Christianity and renewal; intra-Christian and interreligious comparative
studies of renewal and revitalization movements; other topics connect-
ing to the theme of Christianity and renewal. Authors are encouraged
to examine the broad scope of religious phenomena and their interpre-
tation through the methodological, hermeneutical, and historiographical
lens of renewal in contemporary Christianity. Under the general topic of
thoughtful reflection on Christianity and renewal, the series includes two
different kinds of books: (1) monographs that allow for in-depth pursuit,
carefully argued, and meticulously documented research on a particular
topic that explores issues in Christianity and renewal; and (2) edited col-
lections that allow scholars from a variety of disciplines to interact under
a broad theme related to Christianity and renewal. In both kinds, the
series encourages discussion of traditional pentecostal and charismatic
studies, reexamination of established religious doctrine and practice,
and explorations into new fields of study related to renewal movements.
Interdisciplinarity will feature in the series both in terms of two or more
disciplinary approaches deployed in any single volume and in terms of a
wide range of disciplinary perspectives found cumulatively in the series.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14894
Allan Heaton Anderson
Spirit-Filled World
Religious Dis/Continuity in African Pentecostalism
Allan Heaton Anderson
University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK
Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies
ISBN 978-3-319-73729-4 ISBN 978-3-319-73730-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73730-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017964133
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P S -F W
raise for pirit illed orld
“This book is a penetrating analysis of the characteristics and manifestations of
an African pneumatology. I have great respect for Allan Anderson’s approach.
We share methodological commitments to empirical research that contributes
toward a depth perspective sometimes lacking in studies based on theory rather
than experience and observations of the people themselves. Taking seriously the
deeper experience and beliefs of the actual people studied results in challenging
and valuable insights. Anderson has an identification with and understanding of
the interaction among the Spirit, power concepts, and the African spirit world.
This interaction inspires increasing receptivity towards the movement of God’s
Spirit.”
—M. L. (Inus) Daneel, Boston University, USA
“Working both as an insider and an outsider whose personal experience and
academic writing represent ‘continuity and discontinuity’ with the subject of
this book, Anderson is a reliable and persuasive exponent of Pentecostalism. In
his latest book he marshals field evidence to explore issues of convergence and
divergence with African ideas of the spirit world, which he doesn’t reduce to
mysticism or immobilize in material objects. The Christian framework captures
the dynamic nature of reception and appropriation as a general feature of the
Christian movement, with African Pentecostalism a vivid manifestation of it. The
book is an instructive model of interpretation anchored in real life situations and
conveyed in clear, lively prose. It deserves to be welcomed.”
—Lamin Sanneh, Yale University, USA
“When dealing with the study of Pentecostalism as a global movement, the depth
and breadth of knowledge that Allan Anderson brings remains unparalleled. In
this new volume, Spirit-Filled World, he tackles deftly the delicate balance in the
vi PRAISE FOR SPIRIT-FILLED WORLD
intersection—continuity/discontinuity—between Pentecostalism and African
traditional cultures. In doing this, Anderson relies on decades of teaching and
experiencing Pentecostalism across cultures to beat for us a new path that will
inspire innovative ways in which to encounter, experience, understand and teach
Pentecostalism as, currently, the defining religious player in what counts as World
Christianity.”
—J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Trinity Theological Seminary, Accra, Ghana
a
cknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my doctoral promoter (supervisor) formerly at
the University of South Africa, M. L. (Inus) Daneel, whose many years
of research in Zimbabwe inspired this project in the first place. I con-
sider my forty-three years of immersion in African Christianity a distinct
privilege that very few Westerners have, and I would not have written
this book without that experience. So thanks go to my departed parents,
who took me to Africa at the age of four, Brigadiers Keith and Gwen
Anderson in the Salvation Army in Zimbabwe and Zambia. In South
Africa, I had the privilege of working in various pentecostal and charis-
matic organisations from 1973 to 1995. So this book has taken many
years to complete, and many people have been involved in its pro-
duction. I want to thank them all immensely. Without the support I
received, delayed by three surgeries on my ankles since 2014 and almost
a year of radiotherapy and associated treatment in 2015, this study would
never have been completed.
My initial research project fell under the Research Institute for
Theology and Religion at the University of South Africa back in the early
1990s, where I worked part-time for almost five years and completed my
doctorate. The department of Theology and Religion at the University
of Birmingham, where I have been for the past twenty-two years, gave
me time, funding, and space during study leave and research trips. I
have always been encouraged to pursue excellence in research by my col-
leagues here. My five months as a visiting scholar at Yale in early 2016
organized by Lamin Sanneh and the Overseas Ministries Study Center
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
in New Haven, Connecticut, was a wonderful place to reflect after some
turbulent times in my life. Thanks to Sarah Gilbert, now a postgraduate
researcher, who spent many hours in 2015 sifting, annotating and tran-
scribing recorded interviews from scores of MP3 files. I was given useful
comments on drafts by academic colleagues and friends, including Ben
Crace, Raphael Idialu, Martin Lindhardt, Stephen Pattison, and Michael
Wilkinson. The series editors Amos Yong and Wolfgang Vondey, the lat-
ter now a colleague in Birmingham, offered me a publication place and
made helpful suggestions.
I am particularly grateful for the many residents of Soshanguve involved
in this project over the years with their comments and participation,
back in the early 1990s and during my last research trip in 2016. Special
thanks are owing to my former church home, Praise Tabernacle Church
and its members, whose pastor, Victor Mokgotlhoa, has been a friend for
over thirty years. Several research assistants were involved, including Jan
Mathibela, who also helped facilitate trips to Winterveld and Mabopane
in 2016, and Sam Otwang, my main research assistant and translator in
1991–1992. Undergraduate students at Tshwane Theological College
helped with the initial quantitative survey in 1991. I am also grate-
ful for being able to sound out some of the ideas of this research at vari-
ous stages during seminars in 2016–2017 at Boston University, OMSC,
the University of South Africa, and at the University of Birmingham: the
Department of African Studies and Anthropology, and the postgraduate
researchers of our Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies. All of
you have been wonderful in your support. Thank you!
Birmingham, UK
November 2017
c
ontents
Part I African Pentecostalism in Context
1 The Spirit of Dis/Continuity 3
2 Pentecostalism in the Sub-Sahara 23
3 Pentecostalism in a South African Township 51
Part II A Spirit-Filled World
4 The Ambiguity of Ancestors 81
5 Witchcraft, Spirits, and Misfortune 113
6 Divination, Healing, and Deliverance 143
Part III The Spirit in a Spirit World
7 Translating the Spirit World 175
ix