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Introduction
Certain matters have dominated the historiography of African Pentecostalism: its origins (whether it started from Azusa Street in the United States or from indigenous roots); its identity, flavor or character; and explanations for its rapid growth (the pace, direction, and nature). The argument in this essay is that there is an identifiable African Pentecostalism because Africans responded to the gospel from within a charismatic indigenous worldview. Pentecostalism was not exported to Africa from Azusa Street. These assertions draw attention to questions of methodology, especially the models and conceptual schemes that have been deployed by scholars. Is there any dissonance between what scholars say and what practitioners say, between insider and outsider perspectives, and between how African scholars and others perceive and interpret the movement? Does it matter what various disciplines bring to the interpretation of a complex movement? This series of reflections will briefly summarize the historiography and discursive trends on a movement that is not only reshaping many religious landscapes in the global south but is planting deep roots in the global north.
Origins and Character
Statistical Indices
Before dealing with matters of origin, it is essential to put the shape and flow of African Pentecostalism in perspective and in relation to the total Christian population in Africa. The scholarly literature contains quantitative and non-quantitative indices of vertical growth. David B. Barrett and his research collaborators argue that charismatic and Pentecostal movements in Africa grew from 0 to 17 million from 1900 to 1970, and to 126 million by 2000; since then it has added over 15 million.1 Debates abound about the data and categories used in such statistical calculations. For instance, do the figures include the African Instituted Churches (AIC)?2 Are AIC members Pentecostals? Early studies on African Pentecostalism by scholars such as Walter J. Hollenweger portrayed the AICs as the early Pentecostals. Harvey Cox did not do any field work in Africa and merely followed these other scholars in his Fire From Heaven. Andrew Walls has noted that the two groups, the AIC and Pentecostals, operated with the same map of the universe, though they colored it differently. Allan Anderson intones that they bear a family resemblance. But the insider perspectives by practitioners pay attention to differences. David Maxwell points out...
