Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-72).

Within the field of international development there has in recent years been an emerging interest to explore how secular and faith-based modes of development may interact. Yet there remains a considerable knowledge gap in how religious values, believes and practices may challenge, accommodate or complement secular development agendas. Against this backdrop, this thesis aims to make a small contribution to move our understanding onwards. Based on fieldwork in Apam, Ghana, my project illustrates how an individual may navigate between Pentecostal ideology, secular development discourse, and traditional believes and practices in contemporary Africa. More specifically, I employ theoretical insights from the anthropology of ethics to analyse how a young Christian man constructs his ethical identity while aspiring to shoulder the headship of his family, and being a promotor for gender equality and women empowerment in his community.

This thesis critically evaluates the experiential missionary practice of Breakthrough International (BCI), an African charismatic Church, from a perspective of Missio Dei, a modem paradigm of mission conceptualized by ecumenical missiology. BCI, within its African world view, where the spiritual is tangibly real, has grown out of its experience of the Spirit, the divine principle of origin and normal experience of faith. Theological academic discourse, bound to an enlightenment concept of truth within a modem Cartesian world view, can reasonably access and evaluate BCl's experience of the divine as proper source for theological discourse through BCl's narrative. Missio Dei, a response to the old church centered paradigm of mission, redefines mission as an activity of God, in which the mission centered church participates. God's mission unfolds in (post)modern history transformed through Christ's coming to an eschatological reality. It is realized as such by the local congregation in (post)secular times, acknowledging God's preferential option for the poor and aims to humanize and liberate the world. God's mission is mediated through culture, and through contextualization creates a polycentric cultural identity of the gospel modeled after Christ's incarnation. It is in as much contextual as it is culture critical. BCI resembles Missio Dei in a very limited fashion. The difference in world views, and its focus on personal experience, creates an uncritical paradigm of mission aiming to save the believer not the world. With little regard for the history of mission BCI wants to rewrite personal (hi)story without involving itself in world history imposing a spiritual agenda upon the world from the perspective of those who are victimized by history. Though it represents the poor it doesn't grasp Christ's incarnation and its implications for an understanding of the struggle of the poor as an issue of theology proper. Poverty is spiritualized to a matter of personal piety. BCI does not appreciate the contextuality of the gospel but understanding it as above culture. It creates a Christian subculture in limited corrilliunion with the church universal, very reluctant to involve itself in the public domain. Our dialogue with BCl's narrative form of theology acknowledges that modem, ecumenical missiology needs to rediscover the experience of the Spirit as source of mission; yet BCI needs to develop a theology which makes use of scripture, tradition, and reason in order to find a broader and sustainable understanding of its experience of the divine. As required by university regulations, I hereby state unambiguously that this study, unless specifically indicated to the contrary in the text, is my own original work. In accordance with the regulations of the University I request to take note that this thesis exceeds the recommended length for a doctoral dissertation. This has been unavoidable since the central question of this study deals with the experience of the Spirit in an African world view and assesses this experience from a modem Cartesian academic world view with special reference to Missio Dei. I have spelled out in detail (cf. pages 11-15 "The plan of the thesis") how incompatible those two world views are and that this incompatibility requires an intensive discussions with respect to the central issues of this thesis (especially Epistemology and Missio Dei). I therefore request the reader to bear with me as I try to move through the problems posed by the complexity of the main question. / Thesis (Ph.D)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

<p>This dissertation examines the recent influx of Pentecostal-charismatic churches into the Northern Region of Ghana, a rural, underdeveloped region whose predominantly Muslim population has increasingly become the target of evangelistic efforts undertaken by Christians from the south. Based on ethnographic and archival research, my study considers the locus of this incursion as a densely layered zone of anxieties and emergences, desires and contestations, in which the elaboration of novel horizons of sensibility and experience is refracted through the vicissitudes of the region's social, economic, religious, and political history. I argue that the churches' impassioned campaign to "take back the north for the Lord" - a campaign whose exemplary medium is the evangelistic crusade in which "signs and wonders" are mobilized as particularly potent technologies of conversion - demarcates a complex field of intervention animated by a plurality of forces irreducible to those of strictly religious provenance. An ethos of progress and success fostered by the country's development apparatus; the longstanding prejudices surrounding northerners and "the north" in the Ghanaian national imaginary; the specter of a Muslim threat that surfaces in a post-9/11 world and perpetuates amidst a global war on terror - these are among the contingencies that have come together to render this encounter possible. Yet, far from simply overlaying these historical-political logics with the veneer of Christian discourse, my work charts the dissemination of a faith whereby, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, converts are anointed with a power to conceive themselves and, by extension, the world as nothing less than a totally "new creation." I contend that such practices of salvation, so characteristic of Pentecostalism's proliferation across the continent as a whole, are being recast in ways both subtle and sensational by their transposition into the allegedly pathological space of northern Ghana - as are, I suggest, the lives of the men and women who inhabit it.</p> / Dissertation

According to Census Canada, after eight decades of consistent growth Canadian Pentecostal affiliation reached an all-time high of 436,435 individuals in 1991. A decade later, the results of the 2001 Canadian census revealed that Pentecostalism underwent a precipitous 15.3 percent, or 66,969 affiliate, decline—the first in Canadian Pentecostal history. Scholars of religion assumed that this decline in affiliation represented an actual decrease in the number of Canadian Pentecostal adherents. Drawing on 42 personal interviews, 158 survey responses, content analysis of material culture, and one year of participant observation within three Canadian Pentecostal congregations located in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, I provide an alternative interpretation of the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation that pays closer attention to both the data contained in the census as well as important changes in religious culture that have occurred at the congregational level. I demonstrate how the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation recorded by Census Canada does not alone provide adequate evidence to claim that Pentecostal adherents abandoned their congregations at a rate of more than 15 percent in the decade between 1991 and 2001. Instead, I argue that this decrease in affiliation can be explained by the fact that Canadian Pentecostals have experienced a transformation of religious identity, belief, and practice from traditionally Pentecostal to generically evangelical categories significant enough to be detected by the census. When asked, for instance, to describe their religious affiliation, 86 percent of interview participants in this study chose a generically evangelical or Christian moniker rather than the term “Pentecostal.” This means that just 14 percent of interview participants would have been recorded as Pentecostal if they answered in a similar way on the census instrument. The significant proportion of the participants in this study that did not identify, believe, or behave the way that Canadian Pentecostals did just a few decades earlier, I believe, helps explain the dramatic, if misleading, 2001 census results.

Sustainability has become a prominent global project through which peoples and nations are seeking to alleviate poverty and stop environmental degradation. This thesis explores the contribution that Pentecostalism, a global religious movement of some 500 million people, can make to this project at the several levels of practice, political economy and philosophy. After an initial chapter where the challenges and dimensions of the sustainability project are outlined, the development and characteristics of Pentecostalism as a dynamic global movement are reviewed. This sets the context for a central empirical case study of Citipointe Christian Outreach Centre (a Pentecostal megachurch in Brisbane, Australia). Survey data, content analysis of sermons, and in depth interviews show how one particular congregation is engaging with the social, economic and environmental issues of sustainability. I conclude that although Citipointe’s engagement with sustainability issues at a practical level is weak, their demonstrated commitment to community building and the congregation’s shared worldview indicate potential for a more constructive engagement. In light of global Pentecostal praxis I suggest that Pentecostalism holds greater potential to engage with sustainability than is being realised at Citipointe. This thesis contributes to our understanding of how and why Pentecostals are already engaging in social, economic and environmental issues. More broadly, it develops our understanding of the role Pentecostal Christianity can play in sustainability. This thesis proposes that while Pentecostalism can contribute to sustainability at the level of practice, it can make a deeper contribution by addressing the worldview challenge of sustainability. Pentecostal Christianity does this because it can keep the sustainability discourse open to a wider discussion about God, truth and the purpose of life, rather than limit it to matters of science, technology and public policy.

Thesis (M.A.R.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-86).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1997. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 381-406).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.(Th.))--Acadia University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.