This article proposes an interdisciplinary conversation about paradigm shifts within the context of migration and xenophobia along the US–Mexico border. Data in church documents, periodical reports, testimonials, life histories, congregational records, and hymnody compel a rethinking of received notions of early Pentecostals as socially or politically disengaged, and provide a historical corrective to contemporary social scientific studies of Latino/Latin American Pentecostalism.

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship of specific socialization of Godly Love measures and the Pentecostal spirituality measure of the experience of Spirit Baptism on benevolent action, while controlling for the background variables of gender, age and education. The socialization factors are reference group, significant other, Christian media, personal agency and perception of direct encounter with God. Benevolent action is measures in the giving of time and money (intensity) and the extent to which it is distributed to friends and family and to the community and beyond (extensity). Data was provided from a congregational questionnaire survey among Sunday morning attendees in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) denomination in the USA. The results show that socialization factors (reference group, significant other, Christian media) do predict the extensity measures of benevolence and that personal agency is a predictor of the intensity (giving money) as well as the extensity measures (family and friend, community and beyond). Spirit Baptism is a predictor for one extensity measure (friends and family) but otherwise is insignificant. Age is a predictor of both intensity (giving of money) and extensity (family and friends, community and beyond), while education is a predictor of intensity (giving of money). Gender is insignificant.

This article examines Pentecostal responses to street children and youth in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. It begins by exploring the concept of the family in the West African context. It then considers the causes of the street children phenomenon and the experience of living on the ‘street’. Thirdly, it looks at the way street children are portrayed and how this influences institutional responses, including Pentecostal initiatives in Lagos. Finally, it examines the influence of theological orientation, organizational culture, and conceptions of the family on Pentecostal responses to street children in Lagos. It suggests that Pentecostal beliefs, values and experiences are a rich source of spiritual capital capable of energizing altruistic behavior towards others. Furthermore, Pentecostal churches, in their capacity as surrogate extended families, and their combination of strong leadership and a highly active laity, are especially effectiveness in mobilizing members to engage in social welfare initiatives.

Reviewed by Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer, Universität Bielefeld, Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft, Philosophie und Theologie der Universität Bielefeld. E-mail: Heinrich.Schaefer@uni-bielefeld.de / Adrián Tovar, Universität Bielefeld. E-mail: atovar@uni-bielefeld.de

The “Conversion Careers” research proposal had as central question: In their operating on the religious market, what is the culture politics followed by Pentecostal churches and how is this connected with their members’ conversion careers? Five qualitative research projects explored this question on four continents, studying Brazilian forms of Pentecostalism in Mozambique, Korean Pentecostalism in Japan, immigrant Pentecostalisms in the Netherlands, non-denominational Pentecostalisms in the Netherlands, and Protestant and Roman Catholic forms of Pentecostalism in Nicaragua. This article presents results for the comparative themes of time, space and mobility. In this context it also addresses culture politics, organizational structure, church cells, church leadership, church growth, and the use of modern mass media in Pentecostal evangelization worldwide.

When religious seekers in Eurasia choose to turn away from historically national denominations and join faith-based communities perceived as non-traditional and “foreign” there are important implications. Such conversions challenge the historic norm in this region of the world of a symbiotic connection among religion, nation and state, which trades on the idea that particular cultures and religious affiliations are anchored in specific places. In contrast, Pentecostal communities embrace mobility in all its guises – desired, actual and social – and enjoin converts to communities that operate on local and transnational levels. They foster practices, values and identities embedded in “travelling cultures,” a concept I borrow from James Clifford (1997), that bypass the nation and deterritorialize identity and culture. Travelling cultures are spawned by movement, but they do not result in diasporas. Rather, they produce transnational deterritorialized forms of sociality that impart new knowledges and experiences by conveying cultural patterns that move along routes of exchange. Although Clifford focuses on such forms of movement as immigration, trade and tourism, I highlight the role of missionizing and displacement among Pentecostals here as a means to forge travelling cultures. The global communities that Pentecostal organizations are creating cater to the mobile self by offering “travelling cultures” and multiple layers of belonging – local, national, and global - and this inspires conversion and helps to explain the appeal of Pentecostalism after the collapse of socialism.