Interpreting Pentecostalism and the Changing Religious Landscape in Africa

This chapter attempts an overview of Pentecostalism within the context of African Christianity, highlighting the direction of scholarship in the field and some of the thematic issues. Within this broad overview, I submit that the successes of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches in Africa have been due majorly to their ability to simplify the complexities of modern life in such a way that everyone connected to the religion succeeds in negotiating and finding answers to existential issues of life and problems of modern urban life caused by social dislocation and the failure of a centralised state. Hence, the transformative power of Pentecostalism in Africa is due to its presentation as an alternative centre of power to solving human needs. The chapter privileges the reflections of African scholars in these diverse interpretations of Pentecostalism in African Christianity.