The Fivefold Gospel of Yonggi Cho
The impressive growth of Pentecostalism in the Majority World was partly attributable to its enterprising, entrepreneurial local preachers and leaders. The most remarkable growth of a single congregation took place under the ministry of David (earlier, Paul) Yonggi Cho (b. 1936) andhis future mother-in- law Jashil Choi (1915-89). This has parallels to the Word of Faith movement discussed previously but with important contextual differences. In the after- math of the devastating Korean War, Choi began a tent church in a slum area of Seoul in 1958 with five members and Cho as its pastor. In four years this congregation grew to 800 and in 1964 erected a building with seating for 2,000 in the Seodaemun district of Seoul. In 1969 Cho bought property on Yoido, an island on the Han River that is now the business and government center of Seoul. He dedicated a new 10,000-seat auditorium there in 1973, and the Full Gospel Central Church received international attention. The growth of Pentecostalism in Korea became virtually synonymous with the ministry of Cho. By 2000 the Korean Full Gospel (AG) churches had overtaken the Methodists as the second largest Protestant denomination with over a million members. The majority of these were in the Yoido congregation and its satellites, which had become Yoido Full Gospel Church (YFGC) in 1984. Cho became the second chairman of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship in 1992, and YFGC planted churches all over Korea, in Japan, and internationally. By 1993 YFGC reported 700,000 members under 700 pastors and was the largest Christian congregation in the world. When the Full Gospel Church joined the Korean National Council of Churches in 1999, the occasion was the first time any national Assemblies of God organization had entered an ecumenical council. The AG has divided into at least three warring factions, but the largest group consists of those churches associated with YFGC. Cho retired in 2008 and his position as senior pastor was taken by his long-time disciple Young Hoon Lee, who had an earned doctorate from Temple University, Philadelphia. The church began reorganizing, and after granting independence to its many satellite congregations, the number of members of YFGC dropped to less than a quarter of its previous size.1
For pentecostals in different parts of the world, the “freedom in the Spirit” allows them to formulate, often unconsciously, ideologies that have meaning for people in different life situations, and Cho’s ministry is a leading example. Pentecostalism is inherently prone to contextualization: the vibrancy, enthusiasm, spontaneity, and spirituality for which pentecostals are so well known and their willingness to address problems of sickness, poverty, unemployment, loneliness, evil spirits, and sorcery has directly contributed to this growth. As we have seen, the idea of a self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating church has been an important feature of pentecostal missions. “Contextualization” assumes that Christianity is shaped by its particular context and must be so shaped to be meaningful. It relates the Christian message to all social contexts and cultures, especially those undergoing rapid change. Christianity in general and Pentecostalism in particular had taken on a distinctive form in Korea, quite different from that found in the West. Observers who have tried to emphasize the “American” nature of Pentecostalism throughout the world or the “Americanization” of Christianity in Korea and elsewhere often miss the fact that creative innovations and the selective transformation of foreign symbols are constantly occurring. Quite naturally, a synthesizing process takes place as new forms of Christianity like Pentecostalism interact with older religions like Korean shamanism and Buddhism.2
The prayer mountain movement in Korea began in the 1950s and set aside mountains as retreats where Christians gather to pray, both individually and collectively. There are hundreds of Christian prayer retreats all over South Korea, including the prayer mountain of YFGC near the border with North Korea. Mountains as places of spiritual retreat and pilgrimage have been a characteristic of Korean religions for centuries. Beliefs in the mountain as the place to which God descends are not only part of Korean tradition but are also ideas fully at home in the Old Testament. Buddhist temples are usually built on mountainsides, and Korean cemeteries are found on hills outside residential areas. The many mountains of Korea were believed to be places where good spirits lived and where both shamans and ordinary pilgrims would receive power from the particular spirit on each mountain. The prayer mountain movement may be said to be a culturally relevant form of Christian practice that reflects the ancient spirituality of Korean people. Similarly, Korean people suffering from their accumulated grief or han seek healing and “blessings” from shamans to alleviate their deep pain, such as in the years following the Korean War or during the International Monetary Fund crisis in Asia in 1997-98, where South Korea was the country most affected by the economic meltdown. A prominent part of Cho’s message that Korean people readily accepted proclaimed that God brings “blessings” and healings.3
Some scholars suggest that Korean pentecostals in general and YFGC in particular have succeeded because they have combined Christianity with shamanism. Korean Pentecostalism should be interpreted from the categories of a shamanistic culture rather than from historical and theological categories imposed from outside. This idea of a link between Korean Pentecostalism and shamanism has been assumed and perpetuated by Westerners. As Harvey Cox contends, “primal spirituality [is] now surfacing in Korea... [and] underlies the original biblical faith as well,” the main reason for the growth of Pentecostalism in Korea and in other countries of the world. However, the “link” with shamanism should be assessed in a quite different way. It is more appropriate to consider Cho’s Pentecostalism as a contextual form of Korean Christianity interacting with shamanism, for Korean pentecostals justify their practices of healing and doctrine of blessings by referring to the Bible as their prime source. Cho’s reaction to shamanism and his teachings on healing and “threefold blessings” are better viewed within the context of his contact with international Pentecostalism, and must be assessed not only within the internal cultural and religious context of Korea, but also in light of the external influence of globalization. Western scholars may not have reflected enough on the enormous difference between interacting with shamanism (as Korean pentecostals obviously do) and becoming shamanistic. The latter is an untenable position for pentecostals; Cho himself clearly rejects traditional shamanism and says that shamans “serve demons.”4
Consideration must be given to whether Cho’s message has adapted to and transformed its cultural and religious environment. Clearly, Cho himself has wanted to be seen in these terms, although he does not use the word “contextual”:
Being a Korean and having been saved out of the Buddhist religion, I have been able to appreciate the distinctive position of Christians who come from the Third World.... We evangelical Korean Christians have developed our own traditions. This is very important because it makes it possible for us to be Christian without being less Korean. In the past, missionaries not only brought their religion but also their culture to the countries they evangelized. So it became apparent that the new converts lost much of their natural heritage. I believe that this produced an unnecessary hindrance to the acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.5
Nevertheless, Cho does not advocate uncritical use of Korean cultural principles. This is especially apparent in his “revolutionary” use of women leaders. Despite the “male-oriented” Korean culture, Cho took these steps because “God showed me.” The success of Cho’s Pentecostalism should be seen as a response to the influence of the worldview of shamanism that permeates and underlies Korean society. Both Korean Pentecostalism and older Korean religions acknowledge and respond to the world of spirits, as Korean pentecostal scholars have pointed out. Shamanism provides a fertile ground into which the “full gospel” is more easily planted. If pentecostal pastors like Cho sometimes appear to be functioning as “shamans,” it is because they respond to needs arising from a shamanistic world; but, like pentecostals all over the world, they emphatically deny any mixture with traditional religions. Similarly, the dominant conservative Protestant Christianity, with its strict moral law, finds fertile ground in peoples whose cultures are heavily influenced by Confucianism—as is clearly the case in Korean and Chinese societies. Cho often refers to the Confucian background of Korea in a favorable light, and usually points out that Confucianism is not a religion but an ethical system observed by Koreans.6
Cho’s many writings and sermons demonstrate, first, that his “contextual theology” is born in Korean suffering, and second, that Cho has advocated a “pentecostal theology” that is standard classical pentecostal theology worldwide, influenced by healing evangelists like Oral Roberts and years of working with North American Pentecostals. Cho is uncompromising and polemical with regard to the religious background of Korea: his former experience as a “devout Buddhist” could not help him solve his problems, he considered it foreign to the compassion of Christ, and he had known only what he calls “well-organized and sterile Buddhist philosophies and rituals,” which were “theoretically very profound,” but which he refers to as “heathenism” and “doctrines of devils.” Zen Buddhism in particular is singled out for critical treatment, and Cho compares and contrasts it with Holy Spirit “Fourth-Dimensional Christianity.” But at the same time, Cho’s concept of the “fourth dimension” is linked to his familiarity with Eastern religions with their own miraculous powers. He refers to the “evil spirit world” in this “fourth dimension” that is “under the power and authority of almighty God.” Although these ideas have brought serious criticism from evangelical polemicists, Cho carefully maintains the distinction between the Asian religious world and the Christian revelation. But his experience of this Asian religious spirituality and its element of the miraculous has brought him to the understanding of the “fourth dimension,” where visions and dreams are the language and “incubation” or “pregnancy” is the process through which believers receive their requests from God. This “incubation” in the “fourth dimension,” he declares, is also the way that miracles happen in other religions. This particular teaching can only be understood by reference to the Asian pluralistic religious background in which Koreans are immersed.7
While Korean pentecostal scholars appreciate the importance of the ancient religious system to Pentecostalism, they also point out its dangers. The 1950s, when Cho was converted from Buddhism to Christianity and the Full Gospel Central Church was founded in the slums of Seoul, was a traumatic time. That trauma was a very significant part of Cho’s message and the foundation of the theology he developed. He refers to the sufferings created by the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, and his own personal poverty and gradual healing from tuberculosis. This was a time when many were “struggling for existence,” when he identified himself with the hundreds of refugees on the streets and became “one of the hopeless” himself. In the aftermath of the Korean War, when people lost families and businesses, had mental breakdowns, and became “completely possessed by the devil,” his ministry began in a poverty-stricken area where people were not interested in a message about heaven and hell in their daily struggle for survival. His teaching on healing was closely related to this rampant poverty and sickness. His teaching on blessings and prosperity was his “theological counteraction” to the han (accumulated grief) caused by the ravages of the Korean War. For Cho, the message of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit gave hope to a suffering and destitute community.8
His views on poverty are clear, again determined by his context:
Poverty is a curse from Satan. God desires that all His people prosper and be healthy as their soul prospers (3 John 1:2). Yet much of the world has not really seen poverty as I have seen it. Especially in the Third World, people live their lives in despair, struggling to survive for one more day. I am from the Third World. I know first-hand what it is not to have anything to eat.9
Elsewhere he writes that it is because of his “oppressed background” that he has been able “to understand the plight of many oppressed people who have no hope for a future.” Cho’s views on poverty and prosperity come out of his own Korean context. But Cho is also influenced by North American Pentecostalism and is arguably the most influential minister in the AG during the twentieth century. He was trained in the denomination’s Bible school in Seoul, where he received his own experience of “baptism of the Spirit.” Even though he may be regarded in many ways as a theological innovator (one of the reasons his books have been so popular), his theology is unmistakably classical pentecostal. He stresses the importance of being “filled with the Holy Spirit” and speaking in tongues. Cho sees this as an experience subsequent to and distinct from regeneration or conversion, and distinguishes between speaking in tongues as a “sign” and as a “gift.” Like many pentecostals, for him, speaking or praying in tongues is very important. Cho distinguishes between being “filled with” and having “fellowship with” the Spirit, between speaking in tongues and being filled with the Spirit, as the latter results in people having an “overflowing blessing” to share with others. The fellowship with the Holy Spirit for every believer is an important emphasis, and perhaps one of the many theological innovations that tends to give Cho’s theology a pneumatological rather than Christological center. The Holy Spirit is the “Senior Partner” in his ministry, and Cho says that intimacy or communion with the Holy Spirit is “the greatest experience” of his life. Cho’s understanding of evangelism is also pentecostal, motivated by and completely dependent upon the enabling of the Spirit. His preaching is based on the goodness of God, the redemption of Christ, and biblical “principles of success,” so that meeting the personal needs of people is his priority above theology, history, and politics.10
Cho’s teaching on sickness and emphasis on healing is also pentecostal; physical healing is seen as part of Christ’s redemption; sickness is “from the devil” and a “curse”; and all people can be healed. There can be little doubt that healing was probably the strongest feature of his appeal. However, Cho’s emphasis on healing did not emerge only from pentecostal sources, for it was already prominent in the revival movements within Korean Presbyterianism, the dominant Protestant group. The healing Presbyterian preacher Kim Ik Du was particularly effective in drawing large crowds to his mass services in the 1920s and 1930s, where there were claims of 10,000 healed from all sorts of illness and delivered from demons. Cho and other popular Korean preachers from the 1960s onward continued in this tradition. Like most pentecostal preachers, Cho makes extensive use of personal experience or “testimony” to illustrate his theology. This is particularly noticeable on the subject of healing, as Cho often refers to his own sicknesses and healing, and gives testimonies of people healed during his ministry to them. Cho makes much of the experience of being “born again” and all his books have a strong soteriological and Christocentric tone. This holistic view of salvation is one of the reasons the pentecostal message has spread rapidly among people in need. Cho even espouses premillennial eschatology complete with end-time apocalyptic predictions about the union of Europe, the revival of Israel, and anti-Communist rhetoric. In all these emphases, Cho is probably influenced by the ideology of the AG.11
Another innovation in Cho’s teaching is the addition of “threefold blessings” to the fourfold gospel of Jesus the Savior, Healer, Baptizer with the Holy Spirit, and Soon Coming King, making it a “fivefold” gospel. A passage Cho quotes often, a favorite with American “prosperity preachers,” is 3 John 2: “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.” Cho’s message of threefold blessings emerged in the midst of poverty and destitution after the Korean War, and this was to become the foundation of all his preaching and ministry thereafter. The way to receive the threefold blessings is to believe that God is a “good God” and that salvation includes forgiveness of sins, health, and prosperity, intended to bring “overflowing blessings” to those outsiders in contact with believers. The “threefold blessings” doctrine is the most emphasized in all Cho’s writings. The official brochure of YFGC states that the “fivefold message of the Gospel” includes (1) renewal, or “salvation,” expressed in classical pentecostal terms; (2) the fullness of the Spirit; (3) healing, one of the main emphases of Cho’s ministry; (4) blessing, Cho’s addition to the “fourfold” gospel, which is declared to be “an abundant life of blessing which would be enough to share with others”; and (5) the Second Coming of Christ. The “threefold blessings of salvation” are further explained to include “soul prosperity,” “prosperity in all things,” and “a healthy life,” based on 3 John 2. Although this is a clear promise of health and prosperity for believers, Cho writes that happiness does not come from “mere material gain,” but from “solutions to our deep, inner problems,” and he condemns those who think that happiness comes from power and wealth.12
Cho’s theology is also Christocentric, focusing on Jesus Christ and his redemptive work as Savior from sin, sickness, demon possession, poverty, and trouble of every kind. For Cho, “prosperity” cannot be an end in itself, for God blesses his people only so that they may meet the needs of the poor and the needy. Keeping up with the modernization of Korea that occurred from the 1980s onward, Cho adapted to the changing context and also attracted the emerging middle class with his message of overcoming success in all circumstances, including business ventures. Yet Cho condemns modern Western culture with its rapid pace, pleasure-loving activities, and entertainment-centered churches. These things, he declares, hinder people and churches from having “the full blessings of the Lord,” because people need time for prayer (“waiting upon the Lord”), worship, and the preaching of God’s Word, the emphases of Cho’s services. He says that many “traditional churches” in the West have “forgotten the vitality of Christianity and have become dead and sterile.” Pentecostalism has been a world-denying movement that saw the churches of the day as dry, formal, and lifeless, needing to be restored by experiencing the power of God. Some passages in Cho’s writings are very hard to swallow, such as his teaching that in the kingdom of God there is no poverty.13
Those who censure Korean pentecostals for their alleged “shamanism” often fail to see that the practices thought to parallel ancient religions are also found in the biblical record. These pentecostals define their healing and deliverance practices by reference to the Bible rather than to shamanism and see their activities as creative adaptations to the local context. At the same time, pentecostals might need a greater appreciation for the diversity of their cultural and religious past. Demonizing this past does not explain the present attraction of Pentecostalism for peoples deeply influenced by their ancient religions and cultures, even though such a demonization might help in the religious competition that is a feature of pluralist societies. Many pentecostals have found both cultural and biblical alternatives to and adaptations from the practices of their ancient religions and seek to provide answers to the needs inherent in their own context. It is the ability to make these adaptations that has transformed world Christianity in the last century. Healing was the major attraction of Pentecostalism in various parts of the world; and miracles, exorcisms, and “power encounters” became standard pentecostal practices. But these practices did not occur in a vacuum—in most of the world they were conditioned by a context of poverty, marginalization, and despair. These were reasons for the appeal of teachings relating to healing and prosperity in the global South, but there were obviously corresponding dangers.
The 1990s were the decade of the “cell church” in Pentecostalism worldwide, as a direct result of Cho’s pioneering work in the 1970s, and that of Lawrence Kwang in Singapore and the writings of Ralph Neighbour Jr. in the 1980s. The “cell church” strategy with its emphasis on the home cell group as the focus of pastoral care, discipleship, and evangelism is now widely used in pentecostal churches. Cho was one of the first pente- costals to use the cell system to provide care and leadership for what was the world’s largest congregation, making use of thousands of women to lead small groups of church members in relation to both the local community and the church leadership structure. This method is particularly effective in maintaining cohesion in mega-churches.14
Cho has been criticized as being unconcerned with social change and structures of oppression, but his church has extensive social care programs and has been involved in national relief and economic aid for North Korea. This has not received sufficient attention with the controversies about Cho; as Young-gi Hong points out, “Cho’s social ministry does not draw proper recognition compared to its contribution.” Although Minjung theology, a form of Korean liberation theology, has espoused the concerns of the poor and oppressed, it is pentecostal churches like YFGC to which the poor and oppressed have flocked for relief. Ig-Jin Kim has pointed out that the social ethics of Korean Pentecostalism’s “fivefold gospel” is characterized by its transformative nature, so as to transform society. This transformation and participation in the wider society takes many forms, including “relief activities, the saving of souls, the establishing of facilities for social welfare, and the shaping of public opinion through mass media.” The social activities of the Yoido church are extensive and obvious to any casual observer. During my visit to the church in 2002, a cyclone had hit the eastern coast of South Korea causing widespread devastation. Some of the church service that Sunday morning was taken up with Cho describing the relief efforts that were initiated by the church and for which blankets, food, and other relief had been provided by church members.15
As far back as 1982, the church instituted a “Sharing Campaign,” which manages the ongoing distribution of members’ offerings in cash and kind to support an orphanage, a home for senior citizens, slum relief, and provincial churches, low-income households, and a leprosarium, among other ventures. The Elim Welfare Town was begun in 1986 for destitute children and the elderly poor. The church has become well known for the free heart disease operations it finances for needy children in other Asian countries as well as in Korea, both North and South, and over 4,000 children had received surgery under this scheme by 2007. The Full Gospel Medical Center was founded in 2003 and, with more than a thousand voluntary medical personnel among its members, YFGC is carrying out a systematic medical service for the city of Seoul. The church also runs paper recycling, clothing relief, and disaster relief programs. The “Bread of Grace Sharing Campaign” since 1991 has provided relief for those suffering from hunger, disease, and war all over the world, in Bangladesh, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and has sent medical supplies to Guatemala and Chile. In 2008 a Heart Centre in Pyongyang, North Korea was built by the church. A charity established by the church in 1999 called “Good People World Family,” has extensive projects internationally, providing food for needy children in North Korea and China, a hospital, a college for asylum seekers, free ophthalmic clinics including cataract operations, food and medical services for the poor in Seoul’s inner city, and an urban ecological educational park on the banks of the river Han. In addition, various relief, educational, and medical projects are supported by this charity in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and among refugees suffering from the conflict in the Middle East. Cho entered the mass media industry with “Invitation to Happiness,” the first Christian television program in Korea, and the first and only Christian daily newspaper, the Kookmin Daily News, in 1998. This paper offers a Christian perspective on all aspects of Korean society and is a leading supporter of Christian outreach by charitable activities. The church now uses satellite and Internet broadcasts for its services and messages. Upon his formal retirement in 2008 as senior pastor of YFGC, Cho’s emphasis shifted significantly from an involvement of his church in charitable acts to a commitment of himself and his personal resources to an ongoing social ministry. Cho’s ministry among the poor, the opportunities he has given to women leaders, and the social activities of YFGC demonstrate the potential within Pentecostalism to be a force for social transformation.16
Charismatic Churches in Africa
In the 1970s, independent pentecostal churches began to emerge all over Africa, but especially in Nigeria and Ghana, where they permeate every facet of society and are strikingly obvious to every visitor. Many of these vigorous churches were influenced by the Charismatic renewal in the North, the Word of Faith movement, and by established classical pentecos- tal churches in Africa like the Assemblies of God. Largely independent of foreign churches, many of these new churches arose in the context of interdenominational evangelical campus and school Christian organizations, from which young charismatic leaders emerged with significant followings. Most notably commencing in the Scripture Union and the Christian Union in universities and colleges, these groups later became “fellowships” that grew into full-blown denominations often led by former lecturers and teachers. At first they were termed “nondenominational,” but as they expanded they developed denominational structures, “episcopized” prominent leaders, and became international churches. They initially tended to appeal to a younger, more educated, and consequently more Westernized clientele, including young professionals and middle-class urbanites. In leadership structures, theology, and liturgy, these new organizations differ quite markedly from the older churches, including pentecostal ones. Their services are usually emotional and enthusiastic, featuring electronic musical instruments. They publish their own literature, have a prominent media focus, and run their own Bible training centers for preachers (both men and women) to further propagate their message. Many of these churches encourage the planting of new, independent congregations, and make use of schoolrooms, cinemas, community halls, and hotel conference rooms for their meetings. Church leaders travel across the continent and beyond, and some produce glossy booklets and broadcast radio and television programs. They are often linked to wider international networks of independent Charismatic preachers but are by no means dominated by North Americans.17
The new movement has its own momentum in Africa, where hundreds of preachers propagate a gospel of success in impoverished cities. The promotion of the Word of Faith message in Africa has resulted in the rapid growth of a form of Christianity that has appealed especially to the new urbanized generation of Africans. The new Charismatic churches throughout Africa often focus on success and prosperity but share an emphasis on the power of the Spirit with older pentecostals, including many African independent churches. Like classical pentecostals, they teach a personal conversion experience (being “born again”); they advocate long periods of individual and communal prayer, including fasting and prayer retreats, prayer for healing and for individualized problems like unemployment and poverty, deliverance from demons and “the occult” (this term often means traditional beliefs and witchcraft); and they support the use of spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and prophecy. To a lesser or greater degree, these features characterize all these churches, which are also found throughout Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In Africa they are essentially a local initiative, churches instituted by Africans for Africans and almost entirely self-governing, self-propagating, and self-supporting. They seldom have organizational links with any foreign church or denomination, even when they are part of an international network. They try to address the problems faced by Africans, particularly by offering a radical reorientation toward modern, industrial, global society. This new expression of Pentecostalism echoes the popular method of tent evangelism pioneered by North Americans in the 1940s and 1950s and continued with considerable effect by popular South African evangelists Nicholas Bhengu and Richard Ngidi, and later by Nigerian Benson Idahosa and German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. Bonnke has had the greatest impact on these African churches with his Christ for All Nations mass evangelism meetings (given the unfortunate misnomer “crusades”). With crowds of hundreds of thousands in daily attendance, Nigeria has seen the most of Bonnke and his American successor Daniel Kolenda, who now runs most of the mass meetings. Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, has one of the most remarkable pentecostal success stories in the world in recent times. Bonnke is reported to have preached to 6 million Nigerians in Lagos on his return to the country in 2000 after a ten-year ban by a Muslim-dominated Nigerian government for preaching to over a million people in a Muslim stronghold. Kalu observes that the “competing fundamentalisms” and demonization of Islam by Nigerian pentecostals has caused great harm and hindered conflict resolution in this troubled country.18
But in southern Nigeria and Ghana, new pentecostal churches, some of which have international profiles, abound in almost every neighborhood. One of the first and most influential new churches in Africa was the Church of God Mission International of Benson Idahosa (1938-98), founded in 1972. The church had its headquarters in Benin City, where a “Miracle Center” seating over 10,000 was erected in 1975. Thousands flocked there every week. Idahosa, who became one of the best-known preachers in Africa, briefly attended the Christ for the Nations Institute in 1971, an independent pentecostal college in Dallas, Texas. His stay there was short-lived, however, and he returned to Nigeria after three months with an increased “burden” for his people. He began the first of many mass evangelistic crusades for which he was well known and worked closely with Bonnke during the latter’s first mass meetings in Nigeria. Idahosa received considerable financial support from well-known independent Pentecostal preachers in the United States, including his mentor, Gordon Lindsay, the healing evangelist T. L. Osborne, and soon-to-be-jailed televangelist Jim Bakker. Idahosa’s church ran the All Nations for Christ Bible Institute, the most popular and influential Bible school in West Africa at the time, from which hundreds of preachers went out into different parts of the region, often to plant new churches. Idahosa became “bishop” in 1981 and later “archbishop,” titles now used by scores of new church leaders, most without theological qualifications. Idahosa had informal ties with other new churches throughout Africa—especially in Ghana, where he held his first campaign in 1978. As seen in an earlier chapter, after Idahosa’s death in 1998, his wife Margaret Idahosa, who had shared ministry and leadership with her husband since the church began, took his place as head and bishop of the Church of God Mission— later its archbishop. At the time, the church had 300,000 members.19
One of the Nigerian movements, Deeper Life Bible Church, with branches all over Africa and on other continents, had over half a million members in Nigeria only ten years after its founding in 1982 and had become the leading new Nigerian pentecostal denomination. Unlike many of its contemporaries, this is a church with a strict “holiness” rather than a “prosperity” emphasis. William Folorunso Kumuyi (b.1941) was a former education lecturer at the University of Lagos and an Anglican who became a pentecostal in the Apostolic Faith Church. In 1973 he began a weekly interdenominational Bible study group, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, that spread to other parts of Nigeria. The Apostolic Faith expelled him in 1975—possibly for preaching without ordination—and Kumuyi began holding retreats at Easter and Christmas, emphasizing healing and miracles and living a holy life. His followers distributed thousands of free tracts, evangelized, and established Bible study groups all over southwestern Nigeria. The first Sunday service held by Deeper Life was in Lagos in 1982, and the following year Kumuyi sent some of his leading pastors to Yonggi Cho’s church in Seoul, after which a system of “house fellowships” based on the Korean model was instituted. There were 15,000 such fellowships by the end of 1983. Deeper Life emphasizes personal holiness evidenced by rejection of the “world” and the keeping of a strict ethical code—probably evidence of its strong Apostolic Faith roots. The church prides itself in being a wholly African church totally independent of Western links, and here it differs from those churches that regularly promote Western televangelists.20
The most prominent Nigerian pentecostal church in the twenty-first century is the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) led by Enock A. Adeboye (b. 1942), who is a respected leader in Nigerian Christianity and also a former university lecturer with a PhD in mathematics. Founded by Josiah O. Akindayomi (1909-80), the RCCG was an ethnic Yoruba church that had seceded from the Aladura movement Cherubim and Seraphim in 1958. When Akindayomi died in 1980, Adeboye was his designated successor. Adeboye transformed the small Yoruba denomination into a new, multiethnic church that by 2011 was the largest in Nigeria, with meetings in the “Redemption Camp” headquarters that draw more than half a million people every month. The church has spread worldwide wherever Nigerians have migrated and has established large networks of congregations in North America and Britain. In London, the church has some of the largest congregations in the country, including Jesus House in North London. Another prominent Nigerian denomination was started in 1981 by David Oyedepo, a trained architect. Since 2000 this denomination has erected a 50,000 seat auditorium called Faith Tabernacle that is one of the largest church buildings in the world, in an impressive complex of modern buildings at the 300 acre “Canaan Land.” The church has also founded Covenant University and an elite private secondary school on the same premises. Oyedepo, later called Presiding Bishop of Living Faith World Outreach Center, is thought to be Nigeria’s richest preacher, with more than 300 congregations in Nigeria commonly called “Winner’s Chapels” and more than 400 pastors in forty African nations in 2 on.21
Other prominent Nigerian examples among many include the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries founded in 1994 by Daniel Kolawole Olukoya, a medical scientist with a PhD from a British university; Christ Embassy of Chris Oyakhilome; the Household of God of Chris Okotie, three-time unsuccessful Nigerian presidential candidate; and the controversial Synagogue Church of All Nations of Temitope B. Joshua. Joshua had Zambia’s president Frederick Chiluba as his special guest in November 2000, is a personal friend of Ghanaian president Atta Mills, and is widely recognized for his healing powers in other parts of Africa—but in Nigeria his practices are regarded with some suspicion. In 1986 the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) was formed, an ecumenical association incorporating all the various “born again” movements and one of the most influential ecumenical organizations in Nigeria. In 1995, Adeboye was president of the PFN, considered the most powerful voice in the national Christian Association of Nigeria of which it is a part. In 1991, more than 700 churches were registered as members of PFN in Lagos State alone. The PFN sees one of its main tasks as uniting Christians against the perceived danger of the “Islamization” of Nigeria.22
Idahosa’s 1978 crusade in Accra resulted in the subsequent formation of the first independent Charismatic churches in Ghana. Bishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, formerly a member of the Church of Pentecost, is leader of the earliest one, Christian Action Faith Ministries, founded in 1980. Trained at Idahosa’s Bible Institute, Duncan-Williams heads an association called the Council of Charismatic Ministers. Fraternization between the new churches and the Rawlings government in Ghana led to a new church-state alliance, particularly as Duncan-Williams became virtually national chaplain to the regime. The largest Ghanaian Charismatic church is the International Central Gospel Church founded in 1984 by former Anglican Mensa Otabil, probably the Ghanaian Charismatic leader who is best known outside Ghana. Otabil also heads an umbrella organization called Charismatic Ministries Network and in 2000 opened a Christian university, Central University College. Otabil became well known for his brand of black consciousness and preaching that takes him to different parts of Africa. Other leading churches in Ghana include one that took a stand against the Rawlings government, the Lighthouse Chapel International of Dag Heward-Mills (a former medical doctor), the Holy Fire Ministries of Bishop Ofori Twumasi, the Royal House Chapel (formerly International Bible Worship Centre) of Sam Korankye-Ankrah, Victory Bible Church of Nii Tackie-Yarboi, and Fountain Gate Chapel (formerly Broken Yoke Foundation) of Eastwood Anaba. The last is an organization active in the remote and largely rural northeast region of Ghana. The new churches in Ghana also make extensive use of home groups to effectively manage pastoral care.23
These Charismatic churches have spread to several other West African countries, including Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. Bethel World Outreach, founded in 1986 in Monrovia, is another example of the “prosperity” type of church popular in African cities, and in Abidjan a large church organization led by Dion Robert, Eglise Protestante Baptiste Oeuvres et Mission Internationales, claimed over 70,000 members in 1995 and is based on a well-structured home group system. In May 2011 the church was attacked by the new Côte d’Ivoire government because of its perceived support of the previous Gbagbo regime.24
During the 1980s, rapidly growing new Charismatic groups began to emerge in East Africa, where they were sometimes seen as a threat by older churches from whom they often gained members. Some of these new churches were directly affected by Nigerians and Ghanaians, as Idahosa, Oyedepo, Duncan-Williams, and Otabil have traveled extensively in Africa. One of the fastest growing churches in Kenya is the Winners Chapel in Nairobi, which dedicated a building in 1998 for its 3,500-member congregation after only one year of existence. The media advertising hype for the dedication service in Nairobi gushed, “Winners Chapel, Nairobi was built entirely debt free. No loans of bank borrowing and certainly no begging trips to the West!” Winners Chapel in Nairobi was founded by Dayo Olutayo, who was sent from Oyedepo’s church in Nigeria. Olutayo had arrived in Kenya in 1995 and in 2011 another Nigerian, David Adeoye had become the senior pastor. By this time the denomination had expanded rapidly, with some seventy branches throughout Kenya.25
Uganda, dominated by Catholic and Anglican missions over the past century, has been fertile ground for new churches since its emergence from repressive dictatorships in the late 1980s. Paul Gifford speaks of “homegrown pentecostal churches... mushrooming in luxuriant fashion” in Uganda. Three of the largest in Kampala are the Watoto Church (formerly Kampala Pentecostal Church), an English-language church founded by a white Zimbabwean, Gary Skinner in 1983, with 20,000 members; Namirembe Christian Fellowship founded by Simeon Kayiwa, a preacher known for his healing and miracle ministry; and the Christian Life Church founded by Jackson Senyonga. The new churches in East Africa follow the emphasis of the East African Revival of a personal experience of God through being “born again,” to which they add the pentecostal emphasis on the power of the Spirit manifested in healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and deliverance from demons, manifestations that the East African Revival later discouraged. It was this that brought tension with the inheritors of the Revival legacy, the Anglicans, and added to the impetus behind the new churches. In Malawi, young preachers in Blantyre in the 1970s propagated a “born again” message in their revival meetings that at first did not always result in the formation of new churches, but by the 1980s the pattern elsewhere in Africa was emerging and the revival meetings had developed into “ministries” and “fellowships,” and inevitably some were further institutionalized into new churches. One of the largest of these was the Living Water Church founded by Stanley Ndovie in 1985. As elsewhere, these Malawian movements focused on young people in schools, colleges, and universities. President Frederick Chiluba (1943-2011), a “born again” Christian with a pentecostal experience, declared Zambia a “Christian nation” two months after his landslide election victory in 1991. He appointed “born again” Christians to government posts, and regularly promoted pentecostal evangelistic crusades and conventions, where he is sometimes featured as a preacher. His vice-president Godfrey Miyanda attended a pentecostal church, the Jesus Worship Center led by Ernest Chelelwa. Pentecostal churches are now in abundance in Zambia and the charismatic movement has split some “mainline” churches. A leading preacher in the 1990s who since entered political and diplomatic service, Nevers Mumba, founded Victory Faith Ministries in 1985 and is another product of Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas.26
One of the largest denominations in Zimbabwe is the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (popularly called Zaoga, pronounced “za-oh-ja”), a church with roots in South African Pentecostalism. Zaoga was born in urban areas of Zimbabwe and is led by Archbishop Ezekiel Guti (b.1923). In 1959, Guti and a group of young African pastors were expelled from the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM) after a disagreement with white missionaries. The group joined the South African Assemblies of God of Nicholas Bhengu but separated in 1967 to form the Assemblies of God, Africa (later Zaoga). Guti went to Christ for the Nations Institute in 1971 just as Idahosa had done, and he too received financial and other resources from the United States. But Guti resists any attempts to identify his church with the “religious right” in the United States or to be controlled by “neo-colonial” interests. In a very pertinent development in 1986, leaders of twelve of the largest pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe, including Guti, wrote a “blistering rebuttal” to a right-wing attack on the Zimbabwean state by a North American Charismatic preacher. Since 1986, Zaoga has also begun churches in Britain, Zimbabwean missionaries went to South Africa to plant churches there in 1989, and the church also has branches in seventeen other African countries called “Forward in Faith.” Zaoga is a fully fledged denomination with complex administrative structures headed by Guti. By 2011 it claimed to have over 2 million members, which if true (and the figure is much disputed) makes it the largest denomination in Zimbabwe after the Roman Catholics. Guti’s leadership style and expensive overseas trips were contentious issues, as were the lifestyles of some of his more powerful pastors; also, the links between Zaoga and the Mugabe government have been contentious. The denomination has experienced various splits, one of the earliest led by Guti’s co-founder, Abel Sande. There are several other large pentecostal churches with branches throughout Zimbabwe, such as the Family of God founded by Andrew Wutawunashe and the Glad Tidings Fellowship of Richmond Chiudza.27
One of the largest single Christian congregations in South Africa is the Grace Bible Church led by Mosa Sono in Soweto, with over 10,000 members in 2010. This church has planted new congregations in some major urban areas, including a poverty-stricken informal settlement area. Sono, born in Soweto in 1961, grew up in the Dutch Reformed Church and attended the AFM Bible college in Soshanguve before leaving to attend white charismatic leader Ray McCauley’s Rhema Bible Training Centre near Johannesburg. He formed Grace Bible Church in 1984; in 1996 he became vice-president of the International Federation of Christian Churches, the formerly white-dominated and largest association of charismatic churches in Southern Africa, whose honorary president is McCauley. Sono is now executive chairman of this organization. McCauley’s original inspiration and training came from Kenneth Hagin, but in spite of this association, Sono is more cautious and has repeatedly sought to distance himself from prosperity teaching and Western, white domination, his stance having had a positive influence on McCauley.28
In the closing years of South African apartheid, I researched the participation of pentecostals and members of African independent churches in political affairs. The African National Congress, a party with socialist leanings, would have won a free election there at the time of this survey in 1990-91, and Nelson Mandela was the most popular political leader— the 1994 elections would bear this out. It was mistakenly thought that pentecostals were “apolitical” or even “anti-political,” but this was not true even among white pentecostals in South Africa, who were often among the most politically conservative, sometimes overtly supporting white supremacy organizations. The political awareness among African pentecostals did not differ perceptibly from that of the overall population: 43 percent of pentecostals would have voted for Nelson Mandela and the ANC in 1991, compared to 47 percent of the survey respondents. There was no clearly discernible pattern linking one or another church with a particular political stance. Some pentecostals were concerned at the seeming lack of political awareness in their church, and especially among their pastors.
One member felt that Christians should involve themselves in political affairs so that a just government could be established based on the laws of God. Most believed that Christians alone had the answers to bring peace and security to the land, and the ANC was the best government to bring this about. If they stuck to the principles of the 1912 Freedom Charter then the country would be in safe hands. Pentecostals felt that by allowing Christians to participate in political activity, the church was thereby able to exert its influence on the world.
A number of pentecostals are involved formally in South African politics. One of the most prominent is Kenneth Meshoe (b. 1954), who has been a member of the South African Parliament since the elections of 1994 and president of the African Christian Democratic Party. This party polled enough votes in the 1999 elections to gain seven members in the proportionate representation parliament. Meshoe also pastors the Hope of Glory Tabernacle and was an evangelist in Bonnke’s Christ for All Nations (CfAN) organization for ten years. The director general of the Office of the President under former president Thabo Mbeki, Frank Chikane (b. 1951), is an AFM pastor who became vice-president of the AFM and later president of the AFM International. Chikane remains a person of considerable influence in South Africa and is well placed to speak on behalf of South Africa’s large Christian constituency. Since the fall of Mbeki in 2008, his strong influence with the ruling ANC hierarchy has declined, but he continues personal contact with church leaders and politicians across the board. He has the unique distinction of having been general secretary of the South African Council of Churches during apartheid’s final years, the only pentecostal to have occupied that position.29
Asamoah-Gyadu thinks that one of the basic differences between the older African churches and the new ones lies in the “the démocratisation of charisma”—that in the older “spiritual” churches “members are the clients of the prophets who may be the custodians of powers to overcome the ills of life,” but in the new churches “each believer is empowered through the baptism of the Holy Spirit to overcome them.” This might be somewhat idealistic, for in the spiritual churches, too, provision is made for any person to become a prophet and therefore to be a custodian of spiritual power. Some of the new churches certainly do move in the direction of single, dominant leaders who are custodians of power—the difference is disappearing with the passing of time. Methods employed by the new churches to propagate their faith are very similar to those used by other pentecostals, but a particular feature of African churches is an emphasis on deliverance from a whole host of demonic forces, most of which are identified with traditional deities and “ancestral curses.” Access to modern communications has resulted in the popularization of independent Pentecostal “televangelists” from the West, several of whom make regular visits to Africa and broadcast their own television programs there. The strategies employed by these new churches are subject to criticism and leave many ethical questions, but have promoted a form of Christianity that has appealed especially to urban African youth.30
The phenomenon of growing pentecostal churches indicates that there are unresolved questions facing the church, such as the role of “success” and “prosperity” in God’s economy; enjoying God’s gifts, including healing and material provision; and the holistic dimension of “salvation now.” Many African pentecostals see financial success and prosperity as evidence of the blessing of God and the reward for faith in difficult financial circumstances. However, this “prosperity” is also seen as the means for advancing the work of God and for the ability to give generously to the needy. The “here-and-now” problems being addressed by these churches are problems that still challenge the church as a whole.31
One Nigerian preacher in the United States put it like this:
We live in rather difficult times; dreams are constantly being dashed against the rocks of adversity. People desperately need to know that things will get better.... We preach that there is hope for tomorrow beyond yesterday’s failure.... We preach that miracles still happen!
God still fixes shattered lives. Often, the only thing that prevents a suicide from taking place is one word of hope or comfort. This message of hope transcends race, culture, class and creed. Everybody needs hope. A church that preaches a message that gives people hope, encouragement and healing will never lack for attendance.32
The remarkable global growth of Pentecostalism in the midst of incredible economic, political, and natural adversity in Africa, and the corresponding decline in membership among older churches means that there might be something that pentecostals are doing from which other Christians can learn. What is happening in Africa is happening throughout the Majority World, with new pentecostal mega-churches springing up wherever large cities and relative religious freedom are to be found.
Charismatic Churches in India.
Pentecostalism is now found all over India. Its controversial growth in North India’s Hindu heartlands in the latter part of the twentieth century has come about largely through the work of South Indians, some of whom have attracted Western funding but not control. Scores of graduates from South Indian pentecostal theological colleges are sent out annually to plant churches in North India. Not all independent churches are pentecostal and founded by South Indians. One of the most prominent ones, simply called the Assemblies, was founded by Bakht Singh (1903-2000), a Sikh from Punjab whose impact was greatest in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh, where he established his headquarters. Bhakt Singh was clearly not pentecostal but was a prominent evangelical leader who for six decades engaged in aggressive evangelism, prayer for healing and deliverance, and church planting. There are several recent examples of Indian evangelicals causing concern for Hindu extremists as the rate of conversion rises. Some Indian websites try to expose these organizations, one questioning the “efficacy of the pernicious and enormously well-funded missions to proselytise the marginalised sections of Indians”—referring to the propensity of these new churches to convert so-called Tribals and Dalits. The Believers’ Church, founded by K. P. Johannan in 1993 and now with episcopal governance, started fifteen years earlier as a pentecostal missionary society called Gospel for Asia. This organization has expanded rapidly and runs Bible Colleges across India training preachers to plant churches.33
In Udaipur, Rajasthan, the Filadeffia Fellowship Church of India (FFCI) runs the Filadeffia Bible College, with some 120 students and staff with PhDs in theology from British universities. FFCI was founded by Thomas Mathews (1944-2005) in Kerala, where his parents, who were of Syrian Christian background, had become members of the I PC. It is now the largest pentecostal church in Rajasthan. After a dramatic rescue from drowning, Mathews attended a four-month course at Shalom Bible School in Kottayam, where he met a pioneering IPC missionary to Rajasthan, K. V. Philip (c.1935-79), who impressed on Mathews the needs of this state considered backward and hostile to Christianity. In 1963, at the age of nineteen, he left Kerala to be an independent missionary in Rajasthan, confronting an unfamiliar culture and language. Although there had been pentecostals in this state before the 1960s and K. E. Abraham had preached there in 1944, South Indians advanced the growth of Pentecostalism significantly. After K. V. Philip, Mathews was the second South Indian pentecostal missionary to settle there permanently. Both Philip and Mathews had attended the IPC’s Shalom Bible School and worked together initially, at first holding meetings in Banaswara. Philip, who arrived in 1960, moved to Jodhpur and founded an IPC congregation. Mathews married Mary, a student of K. E. Abraham, in Kerala in 1966 and they established an independent congregation in Udaipur called the Rajasthan Pentecostal Church. In 1977 they started a press to print Bible studies and devotional books in Hindi, and a regular magazine called Cross el Crown. By this time there were several outlying village congregations associated with the Udaipur church, and in 1979 Mathews founded the Native Missionary Movement. The Filadelfia Bible College started in Songadh, Gujarat, in 1981, moving to Udaipur the following year and into a new, much larger property in 1985; this structure now also houses a secondary school and (following the purchase of an adjacent property) a primary school. All these projects were financed on a shoestring budget “by faith” with the help of Indian believers and Indians who had migrated to the West. Mathews himself completed a PhD in English literature at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, writing a thesis on John Milton. By 2000, FFCI had about 750 congregations in ten states of India, the great majority of members being Tribals (especially Bhils). Although Thomas Mathews died prematurely five years later, the denomination was well organized and continued to grow. By 2011 there were an estimated 1,400 congregations with over 300,000 members in sixteen Indian states as well as Bhutan and Nepal. Various community projects including orphanages, schools, medical clinics, and vocational training facilities were established in places where FFCI operated. In November 2009, I attended FFCI’s annual Navapur Convention in rural Maharashtra, one of the largest gatherings of Christians in North India, where some 30,000 local people, pastors, and college students had assembled for a week of preaching, prayer, and worship. About forty college graduates were commissioned there, most to establish new congregations throughout North India.34
I have attempted to steer a path through a maze of enterprising personalities and events that have transformed the shape of contemporary Christianity. Most countries of the world have been affected profoundly by this explosion of Charismatic Christianity. The only exceptions are in those mainly Islamic countries with religious monopolies where religion and state exist in alliance, and in the few remaining vestiges of atheistic Communism—but even here, China is en route to having the most evangelical and pentecostal Christians in the world and may already have them. The patterns established by the new churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have become paradigmatic of Pentecostalism in the twenty-first century. Charismatic Christianity today is full of religious entrepreneurs who, like their predecessors in early Pentecostalism, are on a mission to take their message to as many people as possible. They declare a call from God and have an uncanny ability to communicate with and in some cases, manipulate crowds of people. These preachers are stage actors par excellence. Their message of hope and faith attracts the crowds who give of their substance and enable the enterprise to succeed; in countries like Nigeria, Charismatic leaders are among the wealthiest people in the nation. The successive “waves” of revivalist movements where new “moves” and revelations of the Spirit are promoted and where new charismatic preachers and religious entrepreneurs emerge are seemingly unstoppable.