Dominant narratives assert the explosive growth of Pentecostalism, marking its status as ‘the fastest growing religious movement in the contemporary world’, if not in history, as Hefner, among others, has shown (The Unexpected Modern, 2013). This apparent ‘tsunami’ makes it all the more imperative for scholars and citizens to understand its contours, variations, complexities, affinities and impact. Through Devaka Premawardhana's insightful, empirically rich and theoretically compelling analysis in Faith in Flux, we have an opportunity to not only understand Pentecostalism's undulations, but to question the real essence of Pentecostalism's global growth.
Mozambique's north typifies a highly rural population, with religious diversity spanning Islam, Christianity, traditional ceremonies, and encompassing heterogeneity within Christian denominations, indicative of the presence of Pentecostalism and the possibility of conversion(s). In this zone, Pentecostalism exists, but is not growing or thriving. Many have converted in and experienced a strong resonance with the faith, but have just as easily left the church and moved on to other belongings. Premawardhana's core argument is that joining and leaving Pentecostalism is a continuation of the Makhuwa disposition toward existential mobility, an imperative to feel that life is progression with direction. Thus ‘the Makhuwa are disposed toward transformative, mobile practices prior to encountering Pentecostalism, and thus converting to Pentecostalism is consistent with staying Makhuwa’ (156). Mobility is seen as historically rooted and conversion is a contemporary expression of selfhood (24). This tendency aligns with seeing the human as several rather than singular, and shifting rather than settled.
The analysis also contributes to a critique of Pentecostal discourse as rupture. However much the religious message may call for a concrete break, ‘through change, continuity abides’ (142). The book offers a grounded and sophisticated case for exploring how religious exposures, while agents of potential change, sustain what came prior even while supplanting it in some forms.
The focus on physical and temporal mobility comes out of the practices observed. And this spatial conversion as movement, migration, and leaving one space and entering another is not unique to religion, as Premawardhana astutely notes. Thus, the book deals with conversion as coming and going. Yet there are multiple types of fluidity and mobility in religious entry and exit. Another form is simultaneous pluralism and belonging; pluralism within a moment and space. Premawardhana gives less evidence of this, encountering followers who are largely either in or out at any given moment in time. Yet many forms of religious pluralism include multiple exposures and belongings that are not in tension with one's own conception of religious identity. Research in Kenya and South Africa by McClendon & Riedl (From Pews to Politics, Cambridge University Press 2019) and van Wyk (The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa, Cambridge University Press 2014) finds evidence of temporal churn but endurance of multiple practices also simultaneously exists. This type of pluralism does not make the depth of followers’ engagement in Pentecostalism any less profound, while attending diverse forms of Christian worship with friends and family. As the Comaroffs have profoundly stated, ‘Not all who convert to Christianity convert to the Christian idea of conversion’ (Of Revelation and Revolution, University of Chicago Press 1991). Related, Chapter 6 – ‘Moved by the Spirit’ – takes up the salient question of what difference this form of Christianity makes for those who engage it. The argument here is that Pentecostalism is better seen as restaging without displacing the Makhuwa propensity for ongoing change. Here too the question of temporality is important. We should not assume that only the longer-lasting church members suggest an answer to this question of what difference Pentecostalism's particularities make. Rather, short-term and long-term, singular or multiple belongings can all have an impact through exposures to ideas, messages and practice.
This excellent and provocative analysis of ambivalence toward Pentecostalism, despite strong resonance, provides a check on the global exponential growth story. It demonstrates that Pentecostalism itself offers a doctrine suited to individual transformation, experimentation, and mobility, which can be at the heart of right practice. The extensions to migrations of other types (circular urban-rural migrations) and conversions are ripe, and Faith in Flux provides a robust model for brilliant execution.
