In the wake of each election, political analysts pore over polls for clues about how conservative Christians voted, especially evangelicals – and the 2022 midterms aren’t any exception. But these discussions often overlook a gaggle with an increasingly necessary role in national politics: Pentecostals, evangelicals’ theological cousins.
In summer 2022, Pentecostal Congresswoman Mayra Flores flipped her 84% Hispanic south Texas district to the Republican Party for the primary time in over 150 years. On the midterm campaign trail, numerous Pentecostal-leaning preachers stumped for GOP candidates.
Though Pentecostals are diverse, all share an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, or God’s presence of their lives. Yet this also results in disagreement inside the movement about what they consider the Holy Spirit empowers them to do in the true world, especially in activism and politics.
From an LA church to the world
For well over 100 years, one thing that has defined Pentecostalism for insiders and outsiders alike has been “charismata,” or “spiritual gifts.” These are special abilities comparable to speaking in tongues or performing healings and exorcisms that Pentecostals consider are the Holy Spirit working through them.
Pentecostalism within the U.S. emerged from various streams of thought, but it surely largely stems from two traditions: the late-Nineteenth century “Holiness movement,” which was based in evangelical Methodist teachings, and African American religious practices.
Two preachers particularly played necessary roles in disseminating the Pentecostal message within the early twentieth century: Charles Parham and William Seymour. Seymour founded the Azusa Street Revival, a series of non secular gatherings in Los Angeles that launched the movement’s rapid global growth. Worldwide Pentecostal denominations are headquartered in places as far apart as Beijing; Lagos, Nigeria; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Sydney.
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Pentecostalism is a movement, not a selected denomination, and adherents don’t ascribe to at least one shared set of beliefs. Thus, accurate numbers will be hard to come back by. But in accordance with national studies from 2007 and 2014, about 4.5% of U.S. adults are members of Pentecostal denominations. In addition, Pentecostals will be present in a wide range of other churches, from nondenominational congregations to Charismatic Catholic groups that embrace the thought of spiritual gifts.
Stories of the Holy Spirit
Pentecostal preaching is usually based on storytelling, using worshippers’ testimonies of miracles and the way they consider the Holy Spirit has supported their lives.
Pentecostal churches also put particular emphasis on the Acts of the Apostles: the fifth book of the New Testament, also called the Book of Acts. Unlike the 4 gospels, which describe Jesus’ mission, Acts tells the story of his early followers, who’re a powerful inspiration for Pentecostals today.
In fact, Pentecostalism even derives its name from events within the Book of Acts. According to the biblical narrative, Jesus’ followers had gathered together throughout the feast of Pentecost when suddenly they were full of the Holy Spirit, wrought miracles, and will speak in tongues.
Channeling God’s power for the great of others
Many early Pentecostals took inspiration from the Book of Acts’ descriptions of the first-century church and sought to recreate it in their very own communities. For example, since early Christians had shared resources and provided aid for widows, some Pentecostals believed that the Holy Spirit could empower them to hunt modern social justice.
Collective motion led African American Pentecostals to support the Baptist Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. throughout the sanitation staff’ strike in Memphis, Tennessee, and to propel the civil rights movement forward. King delivered his famous “Mountain Top” speech – the last before his assassination – on the headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the biggest Pentecostal denomination within the U.S.
Other Pentecostals are more concerned with how the spirit empowers them personally to beat individual struggles against sin, somewhat than institutional or societal problems like exploitative labor or food insecurity.
Common cause with evangelicals
In its early years, Pentecostalism mainly drew worshippers from the lower and dealing classes. During the economic boom after World War II, nonetheless, many congregations grew wealthier, and Pentecostals began to deemphasize practices comparable to exorcisms, speaking in tongues and strict modesty standards. Many scholars have regarded this shift as a bid for respectability and acceptance into the broader world of American evangelicals, who, like mainline Protestants, often looked down on Pentecostals as uneducated.
To some extent, it worked. By the ultimate quarter of the twentieth century, Pentecostals were starting to experience power in national politics. To be certain, African American and Latino Pentecostals have a protracted history of grassroots political mobilization on issues like labor and immigration. But electoral politics offered ready access to the mainstream.
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Today, Pentecostals and evangelicals hardly appear any different from each other in national politics, and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. In fact, today there may be greater agreement between white Pentecostals and white evangelicals on politics than on theology; together, they resemble more of a culture than a set set of beliefs.
Since the Nineteen Eighties, white Pentecostals and evangelicals have played a key role in carrying the religious right’s agenda forward. Pentecostals’ voting patterns lean solidly toward the Republican Party.
They also poll the highest on matters pertaining to Christian nationalism, and lots of enthusiastically supported Donald Trump.
Diverse ‘values voters’
Latino and African American Pentecostals, nonetheless, usually are not nearly as unified on matters of non secular politics. Yet recent voting trends suggest that Latino voters may begin to lean more right wing, especially as growing numbers of them discover as Protestants.
African American Pentecostals also maintain a greater range of political ideologies than white Pentecostals. They assert that they’re “values voters,” as social conservatives often call themselves, but not a part of the religious right.
The power of the Holy Spirit, not political power, still matters more within the each day lives of most rank-and-file Pentecostals. But what they consider the Holy Spirit empowers them to do in the true world often is the faith’s most important transformation over the past 100 years.
