Talk:Pentecostal

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Whew! I am pooped! I need a date on the formal unification event, the great big with the foot-washing etc. It may have been 1997, not 1998. wiki wiki wiki!

Nice work. Two questions. What about the geographic spread of the pentecostal religion? Would it not be more proper to name the page pentecostalism?

Where do you get the 400 million figure from? The Hadden lecture says it's nine million. --LMS

Ha! Got 400 million from the web. I have seen estimates as high as 500 million. Either of these figures would have to include all of the charismatic subfamilies. The two new links on the page are excellent. Hadden's 9 million is US, and is definitely low. He only counts "established" churches. There are *lots* of independent congregations in this tradition. 400 million is probably high, even worldwide.

Pentecostalism is less a denomination than a family of beliefs and worship traditions. In a nutshell, add Acts 6 to the Nicene Creed and you have the basis of doctrine, add electric guitars, a drum set and (optionally) a brass section to the choir, presto, worship (Yes, can be very loud, as in "raise the roof" loud. Someone explained it to me once: "We don't believe Satan should have all the good music.") Pentecostalism might be a better name, maybe even Modern Pentecostalism. Somebody else can refactor, rename whatever, or I will do it later.

The spread is world-wide, but it appears to be growing fastest in the Americas.

Do you want to mention anything here about the charismatic movement? I believe this is basically pentecostal ideas and worship styles coming into other more "mainline" denominations. Also, do the figures include charismatics? That might be fair enough if you're just counting Christians who use drums and electric guitars and perhaps "speak in tongues", but it also runs the risk of double counting a lot of people, depending on how the numbers are used. --Wesley

I can't do it, because I don't have the numbers, but a better job needs to be done between distinguishing between the Pentecostal Church and the pentecostal movement. Something also should be mentioned about oneness pentecostalism (or whatever it's called), which has a different view of the Trinity than do "orthodox" Christians.

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