Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the 21st Century

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 368 pages
• Published by: Da Capo Press May 8, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0306810492
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0306810497
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
Pentecostal Christianity, which emphasizes the immediate experience of God through speaking in tongues, trance and ecstatic bodily motion, is not a backward-looking movement, declares Harvard theologian Cox (The Secular City), but an ecumenical force that speaks to the spiritual emptiness of our time by tapping the core of human religiousness. The author describes his visits to Pentecostal churches from Boston to Rio de Janeiro to Seoul. He shows the movement's interracial beginnings in Los Angeles at the turn of the century, tracks its lightning spread around the globe and explores the pivotal role of women, which led, he asserts, to a conception of a nonjudgmental God with "distinctively feminine" qualities, making Pentecostalism a force challenging patriarchal cultures around the world. Cox expresses his misgivings about "unattractive political and theological currents" in the U.S. Pentecostal movement, including a fixation on demonic spirits and a "dominion theology" that supports ultraconservative public policy. An engrossing and illuminating report.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Cox (The Silencing of Leonard Boff, Meyer Stone Bks., 1988) gives an objective view of Pentecostalism. He is neither an insider nor a skeptic. In this study, he includes descriptions of his own experiences and reactions in Pentecostal churches as well as an accurate history of the movement's origins and development. He looks at its rapid growth in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as in the United States. The author finds reason for both hope and misgivings in this popular religious revival and its relationship to late 20th-century society. Cox feels that both science and traditional religion have been rejected by many people as sources of ultimate meaning. He feels Pentecostals have tapped into genuine spiritual energies but warns that "the fire from heaven can burn and destroy as well as purify and inspire." This is a reasoned, dispassionate study; recommended for academic and public libraries.
C. Robert Nixon, MLS, Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover) Cox's Fire From Heaven does bring some sense of legitimacy to Pentecostalism among the liberal academy of theologians and religionists who still view the movement as full of backwater American blacks and whites. However, in playing up the idea that Pentecostalism may be little more than a Christian "mask" over indigenous spiritualities, I think he may have played into the hands of religious right fundamentalists who attack a charismatic christianity as heretical and into the hands of intellectual universalists who don't wish to see a distinct contribution from the Christian Pentecostal movement as a unique form of religious spirituality. Cox writes with the ease and clarity of a novelist, but the story is more fiction than fact. He could site actual examples of Pentecostalism in Africa, for instance, rather than making the eurocentric generalization that all African Christianity, or indigenous churches there, are just another form of Pentecostalism. Very little attention is given to the interpretive issues in Pentecostalism (oneness vs trinity, wesleyan sanctification vs keswick baptistic) nor is adequate attention given to the continuing distinction among class and race in the American movement. That someone from Kirkus Reviews could have actually have read the book and still view the Azusa Street Revival as a meeting of poor black domestic workers shows that the ecumenical and ethnic diversity of that early 20th century movement still have not been made crystal clear.