Nigerian Pentacostalism may see more fragmentation

Significance A September court decision allowed Joshua’s widow, Evelyn, finally to succeed him as senior pastor. SCOAN and other mega-churches play key political roles in Nigeria and their pastors are important powerbrokers. Their influence also extends over much of the continent. Impacts Evelyn Joshua will become an influential political figure, even if initially less prominent than her husband. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo will look to use his Pentecostal roots to boost his chances for the presidency in 2023. Government authorities and politicians may look to interfere more directly with Pentecostal church governance.

The Gendered Pastor

Chapter 1 first provides a historical account of events leading to the formation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). It also serves as the theoretical foundation of the book and offers an in-depth description of Acker’s concept of gendered jobs. This chapter presents quantitative data illustrating the gendered division of labor across the entire CBF and utilizes survey data to explore congregants’ conceptions of the ideal pastor in relation to gender. This chapter illustrates how the position of senior pastor conflates with leadership and authority and, therefore, is inherently masculinized despite some feminized expectations. This means that if congregants assume essential gender differences between men and women beyond anatomy, then women will be less likely to secure these positions.

Gender “Neutral” Hiring Processes

Chapter 3 examines congregational hiring processes, which are most often perceived by congregants as “gender neutral.” This chapter draws on interview data to reveal hiring committees’ aversion to an “affirmative action” approach and shows that their failure to recognize the gendered hurdles faced by women prior to the job market actually results in masculinized hiring processes rather than gender-neutral ones and reinforces sexist hiring decisions. It also explores the conscious and unconscious gender biases of hiring committee members, which inevitably play a role in hiring decisions. Specifically, this chapters highlights congregants’ preferred hiring criteria, which are commonly understood as “gender neutral,” and shows how these seemingly neutral preferences actually result in unequal outcomes for women. For instance, while hiring senior pastors, congregations often preferred younger pastors who also have senior pastor or associate pastor experience. Some congregants also preferred pastors with direct and clear career trajectories. These seeming gender-neutral preferences disproportionately advantage men because women often connect with their callings and find opportunities for professional development later in life as a result of the gendered hurdles they face on their ways to the job market. This chapter further explores congregants’ unconscious gender biases, which often assumed men and women to be different but equal. However, congregants failed to understand how these assumed differences ultimately advantaged men in the pursuit of pastoral leadership.

Implementasi Cara Hidup Jemaat Mula-mula dalam Kisah Para Rasul 2: 41-47 bagi Pertumbuhan Gereja Masa Kini

The growth of church has been one of crucial issues that becomes a concentration point to church leaders, which is priestas the senior pastor or church council as the representative of local church members. The growth of church perceived as one of paramaters stating the existence of church to the people who are served as well as to other churches as ministry partner. The growth of church can be seen from two aspect is the quality of church members in terms of spiritual maturity reflected from the faith to God they whorship and in term of their daily behavior bringing positive impact. The other aspect is the quantity of church members from time to time. The growth of church can be achieved by the method or serving system that is believed by priest or church council to be implemented. In academic terminology, that method is also known as church growth system or method . They are many system or method of church growth . One of them is Cell Church system that is a system of naturaly growing church growth method with the starting point from the way of life the eraly church taken from Act 2:41-47. This idea, later on, can be implemented by today’s churches is improving church growth.AbstrakPertumbuhan gereja menjadi salah satu isu penting yang terus menjadi konsentrasi bagi para pimpinan gereja, baik itu Pendeta sebagai Gembala Jemaat atau Majelis sebagai representasi jemaat lokal. Pertumbuhan gereja dinilai sebagai salah satu parameter eksistensi gereja tersebut dimata jemaat yang dilayaninya maupun dimata gereja-gereja lain sebagai mitra pelayanan. Pertumbuhan gereja bisa dilihat dari dua segi yaitu segi kualitas yang ditandai dengan kematangan jemaat atas nilai-nilai relegiositasnya yang terpancar dari tingkat keyakinannya terhadap pribadi Allah yang disembahnya dan terpancar dari perilaku sehari-harinya yang mendatangkan dampak positif. Adapun segi yang lain adalah segi kuantitas yang ditandai dengan pertumbuhan jemaat yang terlihat dari bertambahnya jumlah jemaat dari waktu ke waktu. Pertumbuhan gereja ini dapat terwujud dengan metode dan sistem pelayanan yang diyakini oleh Pendeta atau Majelis untuk diterapkan atau dalam dunia akademis disebut dengan metode atau sistem pertumbuhan gereja. Ada banyak metode atau sistem pertumbuhan gereja yang ada diantaranya metode atau sistem Gereja Sel, metode atau sistem pertumbuhan Gereja Modern dan lain sebagainya. Melalui tulisan ini penulis ingin menunjukan salah satu metode pertumbuhan gereja yang bertitik tolak pada cara hidup jemaat yang pertama sebagaimana dicatat dalam Kisah Para Rasul 2 : 41-47 yang nantinya dapat diterapkan oleh gereja-gereja masa kini dalam melakukan proses pertumbuhan gereja.

High on God

Humans are homo duplex, seeking to be individuals but knowing this is only possible in communities. Thus, humans struggle to integrate these two sides of their nature. Megachurches have been enormously successful at resolving this struggle. How do they do it, and what is it about their structure and rituals that makes so many feel as if they are high on God? The affective energies and emotional valences that characterize religious ecstasy are the primary focus of our study of megachurches. Empirically, humans want and desire forms of what Randall Collins calls “emotional energy.” Drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative data on twelve nationally representative megachurches, we identify six desires that megachurches evoke and meet: acceptance, awe and spiritual stimulation, reliable leadership, deliverance, purpose, and solidarity in a community of like-minded others. Megachurches satisfy these desires through co-presence—being in the presence of other desiring people—a shared mood achieved through powerful musical worship services, a mutual focus of attention on the charismatic senior pastor who acts as an emotional charging agent, transformative altar calls, service opportunities, and small-group participation. This interaction ritual chain solidifies attendees’ commitment and group loyalty, and keeps them coming back to be recharged. Megachurches also have a dark side: they are known for their highly publicized scandals often involving malfeasance of the senior pastor. After examining the positive and negative sides to megachurches, we conclude that they successfully meet the desire of humans to flourish as individuals and to do so in a group.

Desire for a Reliable Leader

In this chapter, we show how megachurches meet attendees’ desire for a reliable leader. In megachurches, for those who attend, their desire and the force of feeling, the zenith of emotional energy, is squarely centered on the megachurch pastor. We identify how the charismatic bond between the attendees and their senior pastor is solidified through the demonstration of his perceived extraordinary and ordinary qualities. Allowing followers to see their human side makes charismatic leaders more relatable, authentic, and trustworthy. The pastor is both the central figure around which most activities, and in some sense the lives of individuals, revolve, and the mouthpiece for the explicit articulation of the values, beliefs, morals, and symbols that will define the group. The pastor is the “mutual focus of attention” that contributes to binding the group together and amplifying the emotional energy experienced by attendees.

GREGORY A. BOYD. CROSS VISION: HOW THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS MAKES SENSE OF OLD TESTAMENT VIOLENCE

Gregory Boyd is a theologian and senior pastor in the Twin Cities. This book follows up on his epic two-volume Crucifixion and the Warrior God. While more accessible than the major work, its more concise presentation of the subject will be enough to satisfy most readers. As one might expect, the subject arises out of theological and hermeneutical engagement with the Old Testament narrative and pastoral concerns.

The Reformer Johannes Honterus and Orthodoxy: “Early Ecumenism”

On the occasion of the commemoration of 500 years since the Reformation, this article, entitled “Reformation and Orthodoxy”, calls attention to the personality of Johannes Honterus (1497-1549), the Lutheran reformer of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Transylvania, and reviews his relationship to Orthodoxy, a relationship which may be referred to as “Early Ecumenism”. Johannes Honterus, one of the most important personalities of the Transylvanian Saxons, was an outstanding scholar who had studied in Vienna, Krakow, Regensburg and Basel. He became the founder of the first school and the first publishing house in Brasov (Kronstadt), and – as Senior Pastor – was the reformer of his native town and eventually all of Transylvania (1547). Honterus had close contacts to Christian-Orthodox Romanians from surrounding areas, and in his publishing house not only Latin, Greek and German textbooks were published, as well as the two most important works about the Reformation in Brasov and the whole of Transylvania, but also – about 1540 –, among others, the so called Christian-Orthodox „Edition of Nilus“, with extracts from the Greek Patristic Literature by Evaragius Ponticus, Gregory of Nazianz and Thalassus. His dialogue with Orthodox visitors to his town inspired his work for the Lutheran Reformation among the Transylvanian Saxons. From 1556 to 1583, Honterus had in his publishing house the most important Orthodox publisher of the 16th century, Deacon Coresi. This “early ecumenism” became the basis for the well-known tradition of religious tolerance in Transylvania.