# A critical genealogy traces a century of charismatic movements

> From 1906 to the present, the study distinguishes between Pentecostalism, the charismatic renewal, and African prophetic movements without conflating them.

Canonical: https://ntilia.com/u/silence/en/a-critical-genealogy-traces-a-century-of-charismatic-movements
Language: en
Author: Au Cœur du Silence (https://ntilia.com/u/silence)
Published: 2026-09-16T09:12:50.03+00:00
Last updated: 2026-09-25T15:55:45.943+00:00
Series: Research (https://ntilia.com/u/silence/s/recherches?lang=en)
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Tags: Pentecostalism, charismatic renewal, African neo-Pentecostalism, New Prophetic Churches, Azusa Street, religious genealogy, Protestant discernment, postcolonial

---

## Abstract

This article proposes a critical historical genealogy of Protestant currents of spirit-baptism and charisms, from the nineteenth-century roots of sanctification to the contemporary New Prophetic Churches (NPC) in Africa. Drawing on a bibliographical synthesis (Creech, Robeck, Synan, Anderson, McClymond, Mayrargue, Lado, Kalu, Asamoah-Gyadu, Mohr, Kgatle and collaborators), it shows that Azusa Street (Los Angeles, 1906) constitutes a major hub of global visibility, and not an exclusive monogenesis of Pentecostalism. Four levels are firmly kept distinct: institutionalized classical Pentecostalism; the Charismatic Renewal of the 1960s–1970s, in which the faithful remain within their mainline Churches; post-1970 African neo-Pentecostalism (prosperity, media, urban deliverance); and the NPCs, a later branch centered on the prophet, documented mainly in Southern Africa. The article also specifies that the North American meaning of "neo-Pentecostalism" (charismatics who remained within historic denominations) does not coincide with the African "néo-pentecôtiste" of the French- and English-language African literature. The colonial and postcolonial thread runs through the narrative: missions under colonial canopy, African Independent Churches (AIC), 1970s campuses, urbanization and the religious market. A Protestant reading of historical discernment (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21; 1 John 4:1; Acts 17:11) concludes: continuity of experience of the Spirit and discontinuity of ecclesial accountability. The abuses documented in certain NPCs are briefly referred to work already published in this section, without conflating everything.

## 1. Introduction, method and table of distinctions

### 1.1. Why a genealogy?

Whoever says “Pentecostal,” “charismatic” or “revival church” often designates, in ordinary language, a single bloc. One and the same spirit, one and the same music, one and the same theology. Documented history refuses this conflation. Between the Apostolic Faith Mission of Azusa Street in 1906, Dennis Bennett’s testimony in an Episcopal parish in California in 1960, Nigerian and Kenyan campuses in the 1970s, Winners’ Chapel in Lagos in 1983, and South African New Prophetic Churches in the twenty-first century, there are continuities of experience (Spirit-baptism, glossolalia, healing, prophecy) and ruptures of institution, operational doctrine and accountability.

For the reader interested in the subject — pastor, believer, researcher, person wounded by a media assembly, or simply a curious observer — these distinctions are not an academic luxury. They are a demand of justice. Justice toward victims of abuse, who have the right to name precise configurations rather than a phantom “evangelicalism.” Justice toward upright Pentecostal and charismatic communities, unjustly conflated with excesses that they often combat internally. Justice toward Africa, too often essentialised as a land of credulity or, conversely, romanticised as a land of revival without shadow.

The research question may be formulated as follows. **How does the historical genealogy of Protestant currents of Spirit-baptism and charisms unfold, from the early twentieth century to the present, as far as the African NPC, and what criteria of discernment can Protestant Christianity mobilise in order to hold together continuity of the Spirit and discontinuity of accountability, without conflating or essentialising?**

This question touches concrete lives. Believers who confuse their classical assembly with a neo-prophetic spectacle. Diaspora communities that import titles without knowing their history. Critics who reduce every revival to a “cult.” Apologists who refuse all critique under the pretext of not “touching the anointed.” A paper worthy of the name must therefore hold together the rigour of sources, the clarity of discernment and respect for persons.

### 1.2. Method

This study is a **qualitative bibliographic synthesis**. It does not rest on an original field enquiry. It triangulates (a) peer-reviewed academic publications and university monographs on global and African Pentecostalism; (b) reference syntheses (Anderson, Synan, Robeck, Lado, Mayrargue); (c) a scriptural reading mobilised in the Protestant tradition for the historical discernment of spirits and currents (notably 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21; 1 John 4:1; Acts 17:11).

The approach is at once **historical** (chronology, actors, institutions), **socio-religious** (colonisation, urbanisation, postcolonial market) and **theological** (normative evaluation from Scripture). It refuses two pitfalls. The sensationalism that turns every media pastor into a “false prophet” without proof. The denial that refuses to examine fruits under the pretext of charismatic unity.

Priority was given to the following sources. Creech (1996) on the Azusa origin myth; McClymond (2014) on the Charismatic Renewal; Mayrargue (2004) and Lado (2008) on African neo-Pentecostalism; Kalu (2008) and Asamoah-Gyadu (2005) on African charismatic Christianity; Mohr on Faith Tabernacle and Nigeria; Kgatle (2021) and Kgatle, Banda and Reddie (2023/24) on the NPC; Anderson as a reference handbook; historical notices carefully cross-checked (Hartford Institute) for dates of public interest.

Several limitations are assumed. First, the absence of an original empirical enquiry prevents quantification of memberships. No adherence figures are invented here. Second, the synthesis privileges accessible and verified works; certain missionary archives and primary sources (*Apostolic Faith* newspapers, Assemblies of God World Missions holdings) remain avenues for deeper study. Third, C. Peter Wagner’s “three waves” grid (1983) is treated as a pedagogical tool, not as a universal scientific taxonomy. Finally, the assumed Protestant perspective is not axiologically neutral. It evaluates currents against Scripture, the edification of the Church and the dignity of persons. This position is declared rather than concealed.

### 1.3. Table of distinctions (to be held absolutely)

| Current | Chronological landmarks | Institutional frame | Documented traits | What it is not |
|---------|------------------------|----------------------|-------------------|----------------|
| **Classical Pentecostalism** | Azusa ~1906; American denominations ~1910–1920; Africa missions from ~1908–1920 | Assemblies of God (1914), COGIC, Church of God (Cleveland), AFM, etc. | Spirit-baptism; glossolalia often as initial evidence; structures, training, variable counterweights | ≠ Renewal; ≠ NPC |
| **Charismatic Renewal** | 1960 Bennett (Episcopal); 1967 Duquesne (Catholic) | Believers and clergy **remain** in their mainline churches | Charisms *within* the existing confessional frame | ≠ exit toward Pentecostal denominations |
| **Neo-Pentecostalism** (African sense: Lado, Mayrargue) | Especially 1970–1990 | Independent, campus, media | Prosperity, mediatised healing, deliverance, urban “born-again” identity | ≠ classical; ≠ NPC (prophet-centrism) |
| **NPC** | Visibility especially South Africa post-~2010–2014 (Kgatle literature) | Prophet at the centre; consultations; “anointed” objects | Documented risk zone (CRL; Springer 2021; Peter Lang 2023/24) | ≠ all neo-Pentecostalism; ≠ Anglo NAR |

**Decisive terminological caution.** In North America (1960s–1970s), “neo-Pentecostalism” often designates charismatic Christians who **remained** in mainline churches (what the present article calls Charismatic Renewal). In Africa, in Lado (2008) and Mayrargue (2004), “néo-pentecôtiste” rather designates post-1970 churches of prosperity, media and deliverance, often independent. **The author’s sense must always be specified.** Confusing the two acceptations produces serious genealogical misreadings.

### 1.4. Ethical and epistemological precautions

Five precautions guide the writing.

First, **do not conflate “evangelical” and “cult.”** Internal Protestant and evangelical critiques target practices and titles without accountability, not the Protestant confession as such.

Second, **separate documented facts from analysis.** A missionary date, a peer-reviewed DOI, a commission report and a theological reading do not have the same status.

Third, **contextualise Africa without essentialising.** Colonisation, urbanisation, precarity and cosmologies of evil explain a *demand* for spiritual mediation. They do not excuse abuse. Nor do they authorise the colonial cliché according to which “Africans would be naturally credulous.”

Fourth, **polygenetic origins.** Azusa is a major hub, not the unique source of worldwide Pentecostalism (Creech, 1996).

Fifth, **refer without duplicating.** Abuses of authority, spiritual trauma, induced bodily behaviours and the making of false prophets have already been treated elsewhere in the Research section. Here the distinctive angle is **historical genealogy**. The NPC appear as a late branch of a longer history, not as the essence of Pentecostalism.

The plan is as follows. Section 2: pre-Azusa roots. Section 3: Azusa and diffusion (polygenesis). Section 4: Africa under the colonial canopy. Section 5: Charismatic Renewal. Section 6: African neo-Pentecostalism. Section 7: NPC. Section 8: Protestant reading and historical discernment. Section 9: discussion and conclusion. Sources close the article.

---

## 2. Pre-Azusa roots (nineteenth century – 1901)

### 2.1. The Wesleyan and Methodist Holiness current

Before Los Angeles, there is the nineteenth-century American and British Protestant world. The so-called Holiness current, heir to Wesleyan Methodism, insists on progressive sanctification or a “second blessing,” divine healing and revival. Vinson Synan, often cited in syntheses (notably in Lado, 2008), has traced this holiness tradition as the matrix of classical Pentecostalism. Camp meetings, holiness associations, revival publications: the ground was prepared long before 1906.

To say this is not to reduce Pentecostalism to a mere Methodist prolongation. It is to refuse the myth of an *ex nihilo* upsurge. The experience of Spirit-baptism is inscribed in an already dense history of the quest for holiness, healing and power for witness. Revival Protestantism, with its excesses and its fruits, precedes Azusa.

### 2.2. Charles F. Parham at Topeka

Around 1901, at Topeka (Kansas), Charles F. Parham articulates a thesis that will mark classical Pentecostalism: Spirit-baptism has glossolalia (speaking in tongues) as its initial evidence. This formulation, controversial from the outset and still debated in denominations, nonetheless provides a strong doctrinal marker. It distinguishes nascent Pentecostalism from other forms of revival that knew sanctification without making glossolalia an obligatory evidence.

Parham is not a hero without shadow. Historiography has documented his racial positions and later conflicts. The present article does not canonise him. It notes a **genealogical fact**: an operational doctrine of Spirit-baptism circulates before Azusa, and William J. Seymour, an African American formed in Parham’s orbit, will carry it to Los Angeles with his own inflexions.

### 2.3. William J. Seymour. Bearer, not mere receptor

Seymour, an African American pastor, receives and then reformulates the message of Spirit-baptism in a context of American racial segregation. His role at Azusa is not that of a mere “pupil” of Parham. Historiography (Robeck; Hollenweger on the “black root” of Pentecostalism) underlines a decisive African American contribution: music, prayer, relative interracial hospitality in a hostile context, pastoral leadership. To recognise this root is not a secondary ideological claim. It is a historiographical fact. Worldwide Pentecostalism is not born only in a white Midwestern doctrinal laboratory. It also passes through a mission led by a Black man, in a poor neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

For the African or African-descended Protestant reader, this point matters. It contradicts the purely Western missionary narrative that would make Africa a passive receptor. It also prepares Kalu’s thesis: Spirit-baptism does not require the Western missionary as permanent mediator.

### 2.4. Divine healing and revival culture

Nineteenth-century Protestantism also knows a particular intensity around divine healing. Figures and networks (holiness conventions, faith publications) popularise the idea that God still heals, sometimes immediately, in answer to prayer. This expectation of healing will circulate intact into classical Pentecostalism, then into the Renewal, then into African neo-Pentecostalism. The difference is not always the content of the request. It is the frame. Who prays? Who decides? Who monetises? Who corrects?

For the Protestant reader, this reminder has a prophylactic virtue. It is not because a contemporary assembly insists on healing that it “descends” from Azusa in a pure way, nor that it betrays Azusa in a pure way. Healing is a long thread. Discernment bears on fruits, the doctrine of misfortune, pressure on the sick and the economy of the promise.

### 2.5. Section synthesis

Before 1906, several elements are already in place: a culture of sanctification and revival; an expectation of divine healing; a doctrine of Spirit-baptism linked to glossolalia in Parham; an African American bearer, Seymour, who will catalyse a visible mission. Azusa does not fall from the sky. It concentrates, amplifies and internationalises currents already in motion. The Protestant who reads this prehistory with Acts 17:11 does not sacralise Parham. He or she verifies. He or she retains what edifies. He or she refuses what oppresses.

---

## 3. Azusa Street and worldwide diffusion (polygenesis)

### 3.1. Facts. The Apostolic Faith Mission (1906)

In 1906, in Los Angeles, the Apostolic Faith Mission settles on Azusa Street under the leadership of William J. Seymour. Prolonged meetings, glossolalia, healing narratives, missionary publications, networks of visitors who leave with the “fire.” Cecil M. Robeck Jr. has provided the standard synthesis of this mission and its revival. The historical fact is solid. Azusa becomes a centre of diffusion and narration for nascent Pentecostalism.

Media coverage and missionary letters amplify the effect. Men and women leave for other American cities, for Europe, for Asia, for Africa. Newspapers such as *The Apostolic Faith* diffuse narratives and doctrine. Within a few years, assemblies and soon denominations take shape.

### 3.2. Creech (1996). Hub, not monogenesis

Joe Creech, in *Church History* (1996), formulated a thesis now indispensable for any serious work. Azusa is central in the **origin myth** and in the **worldwide visibility** of Pentecostalism, but is not the unique source of all Spirit-baptism revivals of the early twentieth century. In other words: hub, catalyst, founding memory — not exclusive monogenesis.

This distinction matters for discernment. A unique origin narrative can sacralise a place, a leader or a lineage. A polygenetic genealogy obliges greater historical humility. The Spirit, if one speaks in confessional terms, is not captive to a Los Angeles address. And the historian does not need that captivity in order to explain diffusion.

### 3.3. Other centres. Hebden, Mukti, Welsh revival, early African impulses

The literature on polygenesis mentions notably: the Hebden mission in Toronto; the Mukti revival in India; the Welsh revival of 1904–1905; early African impulses that cannot be reduced to a unilateral importation from Azusa. These centres are not all “copies” of Azusa. Some are parallel, others interconnected by publications and travellers, still others autochthonous in their local dynamic.

The methodological point is clear. **Azusa = major hub, not unique source.** Whoever writes “everything comes from Azusa” simplifies. Whoever writes “Azusa counted for nothing” contradicts the documentation. The just path is that of Creech: narrative and catalytic centrality, without causal exclusivity.

### 3.4. Institutionalisation (1910s–1920s)

Between roughly 1910 and 1920, classical Pentecostalism institutionalises. Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Assemblies of God (1914), Church of God (Cleveland), and other bodies take shape. Training, conferences, disciplines, publications. The Weberian routinisation of charisma begins. The personal authority of revival yields partially to rules, ordinations and variable counterweights.

“Oneness” branches separate over Trinitarian doctrine while sharing the Apostolic Faith heritage. This schism recalls that classical Pentecostalism is not homogeneous. It is already plural. Doctrine, race, governance and mission divide as much as they unite.

### 3.5. Publications, networks and missionary “fire”

Diffusion from Azusa cannot be understood without the media of the time: newspapers, tracts, correspondence, tours. The “fire” travels as fast as the mail and the ship. Missionaries and laity carry narratives, songs and doctrine. Others discover analogous experiences without ever having passed through Los Angeles, then read Azusa as confirmation rather than as origin. It is precisely this double movement — diffusion from a hub *and* resonance of parallel centres — that the polygenetic thesis allows one to hold.

From a Protestant standpoint, this early media history already announces a modern risk: when the spectacular narrative precedes verification, the crowd may confuse intensity and truth. Azusa is not guilty of all later excesses. But it shows that Pentecostalism is, from the beginning, a phenomenon of narrative circulation as much as of local assembly.

### 3.6. Race, gender and conflictual memory

Azusa is also a place of conflictual memory. Relative interracial hospitality in a segregated America; the role of women in prayer and testimony; later tensions when certain denominations resegregate or marginalise voices. Hollenweger insisted on the African American dimension as root, not as ornament. Robeck documented the pastoral complexity of Seymour. Recent historiography refuses smooth hagiographies as much as cynical demystifications.

For discernment: an origin marked by Black dignity and women’s participation does not automatically “whiten” all later practices that claim Azusa. Conversely, the racist or patriarchal excesses of certain Pentecostal institutions do not allow one to erase Seymour’s contribution. Protestant history likes paradoxes. It examines them. It does not dissolve them in a slogan.

### 3.7. What this section changes for the reader

If you belong to a classical denomination, your history is not that of a twenty-first-century prophet-brand. If you critique NPC abuses, you do not thereby have the right to demonise Azusa or Seymour. If you celebrate Azusa, you do not have the right to ignore polygenesis or the institutionalisation and conflicts that followed. History complicates apologetics as much as conflations. It obliges the reader of 1 John 4:1 to test his or her own origin myths as well.

---

## 4. Africa under the colonial canopy (approximately 1908–1960)

### 4.1. Pentecostal mission and the colonial apparatus

Missionary Christianity, in the broad sense, has often been linked to the colonial apparatus: schools, hospitals, administrative recognition, access to elites. Classical Pentecostalism enters Africa via Anglo-American networks *and* via early African initiatives. To say this is not to stick a unique “collaborationist” label on every missionary. It is to recognise a **structural canopy**: empire, race, asymmetry of power, regulation of cults.

Under this canopy, two dynamics coexist: on the one hand, classical Pentecostal missions (Assemblies of God, Apostolic Faith Mission, etc.); on the other, prophetic African Independent Churches (AIC), which cannot be reduced to the missionary model.

### 4.2. South Africa. Lake, AFM, Zionism and ZCC

Between about 1908 and 1912, John G. Lake and the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) mark the South African landscape. African Zionist dynamics and, more broadly, forms such as the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) illustrate local recompositions of healing and prophetic Christianity. Lado (2008) and the work of the Comaroffs (often cited in this field) help to situate these recompositions without reducing them to a mere copy of Azusa.

Classical South African Pentecostalism is not the twenty-first-century NPC. But South Africa will later be one of the most documented laboratories of neo-prophetic excesses. Geographic continuity does not imply genealogical identity.

### 4.3. Nigeria. Faith Tabernacle and the Aladura thread

Adam Mohr, in the *Journal of Religion in Africa*, has documented Faith Tabernacle and prayer networks in Nigeria (1910s to about 1941) and their relation to the Aladura thread. Here again, African initiative counts. Correspondence, healing publications, prayer networks: Spirit-baptism and healing also circulate through channels that are not mere antennas of Los Angeles.

The Aladura churches (around 1930) illustrate an African prophetism of healing and vision, distinct from classical missionary Pentecostalism while dialoguing with it. Continuity of expectation (healing, prophecy) and institutional discontinuity.

### 4.4. West Africa. Assemblies of God missions

From about 1914–1920, Assemblies of God missions implant themselves (Liberia, etc.). In Burkina Faso, Assemblies of God presence is attested from 1921 (Mayrargue, 2004). These facts matter for Francophone mapping: classical missionary Pentecostalism precedes by several decades the media neo-Pentecostalism of the 1980s–1990s. To confuse the two is to erase a century of history.

### 4.5. Prophetic AIC. Kimbangu, Aladura, Lumpa

Simon Kimbangu (1921, Congo), the Aladura (Nigeria, ~1930), Alice Lenshina’s Lumpa movement (1955, Zambia) represent African prophetic forms: visionary charisma, healing, prophetic authority, often in tension with the colonial state and the missions. **They are not classical missionary Pentecostalism.** They are not the NPC either. To compare them usefully (continuity of prophetism *versus* media and transactional rupture) is a research avenue. To conflate them is an error.

### 4.6. Kalu. Weaving the African narrative into global historiography

Ogbu Kalu, in *African Pentecostalism* (Oxford, 2008), pleaded for weaving the African narrative into the worldwide historiography of Pentecostalism. Decisive thesis: Spirit-baptism does not require the Western missionary as permanent mediator. Africa is not only a mission field. It is an actor of polygenesis and reformulation.

This thesis has an ethical consequence. Refuse negative essentialisation (“credulous Africans”) *and* positive essentialisation (“Africans naturally more spiritual”). Speak of structures, initiatives, conflicts, religious creativity.

### 4.7. Analysis. Coexistence, borrowings, competition

Under colonisation, missionary Pentecostalism and AIC coexist, borrow from each other and compete. AIC often respond to missionary rigidity and to the demand for healing or prophecy. This response explains part of their success. It does not explain, and does not excuse, abuses documented much later in certain NPC. Genealogy is not a magical causal chain. It is a history of bifurcations.

### 4.8. What the colonial canopy imposes on discernment

The European or American Protestant reader is sometimes tempted to read Africa as a “terrain of excesses,” forgetting that missionary Christianity itself arrived under a canopy of empire. Schools and hospitals saved lives. They also, at times, humiliated cultures and disciplined bodies. Independent and prophetic African responses also arise from this humiliation and this thirst for dignity.

Conversely, the African reader is sometimes tempted to read every critique of the NPC as a colonial residual. “Again the West telling us how to believe.” Yet the firmest critique of neo-prophetic abuses, in recent literature, is often the work of peer-reviewed African theologians: Kgatle, Banda, Ramantswana, Asamoah-Gyadu, Omenyo. Discernment is not an export. It is already internal.

The colonial/postcolonial thread, in this article, therefore serves two purposes: to explain historical asymmetries; to prevent essentialisations. It does not serve to absolve abuse in the name of contextualisation, nor to criminalise indigenisation in the name of missionary purity.

### 4.9. Recapitulative table colonial Africa

| Dynamic | Example | Genealogical status |
|---------|---------|---------------------|
| Classical Pentecostal mission | AG Burkina from 1921; AFM South Africa | Classical branch under colonial canopy |
| Early African initiative | Faith Tabernacle / prayer networks (Nigeria) | Local polygenesis, dialogue with worldwide publications |
| Prophetic AIC | Kimbangu; Aladura; Lumpa | ≠ classical missionary; ≠ NPC |
| Zionist / healing recompositions | South African dynamics (AFM, ZCC, etc.) | Local; do not prejudge twenty-first-century NPC |

This table does not exhaust the continent. It refuses the image of a passive Africa. It prepares what follows: campuses, neo-Pentecostalism, then NPC.

---

## 5. The Charismatic Renewal (1960s–1970s)

### 5.1. Dennis Bennett, 3 April 1960

On 3 April 1960, Dennis Bennett, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys (California), publicly announces his experience of Spirit-baptism and glossolalia. Media coverage (notably *Time*) popularises a new model: the charismatic Christian **remains** in his or her mainline church. He or she does not necessarily “exit” toward a classical Pentecostal denomination.

This point is the heart of the Charismatic Renewal in the strict sense. Charisms (tongues, prophecy, healing, expressive praise) are claimed *inside* Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist and then Catholic frames. Hartford Institute and standard historical syntheses (McClymond, 2014) situate this episode as a landmark.

### 5.2. Catholic Renewal. Duquesne, 1967

In 1967, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal takes a visible turn around Duquesne (Pittsburgh). Prayer, glossolalia, house groups, then international diffusion. For the present article, centred on Protestant Christianity, this landmark counts as a **fact of parallel diffusion**. It shows that charismatic experience crosses confessional boundaries, while recalling that remaining in one’s church is not the same thing as founding an independent mega-assembly of prosperity.

### 5.3. Africa. Campuses of the 1970s

In the 1970s, university campuses (notably Nigeria and Kenya) become hubs of African charismaticism (Kalu and Anderson, 2007; Lado, 2008). Youth, students, prayer networks, publications, contestation of the hegemony of mission churches. Kalu sometimes speaks, in this wider context, of dynamics of “second liberation” and indigenisation in the face of missionary heritages.

Here is born a generation that is no longer exactly classical missionary Pentecostalism, and not yet the mature media neo-Pentecostalism of the 1980s–1990s. The campus is a lock chamber: formation of charismatic elites, circulation of American books, invention of local forms.

### 5.4. McClymond and the *Cambridge Companion* frame

Michael McClymond, in the *Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism* (2014), situates the Charismatic Renewal in the global genealogy. The takeaway for the reader: the Renewal is not a Pentecostal “exit.” It is a **charismatic infiltration** of existing churches. To confuse Renewal and African neo-Pentecostalism is to confuse a Lutheran believer who prays in tongues and an independent urban prosperity assembly. The phenomena may resemble each other. The frames do not.

### 5.5. What the Renewal is not

The Charismatic Renewal is not, by definition, an NPC. Nor is it, by definition, a prosperity theology. It can drift, locally, toward experience as exclusive proof, toward the uncontrolled charismatic leader, toward doctrinal indifference. But its distinctive documented trait remains: **remaining in the church of origin**. So long as this trait holds, confessional accountability (bishops, synods, consistories, elders) remains a potential safeguard. Fragile, uneven, sometimes failing. But structurally different from the assembly centred on a prophet without a college.

### 5.6. Bridges and tensions with classical Pentecostalism

Some classical Pentecostals welcomed the Renewal as a confirmation. “At last the historic churches discover what we have lived since Azusa.” Others suspected it: glossolalia without denominational discipline, emotion without doctrine, dilution of the initial evidence of tongues. These internal tensions recall that even among “friends of the Spirit,” disagreement exists.

For Protestant discernment: the question is not “who invented the charism?” It is “who edifies the body without crushing consciences?” A college of classical Pentecostal elders can fail. A charismatic bishop can protect an abuser. A Renewal house group can also, conversely, offer a space of healing free of any star. The label does not dispense from the examination of fruits (Matthew 7:15-20).

### 5.7. Africa. From campus to the neo tipping point

The campus of the 1970s is not yet the mega-auditorium of the 1990s. But it prepares its actors. Converted students, inter-university networks, imported literature, young leadership. When these actors leave the campus for the city, some join classical denominations, others found independent assemblies, still others import prosperity models. African Renewal, in the broad sense, is therefore a **crossroads**, not a stable essence.

Kalu and Anderson (2007) help to read this crossroads in a world-mission perspective. Lado and Mayrargue help to read it in a Francophone and West African perspective. Together, they forbid the fable according to which “everything tipped at once” in 1980. There are thresholds, accelerations, choices.

---

## 6. African neo-Pentecostalism (1970s–1990s)

### 6.1. Clarifying the vocabulary again

Recall: North American “neo-Pentecostalism” of the 1960s–1970s often designates the Renewal (remaining in one’s church). African “néo-pentecôtiste,” in Mayrargue and Lado, designates something else: churches often independent, urban, media-driven, centred on healing, deliverance, prosperity and “born-again” identity.

In the remainder of this section, **neo-Pentecostalism = African sense**, unless otherwise stated.

### 6.2. Word of Faith and global circulation

Kenneth E. Hagin and the so-called Word of Faith current — positive confession, health and wealth as rights of the believer — influence global and African neo-Pentecostalism. Books, cassettes, conferences circulate. African pastors reformulate these themes in contexts of urban precarity. Asamoah-Gyadu (2005) documents, for Ghana notably, how African charismatic currents reformulate healing, deliverance and success in a Christian language.

Indispensable nuance: the hope of social mobility and healing can be an understandable response to precarity. It becomes exploitation when it transforms the promise into a magical contract (“sow in order to unlock”). Protestantism need not despise the hope of the poor. It must refuse that this hope be monetised against the Gospel.

### 6.3. Wagner’s “three waves” grid. Tool, not law

In 1983, C. Peter Wagner popularises a pedagogical grid: first wave (classical Pentecostalism); second wave (Charismatic Renewal); third wave (*Third Wave*, often associated with Vineyard and “power evangelism”). **Analysis:** this tool helps teaching. It is not a universal scientific taxonomy. It under-represents African, Asian and Latin American trajectories. It must not serve to stick definitive labels on local churches.

### 6.4. Mayrargue (2004). Francophone and urban expansion

Cédric Mayrargue, in *Critique internationale* (2004), describes the rise, from the end of the 1970s, of “neopentecostal” forms: healing, deliverance, media. The expansion of the 1990s touches Francophone spaces more strongly. The phenomenon is more urban than rural. Unemployment, illness, insecurity, quest for dignity: neo-Pentecostalism offers a moral ethos and a promise of success here below.

This reading is structural. It speaks of cities, of the state, of the market. It does not speak of an “African nature.”

### 6.5. Lado (2008) and the Winners’ Chapel example

Ludovic Lado, in *Études* (2008), synthesises the stakes of African Pentecostalism: distinctions, indigenisation, prosperity, tensions with missionary heritages. The example of Winners’ Chapel (Lagos, 1983) illustrates an African neo-Pentecostal mega-assembly: missionary ambition, media success, theology of victory. It is not the Assemblies of God Pentecostalism of 1921. It is not yet, *stricto sensu*, the South African NPC centred on the consulting prophet and the anointed objects documented by Kgatle.

### 6.6. Asamoah-Gyadu. *African Charismatics*

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, *African Charismatics* (Brill, 2005), remains a reference. He shows the doctrinal and ritual creativity of African independent and charismatic currents. Healing, deliverance, success: reformulated Christianly, in dialogue with cosmologies in which the visible and the invisible are linked. Once again: this explains the *attraction*, not an excuse for abuse.

### 6.7. Colonial and postcolonial thread in neo-Pentecostal success

Three structuring threads.

1. **Colonial heritage.** Missionary Christianity enjoyed an institutional advantage. Neo-Pentecostals also respond to unmet needs of dignity, healing and local oversight.
2. **Independences and indigenisation.** The 1970s see young charismatics contest the hegemony of mission churches. The 1980s–1990s see variable political engagement and a media explosion.
3. **Urbanisation and state crisis.** Urban success in the face of unemployment, illness, insecurity. “Renaissance” = moral ethos + promise of success here below (Mayrargue; Lado).

The postcolonial religious market, with media competition and “prophet-brands,” will be even clearer at the NPC stage. Here, at the neo-Pentecostal stage, personalisation of the leader already exists, but the literature still distinguishes this moment from NPC prophet-centrism.

### 6.8. Deliverance, cosmology and market. Continuity of attraction

Deliverance (exorcism, breaking of curses, spiritual warfare) occupies a central place in many African neo-Pentecostal assemblies. It answers cosmologies in which evil, illness and fortune are open to spiritual causality. Asamoah-Gyadu and, in other work in the section, analyses of monetised deliverance motifs have shown how this demand can be honoured pastorally *or* captured commercially.

The present article does not enter into the detail of motifs (sirens, anointed objects, family diagnoses). It notes the **genealogical threshold**: at the neo-Pentecostal stage, deliverance is often collective, mediatised, integrated into an offer of success. At the NPC stage, it tends to concentrate on consultation with the prophet and on objects. Continuity of attraction is not identity of device.

### 6.9. Gender, youth and social mobility

Urban neo-Pentecostalism often attracts youth, women in search of dignity, internal migrants. The assembly becomes a space of recognition, of network, sometimes of ascent. These social gains are real. They do not cancel the risks: control of bodies, coercive matrimonial prophecies, financial pressure on the most precarious. A critical genealogy must hold both: relative empowerment *and* structural vulnerability.

### 6.10. Synthesis. Neo ≠ classical ≠ NPC

African neo-Pentecostalism is a post-1970 **reconfiguration**: media, prosperity, deliverance, urbanity, frequent institutional independence. It is not classical Pentecostalism. Nor is it identical with the NPC. Many neo-Pentecostal assemblies have elders, Bible schools, networks of responsibility. Others slide toward spectacle and transaction. Heterogeneity is the right word. Conflation is the error. For the reader: before judging an “African” assembly, ask where it sits on this map. The answer changes the pastoral diagnosis as much as the sociological diagnosis.

---

## 7. Toward the New Prophetic Churches (twenty-first century)

### 7.1. A late branch, not the essence of Pentecostalism

The New Prophetic Churches (NPC), especially documented in South Africa in the literature of Mookgo Solomon Kgatle and his collaborators, constitute a **late branch** of the genealogy. Increased visibility after about 2010–2014. Traits: prophet at the centre; individual consultations; “anointed” objects; emphatic titles; weak accountability; documented commercialisation.

Kgatle, *Pentecostalism and Cultism in South Africa* (Springer, 2021), and the volume edited by Kgatle, Banda and Reddie, *African New Prophetic Pentecostalism…* (Peter Lang, 2023/24), insist: NPC ≠ classical Pentecostalism. This distinction, already firmly held in other papers in the section, must be recalled here as a **possible genealogical outcome**, not as the fatal destiny of every African revival.

### 7.2. Brief referral. Abuses and false prophets

The mechanisms of abuse of spiritual authority, commercialisation of religion, spiritual trauma and the making of prophet or apostle titles have been analysed elsewhere. CRL Rights Commission report (South Africa, 2017); work by Kgatle, Ramantswana, Banda, Omenyo; journalistic investigations treated with caution. **The present article does not replay that analysis.** It notes only: the NPC do not fall from the sky. They inherit older threads (prophetism, deliverance, media, market) while innovating in prophet-centrism and transactionality.

Useful comparison of historic AIC and NPC — continuity of prophetism *versus* media and transactional rupture — remains an open avenue. It must not serve to demonise Kimbangu or the Aladura by retroprojection.

### 7.3. NPC and NAR. Parallel, not identity

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), chiefly Anglo-global, restores governing “apostles and prophets.” Possible theological overlaps with certain NPC (fivefold ministry of Ephesians 4, extra-biblical revelation). But the genealogies, the media, the local stakes (witchcraft, anointed objects, CRL) and the African figures cannot be reduced to a NAR importation. To paste the NAR label onto every African church with an apostolic title would be a genealogical error. The long history since Azusa helps precisely to avoid this anachronistic tight fit.

### 7.4. What the genealogy forbids one to say about the NPC

Because the NPC are a late branch, four sentences become forbidden to the serious researcher and pastor.

1. “The NPC are the true face of Pentecostalism since Azusa.” False. Classical institutionalisation, Renewal and heterogeneous neo contradict this sentence.
2. “The NPC have no relation to charismatic history.” Also false. They inherit threads (prophecy, deliverance, media, prosperity) that they radicalise.
3. “It is typically African.” False. Media and transactional excesses exist elsewhere; South African documentary density is not a continental essence.
4. “To critique the NPC is to critique Africa.” False. It is often to take seriously African critiques already published.

### 7.5. Condensed chronology

```
Holiness / Parham (~1901) → Azusa Seymour (1906)
  → Classical denominations (1910s–1920s) + colonial Africa missions
  → AIC / prophetics (Kimbangu, Aladura…) in parallel
  → Charismatic Renewal (1960 Protestant; 1967 Catholic) + Africa campuses 1970s
  → Media / prosperity neo-Pentecostalism (1980s–1990s)
  → NPC / neo-prophetism (South Africa visibility 21st c.; Kgatle literature)
```

This timeline is not a forced march toward excess. It is a map of bifurcations. At each node, some actors chose training, collegiality, Scripture. At other nodes, others chose spectacle and the monopoly of anointing. Protestant discernment consists precisely in reading this map without fatalism.

### 7.6. Articulation with work already treated

Without duplicating them, one can briefly situate the angles already opened in the section: prophetic authority without counterweight; spiritual trauma and consequences; induced bodily behaviours and risks of control; false prophets and false apostles; motifs of monetised deliverance. All these angles become more readable when the genealogy is clear. One does not care in the same way for a believer wounded in a classical AG and a believer captured by a neo-prophetic consultation. One does not reform in the same way a synod and a cult of personality. Long history is a pastoral tool.

---

## 8. Protestant reading and historical discernment

### 8.1. Three texts for reading the history of spirits

Protestant Christianity does not approach the history of revivals with a feigned axiological neutrality. It approaches it with Scripture as norm.

**1 Thessalonians 5:19-21.** “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. But test everything; hold fast what is good.” The text holds together two demands: do not quench; test. A critical genealogy that only denounced would quench. A naïve genealogy that only celebrated would not test. The present article seeks the narrow path: history open to the Spirit, and spirit submitted to examination.

**1 John 4:1.** “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” The injunction holds for contemporary prophets. It also holds, by pastoral analogy, for *currents*. A current may produce fruit in one generation and tares in the next. Testing is not a betrayal of revival. It is obedience.

**Acts 17:11.** The Jews of Berea examine the Scriptures daily to see whether what Paul says is accurate. Even the apostle is submitted to scriptural verification. *A fortiori* media leaders, denominational traditions and origin narratives. A sacred history that refuses to be verified has already ceased to be Protestant.

### 8.2. Continuity of the Spirit, discontinuity of accountability

The Protestant analysis proposed here holds a simple thesis. There can be **continuity of experience** (desire for the Spirit, charisms, healing, mission) and **discontinuity of accountability** (structures of correction, training, collegiality, submission to Scripture).

The problem is not Azusa. The problem is not Seymour. The problem is not that a Lutheran prays in tongues in 1965. The documented problem worsens when authority becomes uncontrolled and faith transactional — more sharply at the neo and NPC stages, in certain configurations. To say this is not to absolve classical Pentecostalism of every abuse. It is to refuse to make Azusa the scapegoat of a late excess.

### 8.3. Operational criteria of historical discernment

| Question | Protestant orientation | Trap to avoid |
|----------|-------------------------|----------------|
| Who decides in the last instance? | Scripture and the edified body | The leader as living canon |
| Is experience tested? | 1 Thess 5:21; 1 John 4:1 | Experience as exclusive proof |
| Is there collegiality? | Elders, synods, peers | Prophet without recourse |
| Is the promise transactional? | Grace, not magical contract | “Pay to unlock” |
| Is Africa essentialised? | Structures, not “nature” | Compassionately racist or contemptuous racism |
| Is the current conflated? | Table of the four levels | “All revivals are cultic” |
| Is Azusa mythified? | Hub / polygenesis (Creech) | Sacralised monogenesis |

### 8.4. What Protestantism can receive and what it must refuse

**Receive.** Thirst for the Spirit; mission; healing as a legitimate request; non-colonialist indigenisation; critique of missionary rigidities; liturgical and musical creativity; refusal of a purely cerebral faith.

**Refuse.** Monopoly of the human mediator; demonisation of all critique; monetisation of the sacred as exploitation; the conflation that crushes the just with the guilty; essentialisation of Africa; sacralisation of a unique origin narrative.

Between the two, historical work becomes an act of discernment. Not a museum. Not a summary tribunal.

### 8.5. Historical discernment and the reader’s responsibility

The reader of this article is not an investigating magistrate. He or she is, potentially, a member of the body of Christ. His or her responsibility is concrete.

If a classical pastor: teach the genealogy in order to protect the flock from conflations *and* from neo-prophetic captures.

If a neo-Pentecostal leader: strengthen collegiality, training and financial transparency before invoking anointing as a shield.

If a wounded believer: name the exact configuration that wounded him or her, without hating all revival, and seek a community where 1 John 4:1 is obeyed.

If a journalist or decision-maker: stop treating “evangelical,” “Pentecostal” and “cult” as synonyms.

If a theologian: continue Kalu’s work — weave the African narrative into global historiography without paternalism.

### 8.6. The Spirit, history and the cross

A last theological note. Protestantism historicises without despairing. It knows that the Spirit can surprise (Acts). It knows that history can go off the rails (Galatians, Corinthians). It knows that the cross desacralises human mediators. A critical genealogy worthy of the name stands at the foot of the cross. It refuses enthusiasm without examination as much as cynicism without hope. “Hold fast what is good” is not a lukewarm compromise. It is a programme of fidelity.

---

## 9. Discussion and conclusion

### 9.1. Discussion. What the genealogy changes

Three major implications.

First, **for public debate.** To speak of “evangelicalism” or “Pentecostalism” as a unique bloc distorts public policies, reporting and collective fears. Distinguishing classical, Renewal, African neo and NPC allows one to target practices, not confessions.

Second, **for the churches.** Classical denominations have an interest in knowing their history so as not to be captured by neo-prophetic titles without safeguards. Neo-Pentecostal assemblies have an interest in strengthening training and collegiality before the NPC slide becomes structural. Believers of the Renewal have an interest in not confusing charism and absence of doctrine.

Third, **for Africa and the diaspora.** The genealogy refuses two toxic narratives. “Africa corrupted a pure Pentecostalism come from America.” “The West invented all evils; Africa would only have to celebrate its prophets.” History shows early African actors, ambiguous colonial missions, postcolonial creativities, documented abuses in precise configurations. The truth is heavier than slogans. It is also more just.

### 9.2. Discussion. Limits of the synthesis

This synthesis has not exhausted the archives. It has not settled every internal Pentecostal debate (initial evidence of tongues, Oneness, cessationism). It has not mapped Francophone Africa country by country. It has privileged verifiable sources and operational distinctions. These limits are assumed. They do not cancel the main result: one can write a critical, Protestant and non-essentialising history of Spirit-baptism movements as far as the NPC.

Another limit: documentary density is stronger for South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and certain Francophone West African syntheses. Continental extrapolations forbidden. The Gabonese, Congolese or Cameroonian reader will have to localise the timeline. That is legitimate work, not proof that “with us it would be different by essence.”

### 9.3. Open avenues

Without turning the article into an administrative catalogue, several threads remain open for the curious reader: fine Francophone mapping (DRC, Congo, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon) of the classical → charismatic → neo → NPC passage; bridge from Latter Rain (1940s) and Healing Revival toward independentism; diaspora and reverse mission; comparative historic AIC *versus* NPC; primary sources (*Apostolic Faith*, missionary archives, CRL regulatory frame). Each of these threads can nourish a more precise discernment, always under the norm of Scripture.

### 9.4. Conclusion

From Azusa Street to African New Prophetic Churches, the history of Spirit-baptism and charismatic movements is a history of **polygenesis**, of **bifurcations** and of **discernment**. Azusa is a hub, not a monogenesis (Creech, 1996). Classical Pentecostalism is not the Renewal. The Renewal is not African neo-Pentecostalism. African neo-Pentecostalism is not the NPC. American “neo-Pentecostal” is not African “néo-pentecôtiste.” Africa is neither a credulous essence nor a pneumatic essence. It is a historical field of colonial and postcolonial structures, local initiatives and religious markets.

From the standpoint of Protestant Christianity, the answer is neither quenching the Spirit nor naivety before spirits. “Do not quench the Spirit. […] Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21). “Test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). “They examined the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11). These verses do not close history. They open it to a critical fidelity.

In the end, the challenge is not to eliminate the charismatic from contemporary Christianity. The challenge is to **submit** it, like every ministry and every tradition, to the cross, to Scripture and to fraternal correction. Where this submission exists, the breath edifies. Where it is lacking, the genealogy of revival can become, in certain late branches, a machine of authority without recourse. Protestantism has the resources to say so without hatred and without naivety. It remains for it to dare to know the history, in the service of the least, in Africa as in the diaspora.

To know the history, here, is not to accumulate dates in order to shine. It is to refuse that the memory of Azusa serve as a blank cheque for any spectacle. It is to refuse that critique of the NPC serve as a pretext for despising millions of faithful African Christians. It is, concretely, to obey 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 in the long term: do not quench; test; hold fast what is good. Such is the distinctive contribution of this genealogy to the Research section: a historical foundation for more just discernment.

---

## Sources

### Academic and reference sources (alphabetical order)

- Anderson, A. H. (2014). *An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity* (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524063
- Asamoah-Gyadu, J. K. (2005). *African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana*. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047406303
- Creech, J. (1996). Visions of glory. The place of the Azusa Street Revival in Pentecostal history. *Church History*, 65(3), 405–424. https://doi.org/10.2307/3169938
- Gifford, P. (2004). *Ghana's New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalizing African Economy*. Indiana University Press / Hurst.
- Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Notices on the Charismatic Movement (Bennett 1960; Duquesne 1967). https://hirr.hartfordinternational.edu/
- Hollenweger, W. J. *Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide*. Classic synthesis (African American root / “black root”).
- Kalu, O. (2008). *African Pentecostalism: An Introduction*. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340006.001.0001
- Kalu, O., & Anderson, A. (2007). Contributions in *Mission Studies* (campus, mission, African Pentecostalism). https://doi.org/10.1163/157338307x191561
- Kgatle, M. S. (2021). *Pentecostalism and Cultism in South Africa*. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69724-2
- Kgatle, M. S., Banda, C., & Reddie, A. G. (Eds.). (2023/2024). *African New Prophetic Pentecostalism and Human Flourishing*. Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b20441
- Lado, L. (2008). Les enjeux du pentecôtisme africain. *Études*. https://www.revue-etudes.com/article/les-enjeux-du-pentecotisme-africain/9521
- Mayrargue, C. (2004). Trajectoires et enjeux contemporains du pentecôtisme en Afrique de l'Ouest. *Critique internationale*, 22, 95–110. https://doi.org/10.3917/crii.022.0095
- McClymond, M. (2014). Charismatic Renewal and Neo-Pentecostalism. In *The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism*. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9780511910111.005
- Mohr, A. Faith Tabernacle congregations and the prophetic Aladura movement in Nigeria. *Journal of Religion in Africa*. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12341249
- Robeck, C. M., Jr. (2006). *The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement*. Thomas Nelson.
- Synan, V. *The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century*. Reference synthesis on Holiness roots.

### Institutional sources (contextual NPC referral)

- CRL Rights Commission (2017). *Report of the hearings on the commercialisation of religion and abuse of people's belief systems*. Republic of South Africa.

### Scriptural sources cited in the body

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21; 1 John 4:1; Acts 17:11. Also mobilised in the background of discernment: Matthew 7:15-20; Ephesians 4:11-16; 2 Peter 2:3; Galatians 5:22-23.

### Note on source quality

- **Solid (peer-reviewed / academic):** Creech; Mayrargue; Kalu; Kalu and Anderson; Mohr; Asamoah-Gyadu; McClymond; Kgatle; Peter Lang volume.
- **Syntheses / handbooks:** Anderson; Lado; Robeck; Synan; Hollenweger. High for chronology and typology; cross-check with the previous level.
- **Public notices:** Hartford Institute. Useful for dates (Bennett 1960; Duquesne 1967); always cross-check.
- **Wagner grid (three waves):** pedagogical tool, not universal taxonomy.
- **Assumed limits:** no invented membership statistics; Lado = synthesis (not primary archives); genealogical focus — analyses of NPC abuse, trauma and false prophets are referred without duplication.

---

*Article intended for [Au cœur du Silence](https://ntilia.com/u/silence), Research section. Orientation Protestant Christianity.*