The Pentecostalisation of African Christianity has been called the “African Reformation” of the past thirty years. African Pentecostalism is a diverse movement characterised by its emphases on Spirit baptism, divine healing, charismatic worship and eschatological expectations. This work investigates its eschatological systems in terms of its unrealised expectation of the second coming of Christ, and suggestions are presented for the movement to keep its eschatology at the heart of its impetus. This is accomplished through a hermeneutical awareness of the distinctiveness of Pentecostalism as a restorationist movement. Written for pastors, church leaders and believers, this book discusses the literalistic way of reading the Bible in most of the classical Pentecostal components of African Pentecostalism, supporting their premillennialist and even dispensational eschatological views. It suggests a new Pentecostal hermeneutics developed by scholarship in the past forty years, in line with significant elements of the way in which early Pentecostals read the Bible. This new hermeneutical awareness implies new and exciting ways of thinking about eschatology that will enrich and enlighten African Pentecostalism in its hope for the second coming of Christ.

In The People’s Zion, Joel Cabrita tells the transatlantic story of Southern Africa’s largest popular religious movement, Zionism. It began in Zion City, a utopian community established in 1900 just north of Chicago. The Zionist church, which promoted faith healing, drew tens of thousands of marginalized Americans from across racial and class divides. It also sent missionaries abroad, particularly to Southern Africa, where its uplifting spiritualism and pan-racialism resonated with urban working-class whites and blacks. Circulated throughout Southern Africa by Zion City’s missionaries and literature, Zionism thrived among white and black workers drawn to Johannesburg by the discovery of gold. As in Chicago, these early devotees of faith healing hoped for a color-blind society in which they could acquire equal status and purpose amid demoralizing social and economic circumstances. Defying segregation and later apartheid, black and white Zionists formed a uniquely cosmopolitan community that played a key role in remaking the racial politics of modern Southern Africa. Connecting cities, regions, and societies usually considered in isolation, Cabrita shows how Zionists on either side of the Atlantic used the democratic resources of evangelical Christianity to stake out a place of belonging within rapidly-changing societies. In doing so, they laid claim to nothing less than the Kingdom of God. Today, the number of American Zionists is small, but thousands of independent Zionist churches counting millions of members still dot the Southern African landscape.

The Return of the Latter Rain is a historical review of the Seventh-day Adventist history from 1844 through 1891, especially in light of the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference and the beginning of the latter rain and the loud cry. Ellen White stated: "The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family. . . . This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure" (1888 Materials, pp. 1336-1337). Sadly, however, Ellen White also stated: "An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord's message through Brethren Waggoner and Jones. By exciting that opposition, Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world" (1888 Materials, p. 1575). Thankfully though, the same latter rain is about to return!

Surpassing the scope and the thoroughness of the first edition, this new edition of The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions is the most wide-ranging and accessible resource on the historically significant and more obscure, sinister, and bizarre religious groups. Including many entries by scholarly specialists, this volume explains more than 1,000 diverse groups and movements, from such well-known sects as the Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyo, and Heaven's Gate, to obscure groups like Ordo Templi Satanas, Witches International, and the Nudist Christian Church of the Blessed Virgin Jesus. In addition to an exhaustive index and handy cross-references, the second edition includes over a hundred new topical entries on subjects relevant to understanding sectarian movements, from snake-handling and satanic ritual abuse to brainwashing and exorcism.This book, a must for all libraries and schools, will endure as the first and only point of reference for researchers, scholars, students, and anyone interested in fringe religious groups.