9 - Contextualizing the Global: Marketing Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity in Malaysia and Indonesia

Summary

Abstract

Despite Christianity's position as a minority faith in most Asian countries, the remarkable expansion of Pentecostalism-Charismatic (P/C) Christianity in recent years has encouraged observers to regard it as a ‘new’ religious movement. Using the Sidang Injil Borneo, Malaysia, and the Bethel Church of Indonesia as examples, this chapter employs the concept of ‘glocalization’ to examine how P/C Christianity has been marketed to Indonesian and Malaysian clientele in ways that maintain a global style of evangelism while stressing local roots. The emphasis on charismatic preaching and healing has exercised a strong cultural appeal and provided a basis for the subsequent growth of P/C congregations. An increased presence in urban centres also owes much to communication through social media and to a technologically sophisticated worship style perceived as emblematic of a new religious modernity. At the same time, these case studies suggest that the presentation of Christianity as simultaneously national and cosmopolitan contains inherent tensions, and that ‘local’ elements are receding as global influences become increasingly dominant.

Keywords: Pentecostalism, Charismatic Christianity, marketing, glocalisation, Sidang Injil Borneo, Gereja Bethel Indonesia

In the non-Western world, the contemporary revitalization and expansion of Pentecostalism, a movement within Christianity that stresses a believer's personal encounter with God through the Holy Spirit, is an unprecedented phenomenon. This development is of particular interest because Pentecostalism itself is not a ‘new’ religion. While its formal origins are generally traced to revival meetings held in Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906, antecedents can be found in Christian renewal movements in the late nineteenth century. The name is derived from the Greek Pentekostas [50], which in Jewish tradition refers to the ritual held seven weeks after Passover. The Pentecostal movement takes its inspiration from the biblical description of events on the Day of Pentecost that followed the death and resurrection of Christ as described in Acts 2. A group of disciples were gathered together for prayer when the sound of a mighty wind engulfed the entire house. ‘And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance’. The conviction that the Holy Spirit can once more descend in all its power is thus central to Pentecostal theology.