Old Wine and New Wine Skins: West Indian and the New West African Pentecostal Churches in Britain and the Challenge of Renewal

Abstract

AbstractThis article is about the black Pentecostal churches of West Indian and West African origin in the Britain. It explores the challenges and opportunities for renewal and reappropriation that confront transmigration black Pentecostal churches beyond the first and second generation. It looks at the older West Indian Pentecostal churches (New Testament Church of God) and the new West African churches (Redeemed Christian Church of God) and asks, what are the lessons of continuity and renewal that they can mutually teach each other at a time of steady decline of traditional black Pentecostalism and the rise of a new West African Pentecostal brand? It places black Pentecostal movements in Britain within the broader global Pentecostal movement and argues against fragmented identities and historiographies which mitigate against mutual learning and shared experience.