Pulling down Strongholds: Evangelism, Principalities and Powers and the African Pentecostal Imagination

Abstract

Themes relating to overcoming, conquering, dominating, or defeating evil powers and breaking through debilitating conditions that afflict people, as seen in the ministries of Jesus Christ and of the apostles in Acts, are familiar to Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity. In fact, Pentecostals differ from other Christian traditions not simply because they believe in speaking in tongues but also because they emphasize the grace of the Holy in helping the believer overcome the debilitating influences of evil. Evangelism in the Pentecostal tradition, as the late founder of the Vineyard Ministries, John Wimber, usually put it, is about power encounters. The Bible is the primary source of Pentecostal theology and we may profitably begin from there. In that vein, two particular texts familiar to Pentecostal/Charismatic discourse stimulate my thinking as I reflect on the relationship between evangelism and power encounters in African Pentecostal discourse and practice. The first has to do with Philip's ministry in Samaria that followed the persecution of the apostles in Jerusalem: Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city (Acts 8:4-8). The second text relates to how the same miracles of healing, exorcism and deliverance associated with the apostolic ministry accompanied the ministry of Paul. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and evil spirits left them (Acts 19:11-12). In these two passages, we find that the preaching of the word of God and the ministry of signs and wonders were inseparable in the Acts of the Apostles and, as Pentecostals often like to point out, also in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Obstacles that prevent people from realizing abundance of life in ,Jesus Christ, including sin, spiritual and physical afflictions, and other such negative influences, are in Pentecostal hermeneutics cast as strongholds. Such strongholds must be pulled down by the authority of the risen Christ and in the power of the Holy as a validation of the gospel and not as an appendix to Christian ministry. This is one way in which Pentecostal/charismatic Christians understand the words of Jesus, You shall receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon you (Acts 1:8). I use the conjoined expression 'Pentecostal/charismatic' to refer to all Christians, churches and movements that believe in and value, affirm and consciously seek to work within the presence of the Holy as part of normal Christian experience. For such people and movements the power of the Holy includes his ability to grant Christians who have experienced him the authority that Christ promised they would have to witness in his name. That authority includes the power over evil spirits and demons. Belief, experience and the Holy The authority of the believer is itself founded on passages such as Mark 9:14-18, which some scholars have argued was not originally part of the original biblical corpus. Pentecostals will have none of that historical-critical approach to the text. The Bible for them is the authoritative word of God, and what it promises the believer must be appropriated for the expansion of God's kingdom. Thus, Pentecostals preach, speak, teach, sing about and practice these interventionist theologies, as I call them, in ways and to degrees that one cannot find in other streams of Christianity. I/we believe in the Holy Spirit is an aspect of the Christian creed that every Christian and church may be willing to affirm. …