The political turn in American Pentecostalism: prophets, healers, businessmen, and the lure of Christian America

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper looks at the role of independent and interdenominational Pentecostal actors in the politicisation of American Pentecostalism between the 1950s and 1970s. It lays particular stress on a nexus of three tightly interrelated groups: the deliverance movement (with emphasis on Oral Roberts and Gordon Lindsay); the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, International; and the Word of Faith movement (with emphasis on Kenneth Copeland). The paper reveals a striking diversity of mid-century political postures and positions, but documents a growing shift towards political networking, patriotic themes and activities, and Christian Americanism within these quarters throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in open political engagement. That outcome is epitomised by Copeland’s fervent endorsement of President Richard Nixon in a sequence of prophetic messages that prefigured, in striking ways, the ardent embrace of Donald Trump by New Apostolic Reformation prophets almost a half-century later.