Social Engagement in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements

Pentecostal communities are often characterized as focused on personal salvation to the exclusion of engagement with society and culture at large. But as the contributions to this volume show, there is an astoundingly diverse array of traditions that identify with the Holiness, Radical Holiness, or Pentecostal movements, and each brings with it a long and complex history of social engagement—and, at times, disengagement—that needs to be examined in historical context.

Accordingly, this volume explores how churches (and individuals) influenced by Holiness and Pentecostal thought have offered aid to the needy, advocated for social justice, and situated themselves politically, all while navigating their own marginalization as religious communities. The chapters plumb histories of abolition, racial justice, rescue missions, and cultural politics—from African Methodism as a fulcrum for Black liberation to the Pentecostal practice of providing sanctuary for undocumented migrants, the Salvation Army’s fraught internationalism, and the development of blues, jazz, and gospel in the Sanctified churches. The book does not offer a single theological vision but rather unfurls for readers the richness of the Pentecostal, Holiness, and Radical Holiness movements’ pluralistic engagements with societies in their various contexts.

In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Rebecca Carter-Chand, Dale M. Coulter, Dara Coleby Delgado, Dennis C. Dickerson, Amanda Koch, John Maiden, Priscilla Pope-Levison, Daniel Ramírez, and Randall J. Stephens.