Author: Mingli CHEN, Assistant Professor, School of Public Administration, Guangzhou University.
Abstract:
Religious revival has put the classic secularization theory in question, and the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement is often regarded as a model case to refute the assertions of religious decline. However, from the perspective of the relationship between the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement and the theory of secularization, that is, with modernity, the movement only denies the inferences of the theory of secularization at the level of phenomena, not the theory per se. This paper argues that through analyzing the diachronic development of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement and its characteristics at different stages, the complicated relationship with modernity and its changing status can be elicited. The movement was born in the soil of modernity and nurtured by modernity while simultaneously possessing anti-modernity characteristics, and it responded to modernity from a faith perspective. The dynamic relationship between the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement and modernity revitalized the reflexivity of the latter and led to a deeper understanding of secularization theory.
Keywords:
The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement; The Secularization Theory; Modernity; religious revival
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