Has pentecostalism become the in-thing (II)

The coming of Pentecostal churches has seen an exodus of Christians from traditional churches. What attracts the people at these Pentecostal churches.

Malawi Union of SDA Church stewardship and trust services director Pastor Dennis Matekenya says the publicity of healing and deliverance services as something that might be persuading their members to the latter-day spiritual movements.

Matekenya said although conventional churches have the gift of healing and deliverance, they do not publicise as do other religious movements; hence, some may think such gifts do not exist.

“The third one is the experiential worship that involves physical gestures and invokes emotions. There are those who need the feeling of worship! These people end up feeling bored in conventional churches without a live band with heavy sounds and rhythms that make body movement almost spontaneous. Thus, conventional churches appear too dignified and rigid for some,” he explained.

While acknowledging that Pentecostalism’s emergence has destabilised some mainline churches, clerk of the Blantyre City Presbytery of the CCAP, Reverend Buxton Maulidi, hailed Pentecostalism for enhancing spiritual growth among Christians.

Maulidi also observed that the movements have encouraged pastors of conventional churches to engage an extra gear in their approach to preaching the gospel.

“However, the problem I have with them is their emphasis on wealth and soliciting money from members. This is against what Jesus taught his disciples in John 13:33-35, that believers must focus more on love and not money,” he explained.

In his book titled ‘The Phenomenal Growth of Pentecostalism in the Contemporary Nigerian Society: A Challenge to Mainline Churches,’ Benjamin Diara noted that the Anglican Church is another major victim of what some people call ‘spiritual promiscuity’ owing to its loose attitude to Bible reading as opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, which restricted Bible reading to the priests.

But chairperson of the Anglican Council of Malawi, Bishop Brighton Malasa did not see anything amiss in their faith to warrant an exodus of believers into Pentecostal movements.

“We have all the necessary elements of worship; praise, adoration, thanksgiving, the word, offering, prayers for intercession and communion, among others. So, I don’t think there is something core about worship that we are missing. In fact, conventional churches are rich in everything,” said Malasa.

Pastor Mark Kayenda of Zambezi Evangelical Church (ZEC) said Pentecostalism has not affected their church in any way.

Kayenda stated that Christians who switch churches are not well-grounded in their faith, which he challenged is not the case at ZEC.

But both Head of Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) Bishop Joseph Zuza and Matekenya said it is a big lie for a faith grouping to claim that it has not been affected by the emergence of Pentecostalism.

Zuza said political independence appears to have, in turn, encouraged religious freedom and independence among believers, giving rise to a situation where one holds membership to two or more churches at the same time.

“We have Christians in our midst who congregate with us every Sunday and any other religious day. But during evenings, they attend Pentecostal prayers for various reasons such as fellowship, celebration or some spiritual financial breakthroughs. This is common among the youth and we can’t penalise them because they have the freedom to choose which church or faith to belong to,” he said.