2. More on Australian Pentecostals

Are Pentecostals theocratic? Do they believe that Australia should be governed by Christian politicians committed to implementing ‘the law of God’?

They say no; I say yes. According to Brian Houston, National President of the Assemblies of God (AOG) in Australia:

One thing we are not is a political movement. The Assemblies of God in Australia does not have a political vision and we don’t have a political agenda. (Linda Morris ‘Church expands horizons’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May 2005)

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Filed in: Christian Right, Pentecostalism, Politics

While Christian fundamentalists and Pentecostals dismiss the beliefs of Muslims and Hindus etc. as ’sheer superstition’, they are in fact extremely superstitious themselves. Supporters of the Religious Right, both Protestant and Catholic, love the idea of ‘miracles’ and are very credulous about supernaturalist stories. This renders many of them easy prey for the cash-extracting stage hypnotists sometimes called ‘televangelists’.

Only Christian miracles are any good, however. Clifford Wilson, a veteran evangelical creationist, urges his readers to reject the ‘greatly exaggerated false stories about the boyhood of Jesus’ recounted in early gospels left out of the Bible:

In one story we read of a child who is supposed to have run against Jesus and fallen down dead. We read of a man who had been changed into a mule being turned back into a man when Jesus was placed on his back. We are told of Jesus making figures of animals and birds of clay and then making them walk, fly, and take food … (’The Bible comes alive’, New Life, 16 June 2005)

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Filed in: Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism

1. Australian Pentecostals

What is Pentecostalism all about?

Can’t go past Barney Zwartz’s summary, ‘The Hallelujah Chorus’, Melbourne Age, 24 Dec. 2004:

From their birth in Los Angeles in 1906 they have become about a quarter of the world’s Christians. They are very strong in Africa, Asia and Latin America where they are a grassroots movement with a strong emphasis on the supernatural, such as miraculous healing and victory over demons. In the US and Australia they are middle class and more conservative, often with an emphasis on the prosperity gospel (God wants his people wealthy and healthy here and now) …

Zwartz explains that many Pentecostal-type believers called ‘charismatics’ attend and often dominate particular mainstream congregations - Anglican, Catholic etc. - adapting Pentecostalism to suit their own traditions.

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Filed in: Christian Right, Pentecostalism, Politics