A new word came up in my Twitter feed today:
Renewalist Christians? What does that mean?
Of course the term isn’t actually new—this classification has existed for several years now, as a blog post by Roger Olson illustrates. But he, like I, was curious about what this term meant. I could think of a broad swath of movements that might be termed ‘renewalist’, from revivals to right-wing crusades for cultural (moral) renewal, and even social justice and earth-care movements. Indeed almost any Christianity could be termed a renewalist Christianity given 2 Corinthians 4:17: ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (KJV). So what makes these American Hispanic Christians particularly ‘renewalist’?
Olson thinks that ‘the sociological “center” seems to be passionate belief in and commitment to spiritual renewal of individuals and churches through experience of God including the contemporary supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.’ It includes various sorts of Christians who believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, despite diverging on a large range of other and related issues.
The Pew report describes renewalist Christianity thusly:
These lively, highly personal faiths emphasize the spiritually renewing “gifts of the Holy Spirit,” such as speaking in tongues, divine healing and direct revelations from God. Together, these religious traditions are sometimes referred to as the “renewalist” branch of Christianity.
The authors go on to note that this group includes both Protestants and Catholics with a note on terminology:
In this report, the term “Pentecostal” is used to describe those who belong to Pentecostal denominations, such as the Assemblies of God or the Assembly of Christian Churches.
The term “charismatic” is used to describe Christians, including Protestants and Catholics, who do not belong to Pentecostal denominations but who nevertheless describe themselves as either charismatic or Pentecostal Christians.
“Renewalist” is an umbrella term that refers to both Pentecostals and charismatics as a group.
It will be interesting to see how this term plays out. Clearly it is being used by Pew as an etic, scholarly, analytic term to categorize groups and individuals based on their observable practices and professed beliefs. But will it become (or is it already) an emic term used as a point of unity and identification among those who fall within it’s classification? And what will that do to perceptions of boundaries between the various groups?
Olson is an example of someone who is in fact using the term in this way:
I still have enough of Pentecostalism in me to believe this, Renewalism, is an extremely important movement beneficial to Christianity today (even though I do not speak in tongues and do not believe it is for everyone). Conservative evangelicals have been pushing correct doctrine as the path toward church renewal for quite a while now (even in the mainline churches). I don’t think that alone will do what needs to be done. If we want to see revival as it is happening in the Global South in North America and Europe, we will have to be more open to the present operation of the Holy Spirit in very emotional ways.
This is an example of how boundaries between analytic and popular terms are permeable. It’s always interesting to ask ‘whose term is it anyway?’, for such exploration exposes how language is fluid and political.
