Pentecostals, Israel, and the Prophetic Politics of Dominion
This essay traces the evolution of a specific tradition of prophecy interpretation in U.S. pentecostal-charismatic circles, which I dub the "prophetic politics of dominion." From the start, this strain of pentecostal-charismatic religiosity merged transnational sensibilities with dominion-...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
[2020]
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| In: |
Religion and American culture
Year: 2020, Volume: 30, Issue: 3, Pages: 426-473 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
USA
/ Pentecostal churches
/ Anglo-Israel theory
/ Millennialism
/ Rule
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| IxTheo Classification: | KBL Near East and North Africa KBQ North America KDG Free church ZC Politics in general |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This essay traces the evolution of a specific tradition of prophecy interpretation in U.S. pentecostal-charismatic circles, which I dub the "prophetic politics of dominion." From the start, this strain of pentecostal-charismatic religiosity merged transnational sensibilities with dominion-style language but typically shied away from overt political organization. Building on Israel-themed symbols and ideas acquired from nineteenth-century evangelical prophecy interpretation, a small but influential group of white proto-pentecostals and early pentecostals embraced a distinctive set of eschatological teachings known as British Israelism and its attendant literal racial identification of Anglo-Saxons with Jews. Such emphases bolstered a conviction that spirit-empowered Christians would exert significant influence on global politics prior to the Second Coming of Jesus. In the ensuing decades, a vocal minority of notable pentecostals and their charismatic successors kept alive similar emphases even as they eschewed the highly racialized conceptions of pentecostal connections to the "Lost Tribes of Israel." More comfortable employing Christian millennial tropes than engaging pragmatic politics, these figures, nevertheless, anticipated the rapid Christianization of society and their own ascendance to positions of spiritual and temporal power in preparation for Christ's return. All the while, Israel-centric symbols and identities remained central. The crystallization of this transnational, dominion-now tradition, with its unique Israel-centric emphases and millennial motifs, represented one of the most significant - and most misunderstood - contributions to evangelical politics by U.S. pentecostals and charismatics over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. |
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| ISSN: | 1533-8568 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion and American culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/rac.2020.16 |