Origin from 2006
This atlas already records four individual hops in Pentecostalism's spread: the 1906 Azusa Street Revival, the Apostolic Faith Mission it seeded in South Africa, the 1914 founding of the Assemblies of God, and Swedish missionary work establishing the movement in Brazil. By 2006, Pew Research Center documented what those individual hops add up to in aggregate: at least a quarter of the world's two billion Christians belonged to Pentecostal and related charismatic renewalist movements, one of the most influential developments in global Christianity across the whole twentieth century, with its greatest growth concentrated in Latin America, Africa and Asia rather than in the movement's own place of origin in the American South.
Facts
Dates
Start Year2006 is the date of the Pew Research figure cited, describing the culmination of a growth process that ran across the whole twentieth century beginning with the 1906 Azusa Street Revival already recorded elsewhere in this atlas; it is not claimed as the date the movement itself reached this scale, only the date this atlas's source documents it. Learn More
How Pentecostalism Grew into a Global Christian Movement
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Pentecostalism reached the twenty first century through a series of individual hops rather than one single spread. The 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles seeded the movement's earliest wave, which crossed to South Africa through the Apostolic Faith Mission, gained lasting American institutional form with the 1914 founding of the Assemblies of God, and reached Brazil through Swedish missionary work that established the movement there.
By 2006, the Pew Research Center set out to measure what those separate hops had added up to across a century. Its finding was striking: at least a quarter of the world's roughly two billion Christians belonged to Pentecostal and related charismatic renewalist movements, one of the single most influential developments anywhere in twentieth century global Christianity. The movement's greatest growth by that point sat not in the American South where it had begun, but in Latin America, Africa and Asia, regions its early missionaries had carried it toward rather than regions it had stayed confined within.
What the aggregate 2006 measurement changed was visibility for a pattern already well under way: a revival that started in one Los Angeles building had, within a century, become a quarter of world Christianity, its center of growth having moved almost entirely away from its own place of origin.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Africa directly: "Faith Mission it seeded in South Africa, the 1914 founding of the Assemblies of God, and Swedish missionary work establishing the movement in Brazil."
This source names Americas directly: "This atlas already records four individual hops in Pentecostalism's spread: the 1906 Azusa Street Revival, the Apostolic Faith Mission it seeded in South Africa, the 1914 founding of the Assemblies..."
This source names Asia directly: "in Latin America, Africa and Asia rather than in the movement's own place of origin in the American South."
This source names Pew Research Center directly: "By 2006, Pew Research Center documented what those individual hops add up to in aggregate: at least a quarter of the world's two billion Christians belonged to Pentecostal and related charismatic..."
Occurred In
Anchored to the same Global continent entity the Latter-day Saints' own global-south growth event already uses, since this fact is genuinely worldwide rather than tied to one country or region.
Spread Event Of
The aggregate scale the tradition's four existing individual hop events do not by themselves state; this summarizes what they add up to rather than repeating them.
Sources
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