Pentecostalism at a Crossroads: A Fight for the Soul of Pentecostalism
- National Latino Evangelical Coalition
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
I am a fourth-generation Pentecostal who is worried about the soul of contemporary Pentecostalism.
In 1916, my great-grandmother, Ramona Jordan Echevarria, was among the first converts during the great Pentecostal revival in Ponce, Puerto Rico, under the leadership of Juan L. Lugo. For those who do not know this history, the arrival of Pentecostalism in Puerto Rico came through Puerto Rican pineapple farmers in Hawaii who were impacted by believers connected to the Azusa Street Revival. Yes, Azusa-Hawaii-Puerto Rico.
On my father’s side, my father was a former heroin addict who had a radical conversion experience in a street revival in Ponce, Puerto Rico and was initially discipled through the ministry of Teen Challenge. My father and mother have been Pentecostal ministers for more than fifty years. My wife and I remain Pentecostal ministers today.
While I am the first to admit that Pentecostalism is not perfect, I have seen the powerful and transformative ministry of the Spirit at work in some of the most difficult places. I grew up in a small New Jersey Latino Pentecostal congregation committed to the vulnerable, with drug rehabilitation programs, prison reentry ministries, outreach to immigrants, and a soup kitchen. As a young person, I traveled with Pentecostal missionaries to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Peru, and throughout Latin America. I witnessed a Spirit-empowered Gospel deeply committed to the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten.
This commitment is consistent with the birth of modern Pentecostalism at Azusa Street in 1906, where God used William J. Seymour to ignite a multiracial, Spirit-filled movement. In many ways, Pentecostalism emerged from what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “a view from below.” As some theologians in Latin America put it, “Liberation theology preferentially opted for the poor, but the poor preferentially opted for Pentecostalism.”
Early twentieth-century Pentecostalism was marked not only by spiritual vitality but also by a theology of accompaniment and transformation. In Appalachia, the favelas of Brazil, the urban centers of New York, Los Angeles, and Ponce, and throughout Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, and the broader Global South, Pentecostals sought, with varying degrees of success and failure, to unite spiritual renewal with solidarity for the least of these.
Like all movements, Pentecostalism expanded socially and economically.
My wife and I are beneficiaries of that growth. We are Pentecostals with doctoral degrees, and many of our congregants come from every socioeconomic background. Yet I worry that our success has brought with it new temptations. We are in danger of drifting from our biblical and pneumatological roots.
There is a struggle underway for our collective identity as Spirit-empowered followers of Jesus. The question before the global Pentecostal movement is simple: Will we follow the way of the Crucified Christ, or will we allow ourselves to be co-opted by contemporary principalities and powers that offer a counterfeit spirituality? Will we exchange the transforming power of the Holy Spirit for forms of influence that feed personal ambition and institutional ego? Or, will we blindly follow a faux Gospel enamored with money, power, and celebrity?
I am not arguing against a multiclass, multiracial, multicultural movement, which includes rich and poor, urban and rural, well-known and anonymous servant-leaders. But as Pentecostalism continues to grow globally, we must resist the idols that tempt us to substitute God’s power to serve and transform for power pursued for selfish gain.
The historic Pentecostal commitment to empowering marginalized people, to serving for community well-being, and to moral integrity marked by honesty, humility, and holiness is increasingly threatened by three powerful temptations.
The Lust of the Eyes: Greed and the Prosperity Gospel
The first temptation is greed.
At its worst, Pentecostalism has embraced an unrestrained and unbiblical prosperity theology that confuses God’s blessing with material accumulation and treats faith as a pathway to personal enrichment. What began as a movement among the poor and vulnerable is too often tempted to measure success by wealth, influence, and consumption.
The Gospel is not a get-rich-quick scheme. The Spirit was poured out to empower witness, service, sacrifice, and transformation. When the Church becomes obsessed with acquisition, we cease to be a prophetic people and become consumers draped in religious language.
The New Testament consistently presents Christian leadership through the lens of servanthood, sacrifice, generosity, and stewardship. The accumulation of wealth is never presented as the measure of spiritual maturity or divine favor. When Pentecostal churches adopt the values of consumer culture and baptize them in spiritual language, we risk confusing the American Dream with the Kingdom of God.
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