An answer to self-destruction

At the same time, if Pentecostalism is to be called a mystical tradition of the church catholic, it needs to be so within its own context and theology. In this sense, Pentecostalism is unique. For Pentecostalism appears to exhibit premodern characteristics, and yet it emerged in late modernity. How can we account for this combination? Broadly, the rise of Pentecostalism can be read … as a kind of indictment of some of the most difficult happenings in the modern Christian West. The movement has also helped usher a global Christian revival, which few people could have anticipated a few decades ago. The Pentecostal ethos draws people from all walks of life with a message of God’s presence in the mundane, God’s power among the poor and the oppressed, and God’s hope for a world suffering the stifling weight of its own self-destruction.—Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, page 77