‘The Evangelisation of the Nation, the Revitalisation of the Church and the Transformation of Society’: Megachurches and Social Engagement

By common scholarly consent, Pentecostals have never been particularly engaged social or politically (Anderson 2012; Chong 2015: 219; Davies 2018a; Davies 2019).1 It was not that they were uncaring or uninterested. It did not take the early Pentecostals long to confront the social challenges faced by their communities, even if in small ways, through the establishment of care homes, orphanages and feeding programmes (Kay 2009: 302; Wilson 2011:12). Yet they were too focussed on their hope for the ultimate (as far as they were concerned, impending) resolution of eternity to be too deeply and systematically concerned with the hardships faced in the here and now, even when these were hardships that were faced by their own community as much as by any other. Furthermore, they appear to have been concerned that engagement with any sort of ‘social gospel’ would distract them from their central call to preach the ‘full gospel’ of individual transformation through faith in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Undoubtedly, the priority of the earliest Pentecostals was “saving souls rather than changing socio-economic and political structures” (Hunt 2011: 157), and they were so committed to individual transformation that systemic change never became a priority for them (Prakash 2010). But, as time passed and the movement grew, Pentecostals found “such strong solidarity among themselves, courageously going against social norms such as racial segregation, that they forged a social and spiritual culture