Power and empowerment in the political context of some Afrikaans-speaking Pentecostals in South Africa

Abstract

The white Pentecostal movement in South Africa made several drastic political turnabouts, from pacifism to supporting the total onslaught, from being a multi-cultural church to being a supporter of apartheid and eventually a unified church after democratisation in South Africa. The Pentecostal struggle for recognition is a key to understanding white Pentecostal attitudes to political and economic power. The decades from the fifties to the eighties were marked by the implementation of apartheid. At the same time the white Pentecostal movement began an endeavour to become acceptable. Once the AFM had aligned itself with the National Party’s fight against “communism” it was impossible to remain pacifist. In the succeeding years the reform agenda of the AFM always closely followed the reform patterns of the government. After 1994, the white AFM moved dramatically fast towards unification with the black churches. Determination to maintain their newfound status in society played a role in this dramatic return to non-racialism.