Global Pentecostalism

The global Pentecostal movement in Brazil and Nigeria was the subject of my PhD research. My grandmother couldn’t understand it — what was a nice Jewish girl doing studying holy rollers? But I’d entered graduate school determined to find a way to study hope in global history, and I landed on Pentecostalism as the best example of the lived experience of hope that I could find.

Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religion in the world (by conversion, not birth). There are over half a billion Pentecostals worldwide. The most Pentecostal countries in the world are the United States, Nigeria and Brazil. I chose to study Brazil. When I became curious about whether there was any connection between traditional African religious practices (Brazil having the largest population of African descent outside Africa) and Pentecostal beliefs in spirits and healing, I added Nigeria too. I spent substantial time in both countries doing archival research and participant-observation.

After completing my PhD and publishing some academic articles and book chapters off the back of it, I began a well-received conversation with Oxford University Press about writing a monograph on the centrality of the devil in contemporary Christianity; started working with a literary agent to develop a collection of essays on belief and doubt; and began publishing essays in The Boston Review. In other words, I bit off more than I could chew alongside establishing an academic career and starting a family. When I left academia in 2019, I abandoned the book project and the essay collection. Maybe someday I’ll pick them up again.