"Renewalist" Christianity

[tagryn]

from John Allen's All Things Catholic column:

[...] While beliefs and practices are basically the same, Pentecostals form their own denominations, while charismatics remain within their churches of origin, whether Protestant or Catholic. The Pew report uses the generic term renewalist to describe this option within global Christianity. [...]The Pew report finds that renewalist Christians tend to have the following characteristics:

* Church services include the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, or prayer for miraculous healing, even though not all renewalists engage in these practices themselves;
* Many say they have personally witnessed or experienced the divine healing of illness or injury;
* Many also say they have witnessed the devil or evil spirits being driven out of someone;
* A strong emphasis on a literal reading of the Bible;
* Belief that miracles still occur as in biblical times;
* A more explicitly evangelical commitment to sharing the faith with non-believers;
* A more exclusive emphasis on Christ as the lone path to salvation;
* At least as strong a commitment to engaging social and political questions as non-renewalist Christians;
* A conservative moral code on issues such as homosexuality, extra-marital sex, abortion and divorce;
* Higher-than-average rates of attendance at church services.

In some cases, these markers of identity are more pronounced among Pentecostals than charismatics, and there are a few clear differences between the two. In three nations, for example, more than half of Pentecostals said the government should take steps to make it a special Christian nation, while in no country did more than half of charismatics share this view. In general, however, the renewalists are much closer to one another than to other types of Christians.