Abstract
Two critical works recognizing the correlation between Black Pentecostalism and black Power were written in the last years of the 1970s, both dissertations are still unpublished. In 1978 at Howard University, James Tinney completed “A Theoretical and Historical Comparison of Black Political Movements.” He compared the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, The Black Panther Party, and Black Pentecostalism, and concluded that Black Pentecostalism was not anti-political, non-political, or other-worldly in nature. In the following year, Leonard Lovett, an ordained Church of God in Christ preacher, completed at Emory University his dissertation, “Black Holiness-Pentecostalism: Implications for Ethics and Social Transformation.” Lovett's study stands as a needed theological counterpart to Tinney’s political project. Lovett’s insightful overview and analysis provide a comprehensive socioethical treatment of Black Pentecostalism, and it serves as my point of departure for the premise of this paper. The present essay argues that Lovett’s Black Pentecostal theology of pneumatological liberation recovers the indispensability of revelation for initiating the social and political activism that, due to their beliefs, history, and experience, Black Pentecostals are best in position to pursue.