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For decades, Pentecostals remained a remote fringe, derided as "holy rollers". But gradually, they inched into the mainstream. Republican politicians like Sarah Palin and John Ashcroft were Assemblies of God believers.
As late as 1980, Pentecostals were smallish, comprising a tiny fringe of Christianity. Then a remarkable upsurge occurred. The Atlas of Pentecostalism, maintained by the Pulitzer Center, says:
"An estimated 35,000 people join the Pentecostal church each day. Of the world's 2 billion Christians, a quarter are now Pentecostal -- up from 6 percent in 1980."
As most of Christianity shrinks, Pentecostals are the fastest-growing group. A Wheaton Theology report says:
"There were 631 million Pentecostals in 2014, comprising nearly one-fourth of all Christians. There were only 63 million Pentecostals in 1970, and the number is expected to reach 800 million by 2025."
Will much of Christianity be transformed into jerking, howling, swooning congregations who utter incoherent sounds? If so, that's one more reason for thinking people to renounce irrational supernaturalism.
(Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia's largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, and also a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine, where the latter section of this essay was published in the Feb-March 2018 issue.)
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