Are We Still Perplexed by Pentecostalism? A Roundtable Discussion on Wolfgang Vondey’s Pentecostalism: A Guide for the Perplexed a Decade After Publication

Wolfgang Vondey’s Pentecostalism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2013) is a significant theological introduction to the global Pentecostal movement. In the book Vondey invites his readers to appreciate the diversity of Pentecostalism without attempting to homogenize or essentialise the movement. Ten years on from publication, what has changed in the world of Pentecostalism and to what extent is the book’s argument still valid today? These questions were explored in a roundtable discussion at the 2022 EPTA conference. This discussion – encapsulated in this article – explores Pentecostal orthodoxy, theological methodology, the movement’s relationship with modernity, its glocal features, and approaches to scholarship, before re-articulating how global Pentecostal theology continues to be constituted by its ‘mainstream’ and ‘extreme’ components. This conversation has implications for how global Pentecostalism is best understood, as well as how Pentecostal theology should be conceived.