The epistemology of imagination and religious experience

Abstract

In this article, I discuss key tenets of Pentecostal epistemology and hermeneutics and ask if these in any way can inform the study of religion today. Acknowledging the global growth of Pentecostalism, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America, I ask if Pentecostalism also should be considered, not only as an object of study, but as something which potentially can inform and challenge theoretical and methodological models of research. This is actualized not the least by the growing influx of migrant Christians to the West, especially in the larger cities. I look in particular at the role of religious experience and imagination as epistemological lenses and sources within the Pentecostal paradigm. I also look at the power-aspect of Western academia and its age-old position as the determiner of the underlying presuppositions of research at universities. I ask if the growth of southern Christianity, in view of postmodernism and contextual theology, especially as seen in Pentecostalism, also may challenge this position. Without here evaluating Pentecostalism or its epistemological or theological claims, the article concludes by asking if these aspects of Pentecostalism can be a reminder of the openness to truth and reality to which research most fundamentally should adhere.

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