Spirit-Filled Protestantism [Hardcover]

In Spirit-filled Protestantism, Luther Oconer shows how holiness- and Pentecost-themed revival meetings called culto Pentecostal helped form the development of Methodism in the Philippines. He focuses on these revival meetings, their theological content, and the spiritual culture they helped perpetuate. The resulting narrative provides a rich rendering of both male and female American Methodist missionaries, their Filipino counterparts, and their followers that both celebrates and critiques them. Oconer also offers a unique perspective on Philippine Protestantism, which has often been dismissed for being too intellectual and formal. He defies the stereotype by demonstrating how culto Pentecostal revivals, with their emphasis on holiness and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, made Methodism the most innovative and successful of all Protestant denominations in the country prior to the Second World War. Accordingly, Oconer's treatment explains why Methodism provided a fertile seedbed for the emergence of the Manila Healing Revival and, consequently, the rise of Pentecostalism in the Philippines in the 1950s. A long-awaited volume on the history of Methodism in the Philippines, Spirit-filled Protestantism allows us to discern why Pentecostal impulses continue to shape Filipino Methodist identity in the twenty-first century. This groundbreaking historical study broadens our understanding of Methodism in the Philippines. Luther Oconer's portrayal of holiness revivalism in its social contexts illumines how the local and the global intersected. It shows how Filipinos, women missionaries, and other participants together crafted a vigorous and influential faith. I recommend this book very highly, as a fine contribution to the expanding field of World Christianity. --Dana L. Robert, Truman Collins Professor at Boston University Luther Oconer's book illuminates a hitherto unexplored side of the history of Methodism in the Philippines--how it was influenced by the culto Pentel-