Stuff You Should Know - Why are Pentecostals growing so rapidly?

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

Pentecostals are seemingly taking over the world. Or at least they're making up a larger section of Christianity than every before. Why? We'll dig in on that in today's episode.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh, and I'm here to tell you it's official. We're going to be in Vancouver, BC, and Portland, Oregon this March. On March 29th, we'll be at the Chan Center in Vancouver,

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a production of iHeart radios, How Stuff Works. Hallelujah, and welcome to Stuff You Should Know. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh T. over there. And this is, like I said, Stuff You Should Know. Hey, you know, we should plug Josh's record. Can you get that anywhere, Josh?

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No, she's not. I'm not gonna weigh their individual talents against one another, but Jerry's not in a band. What if Jerry's like secretly in a heart tribute band or something? That would be, that would make my life. Yeah, it'd be pretty great. Well, I wanna hear that album too, Josh, okay?

Okay, says Josh. So Chuck, I said hallelujah to start this one off. You did. And the reason I did that, because it was a nod to Pentecostalism, which is what we're gonna talk about today. That's right. I could have sworn we did an episode on speaking in tongues.

We did not. We did one on faith healing. And snake handling. Yes, both of those were excellent. And we must have talked about speaking in tongues, some enduring both of those. Yes. But we're gonna talk about it a little bit more,

because it's a big part of the Pentecostal movement, which huge, surprisingly, and you may have been the one that dropped that stat on me recently about being the fastest growing sect of Christianity. Is that right? Yeah, I did. It was the other day. I don't know where or in what context.

I was like, that can't be true. And he said, well, maybe it was just, I can't remember what you said, evangelical. Yeah, I think that doesn't sound like me. I probably said, look it up. Of course I'm right. Oh goodness. That sounds like me.

That was a great Josh impression. But it is true. It is. And I guess it just seemed counterintuitive, because I naively thought that Pentecostalism was sort of antiquated in something that was going away. Oh no, that's how they get you. That's what they want you to think.

And then bam, they spring on you. If there was a snake in your face. Yep. They say, here, hold this, sinner. No, but we're gonna be respectful here because it's pretty interesting, I think. Starting now. Now.

Okay. We need to get in the way back machine though and go back to where this all began. Not really where it all began, because in truth, that would be biblical times. But where it began as a modern thing is not that long ago, 1906 in downtown Los Angeles. They had something going on called the Azusa Street Revival.

Which we talked about that in the faith healing episode too. Yeah, it was a very big deal. This was at the Apostolic Faith Mission in downtown LA right there, right on Azusa Street. Downtown LA looked very different back then, obviously. Yeah, this is like the industrial area I saw. Yeah, I mean, now it's just downtown LA. Sure.

It's near like the toy, not the toy zone, what do you call it? The toy zone. Not the zone, what do you call it? An area where district, toy district. There's a toy district? There is. I didn't know that. Yeah, downtown LA's got a toy district

that's in a fashion district. It's where you go get raw fabrics off the truck or cheap toys straight off the boat, that kind of thing. Gotcha, okay. It's not just a wonderland or anything. I know, I was like, I want to go see this. This sounds amazing. I want to go to the toy zone.

Yeah, the toy zone. So this was going on back then down there. And that was led by a minister, an African-American minister from Louisiana named William Seymour. Yeah, and what was interesting about this is that this is 1906 and at the Azusa Street Mission, this was like black and white.

I'm not sure about Hispanic, but I would not be at all surprised. It was Hispanic as well. Okay, there were like races worshiping together. And it was a very big deal. Just that alone was a very big deal. But what makes this the start of Pentecostalism is that at some point, I think in April of 1906,

they started holding three services a day, seven days a week. And these were like marathon hours long services, each one. And the reason that they were doing this is because if you're a Pentecostal, you believe that the Holy Spirit had descended upon the Azusa Street Mission and was in baptizing all of these people with fire

and causing them to speak in tongues, to dance, to clap, to sing, and basically revived religion as Christianity as we know it. Like that's what happened here in Los Angeles starting in April of 1906. That's right. And they get that, that goes back to the biblical days

where the 11 remaining disciples after Christ was crucified, because you know, Judas was the 12th. You know what happened to him? Yeah, he didn't pan out so well. He didn't pan out so well. Didn't he kill himself after that? Yeah, he hung himself or hanged himself, excuse me.

I always get that wrong. I always get that wrong too. But those 11 remaining disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit and filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in other tongues during the Pentecost feast, which was a Jewish feast, named so because it was, I think, 50 days

after the crucifixion. After Passover. Yeah, after Passover and the 50th is Greek. Pentecost is Greek for 50th. Right, well put, Chuck. Oh, yay, yay. So what happened at that first Pentecost feast back in the first century CE was they were,

like you said, they were bathed in the Holy Spirit. They were speaking in tongues. They suddenly had powers to like heal. And all this happened at that Pentecost feast. And apparently in the Bible, it basically says hang around and wait for this to happen again. And you will know this will be a sign

that the second coming of Christ is at hand. And so again, if you're a Pentecostal, you believe that in April of 1906, the Holy Spirit showed up on earth again and basically bathed these followers in itself, in the Holy Spirit and to announce that Christ was coming again for the second time. That's right.

And this, if you are a complete agnostic or atheist non-believer, this all sounds very weird probably. But even back then and now, if you are a non-Pentecostal Christian, let's say you might think it's pretty weird too. It got a lot of blowback back in 1906 from Christians and atheists alike.

The LA Times, it was a reporter who wrote a story entitled Weird Babel of Tongues, where they wrote about attendees breathing strange utterances and malving a creed, which it would seem no sane mortal could understand. Devotees of the weird doctrine practice, the most fanatical rites preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement.

Right. Man. So it wasn't just the Los Angeles Times that thought this was a little odd. There was a guy named Charles Parham, who five years earlier is considered possibly the actual founder of Pentecostalism, because this is really important.

Speaking in tongues is the basis, it's the thing that differentiates Pentecostalism from everything else. The idea that you can speak in tongues, and when you do speak in tongues, it's because you are being baptized by the Holy Spirit and your soul's being sanctified, and that if you don't speak in tongues,

you're not actually saved yet. That's the big differentiator. Well, back in 1901, in Topeka, Kansas, Charles Parham was preaching, and one of his church members, Agnes Ozan, I think, her name was, started speaking in tongues. And so some people were like, no, this was the first appearance of this Holy Spirit

that was announcing the second coming of Christ. Other people are like, yeah, yeah, Agnes is great, and we'll give her a do, but really it was the Azusa Street revival, where it wasn't just one person, it was everybody who came. This revival, this thing where people were dancing and clapping and speaking in tongues

for essentially the first time ever, or at least since the apostles back in the first century, this went on for years. They held three services a day, seven days a week, four years, and people were coming and being ecstatic and having just a heck of a time, I almost said a hell of a time, at this mission. I think it's like nine years total.

Yeah, and then spreading out and going out into the world to basically say, hey, everybody, Jesus is coming, look busy. Do you remember that? That was like Stephen King's favorite t-shirt for a teenager to be wearing. Jesus is coming, look busy. Yeah, if you read his stuff from the 70s,

in every book there's a teenager wearing a t-shirt. That's like George Costanz's, when he stumbled upon the thing that if he looked annoyed, every time someone passed his office, then they thought he was working hard. Right, serenity now, so sanity later. One thing we should point out too, that the early Pentecostals were oddly ahead of the curve

and allowing women to take leadership roles in the church at times and many times women of color. And this was not the norm in 1906 in any capacity. So we should give them their due for that. Well, in fact, William Seymour, the guy who was heading the Azusa Street revival, he married a white woman and he believed that the races worshiping together was a clear sign

that God was present, the Holy Spirit was present, and that this was like the real deal, like this was really happening. But what's ironic and kind of I guess tragic even about it, is that there was a faction that split off at the mission and a group left the mission and founded basically their own branch of Pentecostalism. There's like one really clear through line

that aside from the like religious beliefs of evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, and that is the politics of it, right? So there'll be some leader who comes along and says, no, this literal interpretation is being interpreted incorrectly. It's actually, you're supposed to say this word and all of a sudden this guy's got his own church

with his own followers and they spread their own word, right? This happened at the Azusa Street mission and out of that came the two largest congregations that are in the United States at least, the church of God and Christ, which is predominantly African American and the assemblies of God, which is predominantly white. And so what started out is this really amazing

like racially mixed multiracial ecstatic worship of God split into two different factions of the same thing that divided along racial lines. Amazing. Yeah. So let's take a break and we'll come back and talk a little bit about what's happened since then and what Pentecostals believe

and why they're growing so quickly. Let's take a break and we'll see you next time. They do it as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

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on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing.

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Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so before the break, you mentioned the church of God in Christ, largely African-American, 6.5 million members. Not too shabby. Assemblies of God, 3.2 million members. And also not too shabby.

Give me a lot of stats in here as we go to really drive home what's, has happened here. What has happened, sounds like something awful. It's not how I mean it. In 1986, 6% of all global Christians were Pentecostals. By 2015, that had grown to 25% from 1980 to 2015. That's astounding. Yeah, it's like a 19% jump.

And, but also Chuck, that means that one in four, one in four Christians are Pentecostals now. Yeah, and I think the stat from that Washington Post article says one in 12 human beings on planet earth are Pentecostal. Yeah. Of just all humans. Yes, that's right.

And if you're a Pentecostal, you're like, well, that's clear evidence that the Holy Spirit is spreading throughout the world. That's right. This is not just the United States. In fact, it is such a big deal because it's a global movement. What is referred to as the global south,

which is Africa or regions of Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia. The global south is booming with even, with I'm sorry, Pentecostals. That's right. And I mean, we'll talk a little more about that, but just kind of put a pin in that that is, I was right that it is the fastest growing religion

or religious sect. Yeah, so there's this guy. He's a New Testament professor at Evangel University in Missouri, named Martin Middleshtott. And he's quoted a lot in this. Who wrote this? Was this Dave, Ruse?

I don't know. I didn't see him. He might have been Dave, but. It seems like a Dave Ruse jam. The author got an interview with Mr. Middleshtott. I don't know if he's a doctor or not. Okay. Well, he had a lot of great light to shine on this

and kind of what's going on. He was a light bringer. He is a light bringer. He said that. I'm sorry, Dr. Middleshtott. Oh, you just called him doctor and he might not be. But I also just called him Lucifer too. Oh, well, good point.

Dr. Lucifer. So he said that this is kind of like any kind of restoration or renewal movement within Christianity. That happens when, and it's happened over time in different ways, but that happens when Christians feel like, hey, we've been ignoring something pretty important here in the Bible directly from Christ's words,

and we need to recover that in a big way. And in this case, they're talking about the book of Acts, which details what we went over earlier of what happened with the disciples after the Passover. Right. And they're, so like this idea is that it's literally being recovered. Like there is, this is literally happening.

The Holy Spirit as prophesied is returning to earth and in harkening the second coming of Christ, right? Yeah. So like these renewal and reform movements have happened before. And in fact, some people trace Pentecostalism to one in the late 19th century called the holiness movement. Yeah, I saw that.

And these renewals that follow in the tradition of the holiness movement, they are based on like a charismatic belief that it's really easier to explain what it's not. And that is that stayed kind of call and response service where everybody sits down, stands up all at the same time. And it's very structured. Charismatic worship is the exact opposite of that.

It's not structured. It almost seems like things are coming apart at the seams. People are dancing and clapping. Everybody's almost doing their own thing. And it's like there's a lot of room for you to have your own experience directly with the Holy Spirit, not necessarily just through this preacher

or this priest or whoever is acting as the conduit like in a normal service. This is like the Holy Spirit's there in the room and everybody's interacting with it in their own way. Yeah, which sounds kind of fun, to be honest. I grew up in a Baptist church that was the opposite. It was one of these very sort of dry things every Sunday you would get your sermon

that had to wrap up by noon because the pot roast was in the slow cooker and the Falcons were gonna come on in an hour. And you could feel people getting antsy. It was just one of those deals. That's the church I went to. I remember we had a guy that came and visited one week that sat on the front row and started talking back.

Oh yeah? Oh yeah, started. Just with like, you know, all glory hallelujah. They would just... Everybody's like, what is going on? Everyone did. Everyone was like, what is this guy doing? We don't do that here.

They didn't say that, but that was the feeling, I think. And that man turned out to be St. Paul. I just remember being a kid and hearing him and seeing the reaction of people and getting the feeling that they're all like, don't screw this up for us, buddy. We got a certain way doing things. Yeah, we can get out of here in 45 minutes, just clam up.

I went to a funeral recently at a Pentecostal church. Oh really? And it was something else, but there were people speaking in tongues and a lot of like shouting back and like you were saying like that guy in the front row. And you were right there? Oh, I was in the thick of it.

Yeah. And it wasn't just that one guy, it was everybody there. Everybody there was doing that. And they were doing it like on their own terms, on their own speed. And it was really, it was something to see. It was really impressive. I would pay cash money to see a hidden camera video

of you during that experience. I was playing, it's super cool. I bet, every once in a while did you go, right on, man. Yeah. I said, free bird, I'm not into this, but you guys seem cool. No, I was there in being explicitly not judgy. Oh, of course.

You know, like I was a guest there and I felt kind of honored to have been invited. That's how you got to do it, man. Everybody knew who knew me that was there, knew that I'm not into that at all, but I also didn't want to put out any kind of vibe, like I was being judgy or anything like that. Why would you even go

if you're just gonna sit there and smirk, you know? That's no fun. Well, yeah, exactly. But also I was very, I had a lot of respect and admiration for the deceased. I thought you were gonna say I was also very drunk. I had taken some shrooms a couple hours before and it really made everything even more interesting.

Well, that's cool. I'm glad you had that experience. Yeah, me too, actually, me too. I think people should experience all kinds of things in their life like this that make them possibly uncomfortable. Exactly, and like I could also see, I was like, yeah, you know, like if you're really kind of open to this

or even on the fence about it, you can feel how somebody would get swept up into it and be like, yep, this is what I believe, you know? It's infectious. Yeah, totally. I mean, the word charismatic is an excellent word for that type of worship. Like it's perfect, but it's not,

and we tend to think of it as like Pentecostals who just do that and it's not. There was actually different charismatic movements that revived other Christian sects too. Like Catholicism had one back in 1967. The Methodists had a charismatic revival and it's typically kind of looked upon favorably by church leaders because they're like, all right,

this is a little weird. We might start having to go an hour and a half with our services, but ultimately what it represents is people coming along and saying, this religious sect is not dying. We're gonna breathe new life into it. Or if you believe in this kind of stuff, the Holy Spirit has chosen to breathe new life

into this sect to keep it from dying off. Or it's good for business. That's another way to look at it for sure. And we'll talk about some people who are, who view the whole thing kind of transactionally too. So we should point out too here about the different kinds of baptism. When we're talking about someone being quote unquote saved

or baptized in the Holy Spirit, this is a spirit baptism. It is, if you've seen people get dunked in the pool or in a river, if you're in a more rural church, that is a water baptism. That is merely a symbolic public gesture to kind of celebrate and tell everyone, hey, I had the spirit baptism. I'm saved now.

So... Hey, get a load of me. Yeah, get a load of me. Watch, I'll get dunked. Yeah, but if you're a Pentecostal, you're basically like, that's great. That's a nice first quarter step. Right.

That, and it's not just Pentecostals who believe that. Like I think, you know, if you're Catholic, when you're baptized, you're baptized, it's just done. You have a water baptism and you are officially baptized. Your baby soul's not gonna go to purgatory any longer. You can finally go to heaven, right? With like Baptists, I believe the water baptism is enough too. But what differentiates evangelicals

from other religious sects that believe that by baptism through water, you're saved right then. Evangelicals are like, no, you've just said that, okay, I'm dedicating myself to God and to Christ specifically, but what differentiates evangelicals is that there's still some other thing coming and that's that baptism by the Holy Spirit. Well, it was different in my church.

It was you wait till you have that spiritual baptism and then afterward you have the public water baptism. Oh, is that right? Okay, okay. So I've got that backwards. But that's what, so even, so then I guess would Baptists be considered a type of evangelicals? I don't know.

I don't know either. But here's what I found that differentiates evangelicals or that defines evangelicals. You ready? Yes. There's a scholar from Baylor. He's an historian, but he's also a evangelical scholar named David Bebington, David W. Bebington.

Okay. And he defines evangelicals as subscribing to four big points. One is that the Bible is the literal word of God. Right. Where like, if you're reading that, God wrote that. Do not question it. Do not try to interpret it any other way. Like it is literally on its face what it means

is the word of God. The second point is that Jesus suffered on the cross and died in order to cover humanity. Right. And that you can be saved by accepting that as fact, that Jesus Christ is your savior. That's right. Man, I feel like we're having a revival here ourselves.

We're getting a little worked up. This, the third one is that you have to be born again by a baptism by the Holy Spirit. So I don't know if you could technically get away with not doing the water baptism because the evangelicals say it's that baptism by Holy Spirit, where you're overcoming, you're clapping and singing and speaking in tongues

and all that. Well, not speaking in tongues, but you're clapping and singing and you have like been bathed and baptized by the Holy Spirit, that that's how you're actually saved. Okay. Okay. Point four is that you have to be an activist, an evangelist who is actively working on converting the world

to godliness and Christianity to prepare for the second coming of Christ. It's not enough to just be like, oh, they're doing it wrong. You have to go over and explain to them how they're doing it wrong and how to do it right. Yeah. I mean, that was, I think all four of those fall under

what I grew up with in my church. Okay, then what separates evangelicals from Pentecostals is that Pentecostals believe that baptism by the Holy Spirit involves specifically speaking in tongues and that if you don't speak in tongues when you're baptized by the Holy Spirit, you haven't actually been sanctified and made pure

so that you can get into heaven and you're a true Christian, I guess. Right. All right. That clears up a lot. Thank you. You can subscribe to my newsletter. So let's talk about speaking in tongues.

There are a couple of ways that this can happen. It's also called spontaneous speech. It could come through as a foreign language that you don't know. They call that Xenoglossia. There's basically no documented case of that ever. Right. So when I say this can happen,

these are the ways that it's broken down in theory. Okay. Or nonsensical utterances, which is called Glossolalia. And that's when, if you've ever seen, well, if you've ever seen people speaking tongues or if you've ever seen the movie Cape Fear with Robert De Niro at the end when he's going into the water,

that's what he's doing. It sounds, it's a nonsensical divine utterance is what it's defined as. Yeah, supposedly God's the only one who can understand what you're saying, but you're actually speaking in a language that God understands. Right.

And the other thing is somewhere in the Bible, it says that if you're gonna speak in tongues, you should only do it in public. Like if you're in church, you should only do that if there's someone there to interpret that message. And Pentecostals say nuts to that. They do, because they, well, the cynical person would say

they don't have anyone there that could interpret that accurately. Right. The believer would just say that's, they just say that's a bunk. So back at Azusa Street Mission during the revival of 1906 or starting 1906, they said they reported,

so there was a newspaper called the Apostolic Faith newspaper that was published out of Azusa Street. And they said that during the revival, people were speaking in Greek, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu, Chippewa. Wow. Yeah.

And there's, again, there's no documented evidence that anyone has ever been given the gift of Xenoglossia, which is where you are just fluently speaking another language that you don't know, that you have acquired the ability to speak another language without studying it in any way, shape, or form. No one's ever documented that. But that was one of the early interpretations

of what was going on at Azusa Street, that the Holy Spirit had come down, given these people the gift of Xenoglossia. And now they were to spread out and become missionaries around the world so that they could go spread the faith in these other native tongues. And a lot of people did do that.

I don't know that they were able to immediately go and speak in these other native tongues, but they probably picked it up pretty quickly because immersion's the best way to do it. But people did spread out from Azusa Street and become Pentecostal missionaries and founded Pentecostal churches. Like that really is like kind of like the origin point

for the entire faith. Well, and wouldn't you say that it's clearly like that Pentecostal missionaries have done a great job considering the fact that it's growing in the global South? Sure, yeah. How else would they have heard about this stuff, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think the proof is in the numbers

that there's a lot of people who are out there spreading the word and that there's a lot of people who are feeling pretty receptive to that. Should we talk a little bit about some more numbers? Yeah. The Pulitzer Center, Pulitzer Center's Atlas of Pentecostalism.

I love that book. Estimates that 35,000 people convert to Pentecostalism every day. Every day? We were talking about the global South, the redeemed Christian church of God in Nigeria claims to have five million members in Nigeria alone. There's an article that I read called

Think Christianity is Dying? No, Christianity is shifting dramatically from West Granburg, Michelson from 2015 in the Washington Post. So should we talk about more numbers or should we take a break and talk about more numbers? Oh, let's take a break and then we'll talk more numbers. Okay.

Okay. Pear, Mile, Col 거 T Based on V on the podcast, Paydude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey, Dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? Also leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. All right, Chuck, lay some numbers on us, man. Let me see here. In 1980, more Christians were found in the global south than the north for the first time in 1,000 years. In the Christian community in Latin America and Africa alone account for one billion people. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty significant how much,

how many, or how, I don't know how to say this, how much or how many inroads, how much inroads, neither one's, it makes any sense. It sounds like I'm speaking in tongues. You sort of ask, what do you have? So, the inroads that Pentecostals have made over time, because there's like, I think, half a billion evangelicals, and like two thirds of those are Pentecostals, right?

Around the world. There's like 1.2 billion Catholics. And forever, the Catholics have just been virtually untouchable, at least as far as Christianity goes. But the evangelicals are really kind of starting to nip at their heels. And the other thing that's remarkable about it is just how fast this is happening.

Like you're saying, it seems like 1980 onward was like a watershed change and shift in the growth of Pentecostalism and evangelicalism around the world, but it is kind of concentrated in that global South. And there's a lot of people are trying to figure out exactly why. One of the reasons why is because in the global South,

parts of Africa, Latin America, parts of Southeast Asia, there are traditional religions still that are charismatic in structure, right? So where you're interacting with spirits and, you know, they have an influence on your daily life. And when you engage in worship, that may include dancing and singing and individual expressions of being touched by, you know, these spirits or the spirit.

And it bears a really striking resemblance to Pentecostalism. So much so that if you kind of trace Pentecostalism back, you can't help but wonder, like, did the exported religions from Africa to say like the Caribbean help shape Pentecostalism. And that Pentecostalism is kind of like a reformed version of, reformed Christian version of this kind of worship

that's now being re-exported back to the global South. And that is what this part of the explanation for this really eager reception is among people in Latin America and Africa and Southeast Asia. And so the idea is that it wasn't that big of a mental leap. At the very least, it's not like, it's probably harder to introduce Pentecostalism to Catholics in Cleveland than it is to, you know, people who follow

Mashamo and Guatemala. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Because it just, because the type of worship bears a lot more of a resemblance to one another than it does to say like Catholics in Cleveland and the way that they're used to worshiping. That makes sense. So that they're already kind of like, oh, OK, yeah, I get this.

Like, I can identify with this. It makes sense to me. Well, the other thing too that I think of this WAPO article, it gives a lot of food for thought that Granburg-Michelson tackles is immigration and migration. 214 million people, and this was four years ago, have moved from their country to another country as migrants and refugees.

That's a lot of people. And about half of those, 105 million, of those people are Christians, which is a way higher percentage than the comparable percentage of Christians in the world. So Christians are moving around the world in big numbers everywhere from the Middle East and Africa and the Mediterranean. And he makes a really good point that the same people

in this country who are advocating against immigration in the United States, a lot of them would consider themselves Christian peoples. Sure. And so there's a disconnect between these people coming up from Guatemala, Mexico, a lot of which are Christian saying, well, you don't want you here, even though that would help them further a Christian

and religious agenda. Right, exactly. And it's a weird disconnect there. It is, because you're saying, well, we are all Pentecostals here, but you're also from a different country further south than us. So that's the dividing line. The other thing that he points out

is that migration typically tends to strengthen religious faith and increase it so that the people who show up are typically super religious. And it's just a process of migration. Right, right. Such a struggle, yeah. Exactly. And to make it, make you be like, wow,

there must be a God or else I wouldn't have made it here. So that the people who show up on your doorstep as migrants are typically extremely religious. And he points out that both sides of the political equation should be happy about that, that these spiritual renewals and religious movements, they can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can call for very strict behavioral codes. Women's reproductive rights can fall by the wayside

or just be suppressed outright. But on the other hand, they can also be good for society's morals. Like those same strict behavioral codes also keep people in line and keep them from doing crime. And that it can be good and bad. Like with the, it's called the second grade awakening in the middle of the 19th century in America.

It was a huge religious movement. And it's credited with helping start the movement to abolish slavery in the United States and to introduce the idea of women's suffrage. On the other hand, it also introduced the temperate movement, which just was one of the worst things we've ever done. But there are good and bad pluses and minuses, two general major religious movements and reawakenings.

And I think what this guy is saying is there's a lot of pluses and positives that can come with migrants, even though they're being portrayed in the exact opposite light, that they're rapists and murderers and criminals. Actually, the people who are showing up as migrants are probably more religious than the average American is, especially in America, because religiousness in America

is showing to be declining. So again, you would think that people who were religious would want their numbers to swell, even if it is through these migrants that they don't feel very highly about. It's a very interesting juxtaposition. Yes. Very chuck.

Very, Josh. So that's Pentecostals. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Man, they are interesting. I was reading about them. They will break off into a new church at the drop of a hat over a couple of words, man.

And it's happened very frequently. It's really interesting stuff to read their history, because it's also so modern and recent, too. It's a little over a century old, so you can recognize a lot of it and identify with it. OK, well, that's it for Pentecostals. And since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. This is a very, very sweet email.

Is this the one? Janitors. Yeah. So if you remember, we talked about, with great fondness, about our high school janitors in the Transdermal Implant podcast, of course, as you do. Not sure how we got on that tangent. I don't know neither.

But this is from Emily. She says, Josh talked about how his janitor was a grizzled older woman. Chuck mentioned that his was a tall, lanky gentleman. But despite the differences, you both remembered them with such affection and respect. He gave me the warm fuzzies, hearing you talk so fondly of these people, for the simple fact

that my grandma was a high school janitor. Nice. She is one of the sweetest, classiest people I've ever known, but one of the hardest workers as well. She worked at the high school in her little town of Gettysburg, South Dakota, with my grandpa, who was a science, art, and health teacher, for at least 25 years. My mom was born and raised in this town

and talks about whenever she was having a bad day. Or didn't feel like going to class, she would just find out where her mom was cleaning, go hang out with her for a bit. That is so cute. Like me when my father, the principal, I would do the same thing. Yeah, I think that's very sweet.

You need to get out of here, go back to class. Here, take some dumb-dums and get out of here. As for how my grandma enjoyed her work as a janitor, she says she didn't mind most of the cleaning, except whenever someone threw up. I can imagine. You could go your whole life without ever getting used to that. And Emily closes with this.

I just want to remind everyone out there that your janitor is someone's grandma, or mom, or dad, or uncle, or whatever. They are special to someone, so please treat them and their job with respect. Love the show, guys. Keep up the good work. And thanks for always being kind and respectful of everyone.

And that is from Emily. I hope we were kind and respectful to Christians today. I'm pretty sure we were. I think we did an OK job. Yeah, thanks a lot for that one, Emily. She also sent a picture of a photo from the newspaper of her grandma and grandpa together at school. They are a cute, cute couple.

Yep, I love it. Well, if you want to tell us something adorable, we love that kind of stuff. You can get in touch with us by sending us an email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works.

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