Pentecostals and the marginalised: A historical survey of the early Pentecostal movement’s predilection for the marginalised

Abstract

Early Pentecostals came mostly from the ranks of the marginalised and disenfranchised, leading some researchers to describe the origin, attraction and expansion of Pentecostalism as some form of Social Deprivation theory. The article hypothesises that its origins among the marginalised rather demonstrate its hermeneutical concerns, especially in its identification with the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels and specifically with Luke. The early Pentecostal hermeneutic is described in terms of its predilection for the marginalised, and some of the most significant implications of such a hermeneutic for the contemporary movement that, to a large extent, lost its emphasis on the marginalised are portrayed.