Resources
During the course of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, we intend to provide resources from funded projects around the world. In addition, CRCC will provide resources related to Los Angeles and an accessible digital archive.
Pentecostal and Charismatic Religion in Los Angeles
Los Angeles has been home to several milestones in the history of the Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. For example, in addition to being the birthplace of Pentecostalism in 1906, it is home to Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple and the Foursquare Gospel Church, the rise to prominence churches like Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard in the 1970s and 1980s, and the more recent emergence of a distinct orientation toward social action as exemplified in the efforts of the Dream Center, founded by the Assemblies of God.
Today, Los Angeles remains a vibrant, and varied landscape for a variety of Pentecostal and charismatic expressions. Thus, the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative will include a three-year ethnographic research project to explore the contemporary face of the historic denominations, such as the Assemblies of God and Foursquare Gospel Church, the Black Pentecostal church, and immigrant enclaves of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity.
Across these three areas, PCRI will locate and map as many Pentecostal and charismatic congregations in Los Angeles. In addition, we will describe each congregation, its activities, networks of relationships, size of membership, and other pertinent demographic information. This information will be made available on this website.
PCRI Digital Archive
Working with the USC Libraries, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture will develop an inventory of source materials and a digital database focused on the history of Pentecostalism that will enable scholars around the world to have access to primary source material. This digital library will parallel the Internet Mission Photography Archive (IMPA) that the Center has already developed at USC, which at present includes 45,000 historical photographs documenting global missionary activity. (See the IMPA website.)
The archive will include not only photographs of the history of Pentecostal and charismatic movements, but will also offer access to written material such as diaries, sermons, educational materials, correspondence, field reports by missionaries to their home offices, etc. This material is indispensable to building the field of Pentecostal and charismatic studies and will be available not only to students and scholars funded by the John Templeton Foundation, but to anyone with access to the World Wide Web. A condition of all grants to students and scholars is that their fieldwork and other information collected through the support of the John Templeton Foundation will be permanently archived in the database that USC will create. Appropriate safeguards will be taken to ensure confidentiality of documents if anonymity has been promised to subjects interviewed in specific projects. This database will become an important reference point for future scholarship related to Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Exploratory conversations have occurred with archivists who have suggested that a collaborative consortium be developed among libraries with Pentecostal and charismatic holdings. PCRI would provide funding for identifying the contents of archives worldwide, create common standards for cataloging, as well as an index to these holdings that would enable scholars from around the world to know where to access material on specific subjects, and provide funding to further digitize and catalog materials.
