From the President’s Desk

Global Scholarship, African Heritage and Pentecostal Witness

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This is an exciting and defining season in the life of the Alliance for Black Pentecostal Scholarship. What began as a vision to create space for Black Pentecostal scholars, pastors, students, and practitioners is becoming an increasingly global movement. Across continents, new relationships are being formed, important conversations are taking place, and fresh opportunities are emerging to advance scholarship in service to the Church.

Our recent symposium in Accra, Ghana, The Bible in the Pan-African Imagination, was an important expression of that vision. In partnership with Central University, Ghana, we gathered scholars and Christian leaders from Africa and the African diaspora to examine the relationship between Scripture, African identity, Pentecostal theology, leadership, and mission.

One of the highlights of the symposium was hearing Pastor Mensa Otabil reflect on the continuing legacy of his groundbreaking work, Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia. It was also my privilege to offer a response entitled, “Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia Revisited: African Christianity and the Question of African Agency.”

My personal meeting with Pastor Otabil further reinforced the importance of this conversation. African Christianity must not be treated merely as an object of Western theological study. African Christians must be recognized as interpreters of Scripture, producers of theological knowledge, and agents in shaping the future of global Christianity.

The center of gravity of Christianity continues to shift toward Africa, Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the Majority World. Pentecostalism is central to this remarkable transformation. Yet the voices, experiences, and theological contributions of Black Pentecostals remain underrepresented within many academic institutions and theological conversations. ABPS exists to help address that imbalance.

Our mission is not simply to place Black faces within existing academic structures. We are working to cultivate intellectual communities in which the history, spirituality, theology, and lived experience of Black Pentecostal people are taken seriously. We seek scholarship that is academically rigorous, spiritually alive, rooted in the Church, and responsive to the challenges facing our communities.

We are also looking ahead with great anticipation to the Fourth Pan-African Pentecostal Conference and Pilgrimage in Ethiopia, April 5–15, 2027. Ethiopia occupies a unique place in biblical history, African Christianity, and the religious imagination of people of African descent. This pilgrimage will invite participants to encounter that history through sacred sites, academic engagement, worship, fellowship, and theological reflection.

This initiative is connected by a common conviction: our history matters, our scholarship matters, and our Pentecostal witness matters. We cannot understand the future of global Christianity without listening to the voices of Africa and its diaspora. Nor can scholarship concerning our communities continue to be produced without our active participation and leadership.

I am deeply grateful to our faculty, board members, partners, supporters, and friends who continue to believe in the mission of ABPS. Every conference, course, publication, partnership, and conversation brings us closer to the vision God has placed before us.

The work ahead is considerable, but the opportunity is even greater. Let us continue building a global community of scholars and practitioners who are rooted in Scripture, empowered by the Holy Spirit, attentive to our history, and committed to the renewal of the Church.

The future is calling, and together we must answer.

Prof. Dr. Clifton R. Clarke

President

Alliance for Black Pentecostal Scholarship