The latest report on the status of Christianity in the world was published in January 2013 in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (IBMR Vol. 37, No. 1: 32-33). The two-page report is the twenty-ninth annual report following the publication of David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford, 1982). The most recent report discusses an important change in counting Pentecostals and Charismatics. Moving away from the traditional three “wave” description of classical Pentecostals, Charismatics, and Independents, it discusses the Pew Forum strategy of lumping them altogether as a single type – “renewalist.” The IBMR report does not critique this approach or discuss any of the historical or theological or sociological implications of doing so (even if the three wave approach has its problems, which it does). While the IBMR report does not use the term “renewalist” in its table, it does count the different “waves” as a single type. The problem in doing so, is that trackin...
theoretical and methodological issues