In the 1960’s it was commonly assumed that God was dead or dying and that the secular age was upon us. However, contrary to this perceived wisdom there has been a resurgence of interest in religion. Pentecostals represent one of the religious groups showing the most rapid rise in membership. Some of the reasons for this include their utilization of three primal factors.
Primal speech in the form of speaking in tongues.
Primal piety in the form of trances, visions, healings, dreams, primal music, dancing, and other archetypal religious expressions which touch on what have been referred to as the elementary forms of human religiosity.
Primal hope which points to Pentecostalism’s millennial outlook and its insistence that a radically new world age is about to occur.
The primal speech and piety may provide a mechanism, similar to meditation, of acquiring direct access to the spiritual brain. Man’s persistent yearning for transcendent spirituality indicates that for the human species religion and a belief in God will never die.
Rather than relying on atheism or the elimination of faith to solve the problem of religious wars and terrorism, retaining faith and religion but eliminating the illusion that the sacred texts are literally true is far more likely to attain this goal and far more likely to prevent new outbursts of jihads, crusades and inquisitions. [p609]
