Neo-Pentecostal Doctrines Embraced by an African Independent Church: A Study of the Holy Spirit Church in Kakamega County, Kenya

Neo-Pentecostalism has reshaped the religious life of sub-Saharan Africa, and its influence has increasingly extended to the older mission and African independent churches of Kenya. This study examined the particular Neo-Pentecostal doctrines that have been embraced by the Holy Spirit Church, an African independent church in Kakamega County, Kenya, and the extent to which the members hold them. The study was guided by the globalisation theory, the theory of religious hybridity and the diffusion of innovations theory, and it adopted a mixed-methods case-study design. Data were collected from 117 church members through a questionnaire and from 12 church leaders through interviews, and were supplemented by document analysis and non-participant observation. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and qualitative data through thematic analysis, after which the findings of the four sources were triangulated. The study found that the church has embraced a definable set of Neo-Pentecostal doctrines, returning an overall mean of 4.09 on a five-point scale. The strongest emphasis was on personal salvation and the born-again experience, expressive worship, divine healing, and the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts, while the teaching on material prosperity was the least emphasised and the most contested. The doctrines were found to have entered the church informally, through crusades, the media and Pentecostal-trained leaders, and their adoption had produced tension between younger and older members over the standing of the founding doctrines. The study concludes that the church has selectively embraced Neo-Pentecostal doctrines while seeking to retain its inherited identity, and it offers recommendations for safeguarding that identity while engaging the renewal the church has welcomed.