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Allan lived and worked in southern Africa for forty-three
years and is now Professor of
Global Pentecostal Studies and Director of the Graduate Institute
for Theology and
Religions, Elmfield House on the Selly Oak campus of the
University of Birmingham. He
has been in this Institute since October 1995, when it was part
of the Selly Oak Colleges,
and from 1995-2002 was responsible for overseeing the
world-renowned Harold Turner
Collection for New Religious Movements housed in the Orchard
Learning Resources
Centre on the Selly Oak campus.
Allan's main research is in the areas of Pentecostal
history and intercultural theology. He
has written seven monographs on African Christianity and global
Pentecostalism, the
latest being Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early
Pentecostalism (London:
SCM & Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007), An Introduction to
Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic
Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2004), African
Reformation: African Initiated
Christianity in the Twentieth Century (Trenton, NJ: Africa World
Press, 2001), and Zion and
Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and
Zionist/Apostolic Churches
in South Africa (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press,
2000). He has edited (with Walter
J Hollenweger) and written three chapters of a volume entitled
Pentecostals After a
Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1999). With Edmond Tang, he has edited a volume on Asian
Pentecostalism
entitled Asian and Pentecostal: The Charismatic Face of Asian
Christianity (Oxford:
Regnum & Baguio City, Philippines: APTS Press, 2005). See
Publications for further
information.
Allan was born in London, England in 1949 to a Zimbabwean
father and English mother
who were Salvation Army officers. Allan lived with them in
Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) from
1953-1971 (with two years in Zambia) and later was in South
Africa from 1971 (when he
went to theological college) until October 1995, the time he
moved with his family in
Birmingham, England. His father was son of a fourth generation
London Missionary
Society (Congregational) minister in Southern Africa, of Scottish
and Cape Dutch descent,
and his mother was born in Sheffield, England, the daughter of
Salvation Army officers
originally from South Yorkshire. Allan's parents lived in a
nursing and residential home in
Birmingham from 1999-2006 (when they both died), having served
the Salvation Army in
England (1946-53, 1983-86), Zimbabwe (1953-60, 1962-70), Zambia
(1960-62, 70-72), St
Helena (1985) and South Africa (1972-83, retired
1986-99).
Allan worked as a minister in various parts of Southern
Africa from 1973-1995, firstly as a
'classical Pentecostal' (1973-83), later (1983-88) as a
Charismatic Baptist, and then as an
associate pastor in an independent African Charismatic church
(1988-95). He was founder
and principal of Tshwane Theological College, near Soshanguve,
Tshwane, Gauteng
(north of Pretoria) from 1988-1995, where he was also executive
secretary of Tshwane
Christian Ministries, an educational and childcare organization.
He worked part-time as
researcher at the University of South Africa (Pretoria) in the
Pentecostalism Project of the
Research Institute for Theology and Religions from 1989-1995.
Since October 1995 he
has been working in the Graduate Institute for Theology and
Religion at the University of
Birmingham (formerly Selly Oak Colleges) directing postgraduate
programmes and
research in Pentecostal and Charismatic studies. He became
Director of the Graduate
Institute in 2006.
Allan's secondary school education was in Lusaka
(Zambia), Harare (then Salisbury) and
Bulawayo (Zimbabwe). He attended Bethel Bible College, a
Pentecostal college in
Vereeniging, South Africa from 1971-1973 and received ministerial
probation followed by
ordination in 1975. He studied part-time at the University of
South Africa from 1976,
obtaining a BTh (distinctions in two majors: Missiology and
Science of Religion, and
Church History) in 1983, Hons BTh in Missiology in 1985 (with
distinction, a one year
taught postgraduate degree), MTh (a two year research degree) in
1990, and graduated
DTh in 1992. His master's thesis was entitled
'Pneumatology from an African Perspective'
(published in 1991 as Moya: The Holy Spirit in an African
Context), and his doctoral
dissertation was 'African Pentecostalism in South Africa: A
Missiological Evaluation'.
Among his teachers were David Bosch, Marthinus (Inus) L Daneel
(his main doctoral
promoter) and Willem Saayman (co-promotor). [Source]
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