Bloomsbury Integration in Pentecostal Theological Education in South Africa: Elias Letwaba and Patmos Bible School

Using Elias Letwabas (1870–1959) Patmos Bible School as a model, this book theorizes Pentecostal theological education and integration in a South African context. Due to the continent’s fraught colonial history, African theology often relies on Western ideologies and models of practice, many of which do not speak directly to the needs of African believers. Mookgo Solomon Kgatle remedies this disconnect, offering Letwaba as an alternative to these mismatched Western theologies. Across six chapters, Kgatle discusses the life and impact of Elias Letwaba, one of the first African gospel ministers in the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa and founder of the Patmos Bible School. Letwabas theological approach towards integration and religious education, reflected in the Patmos Bible School, provides rich inspiration for contemporary, African Pentecostal ministers and educators. Working from this model, Kgatle formulates his own approach of integrated Pentecostal theological education. In doing so, he affirms that integration is an important step towards reckoning with the colonial and imperialist matrices of power rampant within South African theology and epistemology. This form of integration and theological education envisioned by Kgatle through Letwaba offers a remedy to these histories and shines a light upon the Pentecostalist movement in South Africa, which has largely been overlooked and underexplored.