ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author describes what he call the “Pentecostal growth paradigm,” initially promulgated by David B. Barrett, and now ubiquitous within the field of Pentecostal studies, as well as four common critiques of the paradigm, which reveals an – as of yet – unsubstantiated claim regarding the validity of Barrett's research methodology in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia. He describes the complicated typology conceptualized by Barrett in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia in order to classify and measure Pentecostals around the world. The author then describes the – very limited – information that Barrett provides regarding the data collection techniques that he used to gather the data contained in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia. Some scholars of Pentecostalism – even when sometimes citing the continually ballooning estimates of global Pentecostalism themselves – are critical of the Pentecostal growth paradigm, and, especially, of Barrett's contribution to this discourse.
