The fieldwork was carried out in two phases. The first phase involved undertaking an inductive study of an African Pentecostal Church to derive some theories on
Pneumatology. The second phase, which was deductive, involved testing out the theories derived from the first phase on African Christians from various denominations. This pattern of starting with an inductive enquiry, establishing theories from that enquiry and then testing the theory or theories on a fresh sample, is known as the empirical cycle (De
Groot 1969: 1). It is widely used by empirical researchers because it has the benefit of employing in the research process a cycle that is used in the natural process of human learning (De Groot 1969: 4; van der Ven 1990, 112-113)
Following A. De Groot (1969), J. A. Van der Ven (1990) applied the empirical cycle approach to theology. For van der Ven (1990), the empirical theological cycle is the basis of the methodology employed in empirical theology. He notes that this is a cycle because at the end of the deductive process, after the result is tested and its significance evaluated, the outcome could become the beginning of the process all over again. He also notes that unlike in science, empirical theology does not rule out the use of intuition. In the
inductive phase, the researcher uses not only his or her five senses but “all available intuitive and associative apperceptive capacities in order to let the data speak for
themselves and to do them justice” (van der Ven 1990: 114). He also notes that empirical theology does not give “exclusive” power to empirical data because at the end of the process, the data is put in a broader theoretical frame (van der Ven 1990; see also Cartledge 2002 and 2007).
In the present study, I have broadly used the empirical cycle in its basic form. That is, I have an inductive phase, where I carried out an open-minded field study of a church. This is followed by a theory phase, where I relate the findings of the study to existing literature and then a deductive phase, where the theories that arose from the first two phases were tested. All the fieldwork, both the inductive and the deductive phases of the present research, took place in East London, with the participating churches situated within two miles of each other.
In the following section, I will give the reasons for choosing particular methods, churches and participants.
2.3.2 Phase One (Inductive): Case Study of an African Pentecostal Church
A case study in the field of social research has been defined as “a very detailed research enquiry into a single example (of a social process, organisation or collectivity) seen as a social unit in its own right and as a holistic entity” (Payne & Payne 2004: 31). The case being studied is usually located in one physical place and would also have clear
boundaries, that is, a way of knowing what or who is part of the case or not. Robert Yin distinguishes case studies in two ways, namely, single or multiple case studies and holistic or embedded case studies. A single case study is where a single unit such as a school or classroom is studied, whereas in a multiple case study, it is a number of schools or classrooms. R. Yin’s (1994) distinction between holistic and embedded has to do with what is being analysed in the case study. In a holistic case study the focus of analysis is the whole case, but in an embedded case study, the focus is a subunit or process within the case (Yin 1994: 41). “In an organisational study, the embedded units also might be ‘process’ units, such as meetings, roles, or locations” (Yin 1994: 41). Yin (1994)
describes this as a 2x2 matrix because both single and multiple case studies can be holistic or embedded. This stage of my study is an embedded case study, because I am studying a church and how it understands the Holy Spirit. I do not approach it holistically as the study does not involve the whole of the church, with all its activities, processes, structures and beliefs.
A case study offers me a number of advantages. It can be contrasted with a “cross-case” study like a survey, in that while a case study investigates one case intensively, a cross- case study would look across many cases often in a more superficial way. John Gerring gives this helpful illustration of that contrast:
There are two ways to learn how to build a house. One might study the
construction of many houses - perhaps a large subdivision or even hundreds of thousands of houses. Or one might study the construction of a particular house. The first approach is a cross-case method. The second is a within-case or case
study method. (Gerring 2007: 1)
The concentration on one case would allow me to do very detailed work on it and to dig very deeply. This would give me the opportunity to uncover links and internal dynamics within the case which would be missed by a survey because of the superficial nature of surveys. It is for these reasons that I have chosen a case study in this phase of my research. Since there is little study of the Pneumatology of African Christians in Britain, this case study allows me to adopt an inductive open-minded approach that in turn enables my understanding to develop from the research itself.
The case study will be of a church I have called Mount Zion in order to protect their identity. Mount Zion is based in East London. It is led by Africans and has a membership that is predominantly African. Mount Zion started about twenty years ago with a handful of people mostly from Nigeria. It currently has a membership of several hundreds. These characteristics mean that I can expect the church to be a rich source of data for study. It also fits the characteristics discussed above. For example, it is a social unit with clear boundaries. It is also at a single location. The data gathering phase of this research lasted
over a year. I was interested not only in the worship but in other church activities,
including weekday activities. But as this is an embedded study and not a holistic one, my interest in these activities was in how they shed light on the church’s Pneumatology.
2.3.2.1 Methods
Three methods were employed in this case study, namely, participant observation, interviews and documentary analysis.
(a) Participant observation
This entailed visiting the church and recording my direct observation of the church activity. My observations were those of a participant, hence the term “Participant- observation”:
Participant observation is data collection over a sustained period by means of watching, listening to, and asking questions of people as they follow their day-to- day activities, while the researcher adopts a role from their setting and partially becomes a member of the group in question.(Payne and Payne, 2004: 166)
Participant observation is vital in researching a new group such as this. It allowed me to blend in with those whose profile I studied and enabled me to experience their world “from the inside”. I was able to observe this church, as far as possible, in its natural form without being obtrusive.
(b) Interviews
I chose interviews rather than a survey in line with the philosophical basis of the research discussed in the previous section. This method enabled me to engage with a cross-section of people, even though they were at different levels in terms of their ability to articulate their understanding of the Holy Spirit. It allowed me to probe deeply where necessary and so avoid the impossible task of predicting how and where people might see the Holy Spirit at work in order to put it in a questionnaire. I used open-ended questions in line with the inductive nature of this stage of my research. Thus, rather than exercising tight control over the interview, I gave room for the interviewees to develop their own ideas and pursue their own thoughts. This approach is sometimes described as an “unstructured interview”, as opposed to a “structured interview” whereby tight control is exercised by the
interviewer (Denscombe 1998: 113). Both the members and the leaders of these churches were interviewed to ensure that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit that came across was shaped from both ends of the church hierarchy.
(c) Documents
Examination of data related to the organisation was my third research method. Usually, this would include organisational records, memoranda and correspondence, official publications and reports, letters, minutes of meetings, art works, photographs, newsletters and websites. In this church, I had access mainly to the training booklet for church members and the church’s website. I also studied books and other publications written by members/leaders of the church or by other people about the church. The great advantage of documentary sources is their accessibility. However, it is important that they are not always taken at face value because they can sometimes be selective in terms of what they
report and their content can be a particular interpretation of what happened (Denscombe 1998: 162)
By using multiple methods, I ensured that data collected by means of one method is compared with other data. Hence this use of multiple methods, methodological triangulation, ensured the corroboration of the data collected. (Denscombe 1998: 85)
2.3.2.2 Study outcome and relation to existing literature
The fieldwork carried out in the case study generated much data. There is a variety of ways these can be analysed, but Yin (1994: 102) has described the steps simply as examining, categorizing, and tabulating “or otherwise, recombining the evidence to address the initial proposition.” In spite of this simple description, in practice it is never straightforward deciding where one stage ends and another begins, or how many sub- stages there are in, for example, the categorising stage. The first thing I did was to formulate the data into a case record, which pulls them together “into a comprehensive, primary resource package” and “include[s] all the major information that will be used in doing the final case analysis”(Patton 2002: 440). In approaching the analysis, I was armed with what Yin calls a “general analytic strategy”, the role of which is “to help the
investigator choose among different techniques and to complete the analytical phase of the research successfully” (Yin 1994: 103).
Yin (1994:103) describes two types of these analytical strategies. The first relies on theoretical proposition. It involves simply looking to see whether the original proposition
that started off the research has been answered, and presenting the data to make the case. The second entails developing a case description. This involves developing “a descriptive framework for organising the case study” and is used when the original intention of the research is to describe and there is no propositional statement at the outset of the research (Yin 1994:104). This second strategy fitted this phase of my research, because I did not set out with a propositional statement about the nature of the understanding of the Holy Spirit among this group of African Christians. Rather, I looked out for patterns with which I could make “theoretical” statements about the subjects. These “pattern theories” do not have the kind of causal links one finds in quantitative studies, but contain concept and relationships that reinforce each other (Creswell 1994: 94). In other words, I looked for relationships that made sense and not for causes and effects (Creswell 1994: 94).
It is noteworthy that at this phase the “theory” from my case study emerges at the end, fitting the inductive approach I have taken for this phase of the project. For that same reason (i.e. the inductive nature of my approach) I will introduce existing literature at this point. In general, the use of literature in a study has the following purposes:
(a) it shares with the reader the result of other studies that are closely related to the study being reported…(b) It relates a study to the larger, ongoing dialogue in the literature about a topic, …(c) It provides a framework for establishing the
importance of the study…(Creswell 1994: 21)
If I introduced existing literature earlier, I would have risked being overly directed in my research questions by that literature. Since the subject of interest, that is, the
would have narrowed my work in an unhelpful way. However, by introducing the literature at this stage I ensure that it deepens my understanding of the theories. These “theories” contextualized in relation to existing literature are tested in the second phase of the empirical cycle.
2.3.3 Phase Two (Deductive): Testing the findings
This phase involves testing the theories arising from Phase One on other groups of African Christians. Now, apart from the Africans belonging to churches set up by Africans, a significant number of Africans belong to the “historic” churches like the Church of
England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptist Church. Since these people are Africans as well as Christians, a study of African Christian Pneumatology which takes them into account would offer a fuller picture. However, unlike the African Pentecostal Churches or the African Initiated Churches where the founders, leaders, and majority of the members are Africans; this group of African Christians tend to be in the minority in their church, and so would not have the kind of influence their fellow Africans have in shaping church life in the churches set up by Africans. Their influence is also hindered by the fact that these denominations tend to have long standing traditions. For these reasons, a case study or participant observation of their church would not reveal as much about their own beliefs as with the participants at Mount Zion. Therefore, even though I visited these churches and
participated in several services, I put more emphasis on the interviews I conducted among the members.
I will use Yin’s (1994: 103) first type of analytical strategy, which begins with a theoretical proposition. In this regard, I will be using the pattern theories derived from Phase One as the propositions that will be tested out in this phase.
I interviewed thirty people selected in such a way as to include various age groups and both sexes from the following denominations: the Methodist Church, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Pentecostal Church. The interviews also provided me with the opportunity to check “theories” which have arisen from the case study of Mount Zion. This stage of the research was thence mainly deductive.
Even though the approach at this stage was mainly deductive, it was not entirely so. I still left room for new ideas and understandings to emerge from this group. Such room would allow a denominational emphasis to emerge and enable me to compare the effect of denomination on Pneumatology. In order to attain this deductive/inductive balance, the method I used was a semi-structured interview. A semi-structured interview is, as a concept, less formal than a structured interview but allows less flexibility than an
unstructured interview. They give the interviewer more control than s/he would have in an unstructured interview, whilst leaving some room for the interviewee to develop the subject further (Denscombe 1998: 113). I conducted the interviews using a list of open questions derived from stage 1 of this research.