• First, obviously the primary sources are normative in intent but, until very recently, most of the secondary treatments produced by insiders also have been unapologetically normative if not hagiographic.
  
• Second, the secondary materials produced by outsiders commonly reflect a mirror image of the insider sources. Adherents from other Christian traditions have viewed Pentecostals with bemusement, sometimes condescension, and occasionally even contempt. Historians and social scientists have reduced Pentecostal phenomena to other realities, including economic deprivation, social stress, cultural malaise, or psychological imbalance.
  
• Third, the primary materials are packed with claims of supernatural activity. How to deal with those claims in a manner that is both empathetic to the subjects who wrote them yet responsible to the wider reading public poses puzzling questions of historical method. A closely related problem is the presence of beliefs and practices that virtually all outsiders consider extraordinary if not simply bizarre. Snake handling and refusal to consult a physician are good examples.
  
• Fourth, a large part--perhaps a majority--of the sources do not take the “usual” form of published books and articles with handy library call numbers. Rather they present themselves as pamphlets, posters, handbills, tracts, music lyrics, photographs, material artifacts (like discarded crutches), and transcripts and tapes of oral interviews. And more material emerges in “Grandma’s attic” every day, which means that many resources that exist in principle nonetheless remain uncatalogued and thus inaccessible to researchers.
  
• Fifth, the definition of the subject itself is problematic. To a significant extent we have to define the beast before we know where to look for it and how to spot it when we find it. Not surprisingly, both scholars and others have defined Pentecostalism in different ways, depending on the kind of models they are using--theological, cultural, social—and the weight they ascribe to different characteristics within those models. (For example, is Pentecostalism best defined by speaking in tongues? By healing? By charismatic leadership? By economic or social class?)
  
• Sixth, the study of Pentecostalism is politically charged. A variety of interest groups, including men, women, whites, blacks, Latinos, Trinitarians, and Oneness advocates have argued for or against the formative role of one or another faction. That diversity partly stems from the diversity that undeniably does exist within the movement, and partly from its comparative youth, so that basic lines of argument are still very much in flux.
  
• Seventh, unlike many traditions that religious historians study (which may be extinct, moribund, or stable), Pentecostalism is rapidly growing and changing. That means, among other things, that generalizations are risky and subject to constant revision.
  
• Eighth, and perhaps most important, Pentecostalism is no longer, if it ever was, primarily a North American phenomenon. Though most (albeit not all) historians believe that it started in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, there can be no question that the movement is today overwhelmingly international in scope. That fact raises multiple questions about sources. On one hand, how do we honor the multiplicity of local or indigenous forms and, on the other hand, also honor the movement’s transcultural and global commonalities? How should scholars treat the dynamics of transmission from the West to the developing world and back again? What changes and what stays the same?

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