PENTECOSTALISM AS POPULAR RELIGIOSITY JUANSEPULVEDA” zyxwvut zyxw zyxw zyxwv In the editorial of the International Review of Mission of January 1986, Walter Hollenweger called attention to the outstanding theological and missiological challenge that the surprising growth of the Pentecostal type of Christianity represents. Taking into consideration David S . Barrett’s predictions in the World Christian Encyclopedia, by the end of the twentieth century Pentecostal Christians (in their three main tendencies: classical Pentecostals, the charismatic movement in the traditional churches, and the “indigenous non-white churches”) could reach a membership of two hundred and fifty million, that is, the same number as the membership of all the Protestant churches put together. The third world, particularly in Latin America, provides the most fertile soil for this type of religious proliferation. ’ Therefore it is not surprising that both Latin American and world ecumenism are increasingly focusing their attention on this issue and thinking about the possibility of a massive incorporation of pentecostalism in the ecumenical task. Notwithstanding this new concern - despite the increase in research work and studies on the matter - there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the significance of the Pentecostal experience. Because of this ignorance, the attitude of other churches or communities is frequently marked by theological, cultural and political prejudices. In the ecumenical movement one can perceive attitudes such as a radical criticism that sees in pentecostalism an intrinsically alienating religiosity centred in the proclamation of an ultramundane salvation, or the respectful appraisal that discovers in Pentecostals a defiant challenge. zyx zyxwvuts * JUAN SEPULVEDA is a Pentecostal pastor in Chile and former president of the Chilean Confraternity of Churches. He, in cooperation with Manuel Canales, Samuel Palma and Hugo Villela, formed the AMERINDA Study Team, which was responsible for a research project on pentecostalism, the results of which have been published under the title, La Subjetividud popular y la religion de 10s sectores populares: El campo Pentecostal [“Popular Subjectivity and the Religion of the Popular Sections: the Pentecostal field”], Santiago, Chile: SEPADE, 1987, (mimeographed). This article has been translated from Spanish by the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches (WCC). “After twenty years’ research on Pentecostalism,” in Inrernarional Review of Mission, Vol. LXXV, No. 297, January 1986, pp. 3-12. * This is confirmed by the agenda of ecumenical consultations such as the “Encounter of Latin American and Caribbean Ecumenical Institutions,” in Quito, Ecuador, July 1988; the “Encounter of the Latin American Pentecostals,” in Bahia, Brazil, January 1988, held under the auspices of the World Council of Churches; others in preparation, such as the World Conference of the WCC on Mission and Evangelism, San Antonio, Texas, May - June 1989. ’ 80 PENTECOSTALISM AS POPULAR RELIGIOSITY For the social sciences, Pentecostalism also represents a fact that is not easy to understand nor to explain, as well as a contradiction to be resolved. In fact, from this insight, “popular religiosity” has been seen as a “survival” of the old order and as a cultural reality destined to disappear, absorbed by the rationalistic. secularistic and individualistic modern ethos. Strangely enough, Pentecostalism does not take into consideration either reason or the individual. God and community surge with renewed intensity. But, inasmuch as its surge and growth is contemporary to a process of modernization, it is difficult to call it the “survival of the tradition.” In the same historical period in which a social project of modernization is developed, a religious “revival” appears that absolutely ignores all reason or idea of progress. It is precisely the peasants, the country folk, the indigenous inhabitants and even important groups of workers - who were expected to join the modernization project actively - who have been the most enthusiastic in accepting the Pentecostal message of salvation. zy zyxwv It is interesting to point out that the Pentecostal message has not opposed the project of modernization exhorting people to keep a tradition. Rather, they have devoted their efforts, from the standpoint of their “new faith,” to promote a new religious experience, which has arisen through the work in small rural schools and among people who have become enthusiastic about the movement towards popular religiosity. Neither is Pentecostalism an easy problem for social science critics to understand. The depth of its religious experience has not shown any evidence of interest in historical criticism of society. This has given critics the impression that Pentecostalism is a new instrument of the prevailing ideology of domination, thus curtailing people’s possibility of expressing their criticism. Social scientists’ opinion of Pentecostalism is shown among others in the following expressions: opium, domination via religion, religious proclamation of social conformism, “refuge of the masses.” To this is added the evident effort from abroad to guide this religious tendency through the dramatic display of professional preachers of the so-called “electronic church. ” This study is a modest contribution to a better understanding of Pentecostalism from an inclusive perspective. At present we are more interested in emphasizing its meaning than its activity. The questions that will guide our reflection are the following: 1. Which is the message of salvation according to Pentecostalism? 2. What does this message of salvation have to say about the condition of the popular sections of the rural population and the city dwellers? 3. What clues help us to understand the effectiveness of the message of salvation of the Pentecostal Church for the popular sections? 81 zyxwvuts zyxwvuts INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION The conclusions that will be shared are part of a research project that is being done on “Pentecostalism and popular religiosity among the popular context in Chile .” The Pentecostal proposition of salvation: the change of life The analysis of Pentecostal testimonies obtained from among rural people, as well as from city dwellers, allowed us to discover a sound “common sense” proposition: “I am saved by the power of God.” Said analysis also shows that practically all witnesses have the following affirmations in common: - “Accept God.” - “Be born again: be a new creature.” - “Cease to be of the world.” - “God changed my life.” When a person bears witness to hidher religious conviction, he/she seems to visualize two lives, two ways of living: to be for the world or to be for God. That is to say, to be lost or to be saved. zyxwv Every Pentecostal testimony seems to consider these two questions: - What does it mean to be saved? - How can a person obtain salvation? The meaning of salvation Salvation means “to cease to be of the world,” “to take the right path,” “to be saved.” Here we have two “worlds of life, two ways of living.” The Pentecostal offer is a “new identity,” a life that is recognized as “saved,” that faces another way of life known as ‘‘lost.’’ It is necessary to clarify a very frequent objection that is raised erroneously in order to understand Pentecostalism better: when a Pentecostal uses the expression “leave the world” he/she is not thinking of “leaving society.” In Pentecostal testimony, “world” is not an objective category such as society or history. It is strictly a way of life: “World,” then, is “my life” before accepting a “new life” through conversion. To be saved is, first of all, to change one’s way of life, not the conditions of living. What is changed is the way in which the person establishes a relation- zyxw Attempting to provide a brief description of the research methodology, it can be said that it consists in an intent of reconstruction of the Pentecostal experience through the analysis obtained in interviews in depth and discussion groups. (Cf. Jeslis Ibafiez, Mas alla de la sociologi’a, Madrid: Edit. Siglo XXI, 1986.) The interviews and discussion groups took place among pentecostals in a rural zone near Santiago (“La Vifiilla”) and among pentecostals from urban popular sections in the northern part of Santiago. 82 PENTECOSTALISM AS POPULAR RELIGIOSITY ship with those conditions of living. Therefore, “to be saved” is, in other words, “to be a different person,” to be a “new creature.” In this way, the idea of “perdition” takes on more significance: the world is “perdition” in the sense that life before conversion is a life that is lost, it is an unsustainable way of living; it is to lack a “livable life.” In short, “world of perdition” refers to a place where life and the individual “are lost,” where identity is impossible and the fall is visible; a world of loneliness, of hate, of sadness, of fear, of shame, of envy, of neglect, of moral degradation. zy zy zy zyxwvutsr The person who is able to abandon such a situation is saved. To save oneself is to “gain life.” Here it is necessary to clarify a second mistake often made. When a Pentecostal speaks about “salvation” it is often thought that he is speaking solely of an ultra-mundane salvation, beyond this “valley of sorrow .” Even though these elements are found in the Pentecostal message - as in Christianity in general - its strength lies precisely in that it offers a “new life,” a “livable life,” sustainable, here and now. With such life the circle of the Pentecostal experience is completed: leaving the world meant overcoming “a way of life” by encounter with the sacred power that opens the possibility of a “new life.” The fundamental characteristic of this new life is, in the first place, to be able to name it, recognizing it as life; it is a life that is guided and that is worth living. The strength of Pentecostalism is in its self-identifying efficiency. How can salvation be obtained? The Pentecostal witness also shows the manner through which this salvation is possible; in other words, a way to salvation. This has to do with the means by which God makes himself felt to the individual and the commitment this person establishes with the Lord. The affirmation “to accept God” shows precisely the terms of the relationship: - God makes himself felt, he “offershmposes.” - The individual “acceptshecognizes .” Each testimony will include the story of how God reveals himself to a particular person. These experiences will differ according to each situation. Apart from the demands of God’s law, the person can believe that salvation is possible there is “something else,” “sacred,” that modifies the law of a profane reality. God establishes the possibility of a new reality in which the individual may be saved. In the presence of this evidence the individual must choose acceptance or refusal. The option “to accept the Lord” means that a new way of salvation opens before the person; but to be able to walk down that path there will be things that must remain behind, as well as others that must be accepted and 83 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION respected. To accept God, and to be able to accept God’s grace, means that there must also be a readiness to accept God’s conditions. In so doing, the “new life,” the “saved life,” will always define some way of “being for God.” zyxwvuts zy Briefly, what pentecostalism risks in the face of the world is its self-identifying efficiency. If it is a religious revival, it is in the sense that, through an intense and direct experience of sacredness, individuals recover from a total deficit of meaning - a life that has failed - to a new way of living. This solution to the problem of a total lack of meaning in life is registered as a religious symbol. What pentecostalism reveals of the feelings of peasants and urban workers The fact is that pentecostalism, in answer to the commission to “go into all the world,” has strongly spread among peasants and urban city dwellers. This fact raises a question about the modernization project within popular segments of the population. Pentecostalism reveals an intensive search for salvation among the popular sections of society. This leads one to question what the conditions and the tensions are among the popular rural and city people that lead them to look for salvation in this century of modernity. Christian Lalive d’Epinay, working on this same question in his well-known research study, reached the conclusion that pentecostalism was converted from a popular solution to a situation of “anomie.” According to his analysis, the Chilean transition of the first part of this century, from a traditional social order to a modern order, has meant a crisis, or absence of norms to guide one’s living, for large sections of the population (particularly the rural migrants). In face of this anomie, pentecostalism has become a kind of “normative refuge” built according to the model of a ranch, a symbol of the traditional order. Nevertheless, the concept of anomie does not seem to be the most adequate to indicate the situation of crisis that points to a search for salvation. Actually, a Pentecostal always describes a situation of “shame,” of “guiltiness,” when referring to his situation. Shame, then, far from being indicative of anomie, indicates the presence of a strong normativeness that prevents the “fall ,” “getting lost.” The shame felt is due to the awareness of the risk of the fall, to the fear of failure. Our interpretation is that the Pentecostal experience makes a person religiously aware of failure, in order to avoid the fear, shame or absurdity of a fall, which is always present in the popular culture. Studies among non-Pentecostal peasants show that the risk of “getting lost,” of “letting themselves die,” or of “not making out” are all present in their minds. ‘ “El Refugio de las Masas” [The Refuge of the Masses], a sociological study of Chilean protestantism, Santiago, Chile: Editorial del Pacifico, 1968. 84 PENTECOSTALISM AS POPULAR RELIGIOSITY Popular culture faces the fall as a possibility in different ways: a) Incapacity to accomplish the predominant values of their culture. The individual must assume the problem of shame. On the other hand, it is difficult for the individual to obtain an identity and a place in society because of a lack of formal education. In addition, there is the shame of not being able to fulfil the duty of a good parent; to fulfil one’s obligations. The result of so much discontent finally produces a degrading conduct as one turns to alcoholism and loses all personal dignity. b) The uncertainty of the environment. The uncontrollable risk of dropping out of the labour market; fear of sickness as well as of nature. c) Lack of right examples to imitate. At this level we assume Lalive’s proposition of an anomic situation, or of a crisis in social leadership or hegemony. d) Last, we believe that Pentecostalism makes evident the degradation of a social environment where the possibility of affirming subjectivity is blocked by the destruction of horizontal links and affective strength, which cannot be replaced by individuals. In their place, the social habitat remains, constituted by what we might call a “miserable individualism”: envy, selfishness, lack of love and faith, aggressiveness, anonymity and disloyalty. It is in that popular world, real because it can be seen by the individual, where an experience of salvation can take place. Wherever the individual believes he/ she can find morality, knowledge and power, the Pentecostal replies: vanity, falsehood, pride, emptiness. The fact that the problem of the recognition of the “fall” may find in Pentecostalism a religious/symbolic solution that does not lead to an historical path of liberation, can find its explanation in the class status of the peasants and the “marginalized urbanites.” zyxw When Pentecostalism begins to spread in these social sections these individuals do not find themselves in a condition to elaborate an historical project by which they may solve their problems and change their material conditions of living. Inasmuch as these conditions have been changing - particularly during the period 1964-1973 in Chile - the Pentecostal experience and its message of salvation has been strongly challenged, giving place to new changes inside zyxw zyxwv The problem of the “visibility of the fall” is an expression of the crisis of the popular culture. Historical studies of the Chilean case show that until the past century, the popular sections of society (the peons) had been able to develop a popular culture that was autochthonous and different from the dominant culture. This culture, which gave the “Chilean roto” a strong sense of belonging, relied on the possibilities of economic survival without reference to the prevailing economic system, as well as on territorial mobility. This situation underwent a dramatic change in the first decades of this century when, due to different causes, the possibility of social and territorial mobility was reduced to a minimum, forcing the “lower class” to gather in urban working centres where, in the midst of degredation, it had to wait for the industrialization process to accelerate its development. (Related to this theme: Gabriel Salazar, “Labradores, peones y proletarios,” Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Sur, 1985.) 85 zyxwvu INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION pentecostalism. The significance and depth of these new tendencies will have to be studied in the future. Clues to understanding the effectiveness of pentecostalism From the present analysis it is clear that the principal clue to understanding the effectiveness of pentecostalism as an offer of salvation among the popular sections of society is the fact that it establishes a connection with a strong religious search, a search for salvation that precedes the Pentecostal answer. The following questions remain: What clues enable us to understand this capacity to answer? Why is pentecostalism able to give an answer to this religious need, whereas neither the popular traditional religiosity nor the traditional churches seem able to do the same? In the following paragraphs we wish to point out some clues that we believe are the most important to the effectiveness of pentecostalism. The formulations must necessarily be brief, and should be understood as hypotheses to be proved, not as final conclusions. The intensity of the religious experience zy zy Pentecostalism does not propose, basically, a new doctrine nor new beliefs. It offers the possibility of a particularly intense religious experience. The Pentecostal God is a living God who overpowers subjectivity, shutting out the possibility of doubt. It also excludes criticism that comes from culture common sense - and pre-existing religiosity. The intensity of religious feelings is shown literally in testimony, with expressions such as “to be taken” by the Holy Spirit, to receive a kind of “electric shock” that produces “heat,” “joy,” “strength from within” of irrepressible expansiveness that places the individual in the midst of an experience from which he/she will not separate. Only a very intense religious experience can break away from the common sense and impression that are found in popular culture, (which considers Pentecostals “fanatics,” “lunatics”), and at the same time grant a radical reorientation to the individual, providing the person with a new way of life. Access to God without mediation The mediation function of the sacred by the priests, by the clergy, in the traditional churches is at the same time a function that tends to separate. Lay people, for their communion with God, must resort to a mediator. For the “lower people,” the humble, this mediation has several dimensions: Cf. Juan Sepulveda, “Pentecostal Theology in the Context of the Struggle for Life,” in Dow Kirkpatrick, Is Latin American Prorestanr Theology Relevant for Us? Michigan, USA: Eerdrnanns, 1988. 86 zy zyxwvuts PENTECOSTALISM AS POPULAR RELIGIOSITY - A social dimension: Usually the priest does not come from the same social class, but from the class of the bosses. Therefore, the encounter with what is sacred supposes passing through the boss. God necessarily appears to be “on the side of the boss.” - A cultural dimension: The traditional priest preaches in Latin. The traditional pastor preaches in a rational and abstract way. In one case or the other, the encounter of the humble person with God has to go through an incomprehensible, alien cultural mediation. On the other hand, the values that the official religion promotes very seldom have much to do with the popular culture and the real personal options of the poor. For this reason, the traditional churches, with mediators who interpret the faith, do not offer a solution to the problem of “visibility of the fall”; the “shame” a person feels at not being able to live a “livable life.” On the contrary, it deepens the feeling in the same measure as the humble person tries to live up to a rule that is not achievable. In the face of this situation, the effectiveness of Pentecostalism is found in the possibility it offers of a religious experience without a mediator, with direct access to God. The Pentecostal testimony itself, preached aloud in streets and squares, is evidence of that possibility, of the presence of God that is offered to/ imposed on the individual through the Holy Spirit. This absence of mediators is also clearly manifested in Pentecostal worship. In this service, the traditional division between the “qualified agents” who convey a legitimate religious speech, and the ones who only participate as consumers of such speech, disappears. Through the singing, the prayers offered aloud, and the different ways of participation, all the faithful, and even the new ones, participate as legitimate speakers of the religious message, putting into practice the Protestant doctrine of the “universal priesthood of all believers.” zy zyxwvut ’ Speaking about God in the people’s language In relation to the foregoing, Pentecostalism is characterized by a great ability to convey the evangelical message in popular language. Although it offers a deeply felt new religious experience that differs from the existing religiosity, its forms of expression correspond to those of popular language. This is made evident in worship liturgies and in Pentecostal language. In his book, Lalive d’Epinay showed, through several examples, that both the language and the ways of expression of Pentecostalism are related to the preexistent culture. The Pentecostal message is totally different from the popular catholic religiosity. Nevertheless, it assumes many forms of expression of religiosity. For example, Pentecostalism refuses processions in honour of saints ’ Cf. Francisco Cartaxo Rolim, “Pentecostalisme et Sociktk au Brksil,” in Social Compass 26, NO. 2-3, 1979, pp. 345-372. 87 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION but maintains the idea that in religion, the parade has a central place; it is against the promises to the saints but applies the same type of communication with what is sacred to the relationship with God (if you do what I ask, I will do such and such). And the examples could be multiplied. We do not believe this exchange to be a conscientious strategy. It is the consequence of the disappearance of the mediation of what is sacred. Once this happens, religious experience will express itself in the people’s own language. In this popular language, which differs from that of the traditional churches with their “rationality,” emotion occupies an important place and is expressed by means of a “non-verbal” language; that is to say, the communication of emotions through the body and the senses, dimensions that are repressed by modern culture marked by intellectualization and rationalism. zyxw According to Professor Edenio Valle, from Brazil, this type of non-verbal language has two meanings: on the one hand, it has a psychological signifcance ofopposition: “the individual group that appeals to this code reveals nonacceptance of the official codes propounded or imposed upon by those who exercise power. They show that the accepted language is considered by them as foreign, therefore alienating in relation to the individual or collective experiences, particularly those that are suppressed.” On the other hand, the non-verbal language, as it reveals or hides, exercises a protective function. That is to say, the oppressed are able to tell the oppressor their own feelings in such a way that the answer given is concealed. Undoubtedly a better knowledge of these and other clues to the effectiveness of pentecostalism in the popular environment will be helpful for the renewal of Christian mission in non-western cultures. zyxwvu zyxw op. cit., pp. 94-96. Edenio Valle, svd. “Psicologia Social e Catolicismo Popular,’’ in Revista Eclesiastica Brasileira, Vol. 36, No. 141, March 1976. 88