Catch the Fire: Soaking Prayer and Charismatic Renewal 9781501751271

Citation preview

Catch the Fire

Catch the Fire Soaking Prayer and C h a r i s m at i c R e n e w a l

M i c h a e l W i l k i n s o n a n d P e t e r A lt h o u s e

NIU Press / DeKalb, IL

© 2014 by Northern Illinois University Press Published by the Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois 60115 Manufactured in the United States using acid-free paper. All Rights Reserved Design by Shaun Allshouse Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilkinson, Michael, 1965– Catch the fire : soaking prayer and charismatic renewal / Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87580-705-8 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-60909-156-9 (e-book) 1. Prayer—Pentecostal churches. I. Title. BV227.W55 2014 248.2’9—dc23 2013041738

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

vii 3

O N E—Charismatic Renewal

22

T W O—Prayer and Altruism

45

T H R E E—Rituals of Renewal

70

F O U R—Embodied Love

93

F I V E—Apostolic Authority and Gender S I X—Advancing the Kingdom of Love

Conclusion

159

Appendices 165 Notes 173 Bibliography 183 Index 199

113 137

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by a generous grant from the Flame of Love Project at the University of Akron and the John Templeton Foundation. In 2008 we (the authors) met at a restaurant in the west end of Toronto and made plans to apply for funds and conduct research on the charismatic renewal that was emanating out of Toronto and beginning to expand globally. We had heard rumors that charismatic phenomena were still happening despite comments regarding their apparent demise and wanted to see what was going on. We submitted a proposal and eventually received funding for “Charismatic Renewal as Mission: Godly Love and the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship’s Soaking Centers.” The project was one of five sub-awards funded through the Flame of Love that sought to look at the relationship between religious claims of experiencing divine love and the potential benevolence that resulted from these experiences. Margaret Poloma, Matthew Lee, and Stephen Post provided leadership for the Flame of Love Project. We were also part of the Institute Core Research Group (ICRG), which provided a venue for lively discussions over research findings. Thanks to Craig Boyd, Julie Exline, John Green, Ralph Hood Jr., A. G. Miller, Thomas J. Oord, the late Clark Pinnock, Arlene Sanchez Walsh, Amos Yong, Candy Gunther Brown, Michael McClymond, Donald E. Miller, Richard Flory, Kimberly Alexander, Mark Cartledge, Paul Alexander, and Robert Welsh for thoughtful comments and suggestions on our work, as well as Margaret, Matt, and Stephen for their input and advice. We hope our suggestions for the research of other participants were equally helpful. We also benefited from a two-day seminar with Kathy Charmaz on Grounded Theory early in our fieldwork and incorporated some of these insights into our research. One of the venues for exploring our research goals was the Seminar on Godly Love at Calvin College. We enjoyed many fruitful conversations with participants of the ICRG

viii

Ac kn ow l e d gme n ts

who attended, as well as others in attendance, including Jim Zahniser, Tim Brown, Philip Jamieson, Mark Nickolas, and Jong Hyun Jung. Frank Macchia, Wayne Jacobsen, and Roger Heuser joined us as well at different stages in the seminars. Presenting our research at Vanguard College, Costa Mesa, at the Great Commandment Seminar: Theology and Science in Dialogue in 2010 gave us the opportunity to refine our views. We also presented our findings at the annual meetings of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, and the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. Steve Studebaker invited us to discuss our research at McMaster Divinity College, McMaster University, and the participants offered us valuable comments. Special thanks to our research and teaching assistants Esteban Felix, Nicholas Tedeschi, Vincent Veach, and Danielle Temple, who filled in for us when we were away, performed administrative tasks, and helped us in all sorts of ways. We want to say a special thank-you to our families, who supported us in our travel schedules when we were away on our many research trips or speaking at conferences. Finally, this was a collaborative project made much easier by our good friendship and many thought-provoking conversations over the past five years of research and writing.

Catch the Fire

Introduction

Our desire is to see people in all the nations of the world soaking and receiving the Presence of God and then giving it away to their communities, reaching the world with Jesus. As we soak in His Presence we are changed. As a result our families are changed, our communities are changed and we reach the world with Jesus! —John Arnott, Catch the Fire Ministries1

I n t h e m i d - 1 9 9 0 s a charismatic renewal was underway in Toronto known as the Toronto Blessing, led by Vineyard Church leaders John and Carol Arnott. The renewal was defined by reports of uncontrollable laughing, weeping, speaking in tongues, animal noises, and falling on the floor during worship. These practices were embraced by sympathetic Christians and rejected by others who believed that this form of worship bordered on spectacle. By the end of the 1990s most people believed the renewal was over. Yet, throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century we heard rumors that the Toronto church, now known as Catch the Fire (CTF), was still holding mass meetings with upwards of two thousand people in attendance. We also heard about a practice emerging out of Toronto called “soaking prayer” where charismatics were taught that to reach the world with their message, they needed to first learn how to be loved by God if they were to love others. Soaking prayer is an adaptation of Pentecostal-charismatic prayer with several influences. Among the early twentieth-century Pentecostals, falling to the ground during prayer was referred to as being “slain in the Spirit.” Pentecostals believed that the experience of God’s

4

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

presence was so real that they fell as if dead. Throughout the twentieth century the practice took different names, but the phenomenon remained the same. Some mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics preferred the term “resting in the Spirit” to describe what happened to people as they came to rest on the floor following prayer. It was the Roman Catholic Francis MacNutt (1974; 1977; 1988) who linked “resting prayer” with healing. He borrowed the term “soaking” from fellow charismatic Tommy Tyson to describe prolonged prayer for people where those who prayed would place their hands on the needy person, soaking him or her in healing love. MacNutt spoke on occasion at the Toronto meetings and no doubt had some influence on its practice. When people began to rest in the Spirit in Toronto, it was playfully referred to as “carpet time” because people could be seen strewn all over the floor. Carol Arnott explained that after one long meeting she had been tired and said she wished she could rest in the Spirit when God told her she could, and all she needed to do was lie on the carpet and let God renew her. Following this experience, she believed God was leading her to help people understand the importance of “resting in the Father’s love,” and by 2003 the first soaking prayer school was offered. Soaking prayer is claimed by charismatics to facilitate and expand the reception of divine love in order to give it away in acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, compassion, and benevolence. Soaking is a metaphor that supports charismatic spirituality and practices like resting in the Spirit, prayer for spiritual gifts, healing, prophecy, and impartation, which we describe and explain in this book. Throughout our research, attending conferences, churches, and house meetings in the United States, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and Australia, we observed how people soak, what it means for participants to soak, and why soaking is considered an important practice among charismatics.2 We heard that soaking prayer had expanded into a wide range of Christian traditions such as the Episcopal, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Christian Reformed, Pentecostal, and Independent churches and other denominations. We were told that soaking prayer was expanding through networks of charismatic churches and independent congregations. While Toronto was a key pilgrimage site in the 1990s (Percy, 1998), and continues to be a place where charismatics travel to seek spiritual renewal, other sites throughout the United

I n trodu ct ion

5

States, such as Bethel Church in Redding, California, are just as influential. CTF offers conferences throughout the year to present teaching on their core values and to gather for charismatic worship. These conferences are held on a regular basis in the United States, Canada, Britain, and other locales in the world. For the most part, soaking prayer is nonverbal. Participants do not pray to bring their cares and concerns in petition to God or intercede for one’s needs or the needs of others. It is meditative prayer, where charismatics focus on being still or quiet in a posture of listening and receiving. Soaking prayer is a multivalent term that can have multiple meanings that will become clear to the reader throughout the book. For now, it is helpful to identify the main uses of the term. CTF leaders speak about soaking prayer using the illustration of a sponge that, when soaked in water, can be squeezed to allow its contents to flow to other areas such as a dry counter top. Going to the beach and “soaking in the sun” is another comparison. In the same way, charismatics are encouraged to soak in God’s love in order to become more loving toward others around them. The term functions intransitively, as with “I ‘soaked’ this morning,” or it can function transitively, as with “I ‘soaked’ my spouse this morning in the Father’s love.” The latter suggests a kind of social transference from one actor to another through touch or what charismatics call the “laying on of hands.” Soaking can also be used to describe devotional reading of the Bible: “I was ‘soaking’ in the Gospel of John and God ‘revealed’ to me that I am to encourage Bobby to follow God’s call.” Soaking prayer is also spoken of in a playful way by charismatics with an idealistic image of childhood where participants are invited to come and “play in God’s presence.” Stepping into the strange world of the charismatic renewal is disconcerting for the outsider, and as researchers we often found it difficult to grasp what was occurring in these emotionally intense settings. It is a unique subculture or habitus with unusual notions and narratives. Charismatics playfully envision God using the romantic language of “love and play” as regularly observed among charismatics who practice soaking prayer. Phrases like “walking hand-in-hand,” “gentle whisper,” “spontaneity,” “love and acceptance,” “trust,” “embrace,” “playing,” “being children,” and “sons and daughters of God” are rhetoric heard in the various CTF sponsored events. The language of love—the wide-eyed love of a child in

6

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

her father’s presence, the giddy love of a young couple just learning who the other person is, the mature love of a parent who wants good things for a child, or of those who want to help their community in a way that benefits people in the neighborhood, are all aspects of the kinds of love emphasized by CTF. The practice of soaking prayer is not without its critics.3 In their teachings, CTF leaders spend much time explaining that soaking prayer is not simply a technique (though it is obviously a technique), but that its goal is to spend time in God’s presence, to experience God’s love, and to love others. Also they try to distance themselves from New Age spirituality and Eastern practices such as transcendental meditation, suggesting an awareness of these criticisms. Moreover, one informant revealed to us that some people were critical that the practice, or at least the term, was not found in the Bible. Consequently, practitioners and teaching manuals spend a great deal of time justifying the practice of soaking prayer with references to the Bible. We also noted its similarities to self-help therapeutic techniques for reducing stress and instilling relaxation.

Observing Soaking Prayer As researchers, we wanted to understand how charismatics practice soaking prayer. Furthermore, we wanted to understand how the culture of charismatic Christianity motivated practitioners to act in altruistic ways, which, they claimed, were related to the practice of soaking prayer. In February 2009 we attended our first soaking prayer school at the Founders Inn, Virginia Beach. The soaking prayer school was held in conjunction with a week-long conference that brought together about 1,500 charismatics for prayer, worship, seminars on healing, and teaching on soaking prayer. We attended the course on soaking prayer with about fifty other participants, mostly women, from across the United States. The leader of the seminar was Marguerite Evans, a former South African runner-up for the Miss Universe contest. She identified herself as a non-Christian who came to faith through a charismatic group in South Africa. She first heard about the Toronto Blessing in the 1990s. Eventually she came to Toronto to attend a ministry school where she developed into a

I n trodu ct ion

7

leader for CTF, giving supervision as the National Soaking Prayer Coordinator in the United States until 2010. Evans, a dynamic speaker, took the group through a series of teachings on soaking prayer. The seminar focused on practicing soaking prayer as well as offering a theological rationale. In the morning we would follow a series of teachings from the Student’s Manual about the problems of trying to please God, the need to hear God’s voice, enjoying God’s presence, the importance of spiritual intimacy, contemplation, experiencing the love of God, and loving others. In the afternoons there were a series of exercises to practice soaking prayer. During these times the lights were dimmed and worship leaders Rob and Kelley Augi played soft contemplative music. Participants pulled out pillows and blankets, making themselves comfortable on the floor, taking us by surprise since we did not have any such items. We remained seated at the back, observing people resting on the floor, eyes closed, and in a prayerful state. Not long into the first session a middle-aged woman began to laugh. Evans told everyone, “Sometimes people are filled with joy when they come into God’s presence as they experience unconditional love.” Not long afterward someone else started laughing across the room, and for the next thirty minutes waves of laughter rolled from one side of the room to the other. After the session, participants were invited to share what they experienced while praying. Some spoke about feeling loved for the first time, others said they had a vision of Jesus playing with them, someone fell asleep and felt refreshed, another person claimed God was healing her of emotional hurts and helping her forgive. Another person said he was blessed by God and believed he was being called to start a soaking prayer group back home. Someone else claimed to have a greater love for others. At the conclusion of the soaking school, John and Carol Arnott came in to speak to the group. As John spoke about prayer, he referenced the inward, upward, and outward directions of prayer. “We are on three journeys, an inward journey, an upward journey, and an outward journey.” We have since heard him speak numerous times of the inward, upward, and outward. At the Voice of the Apostles Conference in Baltimore in 2010, John spoke again of the inward, upward, and outward journey as being filled with “a river that flows from the throne of God.” He said,

8

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

As you drink it you begin to get touched with the love of God. Then you begin to honor Him and love Him, and there’s an overflow that pours your heart out toward heaven. The next thing you know, He’s saying, “Okay, now it is time for the outward journey.” You begin to take that river of God to the nations of the world. It is in the Father’s heart to fill this earth with His glory, and He wants you to be a part of it. This is your inheritance. This is your destiny. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

At the soaking prayer school, Arnott said the inward, upward, and outward is related to the outworking of love in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.4 The Great Commandment is the commandment of love: “Love God and love your neighbor.” In charismatic renewal this love is not viewed as obligatory, a duty to be performed before a vengeful God, but a relational love that is intimate, passionate, and full of hope. The Great Commission is how that love is expressed to the world as Christians are sent out to “share God’s love with others.” Love, therefore, is viewed by these charismatics in relation to what they offer to God in worship, what is received from God, and what is released in love to the world through mission. As Arnott said, “Mission is life under the anointing not only for relationship with God, but also so that you are fruitful.” Arnott’s sense of mission is that it empowers all people to spread God’s love in diverse ways. In reference to the expansion of early Christianity, and by implication how he envisions ministry in the church he said, “The apostles led, but it was the people who did ministry.” A short time later, John’s wife Carol came into the room to speak about prayer. At one point she asked John what he said. On learning that he spoke of the inward, upward and outward journey, she said, “Oh, John, you’ve got it wrong,” and then went on to explain that soaking prayer is about “we, He, they.” On the surface this may seem a trivial matter in describing soaking prayer. According to Carol, “we” is the community of believers who are loved by God and receive God’s good things. Group solidarity is an important element in the charismatic renewal as people approach the sacred through worship together and feel a sense of emotional closeness to God and each other. “He” is a reference to God and the love and praise given to God through prayers, but also one that is reciprocated from a loving

I n trodu ct ion

9

Father. “They” refers to the families, communities, and the world that need to hear and experience God’s love, once again producing a sense of solidarity as people are equipped and empowered to love others in the world and to show them love through their actions. Carol’s image is more communal and relational, while John’s was more spatial and individualistic. The distinction suggests a difference between how men and women experience and understand prayer. This is important because women are the ones who are the most active in soaking prayer and hosting prayer meetings in their homes and churches. However, with some notable exceptions the leadership of the renewal is mostly male. Although one can observe overlap, the language of rest, receive, and release offers important themes in soaking prayer. Either by what appears to be spontaneously falling down in the context of ecstatic worship or by intentionally lying down to soak in prayer, charismatics interpret this posture as a position of rest. Both John Arnott and Marguerite Evans explain it theologically as a “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” which means to immerse in God’s love. We heard leaders teach that love is not something that can be received by striving or performing in order to earn God’s love, but rather is freely given and freely received. Within this context, charismatics claim rest is an important component of soaking prayer and by extension effective ministry. According to CTF teaching, by settling the mind and body a person will place herself in a state to receive God’s love. By lying down and allowing the body to relax, the person can “let go” of anxiety. People are expected to perform in the workplace, to perform in the home, and to perform in church. But, as CTF leaders teach, a person who is constantly busy is unlikely to hear from God. One prayer coordinator put it this way: “I actually kind of felt a little bit of a disconnect from God personally, and I had been a vice president of a major brokerage firm, and I was running and gunning. I was busy, and we had these house meetings and I had just come to a place of dryness in my own self. But the Lord was actually calling me out of that career into ministry” (P91).5 Marguerite Evans recommended that participants “cultivate a resting place for the habitation of the Lord.” In some cases charismatics dedicate specific rooms in their homes for prayer. If someone falls asleep while engaging in soaking prayer, then the body is in need of rest, we were told, and God is providing for one’s need. “Besides,”

10

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

claimed Evans, “God can speak to a person through dreams.” Divine communication through dreams and visions is a common belief in charismatic spirituality, one that is practiced in CTF. Receiving is another important element in soaking prayer. Through the practice of receiving, participants claim to experience a deeper sense of God’s love that leads to greater intimacy with God. Experiencing divine love through soaking prayer energizes the participants, which, charismatics claim, allows them to show similar love to family members, friends, co-workers, and those across the world who are in need through compassion ministries. Just as God’s overwhelming love, it is claimed, flows into the life of the believer, this love now overflows into other people’s lives. Intimate presence is essential for this sharing of love according to charismatics. We heard that in order for God to “release the anointing” and to “open the heavens,” worshippers must be in a position to receive. Through prayer, participants claim to experience inner healing from painful memories, emotional hurts, and traumas. Charismatics say they are filled up with the Spirit, are purified and cleansed, hear from God, see visions (mental impressions or images), speak in tongues, prophesy, and express a myriad of other charismatic gifts. A common saying among charismatics is that “you can’t give away what you don’t have.” In other words, you cannot love other people sufficiently if you have not experienced God’s love for yourself. Reception of divine love in order to give it away is not a one-time event, something that happens in conversion, but is a continuous process of receiving and giving, according to charismatic teachers. In another phrase expressing this process, charismatics speak of renewal as “a time of refreshing.” People who are involved in ministry, such as pastors, evangelists, and missionaries speak about the experience of renewal as something that reenergizes their ministry. Release is the outward impartation of God’s love and has to do with how love is transmitted or given away. God, it is claimed, releases the “powers of the kingdom” and “opens up the heavens” when pouring out divine love. Participants are encouraged to “receive God’s love,” so they can be “released from the bondages of sin” and their own inner, emotional pain and hurt. These charismatics believe that God’s love allows individuals to let go of striving and

I n trodu ct ion

11

to surrender control of their lives to God. One person in Michigan who participates in soaking prayer meetings said, “And that’s what soaking is. It’s focusing upon just letting go and releasing, allowing God to come in. And I never was taught to work from the presence, but work toward the presence. And this is what I’m learning. And I find out it is in a way, in the beginning, the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life—learning to let go and to allow somebody else bigger than me to just direct my life. And just be obedient to who He is and His principles” (P19). Release is also sometimes referred to as a “baptism of power,” believed to be how the Spirit empowers the participants to reach out into the world through ministry that includes benevolent acts of service. Through prayer, participants believe, the charismatic leader releases or imparts the “anointing,” a kind of charismatic energy, in order to empower other people to receive the love and power of God to love others. Participants believe they are released to work for God in all sorts of ways. Impartation also occurs in soaking prayer where people silently pray for others by touching their shoulders in order to impart or release God’s love. As one leader said, “God soaks us but we also soak others.” As charismatics expect to experience divine love, they also believe they are released to share that love with others. Furthermore, through the practice of soaking prayer charismatics claim to experience an “authentic” relationship in a deeper communion with God who loves them unconditionally and without reservation. The experience of soaking prayer, according to charismatics, is one of intimacy, co-presence, communion, empowerment, and interaction. What was of interest to us was how this type of prayer motivated charismatics to love others. We knew Pentecostals and charismatics practiced a variety of prayers, including speaking in tongues, healing, intercession, and spiritual warfare. However, this type of prayer brought together previous Pentecostal practices and adapted them with other traditions to offer an innovative type of prayer that was more contemplative. It was also a prayer practice that charismatics claimed to cultivate a greater love for other people and these charismatics were now claiming to love others more intently. We needed to understand how this occurred.

12

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Theoretical and Methodological Assumptions After our first day at the Soaking Prayer School in Virginia Beach, we made our way out of the hotel to a local restaurant, where we talked about what we observed. We listened to people speak about very personal experiences and how they were emotionally impacted during the times of prayer. People openly shared their personal histories, hurts, emotional pain, physical ailments, broken relationships, and frustration with organized religion. We also heard people speak about a new perspective on life filled with hope, love, and spiritual renewal. We watched people intently listen to leaders talk about the freedom they can find in God. We observed participants praying, laughing, and weeping. We were struck by the bodily expressions of charismatic worshippers dancing, singing, twirling, waving flags, and falling down. Our collaboration included time for debriefing from an emotionally intense setting, which was one of the most valued aspects of our work together. For the next two years we attended soaking prayer meetings and charismatic events, making observations from twenty-five site visits. We conducted face-to-face interviews with 126 participants of soaking prayer. We examined documents and websites published by CTF and other charismatic ministries. Finally, we conducted a survey with 258 charismatics in order to understand their prayer practices, experiences, and benevolent actions. The main question that guided our research focused on how experiences of “divine love” could potentially lift people out of their current circumstances, imagining another way, and reaching out in love to others. Altruism, the care for another, is under-researched in the sociology of religion. When it is explored, as we discuss in Chapter 2, researchers focus on the structures and outcomes of religious people who work in faith-based social services. Very little research, however, examines the spiritual practices that inform, shape, and motivate people to act. One important theoretical resource for our research is Pitirim Sorokin, the twentieth-century Harvard sociologist who wrote about social change and altruism. Sorokin’s work offers us an interpretive framework for investigating soaking prayer as a religious practice that energizes charismatics to love others. Sorokin’s (1957) sociology focused on a theory of civilizational change characterized by three recurring stages: sensate culture, ide-

I n tro du ct ion

13

ational culture, and idealistic culture. Sensate culture is based on the view that reality is largely material, while ideational culture is defined by reality being largely spiritual. Idealistic culture was said to be a synthesis of the previous two. Throughout history, civilizations have evolved through these stages in a cyclical fashion, exemplified through Sorokin’s observations and analysis of art, ethics, law, and social relations. The evolution of society is precipitated by some kind of social change. Modern America was criticized by Sorokin as a prime example of sensate culture, where the material view of Americans was largely selfish, decadent, and committed to technological advancement. Criticized for his views, Sorokin spent his energy on the Center for Creative Altruism, which was funded by Eli Lilly. Sorokin wrote The Ways and Power of Love in the 1950s, exploring the relationship between altruistic action and unselfish love. The value of his work on altruism is twofold. First, Sorokin defines altruism from a variety of perspectives, including the social, which he saw as a range of social interactions aimed at serving the needs of the other. Second, Sorokin observed that the exemplars of altruism all had some ritual practice where the inflow of love energized the person, becoming an outflow or expression of love. The various techniques he described for the experience of love include yoga, meditation, and a variety of prayer practices from Christianity. Our work is influenced by his ideas of religion, altruism, and prayer. Throughout the book we refer to other theorists and their work on ritual, embodiment, and religious authority to describe how charismatics practice soaking prayer, the experiences of love they promote, and the action they take to share this love with others. Our research is also shaped by a recent development in sociology known as Godly Love, in the work of Margaret Poloma, Stephen Post, and Matthew Lee, who gave leadership to the John Templeton–funded research project of which we were members. The project’s guiding research question asked: To what extent can emotionally powerful experiences of a “divine flame of love” move us beyond our ordinary selfinterests and help us express unconditional, unlimited love for all others, especially when our human capacities seem to reach their limits?6 Our initial observations about soaking prayer sharpened our questions, especially in relation to religious experience. The guiding theme that

14

C A TC H

T HE

F I RE

shaped this book revolved around this particular question: how do charismatic spirituality generally, and soaking prayer specifically, inform charismatic practices of benevolence? This question required us to examine a number of issues from the sociology of religion and altruism while ensuring that we had a sufficient self-defined understanding of the spirituality of charismatic Christians to explain what they understood to be happening. The Godly Love model is a tool that offers an optic for observing a range of interactions while studying religious altruism (for extended discussion on theoretical and methodological issues, see Lee and Yong, 2012a; Lee and Yong, 2012b). These interactions include four components: exemplars, collaborators, beneficiaries, and claims of experiencing the divine. In our study, exemplars primarily include charismatic leaders like John and Carol Arnott, who model and influence people through the practice of soaking prayer. Collaborators include the soaking prayer leaders, church leaders, and other leaders with whom the Arnotts associate in charismatic networks. Beneficiaries are many and include the spouses, families, congregations, and people who are loved in some tangible way by those who practice soaking prayer. The “divine” for charismatics is metaphorically described as “the Father’s love,” a term well known among charismatics that captures many ideas and practices.7 Our methodological approach was to develop a qualitative case study on soaking prayer (see Yin, 1994; Stake, 2005). A qualitative case study employs several tools for gathering and interpreting the data. The focus of a qualitative case study is “not to represent the world, but to represent the case” (Stake, 2005: 460). We want to caution readers who may see a cause and effect relationship between soaking prayer and altruistic action. We are not arguing that charismatics who practice soaking prayer have high levels of benevolence, empathy, compassion, or love more than any other groups. We are not saying that charismatics are the only religious group involved in benevolent activity. Our objective is to describe in detail the practice of soaking prayer that charismatics claim gives them a greater love in their personal relationships, churches, and social ministries. Our study is an interpretive one that is confined to illustrating the subculture and social dynamics of the case. The strength of qualitative research is the detailed description and analysis of a particular

I n tro du ction

15

case that explores the events, practices, and interactional relations of a subculture where no previous study exists (Yin, 1994: 4). Our observations and conclusions are limited and may not be applicable to all cases of religious benevolence or faith-based social services, which is a generally understood limitation in qualitative research (see Berg, 2004; Silverman, 2004). Nor are we arguing that faith-based social services are more effective than so-called secular or governmental social services. The sociological literature on religion and social services already demonstrates that there are important differences between faith-based and secular social services (see Boddie and Cnaan, 2007; Cnaan et al., 1999; Cnaan et al., 2002; Pipes and Ebaugh, 2002; Schwartz et al., 2008; Segers, 2003; Solomon, 2003; Wood, 2003; Wuthnow, 2004). What we add to the literature is an in-depth description and explanation for a charismatic approach that values soaking prayer as a means for facilitating altruistic acts among participants. This too reflects one of our assumptions: religious groups are subcultures infused with beliefs that animate their social institutions and practices (see Smith, 2003). These practices and beliefs form the basis of religious culture, which in turn acts upon them to act accordingly, as if they are real, motivating participants. We also employ the term “altruism” broadly, recognizing that it is often used to describe the rare case of a “selfless” individual who gives her/his life for another. Sorokin, however, recognized that altruism varied in intensity and extensity. Altruism can operate at a low level and be expressed as a general love felt toward a family member, all the way to higher levels of benevolence and care through voluntary work, and at its highest level, the unconditional love expressed toward those who may even be hostile. We discuss further what we mean by altruism in Chapter 2. Our research is also interdisciplinary, combining the insights of theology and sociology as reflected in our disciplinary backgrounds. This approach requires some comment about the relationship between these two disciplines. Kieran Flanagan (2001) makes a persuasive case for reexamining the relationship between theology and sociology (also see Keenan, 2003; Flanagan, 2008). Flanagan (2001: 432) says, “Sociology will admit kinship to philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, psychology, and history. It is catholic in its disciplinary pedigrees, but one relative it discounts is theology.” The reasons, Flanagan suggests, reflect the tension in sociology about its relation to the

16

C A TC H

T HE

F I RE

natural sciences among the positivists, but also its deliberate shift away from theology, which was thought to focus on myth and magic, the practices of small-scale, nonindustrialized, and non-Western cultures that were the domain of anthropology. And yet theology offers many rich concepts and ideas for sociology. Further, Flanagan claims, the early “founding fathers” of sociology understood the importance of theological ideas for interpreting social forces, whether they be Max Weber’s evaluation of Calvinist theology and its relationship to the capitalist economic system or Durkheim’s understanding of ritual and collective experience for assessing community formation. The challenge, as we see it, is to take seriously the theological viewpoints, especially the ways in which charismatics interpret their experiences and justify their practices according to a theological system that makes sense to the insider, however formal or informal that system may be. Taking theological explanations seriously avoids the temptation of explaining away charismatic experiences and practices as some form of economic or psychological deprivation.8 Qualitative research in sociology, as Flanagan points out, has moved in the direction of intensifying our understanding of the local and the particular, which requires paying attention to the stories people tell, especially the theological ones. As he states (2001: 435), “If it is difficult to exclude the study of religion from these reflexive imperatives, it is also hazardous to absolve sociology from confronting the theological implications of testimonies of religious believers.” In other words, the researcher has a certain responsibility not only to construct his or her research in such a way that takes seriously these cultural, local, and theological claims, but also to tell the story in a way that makes sense to the group under study. In terms of our work, the charismatics we studied need to recognize themselves in this story. Self-awareness of the discipline and its relationship to the subject matter is also reflected in particular ways between sociology and theology. Flanagan discusses a variety of issues, including loyalty to the guild, whether or not any research is value-free, and if it is not, how researchers discuss their relationship to the subject matter. One of the long-standing views among sociologists is the idea of “bracketing,” or leaving out, one’s personal, political, or theological commitments

I n trodu ct ion

17

from the research. This viewpoint, however, is increasingly criticized. At the very least, researchers debate the validity of bracketing out religious experience or claims of transcendence as a source of human motivation and call for a reevaluation of methodological issues and the study of religion.9 Referring to the often neglected sociologist Georg Simmel, Flanagan (2001: 436) writes, “Religion is the form, the enabling mechanism, that realizes an inner yearning or desire for God, which theology seeks to elucidate.” What Flanagan is saying is that sociologists of religion tend to reduce religion to functionality by ignoring theology. Here the focus of sociology is on the political and economic implications of religion and the role of religion in society, especially as it pertains to civil society. A theological recognition, however, brings a moral virtue or habitus or disposition to the study. This is what we refer to as the ethos or spirituality of charismatics.10 Simmel spoke of religiosity and explored the spiritual states of prayer, sanctification, faith, and human longing for God. Simmel’s concern was to make sense of people’s spiritual sensibilities and the social forms they embodied. Here we can observe many implications, including the relationship between spirituality or spiritual sensibilities and religious organizations, why people are still “religious” in cultures that are increasingly secular without resorting to “survival” or “deprivation” explanations, and the transformation of religious forms in a global world. The work of Simmel not only highlights the complementary relationship between form, function, and spirituality, but it also raises questions about that relationship. What Simmel offers the sociologist is an entry into theology that is complementary. Theology brings to the discussion what matters to practitioners, and that includes human-divine experiences and their meaning. In this case, it allows us to observe soaking prayer and the claims of experiencing “divine love” by charismatics, the various ways they are motivated to love others, and the organizations and mission-oriented ministries that are animated by such narratives.11 Our research builds upon these ideas as we explore the role of soaking prayer as a cultural practice for renewal and revitalization linked with benevolence, mission, and claims of altruistic action.12 While the events surrounding the origins of the Toronto Blessing in

18

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

the 1990s are well documented, what is relatively unknown about this renewal is the experience and practice of soaking prayer and its relationship to altruistic acts, developments that have taken place in the last decade. There are a number of questions that have guided our research, including the following: What is the relationship between renewal, soaking prayer, love, and mission? In what ways does the practice of soaking prayer transform and motivate charismatics to act? How is mission redefined when love becomes the central framework among charismatics? What are the particular manifestations of love, and are they universally shared or locally and culturally unique? Which, if any, are more important to charismatics? How does the discourse of the Father’s love inform the practice of soaking prayer? How can we understand the experiential aspects of soaking prayer, including the way it motivates charismatics to act? How does the ritual practice of soaking prayer facilitate benevolence? To what extent does prayer transform the individual? How is love understood among charismatics? Our observation is that soaking prayer transforms charismatic participants in a way that gives them new meaning for mission, as captured in CTF’s values, and their goal of loving others through their theology of advancing the kingdom of God. Furthermore, the soaking center is a ritual site that facilitates this transformation so that charismatics who practice soaking prayer renew their commitment to serve others. The love charismatic Christians speak of is characterized by an experience that affirms and delights in personal well-being and the well-being of others through acts of care and service. However, the universal conceptualization of love must start with specific manifestations of love in particular narratives or interpretive communities that contextualize religious experience(s) and the subsequent effects they have in motivating the human actor to love the other in concrete social acts of benevolence. Within the broad spectrum of Pentecos-

I n tro du ct ion

19

talism, the manifestation of charismatic experiences (dreams, visions, healing, glossolalia, prophecy, etc.) is contextualized in particular community narratives that link together the love and well-being of others as expressions of the Father’s love. While charismatic experiences may have phenomenological similarities, they are constructed in multiple ways within particular faith communities. For instance, glossolalia is often (though not exclusively) linked to particular theological articulations of Spirit baptism in Pentecostalism that can be constructed in diverse ways (Macchia, 2006). Charismatics tend to view glossolalia as a form of prayer. Our aim is to understand how soaking prayer constructs charismatic narratives of renewal and mission as expressions of the Father’s love. The key ideas we investigate highlight soaking prayer as an interactional ritual of love, its embodiment among charismatic Christians, and its missional expressions.

Overview In Chapter 1 we review the religious history of the Pentecostalcharismatic movement and place CTF in that context. Many of the beliefs and practices show an affinity to the broader Pentecostal movement, but with adaptation along the way. The early Pentecostals sought the recovery of New Testament Christianity and emphasized a spirituality that included intense emotional experiences of the divine, bodily healing, glossolalic utterance, and other somatic manifestations attributed to the Spirit. Pentecostalism brought into the religious cultural landscape an emphasis on the Spirit and the believer’s attempts to discern divine activity in the context of a divine-human relationship that intensified the experience of God and its concomitant empowerment for Christian ministry. In Chapter 2 we examine the research on prayer and altruism. Most of the sociological work on prayer tends to focus on frequency, asking if people pray and how often. The issue, however, is that we lack detailed descriptions of how people pray. Frequency of prayer may be important, but it does not consider what people actually do when they pray. One other issue is the failure to see variety and difference. Our description of charismatic prayer shows there is much variety and that it includes innovation and adaptation. Furthermore, sociologists of

20

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

religion rarely explore altruism. We examine why this is so and lay out the reasons for understanding religious practices and their relation to altruistic action. In this case, soaking prayer can be viewed as a ritual of renewal whereby participants are invigorated to such an extent that they love others more intently. We also introduce the reader to the findings from our survey of soaking prayer practitioners. In Chapter 3 we make use of ritual theory to understand how charismatics ritualize their spirituality. Relying on the work of interactional ritual theory by Randall Collins (2004), we assess soaking prayer as a ritual that energizes participants. Theories of ritual play, the subjunctive or “as if ” quality of ritual, and the role of imagination show how soaking prayer informs charismatic sensibilities while motivating participants to move beyond the experience of love to its practice in context. In Chapter 4 we continue to describe the rich layers of soaking prayer as a practice of receiving divine love. Soaking prayer is placed in the context of embodied experience. How love is experienced in the body through such phenomena as laughing, crying, speaking in tongues, healing, sights, sounds, and mental images is an important aspect of soaking prayer. Receiving is captured in the images of flow or river. Participants claim to receive from God “rivers of living water,” and the reception of divine love and guidance is captured in the spontaneous flow of thoughts in the mind. The emotional love energy produced by the entrainment and attunement of bodies together in worship is experienced as personal forgiveness, restoration, and inner healing. Breathing, posture, creative and precognitive thoughts are linked with prophetic images or glossolalic utterances emerging from the body. The emotions are prioritized and essential for receiving love and feeling that one is intimately loved. The embodiment of love among charismatics is analyzed using the theories of Bryan Turner (1996) and Thomas Csordas (1994, 1997, 2002). Chapter 5 explores how the experience of love becomes authoritative and empowers charismatics to act. Employing Max Weber’s (1978) concepts of charisma and authority, we offer an explanation for how charismatics practice their faith and how charisma energizes participants to “buy into” the vision while working toward social

I n trodu ct ion

21

change. This “transference of the Spirit” is highlighted in charismatic circles as an act of passing charisma on to others, who then become prophetic themselves (Stronstad, 1984, 1999). An interesting tension that emerges in our findings, though, is that women, who are predominantly the leaders of soaking prayer, do not have the same authority as men in the movement. Finally, we explore the relationship between soaking prayer and social engagement in three charismatic communities in Jacksonville, Florida; Burlington, Washington; and Montreal, Quebec to describe the particular ways that they embody their mission. In conclusion, we offer an explanation for the interplay between soaking prayer and altruism, the particular way it is manifested among charismatics, and its significance for religion and culture in contemporary society.

ONE Charismatic Renewal

To walk in God’s love and give it away until the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord —Vision Statement, Catch the Fire1

T h e e m e r g e n c e o f t h e T o r o n t o revival in January 1994 under the leadership of travel-agent-turned-pastor John Arnott and his wife, Carol, was an event that fascinated the faithful and the skeptic alike (see Beverley, 1995; Percy, 1998; Poloma, 2003; Richter, 1997). Embodied phenomena such as uncontrollable weeping, screaming, shouting, shaking, animal sounds, and especially laughter, what insiders call “signs and wonders,” came to define the Toronto revival, though these strange physical manifestations have had a long history in revivalism. Pilgrims flooded in from all over North America, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in the world to experience the revival. These pilgrims represented a range of churches, including Roman Catholic and mainline and evangelical Protestant. Not long after the revival began, controversy led to the separation of the Toronto church from the Vineyard. The Toronto church immediately changed its name to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, established ties with other denominational leaders through Friends in Harvest, and formed institutional structures in Partners in Harvest, as well as relationships with other charismatic leaders in loosely formed networks. While most people thought the church had declined and disappeared, observations revealed that this was not the case, as the organization continued to grow and expand. By 2010 a new global

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

23

charismatic ministry network was well established, known as Catch the Fire (CTF). CTF remains an influential member in charismatic networks, along with other ministries such as Heidi and Rolland Baker’s Iris Ministries and Randy Clark’s Global Awakening. CTF has developed a prayer emphasis focusing on experiencing what these charismatics identify as the Father’s love through soaking prayer. Soaking prayer is a type of contemplative prayer in which one stills the mind and rests, often with worship music in the background, in order for the participants to experience what they believe is “soaking in the love of the Father.” In the United States, CTF claims to have opened more than five hundred soaking centers in homes and churches, and has developed networking structures with a national soaking prayer coordinator and seven regional soaking prayer coordinators. About 150 of these centers have officially registered with the church.2 These soaking centers have not confined themselves to specific denominations, but spill into Anglican, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Vineyard, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Lutheran, and independent charismatic churches, who either host, or at least accept, soaking prayer meetings as part of their ministry.3

Origins of Charismatic Christianity CTF cannot be understood in isolation but must be observed in relation to other developments in twentieth-century Pentecostalcharismatic Christianity. Many of the phenomenological characteristics associated with this most recent phase have historical precedence in earlier forms. CTF and its parent organization, the Association of Vineyard Churches, is related to what some have referred to as the Third Wave of the Spirit, a taxonomy coined by Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission professor Peter Wagner.4 The First Wave refers to early twentieth-century Pentecostalism, most commonly known as classical Pentecostalism, and the Azusa Street revival between 1906 and 1909 in Los Angeles. Speaking in tongues (or glossolalia) and healing came to characterize early Pentecostalism (Dayton, 1987). Notions of Spirit baptism and the practice of healing had a prominent place in nineteenth-century evangelicalism, particularly in the Wesleyan Holiness healing movement in the English-

24

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

speaking West, and in the Blumhardt revival of nineteenth-century German Pietism (Macchia, 1993). Some of the more controversial practices associated with the Third Wave, such as uncontrollable laughing, falling down, weeping, and audible animal sounds, were also experienced in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revivalism (McClymond, 2004; Taves, 1999; Tindall, 1988). The Third Wave also appears to have roots in the Latter Rain revival emanating out of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, in 1948, under the leadership of George Hawtin and Herrick Holt. One of the main teachings of the Latter Rain was the restoration of the charismatic ministry gifts, including the fivefold ministry in which apostles and prophets were prominent. Practices such as “impartation” of the charismatic gifts through the “laying on of hands,” prophesying, falling down under the power of the Spirit, worship as praise that “opens doors to the heavens,” and other “manifestations” marked the milieu of the Latter Rain movement. Both Richard Riss (1987) and D. William Faupel (1989, 2010) argue that the extensivity of the Latter Rain influence did not come through its institutional structure, primarily because it had a strong anti-denominational bias, but through its informal networks with other like-minded Pentecostal Christians. While the Latter Rain revival created much controversy in North America and was mostly rejected, historian Mark Hutchinson (2010) has traced the impact of the Latter Rain in Australia and New Zealand, where it was contextualized and returned to North America through contemporary global charismatic networks in the 1990s. Although the Latter Rain was largely muted in North America, many of its beliefs and practices were taken up by the Third Wave of charismatic Christianity, especially the nondenominational or independent wing, such as Catch the Fire. The Second Wave, which also has some influence on CTF, refers to renewal in many of the historic and mainline denominations. In the Protestant tradition, this is often connected to the Episcopal priest Dennis Bennett’s public declaration in 1959 that he along with other parishioners had received the “baptism of the Spirit” and “spoke in tongues.” Charismatic spirituality spread throughout Protestant Christianity, and was especially embraced among Episcopalians, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the universities played a significant role in the rise of charismatic renewal

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

25

(see Melloni, 2003; O’Connor, 1971). In 1967, Ralph Keifer, Patrick Bourgeois, and other lay faculty at Duquesne University were praying for a more vibrant Christianity. Having read David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade (1963) and John Sherrill’s They Speak in Other Tongues (1964), the faculty stated they had received an experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. The renewal quickly spread to the University of Notre Dame, Michigan State University, Iowa State University, and other campuses throughout the United States. As the Roman Catholic charismatic renewal expanded, a number of “Covenant” charismatic communities were established in the United States and Canada (see Swenson, 2009). One such group, the Mother of God community in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is important for understanding the ecumenical developments in the Third Wave as many of the people and churches associated with the Second Wave were traveling again to the events in Toronto in the 1990s. A number of our informants were a part of the Mother of God community and spoke about the similarities between the two. From the 1960s to approximately the mid-to-late 1970s the charismatic renewal influenced many denominations. According to Peter Hocken (2002), historian of the Charismatic Catholic Renewal and one of the leaders in the Mother of God community, common practices between classical Pentecostals and charismatics included: a relational encounter with Jesus as the living Lord; spontaneity of praise and worship, charismatic gifts, and contemporary singing; love of the Bible and a renewed interest in devotional reading; the belief that God speaks in personal and corporate contexts; an emphasis on evangelism; an awareness of evil and the practice of spiritual deliverance and exorcism; the use of spiritual gifts, especially tongues, prophecy, and healing; an eschatological expectation of the imminent kingdom of God; and an emphasis on spiritual power accompanied by all forms of gifts and phenomena. Many of these emphases have become prominent in the spirituality of the Third Wave, particularly praise as worship, an awareness that God speaks to people in personal ways, deliverance ministries, and the prominence of prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues. In the Third Wave, one observes mutual influences as charismatic Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, and classical Pentecostals ventured to Toronto to experience renewal.

26

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

While classical Pentecostalism, the Latter Rain, and renewal in the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions influenced the Third Wave, the latest form of charismatic Christianity started to take shape in the many independent or nondenominational churches. The 1970s witnessed the convergence of a number of prominent leaders, such as Don Basham, Ern Baxter, Bob Mumford, Derek Prince, and Charles Simpson, who came together in what was referred to as the Shepherding movement. The Shepherding movement focused on discipleship and a prominent role for charismatic leaders in shaping the lives of its members. However, the movement was short-lived, with claims of many authoritarian abuses by some of its followers. Still, the Shepherding movement, and in particular Baxter, adapted earlier influences from classical Pentecostalism, Latter Rain, healing movements, and charismatic renewal (Moore, 2003). Kansas City was the site for the appearance of the so-called Kansas City Prophets, who influenced the Third Wave in the 1980s. Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, and John Paul Jackson were associated with Kansas City Fellowship (now Metro Christian Fellowship), a church based on Latter Rain teachings. They later become involved with the Vineyard and then the Toronto Blessing. Bickle claimed to receive a prophetic word that God would “raise a work that will touch the ends of the earth” (Gohr, 2002). In 1986 he established a ministry of itinerant prophets, and in 1987 Paul Cain became a major spokesperson. Cain had ministry connections with healing evangelist William Branham, whom he considered a great prophet. The group came under criticism by Ernest Gruen, another charismatic pastor in Kansas City, who released a document outlining the “errors” of their teachings. At this time John Wimber, leader of the Association of Vineyard Churches, stepped in to offer a “covering” (what charismatics label accountability to other religious authorities) in order to rectify any erroneous teachings. At the time Wimber had great respect for Cain, who prophesied that an earthshaking revival would occur that would include mass healings. In 1990, Bickle and the others associated themselves with Wimber’s Vineyard. The Toronto Blessing was interpreted by those favorable to this adaptation to be the event prophesied by Cain. Yet, when the Vineyard and Toronto Church parted ways, Metro Christian Fellowship severed its ties with the Vineyard and became deeply involved in the Toronto revival, where their prophecies were actively

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

27

promoted. Mike Bickle, who established the International House of Prayer in 1999, is an occasional speaker at CTF conferences.

The Healing Movement The rise of the healing movement both predates and runs parallel to Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity, with deeply interconnected social networks. Historian P.G. Chappell (1988) noted that the theology and practice of the divine healing movement has gone through different phases. The healing movements that arose in the nineteenth century were connected to the holiness tradition, and usually involved a time of convalescence in a home, where prayer, study, rest, and good nutrition played a role in helping people overcome sickness and ailment in physical and mental health (also see Opp, 2005). Donald Dayton (1987), for instance, argued that divine healing was a prominent factor in the rise of early Pentecostalism, and Margaret Poloma (1989) identified healing as one of the quintessential Pentecostal beliefs and practices today. Many leading participants in the early Pentecostal movement conducted healing campaigns, and the style of healing shifted from the practice of convalescence in homes under the domain of women in the nineteenth century to an evangelistic style in the Pentecostal movement. Charles Parham, William Seymour, Fred Bosworth, John Lake, Carrie Judd Montgomery, Aimee Semple McPherson, and others were actively involved in healing ministries as one of the pillars of Pentecostal belief and practice (Alexander, 2006; Brown, 2011; Curtis, 2007; Hejzlar, 2010; Kydd, 1998b; Miskov, 2012). However, after World War II the tenor of healing ministry became more independent from its Pentecostal moorings and took on a stronger evangelistic style in which the instantaneousness of physical healing was viewed as evidence of divine activity. Oral Roberts and William Branham and to a lesser extent Gordon Lindsay became major healing evangelists who had an influence on the developments of the Third Wave. Branham was a Baptist minister who claimed an angelic visitation through which the gift of healing was promised. Oral Roberts also launched his own healing evangelistic revival, in which he conducted over three hundred healing campaigns. His

28

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

major influence was through a national weekly television program started in 1955 and an ambitious prime-time religious television program in 1969, which exposed Americans to the healing message. Roberts transferred his credentials to the United Methodist Church in 1968, influencing the charismatic renewal in that denomination, and established a private university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The location is significant in that Tulsa was an area for the promulgation of Latter Rain theology and for the rise of the Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel, both of which have influenced developments in the independent charismatic movement (McClymond, 2010). With the rise of the charismatic movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the theology and practice of healing transitioned again. The most prominent healing evangelist from the mid-twentieth century was Kathryn Kuhlman, who attracted people predominantly from the mainline Protestant churches. Benny Hinn was another healing evangelist, who developed his ministry in the International Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, an interdenominational group that promoted Pentecostal-charismatic spirituality in evangelical Protestant circles. In Hinn’s meetings, people would appear to fall spontaneously and uncontrollably and he would have “catchers” standing behind the seekers to protect them from injury. Roman Catholic priest Francis MacNutt also came to prominence during this era as well, but­shifted the ­emphasis from dramatic instantaneous healing to the gradual process of healing through sustained prayer, which he called “soaking prayer.” MacNutt (1974; 1977) credited Tommy Tyson for coining the term “soaking prayer,” but it was MacNutt who popularized the practice, teaching that healing would occur over time as the petitioner for healing was soaked by sustained prayer from healing ministers. Seekers would fall down under MacNutt’s ministry, though he preferred the term “resting in the Spirit,” arguing that the older Pentecostal terminology of “slain in the Spirit” was too violent an image. Through MacNutt’s influence “resting in the Spirit” became the operative term for the spontaneous and bodily act of falling while in religious ecstasy. Theologian Pavel Hejzlar (2010) proposed two paradigms for healing in the twentieth century: the “divine healing” approach of people like Fred F. Bosworth (classical Pentecostal) and Kenneth E. Hagin (Word of Faith), which emphasized evangelistic-style healing campaigns; and second, the “healing prayer” approach of Agnes M. Sanford (Episco-

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

29

palian) and Francis MacNutt (Roman Catholic), which emphasized a relational, one-to-one form of healing prayer that has therapeutic consequences. MacNutt’s relaxed approach, according to Hejzlar, was akin to the laid-back style of John Wimber. Through the charismatic movement the nature and belief in healing has gone through several adaptations: from convalescence, where a petitioner would spend time in devotional prayer, study, withdrawal­ from the stresses of life, and eating a proper diet, to an instantaneous event that is thought to provide “evidence” of the miraculous activity of God, to a process of sustained intimacy with God through which the supplicant claims to experience the ongoing healing of body, mind, and spirit. The Third Wave, which the Vineyard and CTF represent, clearly adapts teaching from the Latter Rain vis-à-vis the independent charismatic movement and healing ministries in which many of the phenomena, beliefs, and practices demonstrate a continuation, though with adaptation and different nuances in meaning.

The Influence of John Wimber John Wimber and the Association of Vineyard Churches characterize a major shift in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity. Martyn Percy (1996), principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, thought of the Vineyard and the early stages of the Toronto Blessing as a continuation of fundamentalist revivalism, although fundamentalism is redefined as “lived religion” that includes behaviors and sentiments as well as beliefs. Religion scholar Donald E. Miller (1997) identified the Vineyard as one of the “new paradigm churches” representing a second reformation within Protestantism, due to its cultural shift toward postmodernism. Miller resisted calling these churches evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic, or Pentecostal, because he thought these labels were too broad to capture the seismic changes that new paradigm churches represented. New paradigm churches and their participants, he argued, better responded to therapeutic, individualistic, and antiestablishment themes of the baby boom counterculture and required some analysis.5 T.M. Luhrmann’s (2012) study of the prayer practices of Vineyard Christians is the most extensive to date, but she mistakenly generalizes its particular rituals as evangelicalism as a whole. While Vineyard

30

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Christians identify themselves as evangelical, not all evangelicals identify themselves as charismatic or Vineyard. John Wimber was raised in a non-Christian home and in his twenties developed a successful music career. He was the saxophone player for the 1960s rock band the Righteous Brothers, and through the conversion of the band’s drummer, Dick Heyling, Wimber began to attend a Bible study. In 1963, while going through marital turmoil with his wife, Carol, John came to faith. Although Wimber claimed a number of charismatic experiences, such as speaking in tongues in 1964 and the healing of his son after bees stung him, Wimber maintained a cessationist position regarding the charismatic gifts as necessary only for the early church apostles (see Ruthven, 1990). However, Wimber was an influential evangelist and between 1964 and 1970 he introduced many people to Christianity. He was recorded (ordained) in the Quaker tradition and served as co-pastor of Yorba Linda Friends Church. However, Wimber faced a ministry crisis in 1974 when he said that his desire to be a successful pastor was based in his own insecurities rather than in the love of Christ. God, he claimed, showed him that he was resistant to the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts despite God’s desire to use him in this manner. Wimber decided to leave the pastorate, though he and his wife remained members of the church (Hunt, 1997; Jackson, 1999). In 1974 Peter Wagner offered Wimber a position in the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth as lecturer and traveling church growth consultant, which he held until 1978. At the same time, Wimber started a small group focused on worship and prayer, but by April 1977 the group had grown to one hundred people, and tensions developed with the elders of Yorba Linda Friends Church. The Wimbers were asked by the elders to withdraw from that church. Wimber resigned from the Institute in order to focus on ministry, which was then associated with Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Orange County, California. Smith was culturally adaptive in incorporating the hippie movement and the Jesus People into his church, but he was resistant to the new charismatic movement that would later be associated with the Vineyard. Wimber’s emphasis on church growth led him to focus on techniques he believed were based in the New Testament, specifically the role of miracles, healing, and spiritual gifts for the expansion of the

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

31

early church. However, it was on Mother’s Day in 1980 that Wimber invited testimony from Lonnie Frisbee, a young charismatic in the Jesus People movement, when an outbreak of charismatic phenomena occurred (Jackson, 1999; Di Sabatino, 2006). After Frisbee invited young people twenty-five years of age and under to come to the front of the church for prayer, people were said to be “filled with the Spirit,” some falling to the ground, others speaking in tongues, while others began shaking. Over the course of the next few months, these young people, according to Vineyard historian Bill Jackson (1999), began to pray for their friends, who they claimed were subsequently healed. Charismatic gifts became part of Wimber’s ministry, actualizing in practice what he had been studying and teaching about New Testament church growth. Although Chuck Smith was open to the work of the Spirit in the church, he was uncomfortable with these new charismatic manifestations. Ken Gulliksen had already planted a church and offshoot ministries under the auspices of the Vineyard name and agreed to allow Wimber to affiliate with the Vineyard with Smith’s blessing. In 1982, Wimber’s church officially affiliated with the Vineyard, and a short time later Gulliksen gave the leadership of the Association of Vineyard Churches over to Wimber (Bialecki, 2008, 2009; Higgins, 2012; Jackson, 1999). From 1982 to 1986 Wimber was invited to teach a course on signs and wonders, healing, and church growth for Fuller School of World Mission until the administration discontinued the course due to its controversy. The course, MC 510: “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth,” consisted of lectures and a lab for practicing charismatic prayer.6 It included copious notes that provided theological validation for charismatic renewal and covered topics such as power evangelism, the kingdom of God, cosmology, spiritual gifts, signs and wonders, and models of healing. With regard to eschatology, Wimber articulated a theological view of the kingdom in which signs and wonders played a crucial role. “Evangelism is the proclamation of this Kingdom in the fullness of its blessings and promises,” commented Wimber, “which one participant also called ‘salvation.’ Moreover, Jesus did more than preach the Kingdom; He demonstrated its reality with ‘signs of the Kingdom,’ public evidence that the kingdom He was talking about had come” (Wimber, n.d., course handouts, C8-C9). Signs of the kingdom included the presence of Jesus, the preaching

32

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

of the Gospel, exorcism, healing and miracles, conversion and new birth, the people of the Kingdom, and suffering. Healing constituted a large section of the course. Wimber proposed an integrated approach that treats the person holistically, not as a “body over against a spirit, but as an ‘inspired’ or ‘inbreathedby-the-breath-of-God kind of body” (course notes, 177). Wimber added, “He [God] wants us to join Him in rebuilding broken lives, loving the unloved, feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, strengthening the weak, healing the sick, freeing those bound and tormented, giving courage to the dying, and even raising the dead” (course notes, 176). He examined various approaches to healing, including healing of past hurts, healing of the body, healing of the demonized, healing of relationships, and healing of the dying (which helps the person who is dying to face death). Wimber reviewed various models of healing, including the Evangelical, which generally prohibited the practice of healing; the Liturgical/ Sacramental, which used a time of prayer, meditation, and relaxing prayer in order for “sonbathing in the terms of the divine light”; the Pentecostal, which viewed healing as a provision in the atonement and pragmatically as validation for its theology; the NeoPentecostal/­Charismatic, in which Wimber discussed MacNutt and soaking prayer as an extended time of prayer that brought both inner and physical healing; Inner/Psychological Healing, which dealt with past hurts, resentments, and guilt embedded in the subconscious; and Deliverance Healing in both the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions. Wimber concluded with a discussion of a new emerging and integrated model of healing that included five values: the ministry of the Holy Spirit, a desire for intimacy in relationships with the Spirit and with each other, the dignity of the individual as a whole person, healing as an end in itself in order to glorify God and not for the purpose of exploitation, and the priesthood of all believers in that everyone is empowered to heal the sick rather than just specialized healing evangelists. Much of Wimber’s teaching has influenced leaders in the current apostolic networks that have emerged since, especially CTF and John Arnott, Heidi Baker, Randy Clark, and Bill Johnson.7 Overall, Wimber initiated an aggressive church planting effort, which resulted in the expansion of the Association of Vineyard

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

33

Churches with more than five hundred church affiliates. Wimber, along with Peter Wagner, emphasized power healing, power evangelism, and “signs and wonders,” all of which were viewed from a dualistic cosmology of conflict between the spiritual forces of the angelic and demonic, which the charismatic believer is empowered to discern and confront (see Kraft, 1989; White, 1988; Wimber, 1986).8 Unlike its Pentecostal counterpart, the Vineyard would hold healing conferences (called The Blessing) that cultivated a process of healing. According to Stephen Hunt (1997: 90), “This essentially concentrated upon emotional healing by the cultivating of positive thinking and unselfish attitudes toward others in order to bring spiritual blessing upon the individual believer.” Given the middle-class, baby-boomer emphasis on alternative forms of healing and the culture of self-help and self-expression, it should not be surprising that those attending the Vineyard were middle-class baby boomers. Again, Hunt (91) says, “Certainly, one cultural attribute that attracts the middle class to the new religions, particularly those with a healing theme, is the moral evaluation and self-expression of achievement orientation, the constant pursuit of human potential and self-improvement in all aspects of life.” Salvation is viewed as personal achievement in overcoming problems. Spiritual development focuses on overcoming negative thoughts, beliefs, and images through the renewing of the mind. Cultivation of the mind in the process of spiritual formation is not just about changing unwanted behavior; it is also and perhaps more importantly about changing one’s thought processes and attitudes as they relate to the renewing of mind, body, and spirit. Nevertheless, many of the emphases in the Vineyard focused on the self, with Wimber directly influencing the values, beliefs, and ethos of CTF and its global network. John and Carol Arnott appropriated much of Wimber’s material, with some adaptation.

The Toronto Blessing In 1986, John and Carol Arnott were leading a Vineyard congregation in Stratford, Ontario, but felt called to start a church in the west end of Toronto. While they emphasized counseling, inner healing, and deliverance, the Arnotts claimed that they felt spiritually dry

34

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

and prayed for an anointed and empowered ministry. They began to spend their mornings in prayer and to interact with others whom they felt to be especially anointed. The influences on the Arnotts included various people from Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity, including classical Pentecostal, charismatic renewal, independent charismatic, Word of Faith/Prosperity teaching, the Kansas City Prophets (especially Bickle), and the various healing traditions. Most immediate were John Wimber and the Association of Vineyard Churches. Arnott claimed that he desired an anointing for healing; he was prayed for by Benny Hinn in the fall of 1992, but without immediate results. Arnott then traveled in November 1993 to Argentina, where he “rested in the Spirit” after receiving prayer from Argentinian Assemblies of God minister Claudio Freidzon (see Marostica, 2011). At a New Year’s Eve service that inaugurated 1994, people in his congregation were praying with a desire for more of God’s anointing. They invited Vineyard pastor Randy Clark from St. Louis to conduct special meetings where they claim the “Father’s blessing fell” on January 20, 1994. Approximately 120 people were in attendance when they began to fall to the floor, laughing and crying. Arnott (1995: 57–59) was surprised and said, “We had been praying for God to move, and our assumption was that we would see more people saved and healed, along with the excitement that these would generate. It never occurred to us that God would throw a massive party where people would laugh, roll, cry and become so empowered that emotional hurts from childhood were just lifted off them.”9 When the Toronto Blessing began, a new charismatic revival followed in a long line of such revivals. Ecstatic phenomena such as uncontrollable laughing, weeping, bodily jerks, falling to the ground, and audible animal noises marked the revival. Travelers from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world came to experience the newest charismatic outbreak and transported it home to places like Holy Trinity Brompton in London, England, in 1994, and to an Assemblies of God church in Pensacola, Florida, that became known as the Pensacola Outpouring or Brownsville Revival in 1995. The Toronto revival spread through already established Vineyard networks as well as the broader Pentecostal-charismatic movement. Technology and travel also played a role, as Toronto is a major international hub for world

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

35

travel, and the newly developed Internet was employed to spread the news (Lyon, 2000). Initially, John Wimber and his Vineyard organization were open to the Toronto revival. However, despite the signs and wonders theology of the Vineyard and apparent synergy between Toronto and the rest of the Vineyard movement, John Wimber opted to sever ties with the Arnotts. On December 5, 1995, Wimber along with Robert Fulton, Todd Hunter, and Gary Best flew to Toronto to announce its separation. The Toronto pastoral staff was surprised by the move because Wimber was scheduled to speak at a conference in February. Wimber even endorsed Arnott’s book on the revival. However, the relationship ended. The Toronto Church changed its name to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and embarked on its own vision of renewal.

Apostolic Networks John and Carol Arnott have established a partnership with a number of other charismatic leaders in a newly formed apostolic network that includes Steve Long (CTF Toronto), Duncan Smith (CTF Raleigh), Randy Clark (Global Awakening), Heidi and Rolland Baker (Iris Ministries), Bill Johnson (Bethel Church, Redding, California), Che Ahn (H-Rock Church, Pasadena, California, and Harvest International Ministry), and Georgian Banov (Global Celebration). Together they represent an apostolic network that shares ministry resources. Other charismatic leaders who have influenced the network include Mark Virkler, Jack Frost, and John Sanford with their teaching on hearing the voice of God, inner healing, and the Father’s love. As mentioned above, Mike Bickle (International House of Prayer) is a prominent charismatic leader who has formed a relationship with CTF and speaks at its conferences. The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) is another key player in the network, allowing CTF to hold annual conferences in Virginia Beach and offering webcasts through CBN. Together the apostolic leaders conduct conferences all over the world, establishing a renewal network that recognizes the leadership and ministry of each other. The development of this network is related to several important events surrounding these individuals, who are recognized as apostles

36

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

or as having an apostolic ministry. For example, Randy Clark, the Vineyard pastor from St. Louis and a prominent figure in the early ­outbreak of the renewal in Toronto, is said to have an apostolic ministry. In 1984 Wimber was said to have prophesied over Clark, stating that he would develop an apostolic and trans-local ministry. However, in 2001 Clark resigned from the Vineyard over increasingly contentious doctrinal issues developing in the denomination.10 Clark has developed a closer relationship with the Arnotts in order to expand the values and practices of healing and charismatic renewal. Mike Bickle, who was pastor of Metro Christian Fellowship in Kansas City and one of the so-called Kansas City Prophets, with ties to the Vineyard and to the Toronto church, has maintained close ties with the Arnotts even though Wimber was the first to offer Bickle support following the criticism of his ministry. Heidi Baker has followed a slightly different path. According to her story, she was involved in the classical Pentecostal movement and had profound religious experiences as a teenager and young adult. She attended Southern California College (now Vanguard University) in Costa Mesa, California, graduating with both undergraduate and graduate degrees.11 Vanguard was also where she met Rolland Baker, whom she later married. She and her husband began their missionary work in Indonesia (1980–1992) helping the poor and underprivileged, and later Mozambique (1995–present) where she currently ministers among the poorest of the poor—orphaned children who scrounge the garbage dumps to survive (H. Baker, 2008). Heidi Baker was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which impaired her work as a missionary. She and Rolland traveled to Toronto in 1996 to attend the renewal meetings, where she said she was overwhelmed by the Spirit and spent long hours lying on the floor soaking, receiving a vision of the broken body of Jesus. In 1998 the Bakers returned to Toronto, at which time Randy Clark was said to have prophesied over Heidi that God was going to give her the nation of Mozambique (Poloma, 2003: 251–52). The experience, she claimed, profoundly transformed her and reenergized her commitment to compassionate missionary work. Heidi developed ties with CTF and is part of the renewal network with Arnott, Clark, and other apostolic leaders, currently based in Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding, California (Lee et al., 2013).

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wal

37

Bill Johnson has also developed a relationship in the renewal ­ etwork. Bethel Church, originally begun in the 1950s, was until n 2006 an Assemblies of God congregation. Bill’s father, Earl Johnson, moved his family to Redding in 1968 when he assumed the pastorate of the church, a position he held until 1982. Bill Johnson became the pastor in 1996, a year after having traveled to Toronto to experience the renewal. Johnson embraced many of the beliefs and practices of the charismatic renewal in the 1990s, including beliefs about miraculous healings, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and releasing the supernatural power of God. Johnson built a large church, with approximately three thousand in attendance. He has traveled throughout the United States, Canada, England, New Zealand, and Australia as a conference speaker. In 2006, Bethel Church disaffiliated with the Assemblies of God to become an independent charismatic church. In a letter explaining the change, Johnson stated, Though we haven’t yet articulated it very clearly, we feel called to create a network that helps other networks thrive—to be one of many ongoing catalysts in this continuing revival. Our call feels unique enough theologically and practically from the call on the Assemblies of God that this change is appropriate. We believe we have heard the voice of the Lord very clearly concerning this transition. We are in the process of inviting several apostolic leaders that have had a long-term relationship with us to be integral in the spiritual covering of our church.12

Johnson’s statement demonstrates the importance of relationships, renewal, and networking in a way that takes priority over denominational structures.

Globalization and Institutionalization of Renewal By the end of the 1990s many scholars were writing that the Toronto Blessing had run its course and was now finished. For example, Stephen Hunt (2009: 233) said, “Relatively few scholarly works have charted the origins, development, and eventual disappearance of the Toronto Blessing [italics inserted].” Following his analysis of the various events that predate and shape renewal in Toronto, Hunt (2009:

38

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

247) made an even more astonishing claim that, “The Toronto Blessing has disappeared as rapidly as yesterday’s news, now rarely discussed in charismatic and Pentecostal quarters, perhaps rendering it less of a fad and more an end of the charismatic movement in its Western variant.” However, the Toronto Blessing has not disappeared and neither has the charismatic movement ended. In the 1990s Margaret Poloma researched the renewal in Toronto, interviewing the leaders and participants, surveying the pilgrims who came to Toronto, and writing numerous journal articles and a book (1997, 1998, 2003). In Main Street Mystics (2003), Poloma accounted for the appeal of renewal and made an assessment of its impact. She offered an analysis of a variety of renewal dynamics including mysticism, prophecy, healing, and the role of Spirit empowerment for service. While Poloma was unsure of its future, she did observe early signs of institutionalization. She said (2003: 33), “While the latest wave of the 1990s appears to have reached its peak, it has left behind institutional consequences that will continue to have an impact on the movement.” The early phase of this latest revival was coming to an end and its future was unknown at the time. However, the Toronto Blessing was still holding charismatic conferences with regular crowds of up to two thousand people in attendance as late as 2010. Furthermore, the institutionalization of this renewal was not simply occurring at the local level or following patterns previously studied by sociologists. The renewal was realigning with other like-minded charismatic leaders and globalizing in a way that could only occur in the early twenty-first century as it adapted to new global realities (see Beyer, 2006). What followed the early days of the renewal was a consolidation process, which some scholars assumed was the end of the revival. This period of consolidation was also a time of reflection and reorganization for CTF, which directly influenced the current phase of global expansion. The consolidation period was roughly between 1998 and 2003. This was when the nightly meetings began to wane, the numbers of visitors started to slow down, and scholars assumed the revival had ended. It is accurate that the occurrence of meetings reduced from daily and weekly to a more regularized pattern of conferences and major events. During this process of consolidation, leaders assessed the impact of renewal and attempted to determine its future. CTF

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

39

leaders described the revival as going through periods of “gathering, scattering, and sending.” In the first few years CTF leaders believed they went through a period in which many people, especially church leaders, needed to be restored and healed through an encounter with what they believed was the Father’s love. Then, as many were renewed and restored, these pilgrims scattered or returned to their home churches. This period brought financial strain to the Toronto church, which had begun a number of expansion projects to accommodate the visitors. The leaders said they then prayed, asking God what was next for them; they believed they were to continue to be a resource for those who were renewed in Toronto and were now going into the world with the message of the Father’s love. Toronto then deliberately expanded its ministry through an important network of like-minded renewal ministries. One CTF leader explained it as follows: We noticed there was a phase where God was just gathering Christians here in this place. And it was a time where really we had not a whole lot of control. People would just kind of show up, and now what are we going to do with them? And so we developed teaching programs and all the stuff that we do at this point. There was a scattering stage where we noticed now, as we established various centers really around the world, that people had lots of places to go to. They didn’t have to come to Toronto and pay all the money. We encouraged them, “No, go there.” We have no claim on the Holy Spirit. He’s all over the place. Go find him there. So there seemed to be a bit of a scattering and attendance dropped down. And we moved from a seven-day to a six-day to a weekend thing. And we would have our conferences and there’d be tons of people that would come to the conferences. But during the week it was just our church again. It was like our family church again. So there was that scattering of people all over the place. Now the sending. At this point we are purposely sending teams of people to do the soaking weekends, to do the leaders schools. We developed a second leader’s school at this point, and the training programs . . . to assist in that process. Ultimately, from my point of view, we want to establish teams of quality people who are able to center in on the love of the Father and do all the teaching that goes with that, in a quality manner, everywhere we can. [P28]

40

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Some of the important developments since 2004 in the expansion phase included the development of CTF churches located in major urban centers, Partners in Harvest, and Soaking Prayer Centers. While CTF was initially the umbrella organization for all of the various ministries coming out of Toronto, more recently it developed into a network that includes John Arnott, Duncan Smith, and Steve Long. Arnott is listed as president and founding pastor of CTF and Smith and Long are vice presidents (Smith is the director of CTF USA and Long the director of CTF Canada). Through their activities they have launched a worldwide ministry that includes regular conferences, a school of ministry, World Changers missions program, Soaking Prayer Schools, Leaders’ Training Schools, and Partners in Harvest. They have taken the CTF brand into Australia, Central Europe, Iceland, Norway, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Recently they have launched a number of church plants, including CTF Montreal, CTF Raleigh, CTF Houston, CTF London, CTF Oslo, and CTF Reykjavik, with a vision to plant more churches in Europe, South Africa, and Australia.13 CTF is investing in training leaders who share their values to spread the message of renewal throughout the world. To do this they are planting churches in key cities and resourcing them with leaders, training schools, and mission programs. The plan is to follow the same campus or satellite model in Toronto. “We are forming CTF World, which is an apostolic and authoritative network. John and Carol Arnott, Duncan and Kate Smith, and Steve and Sandra Long, will oversee all of the CTF Churches, as well as be resources to the nations.”14 Partners in Harvest is a network of renewal churches that developed in the 1990s and is an important link between CTF and other renewal churches. Many are independent or nondenominational. However, Partners in Harvest represents an important development in the institutionalization of renewal, including its global expansion. There are about 170 churches and ministries in Europe and North America that have joined the network, with growing developments in South America and Africa. “Partners in Harvest functions as a family and yet as a partnership: As a family in terms of relationship and as a partnership in terms of the resources, giftings and blessing that are linked together with each member having a key part. Partners in Harvest is not a top down control oriented organization but

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

41

functions as a network of autonomous congregations and ministries that link together with each other and with the Lord for mutual benefit and shared mission.”15 The development of Partners in Harvest happened fairly quickly after the renewal began in Toronto. In 1996 several pastors “felt led by the Lord to develop a venue for closer fellowship, support and encouragement.”16 After “prayer and prophecy” these pastors said they felt God was directing them to begin a new family of churches. The core values of CTF and Partners in Harvest are reflected in the acronym FIRE, standing for: F—Father’s Love revealed through the Lord Jesus Christ I—Intimacy, Presence, & Hearing God’s Voice R—Restoration of the Heart/Soul E—Extending the Kingdom through the equipping, anointing, and empowering of the Holy Spirit.17 CTF also developed “Friends in Harvest” for those congregations that have denominational ties but want some relationship within the network. Members have the option of joining as Friends or Partners. Partners in Harvest functions like a denomination, and members view the network as their primary source of organizational accountability. Partners in Harvest members have developed a Statement of Faith that includes a basic evangelical outline of beliefs reflecting traditional views of the Trinity, the authority of the Bible, the resurrection, and the unity of all believers. A statement about the Holy Spirit says, “We believe the Holy Spirit lives in us as believers and brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control into our lives. He works in and through us with His charismatic gifts (Gal. 5:22–23; 1 Cor. 12:7–11).”18 There is also one other statement about their belief in marriage as a basic human relationship between a man and a woman, which reflects their response to debates over same-sex marriage legislation in Canada and elsewhere in Europe and the United States. While Partners in Harvest stresses the autonomy of each local congregation, members are encouraged to establish a governing system that looks similar to an Episcopalian form, with a pastor/elder– led church and trans-local leadership that resides with the apostles. Advice is given on financial accountability, including designation of funds in such budget categories as building and utilities, salaries, and

42

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

missions. Partners in Harvest congregations are to send 2.5 percent of total monthly income to the Partners in Harvest organization for the purpose of “supporting the mission of this family of churches.”19 The structure consists of International Coordinators Fred Wright and Dan Slade. Areas throughout the world, such as Canada, Europe, Australia and the United States, are further divided into local regions with regional coordinators. Each pastor belongs to a smaller group of three to five pastors for fellowship, sharing, prayer, and accountability. There is a two-stage process to become a Partners in Harvest member. The first step is to complete an application form and become a Friends in Harvest member. The second step is more detailed and includes a weekend visit by the international coordinator or his designate to determine if there is a good fit. While each congregation has some autonomy, they are also joining a network that functions like a denomination. In response to the question “Is PIH a denomination?” they say, “If denomination means identifying a name for a specific family in the broader church, then we are. If denomination refers to conformity to a tight pattern or insisting on firm control, then we are not.”20 Finally, the expansion of Soaking Prayer Centers is a third way in which renewal has globalized. The CTF team believes they are to love God and neighbor, and that the best way to do that is through soaking prayer. The mission statement, “To walk in God’s love and give it away,” is an important one about CTF; it is found on the website, is posted in the building, and appears on much of its literature. “Our desire is to see people in all the nations of the world soaking and receiving the Presence of God and then giving it away to their communities, reaching the world with Jesus. As we soak in His Presence we are changed. As a result our families are changed, our communities are changed and we reach the world with Jesus!”21 The Soaking Prayer Network comes under the responsibility of Jeremy and Connie Sinnott. June Bain was the National Coordinator for Canada, a responsibility she held since it first developed, until 2009. National coordinators are appointed in other countries as well, including the United States, where Marguerite Evans worked with regional coordinators to train, equip, and encourage people in local prayer centers until 2010. A website was developed which identified the location and leader of all soaking prayer centers throughout the

Chari s m a t i c

R e ne wa l

43

world.22 People were encouraged to attend a soaking prayer school, to purchase a soaking prayer kit, and to establish a soaking center in their home, church, or other local site. Some groups that initially started in homes became churches, and now CTF is looking at ways to establish congregations or satellite campuses through soaking prayer centers. The Soaking Prayer School is a weeklong training program, usually in conjunction with a CTF conference where other training and ministry activities take place. Participants follow a set of teachings provided in a manual led by soaking prayer coordinators and other leaders. The central focus of the teaching is learning to hear God’s voice, a teaching developed by the charismatic teacher Mark Virkler (2005). Hearing God’s voice emphasizes the importance of attentive listening and discerning the difference between the “voice of the enemy” and that of the Holy Spirit. Participants learn a contemplative form of prayer, which avoids talking and emphasizes being still and listening. They are primarily encouraged to rest. To do so they will turn the lights down, play worship music, and lie on the floor comfortably with a blanket and pillow. During this time people “soak” in the presence of God. Soaking can last anywhere from one to three hours; participants are encouraged to receive the love of God, to hear the Father’s heart, and to experience intimacy with the Father. Soaking others is encouraged among the leaders who will gently lay their hands on people in prayer. They are not to pray out loud or to prophesy, but just to soak them in God’s love through touch. Part of their teaching includes soaking in the Word. Although the manual stresses the importance of proper study of the Bible, hearing the Word of God is more than simply a cognitive process; it includes a devotional component of hearing God’s voice personally. Participants are encouraged to “open up their hearts” and meditate on scripture in order to hear what God has to say to them and to the church in today’s context. CTF has a particular history as part of the larger Pentecostalcharismatic story in the twentieth century. Many of the practices are adaptations from a variety of sources, including classical Pentecostalism, the healing movement, and charismatic renewal among Roman Catholic and mainline Protestants. Another source is John Wimber’s Vineyard church, with his teaching on healing, signs and wonders,

44

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

and the kingdom of God. CTF has expanded through a series of partnerships or alliances that function as a network. Soaking prayer is one important adaptation and a practice that offers insight into the latest development in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity. We now turn our attention to assessing the role of prayer among charismatics, showing that prayer takes a variety of forms and requires attention to be given to its particularities. Soaking prayer is an adaptation of previous types of Pentecostal prayer that focuses on experiencing, receiving, and imparting the experience of what charismatics call the Father’s love through altruistic actions.

TWO Prayer and Altruism

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. —Matthew 22:36–40, NIV So what we’re saying is fall in love first. As you fall in love, step into the second part of the Great Commandment, loving others. —P28

Sp e n d i n g t i m e i n pra y e r is highly valued among charismatics at Catch the Fire, and soaking prayer typifies an important type of prayer. Soaking prayer is also an innovation that has two purposes. One is to place the individual in a state of rest in order to receive divine love. The second is an outcome of this type of prayer, which is to give away the love one experiences in prayer. However, for all the research conducted on prayer, social scientists have not offered the kinds of extensive in-depth studies of prayer to distinguish its varieties. Most of the literature on prayer is limited and tends to focus on frequency, asking if and how often people pray. Little research has attempted to differentiate the variations of prayer, what people mean when they say they pray, or what they experience when they pray. In this chapter we review the literature on the social scientific study of prayer. We

46

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

also give attention to the relationship between prayer and the transformation of practitioners toward altruistic action. Informed by recent developments in the study of religion and altruism, we attempt to describe the ways in which charismatics experience God, the role exemplars play in encouraging others to love God and others, the collaborators who participate in this process, and the beneficiaries of love (see Lee and Poloma, 2009; Lee et al., 2013; Poloma and Green, 2010).

Studies on Prayer The practice of soaking prayer raises a number of questions about the relationship between prayer and altruism. Yet, there is still very little social scientific research on prayer beyond measures of frequency (do you pray and how often) as well as whether or not people believe prayers were answered. Although Gallup surveys since 1948 report that nearly 90 percent of the American population pray (Gallup and Lindsay, 1999; Poloma and Gallup, 1991; Poloma and Pendleton, 1989), the question asked in most cases—“Do you ever pray?”—only assesses the frequency of prayer. What is less known is how people pray, what kinds of prayers are offered, and in what contexts and life circumstances people pray. Pew Forum’s 2007 study on prayer, for instance, suggested that prayer is not as frequent as a decade earlier, but the survey asked only two questions on prayer: frequency of prayer and believed answers to prayer.1 Though the national average reveals that 58 percent of Americans pray daily, diminishing to 17 percent weekly, the higher percentages of prayer frequency are reported for evangelicals (78 percent daily), historically Black Churches (80 percent daily), and sectarian type churches, e.g., Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness (82 percent and 89 percent respectively). When probed further about whether respondents received an answer to prayer, the national average is 19 percent at least once a week, 12 percent once or twice a month, 18 percent several times a year, and 23 percent seldom or never. Once again evangelicals (29 percent), Black Churches (34 percent), Mormons (32 percent), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (36 percent) score higher on the weekly measure, with other Christians (29 percent) in the range. Although the research is starting to change,

P ra y e r

an d

Alt rui s m

47

little is yet known about the contexts and methods of prayer (Brown, 2012; Breslin et al., 2010; Ladd and Spilka, 2002; Ladd and Spilka, 2006; Poloma and Gallup, 1991; Poloma and Pendleton, 1989). The practice of prayer in the Pentecostal movement interests few scholars, especially its “charismatic” nature, a topic of interest due to Max Weber’s structural distinctions between charisma and rational types (Csordas, 1994, 1997; Harrison, 1975; McGuire, 1988; Poloma, 1989; Poloma and Green, 2010). A small number of studies attempted to probe the relationship between prayer and various kinds of inner, emotional and physical healing, but once again these studies raise more questions than answers (Garzon and Poloma, 2005; Griffith, 1997; McGuire, 1975; McGuire, 1988; Poloma, 1991; Poloma, 2006b; Poloma, 2009). Poloma and Pendleton’s (1989, 1991) studies on prayer and quality of life are based on the annual Akron Area Survey. Their analysis probes meditative prayer, ritualistic prayer, petitionary prayer, and colloquial prayer in relation to five measures of quality of life. They discovered that prayer experiences are better indicators of quality of life than any of the four types of prayer. For example, the relationship between meditative prayer and existential quality of life is moderately significant, but ritual prayer (i.e., liturgical or written form) is positively related to negative affect; that is, those engaged in ritual prayer are more likely to be sad, depressed, and tense, while colloquial prayer is a predictor of happiness. They conclude that frequency of prayer is less important than how one prays and the experiences one has during prayer. Moreover, meditative prayer is related to claims of intimacy and personal relation to the divine. Poloma and Gallup confirm earlier findings in a 1988 Gallup survey. They expanded the focus to include more details on religious experience, the relationship between prayer and political activism, between prayer and forgiveness, and between prayer and non-Christian religions. They studied the experiences of a deep sense of peace and wellbeing (38 percent occasionally, 32 percent regularly), a strong sense of God’s presence (33 percent occasionally, 26 percent regularly), receiving a response to a specific request (32 percent occasionally, 15 percent regularly), receiving deep insight into spiritual or biblical truth (28 percent occasionally, 12 percent regularly), and feeling inspired or led by God to take a particular action (26 percent occasionally, 9 percent regularly).

48

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Interestingly, although all four prayer types showed a relationship to prayer experiences, the strongest was meditative prayer. The findings were more mixed for prayer and political activism. While many of the respondents felt that religious organizations should not be politically involved or work for legislative change on moral or ethical issues, a majority of respondents (57 percent ) felt political involvement was appropriate, whether or not they were evangelical, attended church regularly, used a particular form of prayer, or professed religious salience. Once again, those involved in meditative prayer (in which experience was prominent) were more likely to be politically involved. Meditative prayer was more significant than the other forms of prayer in helping people who pray to forgive those who have wronged them and be less likely to hold resentment. Likewise, experience in prayer is the “leading cause” for forgiveness and positively related to well-being. With regard to institutional forms of religion, such as attending church or following church teachings, meditative prayer and experiencing God’s presence are negatively related to institutional approaches (Poloma and Gallup, 1991). Other studies have focused on the relationship of prayer to mystical experience and feelings of intimacy (Baesler, 2002), feelings of self-worth (Krause, 2004; Krause, 2005), and the use of prayer as a “coping mechanism” to deal with lack of control in life circumstances (Baker, 2008; McCullough, 1995). It has also been noted that prayer is practiced more frequently by older people (Krause, 2004; Levin and Taylor, 1997; Pew Forum Survey, 2007), by females than males, and by African Americans than other racial groups (Levin and Taylor, 1997; Pew Forum Survey, 2007). Timothy Brown (2009) argues that there is a positive relationship between prayer and education but a negative relationship between prayer and income. This may be due to felt need (people who are economically well off may feel no need to pray) or due to other religious factors (high levels of income may be less important for people who are religiously motivated). The positive relationship between prayer and health has also been noted, but more investigation is needed in this area (McCullough, 1995). Finally, frequency of prayer and perceived experiences of divine love appear to be positively related to increased altruism (Brown, 2010). The problem with social scientific research on prayer is that there is little effort to conceptualize or theorize the practice. Moreover, the

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

49

affective, behavioral, and cognitive aspects of prayer tend to lack differentiation. Theologically, Richard Foster (1992) has categorized different kinds of prayers into three “movements” that he identifies as inward, upward, and outward. Kevin Ladd and Bernard Spilka (2002) used Foster’s categories to theorize and test the cognitive connections of prayer to establish relationships and self-understanding. Inward prayer is considered to be transformative and includes simple prayers, prayers of the forsaken, examen, the prayers of tears, relinquishment, formation, and covenant. Upward prayer produces intimacy and includes adoration, rest, sacramental prayers, unceasing prayer, prayers of the heart, and meditative and contemplative prayers. Outward prayer is focused on ministry and includes ordinary, petitionary, intercessory, healing, suffering, authoritative, and radical prayers. Their findings suggest that prayers of self-examination (i.e., inward) are absent from the repertoire of practiced prayers except in conjunction with upward and outward prayers. This points to a relationship between self-understanding and social process in that the self is defined in relationship to probing the needs of others and external factors. Ladd and Spilka (2006) followed up their study with an article that attempted to differentiate the inward, upward, and outward directionality of prayer and to probe the intentionality of prayer. They found that the inward, upward, and outward directions of prayer are not hard categories, but engage multidirectional approaches simultaneously. They conclude that 1) conceptualizing prayer as inward, upward, and outward forms of connectivity is a useful framework for the study of prayer; 2) inward, upward, and outward forms of connectivity function independently from motivation for belief; 3) prayers that are internal and paradoxical in orientation relate to structural need in the context of personal and/or social upheaval; inward and upward prayer has a stabilizing effect, whereas outward prayer enacts a bold desire to challenge present structures; 4) prayer is a means of spiritual connectivity that forms social collaboration rather than selfcentered solitude; 5) prayer does not add to life satisfaction, perhaps because prayer is practiced in both positive and negative life circumstances; and 6) prayer is separate from paranormal belief, calling into question the argument that states religiosity is equated to superstition (245–46). Ladd and Spilka call for more qualitative research on the affective aspects of prayer, the physical or bodily behaviors during

50

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

prayer, and the different range of perceptions of the world between the novice and the proficient person who prays. Research into soaking prayer is one study that has the potential to expand the social scientific understanding of prayer. A number of ethnographic and qualitative research projects have been conducted on prayer in Pentecostalism, especially in relation to healing and transformation. McGuire’s (1988) early study of charismatic healing noted the importance of and wide variety of prayer in the process of healing. While all respondents in her study used prayer for healing, in some cases prayers were informal and spontaneous, while others focused on praise. Pentecostals tended to use fervent praise, while Catholic and Episcopal charismatics used repeated prayers. Praying in tongues was a form of surrender to God’s control of the healing process. Also common were prayers of protection against the devil. McGuire (61) described soaking prayer as the process of gradual healing that allows the problem or illness to be “soaked” in prayer. This understanding of prayer comes from MacNutt (1974). Nevertheless, prayers were often accompanied by bodily acts of fasting, laying on of hands in which one felt the sensation of energy flow, and resting in the Spirit, where people would fall backward into a prostrate position. R. Marie Griffith’s (1997) enthnographic study on prayer focused on the interdenominational organization Women’s Aglow. She captured the way that women praying together allowed for a sense of emotional release and healing from the restlessness women experienced in the context of contemporary culture. Women’s Aglow is broadly evangelical, with a large contingent of women from the Pentecostal-charismatic tradition, the 12-step recovery movement, and therapeutic culture. Prayer plays an important role in personal transformation through conversion, inner healing, and recovery. Prayer, she states, “is perceived as glorious liberation, creating possibilities for loving intimacy, healing of body and soul, renewed courage in the face of sorrow, emotional maturity, and perpetual self-transformation” (202). Transformation is both immediate and gradual; a woman’s inner beauty and identity begins to align with her outer persona and constitutes her as a “new creature.” Transformation has broad, multidimensional meanings, including victory over sin and sickness; physical, emotional, and spiritual healing; restoration

P ra y e r

a n d

Alt ruis m

51

of the “authentic self ”; surrender of the selfish will to God; finding new love in Jesus as father, lover, or friend; and feelings of liberation, freedom, and empowerment brought through an ecstatic experience of the Spirit (103–5). Forgiveness, release, restoration, and freedom are social processes that occur through ritual prayer in sacred space. In the context of the prayer meeting, “women come to feel healed, inwardly transformed, and outwardly set free through the power of the Holy Spirit” (57–58). Prayer restores a sense of wholeness, honor, and goodness that transforms women’s identities unduly corrupted by shame and suffering and initiates a spiritual journey that binds women together in community as their identities are transformed through surrender to the divine and intimacy with one another. Thomas Csordas’s (1994) anthropological work on healing in the Catholic charismatic renewal argued that healing is about the processes of “self ” (rather than belief) in which psychocultural themes of spontaneity, control, and intimacy are engaged. The prayer meeting is the “central collective event” from which organizational practices and communities evolve (18–21). Csordas argues that both verbal and nonverbal performative acts are important in the healing process, and he has developed a performative repertoire of verbal and bodily rituals linked to healing, many of which are related to prayer. His discussion of soaking prayer relates directly to Francis MacNutt’s view, identifying it as a ritual of empowerment. The experience of forgiveness in prayer was related to emotional release (45f). Glossolalia and soaking prayer were (quasi-)verbal utterances and/ or mental processing, but anointing (physical sensations of heat or shaking), laying on of hands (transpersonal relation through touch), the sacramentals of holy water, oil, and salt (which are sprinkled or wiped on the forehead), and resting in the Spirit (the sacramental swoon of falling backward into a prostrate position) embodied the act of prayer.2 Csordas (1997: 175–76) also offered a typology of prayer drawn from his qualitative studies of the Catholic charismatic renewal. He classified prayer into four types: 1) “Worship” as adoration, thanksgiving, and praise; 2) “Glossolalia,” or praying in tongues and prophecy in tongues, or tongues and interpretation as a subset of praise; 3) “Petitionary or Intercessory” prayer as a type that included praying for special purposes and healing. Csordas placed soaking prayer as

52

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

practiced by MacNutt in this type. However, the understanding of soaking prayer at CTF is different from MacNutt’s; soaking for MacNutt is related to healing, while for CTF the objective is to experience the Father’s love. Inner and physical healing, prophetic visions, bodily expressions such as laughing, weeping, shaking, etc., may occur, but the point is to receive the Father’s love while experiencing the intimacy of God’s presence; 4) “Taking Authority,” which is prayer that confronts the spiritual, political, and cultural forces that oppose God. This type includes confrontation and commanding of evil spirits and can be observed with prayers of deliverance. Lee and Poloma (2009) probed the relationship between prayer and altruism by focusing on the reported effects of divine encounters on human behavior and attitudes. They employed the Thomas Theorem that says if people believe a situation to be real, then it is real in its effects. In other words, if the perception of the experience of divine love is motivating people to engage in acts of benevolence, then the effect of benevolence is real regardless of whether or not the love experienced is from a divine encounter. Based on qualitative interviews, they show how prayer shifts from active to receptive forms over the course of the believer’s spiritual journey, with prophetic and mystical experiences as an outcome of the receptive. By looking at the qualitative lifelong spiritual journeys of people who pray while claiming to experience divine love, one begins to see the way that different types of prayer flow together and the way in which social actors become exemplars of altruistic acts. They conclude that it is not enough to note a connection between benevolent behavior and religiosity, but that attention needs to be given to receptive types of prayer in and of its own right. In conclusion, soaking prayer is a variant of meditative prayer. It also fits the receptive type of prayer that includes prophetic and mystical characteristics in Lee and Poloma’s typology. It captures the inward, upward, and outward directionality of prayer as discussed by Ladd and Spilka as well. Soaking prayer is similar to the upward prayer of the heart, but with characteristics of the inward prayer of tears, the upward prayer of rest and meditation, and the outward prayer of healing. Furthermore, soaking prayer as defined by Francis MacNutt is categorized as a kind of Petitionary or Intercessory Prayer because it is a form of healing prayer. However,

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

53

CTF has adapted soaking prayer in an innovative way that expands its meaning and effect beyond healing prayer.

Prayer and Altruism What charismatics call experiencing the Father’s love is a vital link in the spirituality of soaking prayer and charismatic renewal. Conferences and CTF teachings highlight the importance of divine love and the ways in which charismatics express this love to other people. Captured in such expressions as “compelled by love,” “liquid love,” “a baptism of love,” or “a love revolution,” the leaders of CTF and its network affiliations reinforce the importance of love. But what exactly is the “love of the Father” that facilitates the interaction between God and the faithful in prayer, and between the followers and others in the world? Love is one of those human traits that is known implicitly by most people; after all, humans experience parental love as children, romantic love while seeking a life partner, and brotherly love of enduring friendships. Yet Christian love commonly identified as agape or boundless love is claimed to be more profound and more significant than human expressions of love. In sociology, the discussion of love and altruism is not extensive theoretically or empirically (Wuthnow, 1993: 344–57). Auguste Comte, often referred to as the founder of sociology, defined altruism as benevolence. Emile Durkheim contrasted egoistic suicide with altruistic suicide, a type of suicide that was sacrificial, typified by an older tribal member who takes his or her life during extreme times in order for the rest of the group to survive. Weber’s discussion of altruism was limited to the sacrificial quality of leaders in pre-modern societies and as a quality of the charismatic leader who demonstrated love toward others. Talcott Parsons, according to Wuthnow, discussed altruism in relation to his highly abstract conceptualization of human interaction and social systems. The most extensive treatment is the work of Pitirim Sorokin, which only recently has been reexamined for insight into benevolent behavior. Still, most sociological work since the 1960s “has shown a decided reluctance to employ the idea of altruism as such” (Wuthnow, 345). The reason for this reluctance, according to Wuthnow (346), revolves around the

54

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

philosophical roots of altruism based in the Christian idea of love, which “stand[s] in contrast with many of those both in contemporary sociology and the wider culture.” Wuthnow makes a convincing argument for understanding altruism as an important concept for sociologists to make sense of benevolent human behavior. Notwithstanding the theological commitments to the existence of God as the divine initiator of benevolence or acts of love toward others, Wuthnow argued that the exemplars of love and their acts of benevolence serve important cultural features. Specifically, altruism is a kind of cultural criticism. By that he means that whenever love is demonstrated, it acts in a prophetic way, which has the consequence of critiquing the culture for its lack of benevolence, but also in a positive way by providing an example of a better way of living. Love is an extravagant act that opens up a space to reflect upon the narratives and exemplars that demonstrate how to live a life of love. Wuthnow’s work on compassion, community, and spirituality reflects some of these underlying assumptions about altruism, and yet very little attention is given to Pitirim Sorokin’s work. Sorokin was a controversial figure in the twentieth century who is only recently getting the kind of attention he ought to receive by sociologists on altruism. Sorokin migrated to the United States from Russia after years of persecution by the czarist and communist governments. In 1918 he was imprisoned and waited for death until his friends negotiated his release. It was during this time that he thought about the social problems of the world, including war, hatred, violence, and injustice, and wondered what the world would be like if humans practiced genuine love toward one another. Sorokin (2002[1954]: xii) states, “Without love, no armament, no war, no diplomatic machinations, no coercive police force, no school education, no economic or political measures, not even hydrogen bombs can prevent the pending catastrophe. Only love can accomplish this miracle, providing however, we know well the nature of love and the efficient ways of its production, accumulation, and use.” Sorokin’s first teaching position was at the University of Minnesota, where he flourished from 1923 to 1931 (see introduction by Post in Sorokin, 2002[1954]). Following his time in Minnesota he went to the University of Harvard, where he became the founding chair of the Department of Sociology and the Harvard Research Center

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

55

for Creative Altruism. But university politics eventually disrupted his career, when Talcott Parsons started the rival Department of Social Relations and the Department of Sociology closed. Although Sorokin stayed at Harvard until 1959, his work was thought to be too philosophical and historical and certainly out of step with the more positivist-oriented empirical work of the mid-twentieth century. However, Sorokin’s work is now experiencing something of a renewal as more cross-disciplinary work is examining a whole range of questions around globalization, world society, civilization, social justice, social change, and altruism. Sorokin made the most extensive contribution in sociology for understanding altruism as benevolent acts of love in his book The Ways and Power of Love (2002[1954]). This impressive work focused on establishing a framework for the type of scientific work on love he proposed. The book is organized around the following. First, Sorokin attempted to establish a definition of love. However, he did not work from the premise that a single definition was universally useful. Rather, following a more integrative approach, he developed a multifaceted approach acknowledging a range of ways to think about love, including the religious, ethical, ontological, physical, biological, psychological, and social. Keeping in mind the multiple dimensions of love, Sorokin then moved on to develop the psychological and social qualities, outlining a range of empirical dimensions for measuring love, including its intensity, extensity, duration, purity, and adequacy. In part two Sorokin reviewed the current theories of that time regarding personality, creativity, and how altruism is transformative. Part three focused on what he called Apostles of love, or the exemplars of love that included key historical figures like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, and Schweitzer. What Sorokin examined was how these figures were able to transcend the hostilities of their time by focusing on those outside their ethnic, tribal, or political group, but also establishing an important link to what Sorokin called the supraconscious, a source of greater love that motivated loving action or altruistic behavior. Part four explored in detail a variety of techniques by which exemplars over time have become energized by love and hence able to love others more deeply. In particular, Sorokin paid attention to the techniques of yoga, meditation, and prayer. Finally, Sorokin concluded with a discussion on how love can transform

56

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

humanity and ultimately the social world. Sorokin’s work underlies an important aspect of our understanding of the experience of soaking prayer and what charismatics call the Father’s love. Specifically, we pay attention to the techniques by which people come to experience love or what Sorokin calls a process of altruization or altruistic transformation. Soaking prayer is a specific type of prayer among charismatic Christians that focuses on resting, receiving, and experiencing divine love. Those who practice soaking prayer also have high levels of altruistic behavior demonstrated by loving acts toward others. We also pay attention to Sorokin’s five dimensions of love, showing a range of benevolent behavior based upon the measures of intensity, extensity, duration, purity, and adequacy. Sorokin focused on rituals associated with prayer, including meditation, silence, and mystical encounters. Prayer, said Sorokin, is a most sincere communion of the individual with his highest self, or soul or God, or with the Supreme Cosmic Power. However conceived—and they are conceived differently by different persons, groups, and cultures—this self, or soul, or God, or the Supreme Cosmic Being is always intuited as something for transcending the individual in power, wisdom, glory, creativity, goodness, and other insights. [334]

Prayer, argued Sorokin, “serves as a marvelous road for a pilgrimage to the magnificent peaks of spirituality and altruism” (335–36). Sorokin observed that an outflow of love depended upon an inflow of love, and he included the value of experiences with a divine source of love in his understanding. Love is a kind of energy that infuses people, motivating and leading them to meaningful acts. On the social level Sorokin defined love as “a meaningful interaction— or relationship—between two or more persons where the aspirations and aims of one person are shared and helped in their realization by other persons” (13). These ideas shape our assumptions about soaking prayer and the charismatic experience of the Father’s love. The theological backdrop for the expression of love in charismatic Christianity has both an implicitly broad Christian worldview that has defined love as an expression of the divine and a more immediate influence in the teaching of CTF. In the broader landscape, the basis

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

57

for love among charismatics is not romantic, brotherly, or parental love, though these forms of love inform their view, but love that is an expression and overflow of divine love. “God is love” is central to charismatics; God’s love is creative and unselfish, and it has no intent other than in the delight of the other.3 Anders Nygren (1953: 75–80, 97–99) defined agape as a type of love that stems from an overflow of divine expression, which is expressed as love toward others, as creative, spontaneous, unmotivated by self-desire, unconditional, unlimited, without rational calculation, and risky as love initiated by divine fellowship. Love flows outward from a loving God who is love. God is love and love is God, and God chooses to express this love to the world. According to Emil Brunner (in Macchia, 2006: 261–62), love is not merely an attribute of God, but love is the very nature of God. In an all-embracing love, God imparts divine self and presence through self-surrender and self-giving. Tom Oord (2010: 15) offered an operational definition of love: “To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being.” Love has a variety of meanings depending on the context. Love can be expressed in celebration or joy for another, in compassion that supports those who suffer, in forgiveness leading to community reconciliation, in care for the needs of others, in companionship, even in correction that will benefit others, and therefore ultimately transformation (Post, 2003: 5–6). In theology, distinctions are made between the forms of love called agape (unlimited and unconditional love for another), philia (friendship), eros (which has been truncated to sexual yearning but needs to be understood more generally as desire; therefore one can desire [eros] the good for another), eunoia (good will or benevolence), physike (kindness to own race), xenike (hospitality or kindness to strangers), and storge (tenderness) (Post 2003: 17).4 Rolf M. Johnson (2001: 102–8) proposed a typology of care-love, union-love, and appreciation-love, each with a different objective. Care-love embraces all forms of concern for the well-being of the other (including but not limited to those associated with love of neighbor). Union-love seeks to diminish the distance between lovers in order to merge and unite them. This type of love includes romantic love as well as mystical love. Appreciation-love constitutes the affirmation, appreciation, and acceptance of the object of love. Where

58

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

union-love involves a more intense range of passions, appreciationlove is more detached. Where care-love is more ethical in its formulation, appreciation-love is more aesthetic (23–26; also see Vacek, 1994).5 Charismatic Christians exhibit Johnson’s type of union-love, with its emphasis on the Father’s love and its accent on romantic and mystical language—“that God wants to have a great love affair with his people”—and also care-love, practiced by charismatics as they show benevolence to others, within their own religious communities and spheres of influence and to outsiders of other national, ethnic, tribal, and racial groups. Appreciation-love appears to be more distant, though one can witness this type of love in the appreciation charismatics have for renewal in general, for the people (exemplars) who highlight renewal in the various conferences and seminars throughout the world, and for the charismatic networks that spread renewal. Margaret Poloma has long been concerned with several themes in her research on Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity (especially the institutionalization of religion), religious experience, religious revitalization, and more recently what she calls Godly love. To understand her views we must review some of her work, showing how this current phase is part of a larger research agenda. In 1989 Poloma published the book The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads, which examined institutional dilemmas as outlined by Thomas O’Dea (1961). In this work Poloma expressed great concern for the Assemblies of God (AG) as she observed a trend toward institutionalization whereby they had lost something of the early fires of renewal out of which they were birthed. The AG, while growing and expanding, faced a number of institutional tensions over the role of women in ministry, a centralized and highly powerful bureaucratized head office, and a decline in reported incidences of “speaking in tongues” or the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the central doctrine of the AG. Poloma’s book rang true for many in the denomination and was thought to be something of a prophetic call to remember their first love. Following this work, Poloma heard of a new charismatic movement in Toronto. Based on several years of participant observation, surveys, and formal interviews, Poloma published Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing & Reviving Pentecostalism (2003) where

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

59

she argued that even Pentecostals needed renewal. Poloma argued that this new controversial movement, with all of the messiness of laughing, crying, and dancing, was central for understanding religious revitalization. While this was not the major focus of the book, Poloma made several observations about the importance of love, encountering the Father’s love, and loving others among the leaders of the Toronto Blessing. She noted how social scientists were reluctant to speak about love and certainly did not investigate the relationship between experiences of divine love among religious people. Charismatics, it seems, were tapping into something important, and this experience of love, she thought, might be central for understanding how mission and ministry may be shaped by divine love (140–41). Poloma then moved on to her primary interest, which was the relationship between institutionalization and revitalization; she anticipated a new tension emerging out of Toronto as it quickly organized, leaving some pilgrims to explore revival fires in Florida and California. By the end of the 1990s most scholars, including Poloma, believed that the movement in Toronto had come to an end. Little was published or said about the renewal and no one knew just how much expansion was taking place. However, this question about love and its relationship to religious organizations and revitalization did not escape Poloma and soon became a central focus of her work. In 2008 Margaret Poloma, Stephen Post, and Matthew T. Lee were awarded a John Templeton grant to explore the role of love and revitalization among Pentecostal-charismatic Christians. The study, called the Flame of Love Project, set out to examine the following: “To what extent can emotionally powerful experiences of a ‘divine flame of love’ move us beyond our ordinary self-interests and help us express unconditional, unlimited love for all others, especially when our human capacities seem to reach their limits?”6 A number of collaborators were invited to participate in the study, including the authors of this book, and over a two-year period we investigated the role of soaking prayer and the experience of love among charismatics. The idea of Godly love is one result of Poloma’s research on the Pentecostal-charismatic movement that highlights a range of interactional relationships for the experience, production, and expression of love. Out of this project have come four important books. The first is

60

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church (2008), by Margaret Poloma and Ralph W. Hood Jr. The authors designed and implemented an important study investigating the role of love and its social implications for a Pentecostal church in Atlanta, Georgia. The objective of the study was to qualify and quantify the benevolent outcomes of Godly love, which Poloma and Hood defined as “the dynamic interaction between human responses to the operation of perceived divine love and the impact this experience has on personal lives, relationships with others, and emergent communities” (4). The theoretical framework for their sociological understanding of love is the work of Pitirim Sorokin. Also influencing their work is what sociologist Randall Collins (2004) called interactional rituals. Collins theorized that the emotional energy produced and stored by ritual interaction between individuals, both sacred and mundane, links together emotional energy that can be stored and recharged over time. Poloma and Hood argued that the scientific community must take seriously the claims of charismatic worship as a motivating factor in producing social agents to express love for others through service, social justice, and social transformation. A Sociological Study of the Great Commandment in Pentecostalism (2009), by Matthew T. Lee and Margaret Poloma, moved the discussion forward. Based upon the findings from 101 exemplars and collaborators—people who practiced love in some form of benevolent service—the authors further refined and explored a sociology of love. They argued that the concept of Godly love is not a synonym for experiencing God’s love. Rather, Godly love is conceptually developed to capture a range of interactions between individuals and their perceptions of God, on a vertical axis, and between individuals and the numerous people, organizations, and communities that are the recipients of benevolent service, on a horizontal axis.7 Margaret Poloma and John C. Green then published The Assemblies of God: Godly Love and the Revitalization of American Pentecostalism (2010). The authors explored in detail the role of love as a possible means for revitalization within the denomination. Poloma and Green re-examined the dilemmas of institutionalization and discovered that while many of them still existed, there were also signs of renewal. Where institutionalization had detrimental effects on the Assemblies of God, signs of revitalization, argued Poloma and Green,

P ra y e r

a n d

Alt ruis m

61

were supported by high levels of experiential love and benevolence. The model presented by Poloma and Green offers a conceptual orientation for exploring the relationship between institutionalization, prayer, experiences of divine love, and benevolence. Of note here is the argument that institutionalization does not necessarily mean a certain death for any religious organization. Institutionalization may be an impediment for accomplishing any number of objectives, especially the mission of a religious organization. However, institutionalization may also preserve its mission and identity, with moments of renewal leading to fresh experiences and commitments to its objectives (see Wilkinson, 2012). Finally, Matthew T. Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post in The Heart of Religion (2013) conducted a national study and discovered that eight out of ten Americans report that they have felt God’s love increasing their compassion for others. The authors supplement the national survey with interviews of exemplars illustrating how people who are actively benevolent share a common experience of “receiving love” that has the effect of “empowering” them to love others. The qualitative data illustrates the many ways that Americans experience and express love. From their data the authors develop a typology of prayer (103) that includes Devotional Activity (human prayer activity direct toward the divine), Prophetic Conversation (two-way communication of hearing directly from God supernaturally and responding to the divine), and Mystical Communication (feeling God’s presence or union with God in a way that is verbally inexpressible). They also develop a typology of benevolence (93) that identifies Servers (those who serve their communities in various ways, e.g., soup kitchens, medical clinics, helping the homeless), Renewers (those who seek to revitalize their churches), and Changers (those who seek to bring about peace and justice through changes to inequitable structures). In our case, we focus on one type of activity, soaking prayer among charismatics associated with Catch the Fire, to illustrate with some ethnographic detail the relationship between prayer and altruism. Of importance to charismatic Christians is what is known as the Great Commandment: To love God and neighbor. Central to our research and understanding of charismatic Christianity is that renewing one’s love for God and neighbor is rooted in a life of prayer. What we wanted to know was how charismatics practiced soaking prayer and

62

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

how they related prayer to altruistic actions. Specifically, we surveyed participants of soaking prayer and asked them questions about their prayer practices and the ways in which they were benevolent. The following survey data describe charismatic soaking prayer practices and benevolent interactions with church, family, and community.

Surveying Practitioners of Soaking Prayer Following our observations of soaking prayer over a two-year period, attendance at the Soaking Prayer School, renewal events, and interviews with 126 participants, we conducted a survey of 258 people who practice soaking prayer (see Appendix for complete survey findings). Our survey is a non-random sample of people in the charismatic renewal who practice soaking prayer. The findings represent the charismatics we interviewed, specifically the participants from the soaking school, home groups we observed, and individuals we met during our observations at charismatic events who agreed to complete the survey. The survey is intended to ask soaking prayer practitioners a series of questions that identifies a basic demographic profile, prayer practices, charismatic experiences, and benevolent behavior. The survey was made available to participants through an online survey format. Respondents were mostly from the United States, but also from Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand. What follows is a general description of the practice of soaking prayer,

Table 2.1: Profile of Participants (N=258) Country—USA 71.9% Female 70.2% Age: 55+

44.3%

Married 73.9% Race/Ethnicity—Euro-American/White 86.5% Education—University Degree Religious Affiliation—Charismatic/non-denominational

55.9% 50%

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

63

Table 2.2: Frequency of Prayer < Once per Week

0.4%

Several Times per Week

6.6%

Daily 13.1% More than Once per Day Throughout the Day

20.9% 59%

charismatic experiences, and associated benevolent behavior.8 The participants from our survey fit a demographic profile that is predominantly from the United States, female, aged fifty-five and older, married, white or of European descent, university educated, and affiliated with a charismatic congregation (see Table 2.1). On frequency, the participants, not surprisingly, have very high levels of prayer, with 59 percent claiming to pray throughout the day (see Table 2.2). The practice of praying throughout the day is a teaching associated with charismatic churches, including praying in the Spirit or in tongues, wherever one may find oneself in the day, doing chores, at work, or in leisure activities. When combining the percentage of those who pray throughout the day with that of those praying daily and more than once per day, the number swells to 93 percent. The types of prayer activities vary among our participants (see Table 2.3). We asked about a range of activities; 95.9 percent reported they talk to God in their own words. Intercession, or praying for others, accounts for 90.6 percent. The number who respond that they pray for their personal needs drops to 77.1 percent, showing that while praying for oneself is important, praying for others is practiced more often. Interceding for world events, however, drops to 54.3 percent, illustrating that praying for others is practiced more often. Listening to Christian music while praying was practiced by 76.7 percent of the respondents. A total of 71 percent include Bible reading with prayer, with 45.3 percent reading other religious material while praying, and 41.6 percent reported reciting Bible passages when in prayer. Fasting as a type of prayer practice was indicated by 27.3 percent of the respondents. Incorporating technology into prayer, for example praying on Internet

64

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Table 2.3: Types of Prayer Activities Talk to God in Own Words

95.9%

Intercede for Others

90.6%

Intercede for Personal Needs

77.1%

Listen to Christian Music

76.7%

Read & Reflect on Bible

71.0%

Intercede for World Events

54.3%

Reflect on Devotional Readings

45.3%

Recite Bible Passages

41.6%

Fast 27.3% Pray on Internet Sites

13.9%

Recite Memorized Prayers

12.7%

Table 2.4: Soaking Prayer Percentage of Prayer Time Spent in Soaking Prayer 100% 0.4% 75–99% 7.5% 50–74% 16.3% 25–49% 25.4% 1–24% 45.4% None 5.0% Location for Soaking Prayer (all that apply) Home by Myself

86.8%

Home with a Group

39.6%

Church-based Center

38.7%

Renewal Events

31.9%

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

65

sites where prayer requests are made, was practiced by 13.9 percent. Finally, reciting memorized prayers was practiced by only 12.7 percent, showing that among charismatic Christians prayer is most often about personal communication, or talking to God in your own words, while interceding on behalf of others. When we asked the respondents about the practice of soaking prayer, 45.4 percent indicated that up to a quarter of their prayer practice was soaking (see Table 2.4), while 25.4 percent of the respondents stated that 25–49 percent of their prayer time is spent in soaking prayer. Soaking prayer was most often practiced at home without other people, as reported by 86.8 percent of the respondents. What we see among the respondents is that they incorporate different types of prayer into their practices. The respondents also reported high levels of charismatic experiences. For example, 38.7 percent claimed to feel the presence of God most days, with another 25.8 percent stating they did so daily (see Table 2.5). On questions about experiencing spiritual insight, answer to prayer, sensing a divine call to act in some way, a revelation from God, and prophesying, the respondents indicated they had these experiences some days. When asked about protection from evil, 24.8 percent of the respondents claimed that they daily experienced protection, with another 22 percent stating they did so on most days. On the practice of speaking in tongues, 40.6 percent of the respondents claimed they did so daily, with 28.1 percent on most days, and another 20.7 percent on some days. Only 5.5 percent of the respondents said they did not speak in tongues. We also asked a series of questions about compassion, hope, and forgiveness (see Table 2.6). The respondents indicated they had high levels of compassion toward others, were hopeful, and valued forgiveness. Compassion and hope were claimed to be experienced most days by the respondents. Forgiveness was reported to be experienced, with higher numbers on a daily basis. For example, 34.7 percent claimed they experienced a greater forgiveness through prayer, 39 percent claimed the ability to forgive others, and 58.7 percent said they were able to forgive God; 41.8 percent claimed they had the ability to forgive themselves most days. On questions about benevolent behavior, the respondents reported that they help family members and friends some days (see Table 2.7).

66

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Table 2.5: Charismatic Experiences Daily Felt Presence of God 25.8% Spiritual Insight

Most Days 38.7%

Some Days 27.6%

Once in Never a While 7.1% 0.0%

Don’t Know 0.9%

15.2% 33.5% 43.3% 7.6% 0.0% 0.4%

Answer to Prayer

6.8%

31.1%

45.0%

14.9%

0.0%

2.3%

Divine Call to Act

5.9%

14.9%

40.5%

34.7%

1.8%

2.3%

Revelation from God

5.8%

19.3%

48.4%

25.1%

0.9%

0.4%

Prophesy over Others

2.3%

7.8%

41.1%

40.2%

7.8%

0.9%

Protection from Evil

24.8%

22.0%

23.9%

23.4%

0.9%

5.0%

Tongues

40.6% 28.1% 20.7% 5.1% 5.5% 0.0%

Table 2.6: Compassion, Hope, and Forgiveness

Daily



Most

Some

Once in

Never

Days

Days

a While

Don’t Know

Greater Compassion 25.7% 33.5% 30.7% 9.6% 0.0% 0.5% Greater Hope

31.4% 36.4% 24.1% 7.7% 0.0% 0.5%

Greater Forgiveness

34.7% 31.1% 24.3% 9.5% 0.0% 0.5%

Forgive Others for Hurts 39.0%

39.0%

16.1%

5.5%

0.0%

0.5%

Forgive God

58.7% 28.2% 8.0% 1.4% 0.5% 3.3%

Forgive Self

40.9% 41.8% 14.1% 3.2% 0.0% 0.0%

Table 2.7: Benevolent Behavior Daily

Most Days

Some Days

Once in Never a While

26.0%

28.8%

17.8%

Don’t Know

Help Family Members

26.5%

Help Friends

11.1% 31.5% 40.7% 15.7% 0.5% 0.5%

0.5%

0.5%

Help Acquaintances

6.8% 19.5% 35.3% 36.7% 0.5% 1.4%

Help Co-workers

9.5% 18.6% 32.2% 32.2% 3.0% 4.5%

Help Strangers

4.1% 12.0% 28.6% 50.7% 0.9% 3.7%

Help those Who Dislike Me 3.8% 12.4% 26.2% 40.5% 1.9% 15.2%

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

67

However, when combined with daily and most days, the percentage of respondents able to help family is 81.3 percent. Helping friends daily, most days, and some days, amounts to 83.3 percent. Helping co-workers, strangers, and people who dislike them declines in frequency but with notable responses, and 32.2 percent of respondents said they help co-workers some days. Regarding helping strangers, 50.7 percent of respondents did this once in a while, and 40.5 percent reported helping those who dislike them once in a while. When asked about their responses to suffering, the respondents indicate that they are saddened by suffering, with very little difference when it comes to location or the type of people involved (see Table 2.8). Between 35 percent and 37 percent of the respondents reported that some days they are saddened by suffering in foreign countries, their own country, their community, and among strangers and loved ones. Respondents also agreed that it is important to leave the world a better place (52.9 percent), to support causes for the less fortunate (50.2 percent), and that they were motivated to help humanity (55.9 percent) (see Table 2.9). Finally, we asked questions about giving time and money to help others (see Table 2.10). Almost all (97.2 percent) of the respondents said yes, they have given time to help people in the past twelve months, with 29.3 percent doing so

Table 2.8: Response to Suffering

Daily



Most

Some

Once in

Never

Don’t

Days

Days

a While

19.1%

35.8%

30.2%

1.9%

0.9%

13.9%

24.1%

36.6%

21.8%

1.4%

2.3%

11.6%

25.1%

37.2%

22.3%

1.4%

2.3%

Saddened by Suffering in 12.1%

Know

Foreign Countries Saddened by Suffering in My Country Saddened by Suffering in My Community Saddened by Suffering of 12.7% 17.4% 35.7% 23.9% 6.6% 3.8% Strangers and Loved Ones

68

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Table 2.9: Response to World Need

Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly Agree

Important to Leave

Disagree

45.1%

52.9%

1.5%

0.5%

39.8%

50.2%

9.5%

0.5%

39.7%

55.9%

3.9%

0.5%

World a Better Place I Support Causes for Less Fortunate in the World I am Motivated to Help Humanity

Table 2.10: Giving Time Yes, I Have Given Time to Help People in Past 12 Months

97.2%

How Often in the Past 12 Months? Once

1.4%



A Few Times

18.3%



Once or Twice a Month

20.7%



Once a Week

17.8%



More than Once a Week

29.3%

Daily

12.5%

Table 2.11: Giving Money Yes, I have Given Money to Help People in Past 12 Months

97.2%

How Much Money in the Past 12 Months?

< $100

11.5%

$100–$499

30.7%

$500–$999

16.7%

$1000–$5000

30.2%

>$5000

10.9%

P ra y e r

an d

Alt ru is m

69

more than once a week. The same percentage (97.2 percent) of the respondents also indicated they had given money to help others, with 30.7 percent giving between $100 and $499, 30.2 percent between $1,000 and $5,000, and 10.9 percent over $5,000 in a twelvemonth period (see Table 2.11). In the following chapters we discuss these findings along with our observations to explain how soaking prayer moves charismatics from an inward experience of divine love toward loving others. To do so we explore how experiences of the divine are embodied among charismatics, attuning them to others as they carry religious experiences with them. We also examine the role of authority and gender, especially since the vast majority of the practitioners of soaking prayer are women. Finally, we examine three cases of charismatic congregations that attempt to practice their mission, noting how charismatic prayer leads to specific altruistic actions.

THREE Rituals of Renewal

I felt more and more drawn to find places of peace and rest in the presence of the Father, places of intimacy, and places of interaction and the Spirit—just the Holy Spirit—just that work bringing renewal, bringing refreshment, bringing empowerment, bringing release and the gift and the fruit of the Spirit into my life and into ministry. We’re very much now on a definite pursuit for more of the presence of God, more of the renewing power and work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and seeing the whole role of the supernatural being the normal Christian life. —P107

A l l r e l i g i o n s h a v e ri t u a l s that allow participants to engage the sacred. Rituals are the actions, dramas, and performances that a religious community creates, maintains, recognizes, and sanctions as appropriate ways of behaving, believing, and feeling in relation to sacred space (see Albrecht, 1999; Bell, 1997; Grimes, 1982).1 In Christianity, these rituals vary but may include an order of service, such as the gathering of the saints, processional, inaugural prayers, singing, scripture reading, preaching, confession, Eucharistic celebration, absolution, and benediction. Theologically these rituals are liturgical practices that cultivate right beliefs (orthodoxy), practices (orthopraxy), and sentiments (orthopathy) in the corporate worship of the divine (see Land, 1993). Despite the seemingly spontaneous and inchoate freedom of worship among charismatics, rituals are also part of the lived experience of the sacred. Where the formal liturgies of historic Christianity place an accent on orthodoxy and/or ortho-

Ri t uals

o f

Re ne wal

71

praxy, the free liturgies of the charismatic renewal place its accent on orthopathy, or the sentiments. Beliefs and practices are also an important part of charismatic ritual, but the emphasis is on one’s heart in relation to the divine. In their emphasis on the sentiments of the heart and a longing for a loving relationship with God, charismatic rituals have the potential to revitalize the beliefs and practices as well as the institutions of the church. Claiming to be renewed by the Father’s love, charismatics are inspired and motivated to share that love with others, by spreading renewal, which for them means sharing God’s love, by forgiving others and seeking reconciliation, and by acting in charitable and compassionate ways. Charismatics claim to love and practice benevolent actions because their hearts have been renewed, they have become more empathetic to the lack of love in the world, and their lives have become more meaningful. Soaking prayer is a ritual for charismatics, where it is claimed that time spent resting in the loving arms of the Father fills them with God’s love in order to refresh them and make their lives and ministries more vital. In this chapter we investigate a number of charismatic rituals that cultivate religious renewal and institutional revitalization. The rituals of pilgrimage, playfulness in worship, emotional or inner healing, and prayer allow charismatics to cross the liminal threshold and engage the sacred. Liminality is that sacred space where charismatics enter the subjunctive “as if ” world, one in which people love each other unconditionally, without the expectation of selfish gain. Through these rituals, charismatics come to know existentially that they are not “orphans but sons and daughters of the Father” who loves them. In liminal space their identities are shaped in such a way that they realize they are loved and want to be more loving toward others. Soaking prayer is an important adaptation in the charismatic renewal that is contemplative or meditative in style and cultivates charismatic experiences and a culture of love.

Interaction Ritual Theory In many ways the rituals of charismatic Christianity serve as an important case study that could easily illustrate the sacred energy of participation, the charismatic role of leaders, and the experience of

72

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

a shared life together. While each of these insights is helpful, we still require concepts that help us answer questions about the specificity of ritual as an energizing activity. For example, how does participation in charismatic rituals motivate people to act? How do the participants maintain a high level of intensity after the renewal event is over? How are rituals at home like or unlike those practiced together at prayer centers, local congregations, or renewal events? What symbols are generated through charismatic activity, and in turn how do these symbols act upon the participants? How are participants motivated to carry renewal generally, and the love of God specifically, with them into their homes, communities, workplaces, and other contexts in which they interact? How are charismatic rituals experienced in the body? How do bodies carry this emotional energy with them? These questions require some attention for understanding ritual and charismatic Christianity. Interaction Ritual (IR) theory, argues sociologist Randall Collins (2004), is a theory about life situations. Interactions are characterized by emotional energy that appears in bodies through intense face-toface situations. Collins described IR as “a mechanism of mutually focused emotion and attention producing a momentarily shared reality which thereby generates solidarity and symbols of group membership” (7). The IR model operates according to five qualities. First, it includes an aspect of situational co-presence, which for Collins means that ritual is a social activity. It requires bodies to be present. Second, when people are present, human encounters may be characterized by focused interaction. Social interactions entail some kind of pressure to maintain social solidarity, and so rituals are also entraining. Furthermore, rituals respect what is socially valued through human interaction, leading to the establishment of sacred objects. Finally, when rituals are broken there is a sense of unease, which may also be met with a range of responses meant to exert social control or conformity to the moral code. The basic ingredients of IR include the physical assembly of a group of people, shared action, awareness, and emotional energy that contributes to new group symbols and identity.2 There are a number of outcomes associated with IR, including group solidarity, emotional energy, symbols that represent the group, and feelings of morality. Collins described these outcomes as central to IR. He states, “At the center of an interaction ritual is the process in

Rit uals

o f

Re ne wal

73

which participants develop a mutual focus of attention and become entrained in each other’s bodily micro-rhythms and emotions” (47). Emotional energy (EE) is one of those important outcomes that require attention. It accounts for the emotions ritual participants experience during a highly intensive ritual interaction, which is embodied by the participants. EE also has the ability to be maintained by the individuals after the ritual is over, so that it continues to motivate them to act accordingly as well as identify with the group. EE, however, is not just about a highly charged ritual that demonstrates a lot of excitement, or the dramatic effects that one might associate with charismatic Christianity. EE refers to the long-term effects of successful IR. In other words, EE is a long-lasting effect that carries over so that participants are convinced of the experience to such a degree that they act upon the experience. As Collins states, “EE is instead a strong steady emotion, lasting over a period of time, not a short-term disruption of a situation. A general characteristic of EE is that it gives the ability to act with initiative and resolve, to set the direction of social situations rather than to be dominated by others in the micro-details of interaction” (134). EE is therefore associated with a high level of attunement and long-term consequence. Collins’s work on IR is not specifically focused on religion, although religion is not precluded from his theory. However, what specifies the sociology of emotion in a religious context is the idea of religious emotional regimes. The work of sociologists Olie Riis and Linda Woodhead (2010) is instructive. Riis and Woodhead offer an overview of the social context of emotional regimes and the importance of taking emotions seriously. What they attempt to do is move the discussion of emotions from the personal and individual level to a social one. This not only requires taking emotion seriously but, more importantly, focuses the analysis on the social outcome of emotion. Emotional regimes capture the idea that there is social structure and culture bound up in ritual. Emotional regimes hold together a wide range of emotions, expressions that transcend the individual, lasting over time, forming and shaping social relations, as well as ordering the social world. Riis and Woodhead are not arguing that religious emotions are necessarily different from the range of emotion in human experience. However, the context of a religious group shapes the particular

74

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

understanding of emotion. Religious groups interpret emotional energy and include a rationale for action. Charismatics, specifically, offer a theological framework for interpreting the experience of EE through soaking prayer. A theology of renewal associated with mission illustrates the way in which CTF, specifically, sees soaking as a means for transforming the world. In this sense, ritual is also associated with the subjunctive and captures the possibility, conditionality, and probability of the emotional energy associated with ritual (Seligman et al., 2008).3 For charismatics the subjunctive is tied up with notions of the Father’s love, the kingdom of God, renewal, and mission. The subjunctive quality of ritual allows participants to consider through ritual the “what if ” quality of the experience. This relates to the imaginative qualities of ritual. Ritual, in this sense, is about world building. Charismatic Christians act as if the social worlds produced through rituals of renewal are in fact real. The question, though, is what kind of world are they imagining? In what ways are they acting to create that world? What is consequential about rituals of renewal? Generally, the social world of charismatic Christianity is inextricably linked with the charismatic view of a world animated by the Holy Spirit. Rituals of renewal, therefore, are concerned with the relationship between the social and the spiritual as evidenced in pilgrimage, play, healing, impartation, and soaking.

Have You Been To Toronto? Pilgrimage Toronto became a key pilgrimage site for Christians in the 1990s and continues to be a place where those who want renewal are willing to travel to experience the Father’s love. For example, we attended a conference in May 2010 that filled the building with approximately two thousand attendees from across the United States, Canada, and Europe. CTF Toronto has cultivated these pilgrimages and offers numerous conferences throughout the year to provide teaching on their core values and to gather for charismatic worship. Toronto is one of the major pilgrimage sites for those involved in soaking prayer. In our survey of soaking prayer, 68.5 percent of the respondents reported they had traveled to Toronto (see Table 3.1). Although Toronto has

Rit uals

o f

Re ne wal

75

remained a fairly stable pilgrimage site for charismatic renewal since the 1990s, other pilgrimage sites became important. The Brownsville revival in Pensacola, Florida, the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri, the Lakeland Outpouring at Ignited Church, Lakeland, Florida, and Bethel Church in Redding, California, were all sites of charismatic renewal and places to which Christians were willing to travel. Over and over again in our interviews we would hear the question, “Have you been to Redding yet?” or “I was at the Lakeland revival.” Anthropologist Victor Turner (1969, 1973) provided insight into the ritual process of pilgrimage.4 Both extant documents and oral narratives (in our case interviews and site observations) that express the experiences and observations of pilgrimages can reveal the social processes involved during preparation for departure, collective experiences of the journey, arrival and behavior at the pilgrimage site, and the return home that allow us to observe the nature and intensity of social relationships. Through these observations we can gain descriptive accounts of participants’ social organization and social life, the economics and logistics of the journey, the symbolic and social settings, sacred and profane attitudes, and individual and collective tendencies. In the journey and ritual observance, pilgrims cross the threshold from the structured political, economic, and hierarchical social sphere into an unstructured, undifferentiated social sphere named communitas, where individuals interact as equals in the ritual

Table 3.1 Participation in Renewal Sites Renewal Meetings Attended CTF Toronto

68.5%

Bethel Church, Redding, CA

25.4%

Brownsville Assembly of God, Pensacola, FL

21.0%

International House of Prayer, Kansas City, MO

18.2%

Other 41.4%

76

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

process. Turner differentiates three types of communitas. Normative communitas is a socially structured and controlled space that organizes and mobilizes social resources of a group of people through ritual symbols. Ideological communitas establishes a utopian ideal for society through the subjunctive vision of what could be. Existential communitas is a spontaneous and self-generating communal space that confronts directly the existential realities of human identity and wholeness through a homogeneous and free liminality. The communitas one observes in charismatic worship is best described as existential communitas, though with leanings to the ideological (see Althouse and Wilkinson, 2012). The pilgrimage is informal and carries the expectation of spontaneous and free expression of worship as the pilgrim experiences the Father’s love. Moreover, the social conditions associated with the existential, which include increased population, rapid communication and transportation, and access to mass media, all contribute to this kind of pilgrimage. The ritual of pilgrimage is an embodied or somatic practice of journeying to a place of sacred significance with the expectation of spiritual transformation (see Percy, 1998, 2011). In our observations, highly accessible and relatively inexpensive transportation is one of the arteries for the Toronto pilgrimage. The church is situated in an industrial complex close to Pearson International Airport, a hub for world travel. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants within a few miles of the church, where pilgrims can find lodging and food. In fact, the location of the church is not conducive to the traditional model of a parish diocese in that there are few homes in the area. Toronto is a mass transit city with roadway access to the suburbs. The Canada–U.S. border is a mere two-hour drive away. Moreover, CTF uses mass media to communicate its message throughout the world. Both on its own and in partnership with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), CTF produces television programs, CDs and DVDs, Internet Webcasts, chats, Skype and telephone communication, and good old word-of-mouth via Pentecostal-charismatic social networks. Craig Scandrett-Leatherman (1999) argued that the ritual process contributes to identity formation and enhances hegemonic resistance. Borrowing from Turner, Scandrett-Leatherman’s anthropological research argued that in engaging the liminal through a

Ri t ua ls

o f

Re ne wal

77

process of separation, marginality, and reincorporation, the participant senses cognitive dissonance with an old social identity. This in turn generates a new understanding of reality and social status and initiates social continuity with new understanding and status. This process occurs in traditional pilgrimages, but also in camp meetings and retreats. Scandrett-Leatherman examined the camp meeting and retreat as a pilgrimage from urban centers to the slower rural and agrarian setting when time is slowed to the cycles of the seasons. CTF has institutionalized conferences, seminars, and retreats as the main ritual site for renewal, whether in Toronto, where people travel to experience the latest move of God, or in globally selected cities where leaders hold conferences so people in distant lands can attend. Conferences held abroad are part of CTF’s sending stage and are key to the expansion of its brand of Christianity. The difference between the camp meeting and retreats described by Scandrett-Leatherman and the conferences and seminars held by CTF is that the former cultivate a rural sensibility as the mode of liminality, while the latter take place in major urban centers, often in upscale hotels or churches, in order to promote expansion of the renewal. Both attempt to slow down the sense of time to allow for the liminal—in the former through rural life, and in the latter through resting in soaking prayer. The structure of pilgrimage is a process of separation and marginality or what Turner (1973) called liminality and reaggregation. In other words, the pilgrim as a social actor separates from home and culture at the onset of the pilgrimage, journeys to the site, and in so doing steps over the threshold (the liminal space) to engage the sacred. Pilgrimage contributes to charismatic renewal and/or inward transformation. The pilgrim then returns home changed by the sacred experience, and through the “objectified collective representations,” a paradigm is produced that shapes the ethical, social, and political behavior of the pilgrim (213–15). In the ritual process the pilgrim becomes aware of the structural divisions in society such as class, gender, and race and in that awareness is liberated from their obligations and constraints. Status and role recede to the background as the participant’s cognition, emotion, and volition become more integrated; the pilgrim is free to make choices denied her in other social structures and to shape the community in love and equality. In this process, the pilgrim becomes more aware of the multiplicity of

78

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

cultural meanings and is energized to negotiate between communitas and structure (221–22). Charismatic pilgrimage serves this purpose by offering participants a sacred space to reflect upon their identity and role in a world that is rapidly changing.

Let’s Have Some Fun: Worship as Play At a Soaking Weekend School in Tampa, Florida, CTF leaders Connie Sinnott and her husband Jeremy playfully engaged the imaginations of the participants with a drama of soaking. Holding an imaginary cup in her hand, she encouraged the audience to pretend with her that they were thirsty and desired to drink from the cup of what she called “Daddy’s love.” The size of the cup kept getting bigger as she repeated the drama until she finally pretended she was lifting a heavy, full barrel that she then dumped on her head. In every instance the participants played along with her and mimicked her actions. Finally, along with the audience, she raised the heaviest barrel imaginable and in a playful and ironic turn of events dumped its contents on another person, not only soaking themselves but others around them. Connie then began to pray for the group, at which point participants began to laugh, cry, and fall down into a resting position. Ritual play is an important aspect in charismatic worship but one that has received little attention. Laughter, crying, bodily jerks, groans, the utterance of animal noises with imitative behavior such as the bodily movement of a clucking chicken or roaring lion, are playful rituals, sometimes spontaneous and at times imitated among participants. One interviewee said, “There was a bunch of people all sprawled out on the floor and this was at the front of the church. They already found the platform. And so I just kind of started dancing my way through a sea of people, not really looking and just not really caring. So I’m just like a gazelle, you know, prancing around all these bodies strewn out everywhere” (P40). CTF Toronto has ritualized much of its worship as playful performance. The Fire Tunnel or Tunnel of Love is a case in point and has become a favorite ritual among these charismatics, one that we have seen repeated in various locations. Usually at the front of the auditorium, a group of about ten people stand facing each other with their arms outstretched and fin-

Rit uals

o f

Re ne wal

79

gers touching in an inverted V shape, which creates a tunnel for people to pass through. A line is then formed and people pass through the tunnel in order to receive spiritual manifestations. As people traverse through the tunnel they acquire bodily jerks and many end up falling to the floor in a soaking position. So that people do not get hurt when falling, “catchers” (a playful term in itself related to sports) are strategically placed at the end of the tunnel to keep people from obstructing the main path. As we observed different worship services we noted other playful activities. During charismatic worship many will stand, sway, and clap their hands at their seats, but many participants will also move to the front of the auditorium or church to dance and spin around. People are often strategically placed with flags that are waved as an act of worship. At times flag wavers as well as others will dress in bright costumes. One pastor explained it this way: “I am a radical worshipper. I love to dance. I love fast music. . . . I’m a shouter, and we use more Jesus Culture, IHOP music, which is stronger and fast . . . the dance and the shout and the flagging and the strength and worship, so it’s very much who I am, and it’s very much a part of me” (P23).5 Charismatic worship is often chaotic and cathartic. During the service soakers can be seen lying on the floor along the sides and back of the church while the worship is conducted and even when the message is preached. Anthropologist André Droogers (1994) proposes methodological ludism (play) as an approach to the study of religion that is non-­ reductionistic and applies this methodology to the study of Pentecostalism. Play is a heuristic tool employed by ethnographers to provide a theoretical framework for the religious, but it is also an important dynamic in ritual practices of religion (also see Droogers and van Harskamp, 2006; Knibbe and Droogers, 2011). In subjunctive play, dissimilar realities are brought into juxtaposition by which humans make reference to the hidden and invisible reality of the sacred. The subjunctive of play refers to creative potential, a general human capacity rather than a human product, and allows for multiple sets of rules to be grasped simultaneously even when only one set is being followed at a given time, such as when one is in a state of play. The capacity for holding two or more realities together simultaneously through play allows humans to grasp ambiguity and to articulate a wholeness of reality while speaking of its dividedness. The obvious

80

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

implication methodologically is for researchers to recognize the playfulness of religion, which is often thought of as serious activity. The approach asks researchers to hold both together without reducing religion to one or the other. This is especially helpful for understanding charismatic Christianity (also see Yong, 2012). Anthropologist Peter Versteeg (2006) builds on Droogers’s ludic methodology and uses play in charismatic worship as his case study, one with direct implications for our understanding of charismatic Christianity. He writes: Proof of God’s humor was found in the sometimes strange and creative prophetic images people used when they ministered to others. The idea that God loved to play with his children was almost a core belief, which inspired and informed much of Vineyard believers’ experiences of having “intimacy with the Father,” sometimes expressed as “sitting on Daddy’s lap.” Playing was one of the most vivid images used to describe the loving character of God and why it was so wonderful to have a relationship with him. Believers who were more involved in prophetic ministry tended to take playfulness a few steps further. To them being prophetic meant being aware of reality as spiritually contingent, as something in which God constantly speaks through signs, such as colors, music, dance, words. In such a setting drawing a white sheet over some chairs may suddenly mean: “This is the tent of the Lord. Come on in and find shelter.” [100]

Versteeg goes on to argue that prophetic praying is playing a trick that never stops and defies the rules of play.6 This play spills over into reality and impacts the believers’ life-world. In prophetic play the subjunctive shifts and becomes indicative. Prophetic playing is reality seen from God’s perspective, which moves from representation to presence. The implication for the researcher is that she cannot enter into that liminal space without crossing a line of belief; this is a methodological risk, but one that takes seriously the intersection between the religious and mundane worlds. Versteeg concludes that playing in the charismatic world is recognized not only as playing but also as a sign of sacred reality. Ritual playing not only discovers the divine order of reality but also attends to it by attuning to the whispers and presence of God (see Suurmond, 1994).

Rit ua ls

o f

Re ne wa l

81

Margaret Poloma (2003) also observed this playfulness in her sociological fieldwork on the Toronto Blessing in the various ecstatic phenomena such as fits, trances, visions, manifestations, impartations or anointing, animal noises and mimicry, prophetic mime, and drunkenness. The language of drunkenness can throw off an outsider with its playful reversal of meaning that someone can be inebriated in charismatic experience rather than with alcohol. CTF leader John Arnott explains spiritual drunkenness in The Father’s Blessing (1995: 146): “Every time they go down [resting in the Spirit], it’s like they had another glass of booze, but it isn’t that at all. It’s the Lord’s Spirit. . . . When people are under the Spirit they are delivered of all sorts of problems. They go into the heavenlies [a reference to visions]. They come back, and they are no longer the same. They are transformed” (see Poloma, 2003: 73). On different occasions we would hear leaders and participants describe this experience as “drunkenness” or “being drunk in the Spirit” because it appeared similar to inebriation. A woman from Jacksonville explained it this way when she said, I was in revival here in Jackson. Rodney Howard Browne had come to our church in 1994 for months, and, I mean, I just got schnockered, just drunk . . . night after night after night. I was addicted to that presence, that wonderful life-changing presence, and then religion killed it. So, I was like living in a dry land thinking that everybody else’s revival had dried up like ours, and I was just blown away when I went to Toronto and there they were still going. [P10]

Renewal, as noted here, is the antidote for “religion,” meaning institutionalized religion that charismatics find to be an impediment for the practice of Christianity (see Wilkinson, 2012).

You Can Be Whole: Forgiveness and Healing Another prominent practice among charismatics is the ritual practice of healing (Alexander, 2006; Brown, 2011; Csordas, 1994; Kydd, 1998). While the practice has a long history, it is characterized by some specific teachings among those from CTF (Poloma and Hoelter, 1998; Poloma, 2003). For example, the “signs and wonders”

82

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

of John Wimber, and as it influenced John Arnott, is related to notions of the kingdom of God and its actualization on earth. Central to the teaching is that Jesus spoke about the coming kingdom of God and demonstrated its power through signs and wonders such as exorcisms and healings. When the Spirit is experienced it is always with power, which advances the kingdom of God into new territory. One such event, sponsored by CTF in Vancouver in 2009, illustrates these ideas of healing and the kingdom of God. The weekend included sessions titled Advancing the Kingdom, Becoming One with the Spirit of God, and Ministering in the Power of the Holy Spirit. On the bottom of the schedule it said, “Plus lots of soaking—please bring a pillow and blanket.” On the first evening John Arnott spoke about the inward journey, which is where God starts with you, moving to the upward journey, where you begin to fall in love with Jesus, soaking in his presence, full of love, and then the outward journey, where you hear God’s call to go with Jesus wherever he wants you to go. This is what charismatic Christians mean when they claim to experience spiritual empowerment and “advance the kingdom.” “The kingdom of God must be a priority in your life,” said Arnott. As Arnott warmed up the crowd, he spoke about having fun on a Saturday night. “The fruit of the Spirit is joy, and God wants us to enjoy ourselves.” He then referred to the Westminster confession and reminded everyone that they are to “love God and enjoy him forever.” Continuously he reminded those in attendance that the kingdom of God was about power and a demonstration of that power. “Kingdom of God come, will of God be done,” he said over and over again. Arnott was preparing people for a demonstration of that power as he moved into teaching about healing, faith, and miracles. “Jesus loved the Father and the Father poured into him authority. Miracles happened because of the anointing,” preached Arnott. “The secret of our ministry is soaking in his presence where the Holy Spirit spills over and into our lives and others.” Throughout his sermon were stories of miracles from around the world. He made reference to Luke 10, where Jesus gave power and authority to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. “The kingdom of God has come near you. It’s a simple message. Tell people the kingdom of God is within you— reach, take hold of it. Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will fill you. What drives your ministry? Love, not raw power. Jesus had compas-

Rit uals

o f

Re ne wal

83

sion on people, loved them, and filled them up on a daily basis with the love of God. He was anointed and loved others . . . the anointing of God is liquid love that flows into sickness, blindness, deafness, death.” After speaking to the group of about five hundred, Arnott transitioned into a time of prayer for people. Two cases in particular are revealing about his view of healing. As Arnott spoke, he told the crowd we were going to pray for people that need a healing. At this point he began to speak “words of knowledge,” which is the practice of claiming a spiritual gift of knowing specific needs and calling people to respond to them. He said, “There are people here with hearing problems who need prayer. Someone specifically needs prayer for healing.” At this point a woman came forward. Arnott engaged her with a few questions about the nature of her problem; she told him she had a virus five years ago that affected her hearing. Arnott then prayed a short prayer, “Kingdom of heaven come, will of God be done,” and then proceeded to ask her if she noticed any difference. She said she thought her hearing was getting better but not fully healed, so Arnott prayed again and asked for some of his staff to come and continue to “soak” her until she was fully healed. Arnott prayed, “It is not your will that she be deaf. I cancel that generational curse. Be healed and hear, drive out generational darkness, and restore into the Father’s love.” The belief that sickness is associated with “generational curses” is also a core teaching of CTF, coming from Chester and Betsy Kylstra of Restoring the Foundations. Seminars are offered that teach about the “sins of the fathers visiting up to four generations,” which require prayer for deliverance and healing. Usually associated with a generational curse is the inability to forgive. Arnott always linked healing with forgiveness, pointing out that forgiving people who have wronged you is central to being whole. Following prayer for the woman, he had another word of knowledge about a spine injury that God was healing. Another woman came forward for prayer. He engaged her with a few questions about the injury, which apparently occurred in an automobile accident. Arnott asked her if she forgave the person who caused the accident. She said she had not forgiven this person after many years. Arnott spoke about forgiving as key to her healing. “Your grace is sufficient. I receive my healing now. All shock, damage, pain be gone. Go.” He

84

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

then asked her how she was doing and she said the pain was gone. Arnott then asked those in attendance, “How many want to heal the sick?” Many enthusiastically responded, yes. He said, “It is not about seven easy steps or five keys to healing. It’s about receiving the free gift. Let Father do his work. Forgive people who harm you.” According to CTF teaching, forgiveness is an important precondition to healing; both forgiveness of others for wrongs that have been committed and forgiveness of self for wrongs committed in the past. In the Soaking Student Manual under the title “Forgiveness: The Key to Healing,” John Arnott says, Is there a relationship between forgiveness and healing? I believe there is. For several years now Carol and I have seen multitudes of people all over the world healed as they worked through unresolved pain and learn to forgive those who have hurt them. Sometimes they need to forgive themselves for things they have done in the past that they cannot seem to forget. . . . But when people forgive themselves and others, powerful emotional healing comes to them as they step into the grace and mercy of God. As we pray for emotional healing, it is common to see wonderful physical healings take place in the wake of forgiveness. [Catch the Fire Student Manual, 89]

In the same manual, charismatic leaders John and Paula Sanford discuss the steps to forgiveness, which involve confessing our sin, forgiving others, forgiving ourselves in order to root out bitterness, but most interestingly the consequence of reaching out to others in love. God desires that no one should be lost but will allow others to hurt the Christian in order to express love to the other by producing love in “his servant” who will “go to Gethsemane and become one with whomever has hurt him.” In other words, embracing hurt and being willing and able to forgive those who have caused the hurt is an expression of love that seeks restoration of relationship between God and the human being and human beings to other human beings (Catch the Fire Student Manual, 83–87). In many of our interviews the topic of forgiveness would come up. Participants would speak about forgiving their father or mother, or other family members who they felt had wronged them. Some people would speak about forgiving people who had hurt their fam-

Rit uals

o f

Re ne wal

85

ily. One woman in Michigan commented that soaking prayer allowed her to forgive and let go of past hurts. She said, “Soaking for me is—it is such a time of intimacy. I can’t tell you how the Lord just completely shifted my mindset. I mean there’s just so much. [God] showed me things in my past [and] would bring things to my heart. And I was able to forgive, able to release” (P17). Another woman in Jacksonville related a conflict she was having with her fellow workers and how through soaking prayer she was able to forgive and gain deeper compassion for her fellow workers. She said, “There’s more compassion. I still don’t like the idea that they have authority over me, but there’s more compassion. And one person that it has really I think really helped the relationship with is my boss” (P8). One soaking coordinator said, “And definitely soaking in God’s love on a regular basis, it just really makes you much more able to be kind and be patient with other people and to walk in forgiveness toward other people because it’s like when you have God’s love just pouring into you, it makes it easier to be nice to others and to walk in all the fruit of the Spirit” (P92). A couple we interviewed in England spoke of the relationship between forgiveness and bodily healing. The husband claimed that his wife was “radically healed from five different diseases and a matter of a broken heart” (P72). The diseases, they claimed, included epilepsy, a degenerative disease in her knees that was arthritic, migraines, lactose intolerance, and ovarian cysts. It was so bad, she claimed, that her husband had to carry her up and down the stairs of their home. She said, “To cut a very long story short, I forgave my earthly father for all the belief stuff from the heart. And I’d forgiven him a zillion times, but carried on dishonoring him, hated him, didn’t have anything to do with him, and now I realized that I hadn’t actually done it from the heart. I needed to step up in grace, and as I did that every single sickness left my body instantly. And the key to me was the bitterness and the bitter roots that I’ve had in my heart for so long, and my body literally was in shutdown” (P72). Through the practice of soaking prayer and forgiving others, this woman claimed to experience healing. Healing is ritualized among charismatics and is linked with signs and wonders as a demonstration of the advancing kingdom of God and its power. Healing is about receiving the love of God. It is about

86

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

being filled with God’s love and pointing others to the heavenly Father, who offers a free gift of healing and wholeness. Linked together with healing is forgiveness, especially toward those who have wronged you.

Take It with You: Impartation Impartation, through the practice of “laying on of hands” or “soaking” someone, is another practice that is ritualized among charismatics. During the Soaking Prayer School, John and Carol Arnott and Duncan Smith of CTF Raleigh prayed for the participants. John spoke to the group for about ten minutes, Carol joined him and spoke to the group as well, after which they had everyone form three lines in order to receive an “impartation.” As John, Carol, and Duncan prayed for people in their lines, they placed their hands on the recipients’ head, shoulder, and occasionally stomach. On occasion a leader would “blow” on recipients in order to convey the “breath” or “wind” of the Spirit, etymological meanings of the word “Spirit.” As each of the participants in the group was prayed for, she or he would utter groans, laughter, cries, would jerk, sway, bend over, and fall to the ground. At times we could hear people utter “more Lord, more” or “deeper Lord,” or “higher Lord.” At the end of the session everyone in the group was lying on the floor following the prayer of impartation. While this may not be the case in all situations, we observed that whenever prayer for impartation occurred, most, if not all, did fall to the ground. Impartation is an important element in passing on the Spirit’s presence in charismatic worship, usually from a charismatic leader to another who desires more of God. It often involves the one praying for spiritual manifestations also touching the one seeking, though not always. Impartation also conveys the love of the Father, the power of the Spirit, healing, and anointing. One participant claimed, “Impartation is when the power of God is imparted to you; that you now have that same flow; that you can operate in that same power. . . . Well, when the fire of the Holy Spirit was imparted—that’s the fire of the impartation and healing and the fire of anointing—it just brings authority. It just brings power”

Ri t uals

o f

Re ne wal

87

(P6). Anointing is an expression used in much the same way as impartation, although they are different. Anointing is believed to reside in a person whereas impartation has a transitive character. While at CTF Houston, one of the speakers used the terminology of anointing and impartation in a similar way, though impartation had another sense of receiving greater spiritual power to convey certain manifestations, something conveyed with each new charismatic venue. This speaker claimed, “I’d been used by God for many years, but then in ’91 I met Rodney [Howard-Browne] in Gaylord, Michigan, and opened an impartation. I went back to Australia, and it would start again in joy” (P97). Flow is an important idea that characterizes charismatic spirituality and is connected with the belief in the movement of the Spirit in the individual who hears from God (through soaking and in the impartation of spiritual manifestations by soaking others). Words such as “outpouring” or “filling” capture the notion of flow as the Spirit pours out into the individual and through the individual to others who are to be blessed by renewal. Mark Virkler’s charismatic teaching on flow is widely used by CTF leaders and participants, and was referenced on numerous occasions. Virkler spoke at a Soaking Weekend in Jacksonville, Florida and said flow is “hearing God’s voice as spontaneous thoughts and mind pictures,” which is associated with the eyes of the heart (Ephesians 1:17), and out of the inner being flows rivers of living water (John 7:37–39). Flow is captured by the image of a river, which is widely used by CTF to describe its spirituality. As Virkler admonished the crowd, “Take God’s river and release it out.” Flow is passed on to others as “bubbling out of you without thought of what you are singing or doing.” Prayer with flow is anointing. Speaking with flow is prophecy. Reasoning with flow is “anointed reasoning.” Speaking in tongues is flow guiding the vocal cords. The human heart is the “flow of emotions.” “As divine flow is activated communication with God is established.” One young musician from Montreal explained his musical creativity this way: “I guess learning from that uninhibited, unfiltered flow, I’m like, whatever, just, I’m not gonna think, I’ll just write whatever comes and that’s what it is” (P40). This type of activity among participants can be described as disinhibiting (see Percy, 1996; 1998). The connection between flow as receiving from God and then

88

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

passing what you have received on to other people, as it flows out in acts of ministry, captures the act of impartation. Impartation is important for understanding how the love, presence, and power of God are “given away.” As we listened to different people talk about “giving it away” or “sharing the Father’s love,” they would often speak of the spontaneity of their actions.

Pillows and Blankets: Resting Pillows and blankets are important ritual objects used by charismatics in most cases where we observed soaking prayer. In some instances people would carry them in a bag, usually of no particular kind. However, on occasion we would notice a bag with embroidered religious symbols like a dove or cross stitched into the side. Pillows and blankets symbolize rest and comfort, which blends well with the theology of soaking prayer. A pillow protects the head from the hardness of the floor while the blanket offers comfort and warmth. In most cases a person praying at a soaking center would use a pillow and blanket for themselves. However, on occasion we would see couples sharing a pillow and a blanket. Once in a meeting in Toronto a mother and father with their young child were under a blanket quietly resting in prayer. Associated with pillows and blankets is the idea of sleep. While attending a soaking center in Seattle, the leader encouraged people to rest and if they fell asleep not to worry. Shortly after the music began and people were comfortably resting in the auditorium, someone began snoring, and for the next hour no one seemed to be bothered by it. In 2009, Heidi Baker was speaking in Seattle at the Healing Explosion conference when she felt impressed by the Holy Spirit to pray for people who were diagnosed with any kind of disease where the outcome was that they would likely not live. She asked for anyone in the audience who met this description to come to the front of the auditorium. While she was waiting she said she was annoyed by the tactics of some healing evangelists who would yell and attempt to create some kind of atmosphere for healing. She assured people she would not embarrass them and that the only reason she wanted them to come forward was for them to be soaked in God’s love. Two people

Rit uals

o f

Re ne wal

89

responded to her call, and as other people assisted them down the aisle, she called for the leaders in the church to bring pillows to the front where she was speaking. Down each aisle came the helpers with very large baskets filled with oversized pillows. These pillows were then placed on the platform and the two people who were ill were invited to rest on them. She then asked the children in the auditorium to come forward, lay hands on them, and soak them while she spoke for the next hour. Occasionally, she would stop speaking and ask if they were okay or if they were comfortable. She then prayed that the God of all creation would comfort them in their time of suffering. Rituals of renewal act upon participants in such a way as to create a set of beliefs or values, which is further sustained by participation in ritual practices like soaking. CTF values are represented in the acronym of FIRE, which stands for Father’s love, Intimacy, Restoration, and Empowerment. Institutionalizing practices such as being “slain in the Spirit” or “resting in the spirit” or “carpet time” into a regularized program called “soaking” does not make it less effective. Rather, institutionalizing or ritualizing the experience regularizes it into a normal practice that sustains the emotional energy of renewal allowing participants to keep the “fire” alive when they go home from a major renewal event (Collins, 2004). Each week as the smaller prayer groups assemble in homes and churches, attention is given to soaking, which embodies the emotional energy of renewal generally and FIRE specifically. Ritual participation in soaking energizes participants. It renews them precisely because interaction rituals are morally suffused. The attention given to being loved by the Father and loving others in soaking is often experienced with a high level of intensity. But it too can fade, which is why the soaking prayer network is largely successful as a means of sustaining emotional energy. Furthermore, soaking prayer rituals motivate the participants to regularly love God and love others. As one soaking coordinator explained, “Being motivated because we’re in love is incomparable to being motivated by anything else. What I discovered is, people that are in love make great workers. Not every great worker is a lover. And they’re the ones, in my opinion, that get burned out and get tired or get off on some whacko theology. The ones that maintain their position, as lovers, are much healthier. They go longer. They enjoy what they’re doing. There’s a love for seeing what’s happening, the fruit that follows up” (P28). The

90

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

ritual practice of soaking therefore strengthens and intensifies the activities of renewal for those involved in the CTF global network. One of the central mechanisms of soaking prayer is to transform and mobilize the participant. In this case, soaking prayer participants become central agents in the renewal process, carrying it with them from the renewal meeting to the world.

Renewal and Transformation Collins (2004; also see Robbins, 2011) talks about the formative power of ritual mobilization so that intense ritual experiences create new symbolic objects (sacred objects for soaking prayer include pillows, blankets, candles, music), which in turn fuel change. Interactional ritual is a mechanism of change providing occasions for breakthroughs, transformative experiences of how the world ought to be. The practice of soaking, therefore, is an experience of world changing so that one can begin to think about renewal as mission. Persons, like John and Carol Arnott and the soaking prayer leaders, are sacred objects, as in Collins, or “charismatic” figures, following Weber. There is a specific morality of soaking as well: God is love, God loves me, God loves others, and I should love God and others. Sociologist Chris Shilling (2005) discusses the relationship between entrainment, bodies, and music as a process of interaction whereby bodies resonate with each other in the experience of ritual and emotional energy. There is a rhythmic effect of music experienced in the body, as well as other physical effects. Soaking illustrates entrainment through the experience of dreams/visions, tongues, smell, weight, touch, shared weeping, and shared laughter. The rhythmic quality of soaking and emotional entrainment can be explained and illustrated in two important ways in laughter and breathing. In this case, people who soak also reflect upon and act on the subjunctive basis of experiencing God as love, where they no longer strived, were truly loved, and enjoyed an intimate relationship with God. How then do the core values of CTF and its global network align with the deeper meanings of culture? One of CTF’s core values is to have fun. A Facebook message advertising a prophetic conference for CTF Raleigh was sent under the caption “Fun Weekend” and read

Rit ua ls

o f

Re ne wal

91

“3 days of extreme revelation, fun in the Spirit and awakening for our region.” John Arnott sometimes refers to the revival as a grand party. Having fun is counter to “performance,” which according to CTF teaching is focused on the values of success and competitiveness propagated in the world. Socioeconomic life is driven by success, control, and a general tiredness. The performance environment, claim CTF leaders, produces negative emotions such as criticism, defensiveness, anger, and blame; often emotions are suppressed. The emphasis on having fun and delighting in the Father’s love is characteristic of the charismatic renewal. One participant explained, “But you come to these things, and you just—you give away what you’ve received, and the Lord finds a way to make it miraculous . . . It’s really fun” (P53). An older man in Jacksonville who was a minister for the Nazarene Church prior to his involvement in the charismatic renewal confessed, “I really believe we [are] just so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, we’re just so busy. And I think the Lord wants us to just settle down, relax, rest in Him, and let Him do what He wants to do with us” (P11). One woman who participates in soaking prayer in Michigan also commented on the problem of performance in her own church life when she said, We were in ministry for many years at our other church, and it was a lot of doing and going, and a lot of performance. That type of thing. And going there and just being ministered to and hearing it’s not about striving, it’s not about doing; it’s about being and listening. I felt like I was in heaven. I had such an experience with the Lord that I can’t even explain how it changed my heart. [P17]

The ritual activity that occurs in charismatic worship and the way in which people are changed is primarily one of “surrender” or “letting go” of performance and the embrace of spontaneous flow and intimacy that is produced in prayer. Within the broader contours of Christian prayer CTF places a premium on being, or on waiting patiently and prayerfully to hear from God. CTF has tapped into the resources of mysticism and recommends classic texts of that tradition: Mme. Jeanne Guyon, Brother Lawrence, Francois Fenelon, St. Theresa of Avila, and John of the Cross. The Soaking Student Manual says, “These are writings that aim to transform our whole personality. They seek to touch the heart,

92

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

address the will, and mould the mind. They call for radical character formation. They instill holy habits. Their writings have stood the test of time. We need to soak ourselves in these devotional texts” (30). Participants of soaking prayer also see it as a type of contemplative prayer. One woman with a Roman Catholic background compared soaking to contemplation. Soaking prayer is like “centering prayer, which is emptiness, Christian meditation, with a mantra usually something like ‘Maranatha’ and ‘Lectio.’ They’re very much alike in terms of their effect because they all draw deeper. They bring you deeper into the relationship and to new aspects of the relationship” (P8). Another woman from Jacksonville compared soaking to Quaker silence. She said, “The Quaker denomination started something like soaking prayer. From what I was told, the Quakers started their meetings just sitting in a room waiting on God. And if He didn’t show up, they didn’t do anything. They just kept waiting. But He knew they were waiting, and so He showed up. And that’s what happened to them, they just started carrying on, wiggling crazy and quaking, and they were probably very charismatically misbehaving in church, you know” (P10). Other participants have compared it to the old Pentecostal form of “tarrying” prayer, where one waited on God in prayer usually at the altar (front) of the church, until one started to speak in tongues or demonstrate one of the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. There are several important ideas that help us make sense of our observations of these rituals of renewal among charismatic Christians involved in the CTF network. Interaction ritual and emotional energy provide a framework that allows us to observe how social interaction and high levels of intensity contribute to long-lasting effects, including an encounter with divine love that leads to a greater sense of the divine and the claim to love others. Charismatic Christianity interprets such encounters with theological language, which in turn support the community’s notion of renewal, transformation, and engagement. The belief that they are experiencing the kingdom of God here, and not just in some future sense or in the afterlife, contributes to the subjunctive quality of charismatic ritual. Charismatic Christians who engage the love of God through soaking are transformed by the experience; they carry it with them in order to give it away.

FOUR Embodied Love

So the presence of God is not just for your heart to become a new creation and a reborn spirit, but the Holy Spirit is for your body as well. It’s for your flesh, and I think one of the things that is happening in this move is the restoration of God’s theology of the body. The Hebrew approach to a relationship with God was much more three-fold than the Western, “Invite Jesus into your heart.” —P110

C h ari s m a t ic s ar e n o t afrai d t o t a l k about the body, and they certainly celebrate it more than early classical Pentecostals shaped by holiness notions of the body, who sought to control it. The body, however, is not a site for a battle between the Spirit and the flesh where the flesh is something to regulate or even to fear. The charismatic body is understood to be holistic, where spirit and flesh come to dwell together. It is where God meets men and women, unified by the work of the Spirit. The charismatic body experiences God as an energizing, loving force where the flesh is restored, renewed, and healed. It communes with God through dreams and visions. Charismatic bodies communicate with each other and God through prophetic speech. It is a communion, a unity of the divine and the human. This convergence of Spirit and body makes classical Pentecostals nervous and evangelical Protestants critical of the charismatic body as indulgent.

94

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

The body has become an important area of research in the social sciences, especially in the fields of gender and sexuality. However, the location of the body in society cannot be reduced to these issues, as important as they are in the discipline. Sociologists of religion studying the body need to particularize the way in which charismatics embody their Christianity. Interpreting the charismatic body in some ways is not unlike interpreting the writings of charismatics and their theologies. However, the “text” we read and interpret in this case is the body. An embodied theology tells us something about charismatics. First, it signals for the observer something about religious experience and the charismatic’s view of the body. Charismatics appear to be disinhibited and enjoy their faith while their bodies express this joy through dance, singing, laughing, twirling, resting, falling down, and ecstatic utterances. The admonition to discipline or mortify the body is not part of the discussion, though there is an emphasis on holy living in a general sense. Christian discipline is not absent from charismatic theology. It is just not at the center of their practice.

Observing the Body in Charismatic Christianity Charismatic worship follows a pattern that incorporates phenomenological bodily experiences and movements. Space is divided into three basic sections: a raised platform from which the speakers and musicians speak and perform, the auditorium with rows of chairs in roughly a semicircle or traditional rectangular pattern facing the platform, and ample space between the platform and congregation where people can come to pray, dance, and sing. Although variation is observed as the leaders and participants who worship attune to the “leading of the Spirit,” charismatic ritual begins with a time for praise and worship. Music plays a vital role both in the ritual context of charismatic renewal services and in the practice of soaking prayer itself, helping to cultivate embodied experiences. However, the style of music for each is different. In the praise and worship practices of CTF churches and conferences, contemporary Christian pop music is played while participants engage in kinesthetic movements of swaying, hand raising, dancing, jumping, bodily jerks, and flag waving as people express their emotional jubilance. A Christian charismatic

Embo di e d

Lov e

95

music group, usually consisting of guitars, keyboards, bass, and singers, plays Christian pop music from the auditorium’s platform. Occasionally artists will be onstage, painting on canvases as they attune to the impressions they claim to be receiving from the Spirit and one another. The progression of worship music begins with fast-paced music to encourage praise through bodily excitement that reaches a crescendo. During this time people express their love for God through vigorous bodily movement. The music then quiets down in a calming manner, and the worship often includes emotional and/ or bodily healing, manifestations, impartations, and signs and wonders. This is a time when charismatics will be encouraged to “soak” in the Father’s love. Laughing and weeping, spontaneous bodily movements, claims of sensory experience of taste and smells, weighted pressure on the body, and feelings of tingling are commonly reported sensations. Participants report “prophetic revelations” that include mental impressions or images believed to be divine communication. The service will then proceed to a time of testimony, when a leader who is part of the CTF organization comes to the platform to address the audience. The leader may give a testimony of what God has been doing in his or her life, and then ask for either a random or predetermined selection of other people to come to the platform to testify to what God has been doing. The testimonies may involve claims of how God has touched them, experiences of love, healing, or forgiveness, or how the experience of renewal has revitalized their ministries. During these testimonies ecstatic phenomena are observed in the leaders and those giving testimonies; laughing, weeping, noncognitive verbal exclamations, bodily jerking, and spontaneous resting in the Spirit. The Tenth Anniversary Celebration of Catch the Fire at Virginia Beach in February 2011 is a prime illustration. John Arnott led the service in a time of worship and healing. Arnott would call out physical ailments and would ask for those people who believed they were being healed of the illness specified to come to the edge of the platform. About twenty or so people came forward who believed they were healed or being healed. Arnott then selected about five different people to step onto the stage, one at a time, and to tell the audience what God was doing in their bodies. Often those testifying would be expressing bodily phenomena such as jerking, laughing, or shaking.

96

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Arnott would then ask if the person was fully healed. If there was still pain or incapacitation, he would pray for a full healing that included forgiveness for the cause of the initial injury. For instance, one man had severe pain from the reconstruction of his leg after a serious car accident years earlier. Arnott asked him if he had forgiven the other driver and then prayed for the man to experience forgiveness and to be fully restored to health. Each person would be asked to move his or her body in ways that were previously painful to demonstrate healing. In every case, the person being prayed for would appear to spontaneously rest in the Spirit at the end of the prayer. We also observed a case of “inner healing,” when a young woman claimed to have been depressed and suicidal. An earlier service focused on the need to forgive family members for the hurt they experienced, and a young woman said she forgave her mother that afternoon. In the evening service she felt the depression and suicidal thoughts lift and felt fully restored in her family relationships. The woman’s mother was also on the platform crying and jerking ecstatically, and expressed the love she had for her daughter and the happiness she felt for the healing of her daughter and the healing of their relationship. At this point, Arnott led the congregation in another time of prayer and had the whole audience raise their arms as high as they could, to have their “hands reach into the heavens.” He referred to the congregation’s hands as anointed hands and that “everyone has anointed hands,” and after a time of prayer in this manner, each person was to touch the area of his or her body that was in need of healing. Anointing for healing is often described in terms of feeling a tingling, or heat in the hands or in the area of the body that is being healed. When praying for one another, charismatics place or lay their hands on another person, and through this bodily action a person may be healed.1 Following singing and prayer, CTF meetings transition into a time of preaching from one of the main speakers. A circuit of charismatic leaders usually preaches at the various renewal conferences, including John Arnott, Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, Steve Long, Heidi Baker, as well as others. The message usually lasts from about forty minutes to an hour and concludes with another transition into a time of prayer when people come to the front and pray in the space between the platform and the congregation. This transition occurs with music

Embo di e d

Lov e

97

once again being played, but usually much more softly and at a slower pace than earlier during the praise singing. One observes bodily phenomena again at this point in the service, with people praying with arms and hands raised, others laughing and weeping, speaking in tongues, groaning and jerking, falling to the floor, or simply lying down. At Virginia Beach, Arnott once again led with a time of prayer and healing. He regularly repeated phrases like “breathe in the Spirit,” “breathe Him in,” or simply “breathe.” One of our observations is the exaggerated expression of blowing on people, or the subtle waving of hands to convey the sense of moving air. The movement of air is a meaningful bodily expression that connects bodily breathing and movement. The movement of air or breath depicts Spirit, which, as mentioned in Chapter 3, is etymologically related to the movement of air, wind, and breath. Charismatic Christians emphasize the role of the Spirit in mediating the Father’s love and spiritual empowerment, especially in the context of ecstatic or embodied worship and prayer. Dance is an important part of charismatic worship. Participants move to the front, sides and rear of the church or auditorium and move about by jumping, waving, and dancing around. Those who remain in their seats can be observed tapping their feet, swaying to the music, often with raised arms. Chris Shilling (2005) refers to the idea of “musical bodies” to highlight the relationship between music and bodies, which experience attunement and entrainment. Sociologist Bryan Turner’s (1996) discussion of bodies in motion argued that dance is the conduit of aura and the root of charisma and that the rhythmic movement of the body has positive effects of psychoanalytic and physical healing. The rhythmic movement of the body has a cathartic effect for the performers and audience. Turner made a distinction between popular modes of dance and formal ones: the former a radical reflection on social tradition and oppositional in style, often seen as involving the democratization process of a social system and critical of the conservative; the latter the expression of conservative processes and elite assumptions. In the United States dance is a symbol of youthfulness and strong bodies, emphasizing the emotional and creative over the rational, and experience over cognition. For Turner, the body must be observed in process, as becoming, as it shapes individual self-identity for which the body in motion resists any form of mechanical reproduction. When people

98

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

freely dance together as in the religious gatherings of the charismatic renewal, the corporate group is also in process of becoming in a way that shapes group identity and solidarity. For CTF, this identity is expressed as “sons and daughters” whom the Father loves, willing to dance with abandon. Much has been made about glossolalia or “speaking in tongues” in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity. Glossolalia is a technical term that refers to the ecstatic practice of non-semantic verbal or vocal utterances that occur in the context of sacred space or in private prayer. Participants, however, prefer to use the biblical terminology of speaking in tongues. The contemporary practice of speaking in tongues goes back to the Pentecostal movement of the early twentieth century, when Pentecostals linked the practice to the theological framework of baptism in the Spirit as depicted in Acts 2, although the practice of glossolalia can be seen in the revivalist tradition in America and mystical Christianity in general (Chan, 1998, 1999; McClymond, 2004; Suurmond, 1994). While the phenomenology of tongues in the older Pentecostal traditions and the charismatic renewal is similar, the meaning ascribed to the practice differs. For classical Pentecostals, speaking in tongues was linked to the baptism in the Spirit and was understood as empowerment for ministry and service. How the link is articulated varies, but generally classical Pentecostals agree that speaking in tongues is a physical or phenomenological indicator, sometimes described as “sign,” “evidence,” “Bible evidence,” or “initial evidence” that one has indeed been baptized in or filled with the Spirit. The charismatic renewal, however, has been hesitant to make this type of connection and instead prefers to speak of glossolalia as a form of prayer language, a groaning in the Spirit, in which the Spirit of God moves in and through the person. These two positions are not antithetical, but are contextualized according to the particular religious community. A number of scholars have attempted to understand the practice of speaking in tongues from theological and social scientific perspectives (see Cartledge, 2006). Attempts have been made to understand the practice theologically as an eschatological foretaste of the kingdom of God and as sacramental or sacred encounter through which the Spirit of God grasps the tongues-speaker (Althouse, 2003; Macchia, 2006); as ritual play between Word and Spirit (Suurmond, 1994; Vondey, 2010); and as

Embo di e d

Lov e

99

the intimation of a reality created through tongues speech in speech-act theory (Hilborn, 2006; Smith, 2006, 2010). Other attempts have been made to understand the role and nature of tongues as a form of prayer (Poloma, 2006a). Csordas (1990, 2002) argued that glossolalia is a form of embodied voice that ruptures the world of meaning, thereby opening up the possibility for cultural change and new structural systems. Glossolalia is also a form of resistance to the conventions of speech and propriety (Smith, 2006). Richard Baer (1976) makes an insightful argument that glossolalia functions in a way similar to Catholic liturgy and Quaker silence in that all three are non-cognitive ritual practices. In the moment of glossolalic utterance, the analytical mind is allowed to rest and the emotional elements of the mind and body are engaged in expressing praise, sorrow, lament, intercession, petition, and joy. For Baer, glossolalia is a moment of mystical contemplation (see Chan, 1999). At a Healing and Impartation conference in Orlando, Florida, Global Awakening leaders explained that “words of knowledge” that are received in the body (to be imparted to those people in need of bodily healing, for example) are often experienced in the body as pain or sensory experience. Randy Clark’s School of Healing and Impartation Workbook (2004) also testifies that a word of knowledge for healing (sometimes called revelations) may come to a person as sensation. Receiving a word of knowledge may be felt, seen, read (in the mind), thought, spontaneously said, or dreamt. A recipient may feel a sharp pain in the body, or a throbbing sensation, or a strong emotion such as panic or fear that indicates divine communication for the impartation of healing to another person, or as a vision. The workbook identifies different kinds of words of knowledge. For example, a recipient may experience the “word of knowledge” as a mental picture, as a body part such as hand, foot or eye, a limp, or eyeglasses that indicates God wants to heal a person in that part of the body. In the “mind’s eye” one may read a word across the front or back of another person, on the wall or carpet. A mental impression may come to the mind as a spontaneous thought. A person may say something unpremeditated to another person while talking or in prayer. A word of knowledge may come in a dream indicating a health issue. Or a person may experience a word of knowledge as a vivid vision, similar to a 3-D Technicolor movie. Words of knowledge are then to be “released” or “activated” for the healing of others.

100

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

At the end of the teaching session, Tom Jones, the Executive Director of Global Awakening, had a time of “activation” when the congregation worshipped corporately. After about two or three minutes of quiet prayer, Jones asked people who believed they had received a word of knowledge to come to the front. About twenty to thirty people came forward; each was allowed a brief time to state the revelation received, and, once it was spoken, anyone who believed the revelation was for him or her was invited to stand. The words of knowledge varied from tingling in the head or pain in the foot, heart area, or back of the neck to a vision of a golf club swinging, and so on. The leader had a moment of prayer for the congregation and then asked those who had 80–100 percent relief for pain or injury to move the area of the body that was injured or ill, to wave their hands over their heads, and to indicate healing by slowly clapping fifteen times. He then had a second time of prayer, called out words of knowledge for healing he believed God was about to perform, and repeated the process of having people move their bodies and clap their hands if healed. Finally, he stated, “We release you to do this and to ‘press in’ for healing,” reasoning that the experience of faith inspired more faith. Where glossolalia is viewed as divine communication for the edification of the self within the charismatic renewal, prophecy is divine communication for the building up of another person. Like tongues, prophecy is a form of prayer. “Simply stated, prophetic prayer is hearing from God, and on occasion, speaking forth God’s message to others and/or receiving a prophetic message from another believer” (Poloma, 2009: 56). Seldom, if ever, is prophecy understood as predictive communication in the sense of foretelling the future. Prophecy or revelations in charismatic renewal are understood as hearing from God and often involve mental imaging. Both prophecy and revelations are believed to be forms of divine communication in the charismatic renewal. Prophecy is intimately connected to other charismatic gifts, such as revelation, words of knowledge, and impartation of anointing. At a conference on the Father’s Love at CTF Houston we observed the pastors being anointed with oil. However, instead of a little dab of olive oil being used to anoint the pastors for ministry, an entire bottle of oil was dumped on the husband and wife, who collapsed to the floor (a dramatic image and ritual of resting in the Spirit or

Embo die d

Lov e

101

soaking prayer). At the end of the service, the guest speaker, who is considered gifted in “prophetic ministry,” called people to the sides of the church. As he prayed for their anointing, they fell to the floor and rested in the Spirit. On the following day the congregation was asked to come for prayers of anointing. Four different lines were formed and the ministers used an empty bottle of olive oil fancifully decorated with colorful tassels, and pretended to pour the oil over the petitioner, imitating what had been done the night before. Volunteers were also employed to catch those who would fall down.2 CTF is known for its ecstatic phenomenon and behavioral expression. Shouting, laughing, crying, bodily movements such as tics and jerks, rolling, and falling have all been reported from the beginning of the outpouring in the early 1990s. The most controversial practice and the reason for Toronto’s separation from John Wimber and the Association of Vineyard Churches were the animal behaviors and noises observed in the revival. These behaviors are an example of embodied prophecy or what Poloma (2003) considers prophetic mime. While attending the Toronto church in October 2009 we observed the continuation of these behaviors, including participants who clucked like chickens and the occasional roar or spontaneous verbal gestures. Even drunkenness in the Spirit, when, as described in Chapter 3, a participant acts as if inebriated, is a form of embodied prophecy because the bodily practice depicts the celebration and overwhelming presence of the Father’s love. According to John Arnott (2008), these animal behaviors and noises are manifestations of prophetic symbolism. In reference to the behavior of his wife, Carol, who at one point in a worship service was flapping her arms like an eagle, Arnott (37–38) said, “She had experienced an incredible waking vision. From an aerial viewpoint, soaring with the Spirit, she saw a crow hovering over Europe and fire coming out of the crow engulfing England and moving across the English Channel to spread into the surrounding European nations.” A worship leader named Liz would occasionally crow like a rooster. When Arnott asked her why she was crowing, Liz indicated that the Lord was saying, “Church, it’s time to wake up!” On another occasion, a man named Gideon, who was a leader in a Christian community, roared like a lion. When Arnott had him speak in the church the man began to roar like a lion and lunged toward the front row of the church. When

102

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

Arnott asked Gideon what was happening, the man responded, “Do you know, for thousands of years my Chinese people have been absolutely destroyed by the power of the dragon. But now the Lion of the tribe of Judah is going to crush him” (50–51). Arnott writes, “When God speaks He often speaks in the language of dreams and visions, symbols and mysteries. When you think about it, all language is rooted in symbolism. If I were to say to you the word ‘car’ you would immediately picture something in your mind. . . . Pictures and languages are closely related. . . . [Even Scripture makes] use of imagery, typology and symbolism to convey the deep spiritual truths and to foreshadow future events” (42). The unusual bodily behaviors are understood to be symbolic prophecy, a bodily depiction of God’s message for the day and usually meaningful for the person experiencing the phenomenon in the context of the charismatic community.

Soaking Prayer and the Embodiment of Love Soaking prayer, as we have observed, is practiced in churches, conferences, seminars, and people’s homes, with a common structure. As people come together they socialize and talk about the concerns of the day or needs they might have. Gathering together for prayer is a time to develop personal relationships among those who pray. At a predetermined time the group begins. The lights are turned down and in some cases candles are lit. Pillows and blankets appear and people find a place to lie down in order to soak, usually on the floor, or on a number of chairs lined up together, or on couches. Music is an important component to the practice of soaking prayer. Most participants play soaking prayer music on CDs as they pray, or at a larger event or soaking school there will be musicians playing in the background, quietly, usually on an electronic keyboard or acoustic guitar. The music usually progresses through a series of slow, melodic sounds that helps the participants to center and calm the body. The use of music is distinct from earlier forms of contemplative prayer characterized by silence. We have heard some people (usually musicians) who soak in silence, but more often music is used to help center the self. One participant, whose parents were music ministers in the church, described it as follows: “I found that our culture is so busy

Embo die d

Lov e

103

that I think soaking is really relevant in our particular culture because I think people have a hard time settling down and relaxing and emptying. I guess it’s not really emptying but it’s centering. I think people have a hard time with that. And I think at first I really relied on the music a lot. Like certain kinds of music that would help me to focus. Now most often I soak in silence” (P13). Those who produce soaking music often describe it as a prophetic practice where the musicians speak or sing what they claim to be a “word from God.” Soaking prayer will take about an hour or longer, after which the group will come together again to share what they have experienced with each other. We have heard examples where one person in the group will share a prophetic word for another person in the group. In some cases participants are encouraged to follow through or take action on what they believe God was saying to them. For example, in one situation, a group member shared the feeling that God wanted her to respond to a need in her community. After sharing with the group, this person was encouraged to take action. While people pray together their bodies are involved in the process in subtle ways. For the most part, people praying together will lie still or roll to one side in order to relieve the pressure of staying in one position too long. We observed a husband and wife holding each other closely while they prayed. On another occasion we observed a mother, father, and child praying together as they embraced. Showing care through embrace is an important practice among participants of soaking prayer. Sometimes crying can be heard as people claim to experience a profound love of the Father or to be healed of past hurts, disruptions in relationships, and emotional pain. At other times, participants would laugh softly, which sometimes would ripple through the room. Soaking prayer allows people to engage the sacred and cultivate the charismatic gifts. We have identified a number of bodily experiences that indicate the spiritual significance of soaking for charismatics, such as resting, breathing, groaning, weight or pressure, smell, dreams and visions, heat (often associated with healing), and love, which we discuss here. Rest refers to the physical act of lying down and making oneself comfortable with a pillow and blanket. Soaking music facilitates the goal of resting, as do dimming the lights and lighting candles. Some people find that resting leads to sleeping, and on more than

104

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

one occasion we heard people snoring. Resting is sometimes linked with the idea of Sabbath, a Judaeo-Christian practice based upon the Genesis creation account, where God rested after creating, or the command of Moses to keep the Sabbath holy. As one participant said, “I think soaking is more like the Sabbath, you take every single day. I mean in the Old Testament, you get six days of work and one day of rest, but we don’t [do] that now. On Sunday people are so busy in their work, people go to church and then after church they do all these things. But then I feel like what God wants us to do is have a time of rest every single day” (P48). Here you get the sense that resting is not just limited to a day of the week but is an important spiritual practice that is incorporated into the daily life of charismatics. Rest becomes the first step of preparation for listening and receiving. Related to rest is the practice of breathing, with its rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, the in and out process of physical air moving through the body. Breathing is often associated with de-stressing and relaxation. In our observations and interviews this is what we most often heard as people described their bodies slowing down and their breathing becoming more regulated.3 Participants’ exhalation would deepen and come from the diaphragm, and at times there would be sounds of deep sighs that signaled contentment and relaxation in their bodies. Music facilitates a controlled breathing pattern, especially with soaking songs such as Julie True’s “Breathe You In.” The song speaks about being soaked by the Holy Spirit and conveys the practice of resting and continuing in the presence of God as worshippers allow the Holy Spirit to soak into every cell of their being. This and other soaking songs, such as Kelley Warren’s “Breathe on Me, Breath of God,” reinforce the regulation and experience of breathing in the practice of soaking, allowing the participant to “receive the Father’s love.” The repetition of “mmmm” and “oooooo” throughout True’s song and the raspy, breathing sound of Warren’s, within the context of the musical rhythms and movement of air through the body, appears to allow the participant to slow down breathing and relax muscular energy. One young woman relayed a vision she experienced while soaking in prayer. As she was praying she related to us how she was being drawn deeper into the Father’s love but began to get pan-

Embo die d

Lov e

105

icky and could not breathe. She said, “then I realized how deep I was and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.” But then her perception began to change and she felt more comforted. “When I was—you know, lying on my back on the sofa and I was just so paralyzed. And, I felt my chest was breathing in and out. And I know that He [God] was giving me the breath” (P59). Another person commented, “I tend to just breathe in prayer, like I automatically pray” (P100). Religion scholar Cleo McNelly Kearns (2005) discusses the relationship between breathing, spiritual discipline, and the body. Employing the work of Luce Irigarary, Kearns develops insights for understanding charismatic prayer. Kearns reviews the role of breathing in the spiritual practices of yoga and the Western philosophical religions and argues that focus on respiration and diverse kinds of breathing supports resistance to the emphasis on the mind in the West by giving attention to the body and its senses. She argues that spirituality or religion that focuses solely on speech, without breathing and silence, disrespects lived life. Her work hints at a theoretical framework for embodied prayer in which breath, rest, silences, and pauses form the rhythms of speech. According to Kearns, breathing has an important impact on speech and prayer in the following ways: “(1) that speech should be organically related to but may in fact be divorced from or counterproductive of breath and silence; (2) that a more flexible way of breathing—and hence speaking and praying— may be cultivated, even to the point of spiritual transformation; and (3) that breath itself and the kinds of religious discipline related to it are situated in the body and may hence be, at least in some of its manifestations, gendered” (104–5). The rhythms of speech can be constructed so that breathing and silence are supported by or separated from, embodied experience. When speech becomes forced, organic breathing becomes gasping for the next breath or an anxious pause at the end of breath’s exhalation. Improper breathing in speech can constrain the torso, create laxness, and loosen body posture so that the body’s core is weakened. The relationship between prayer and breathing can affect health: positively, in that proper breathing can support mental clarity and enhance communication; negatively, in that improper breathing can detract from good speaking techniques. Prayer that cultivates proper breathing patterns supports the breathing patterns needed in speech.

106

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

Breathing has been cultivated historically as an aspect in the spiritual practice of prayer. The theologian Kallistos Ware (1997: 102–8) writes about the body and the role of symbolic action in religion: sign of the cross, genuflecting, prostrations; abstinence and mortification; washing in Baptism and eating in Eucharist; anointing the body with oil—forehead, eyes, nostrils, lips, ears, breasts, hands and feet for healing and forgiveness; laying on of hands at ordinations and confession; at funerals when kissing the body; marriage; rhythmic prayer and body posture. Charismatics likewise anoint with oil, move in rhythmic fashion in worship and prayer, but they also wave their hands and blow through their mouths to imitate the Spirit; they lay hands on others to impart the gifts, and hug each other to express their love in a more intimate way than a handshake. Especially interesting though, is the role of breathing and posture in prayer. According to Ware (105–6) the physical method of Hesychasts’ prayer or the Jesus Prayer often involves different forms of breathing: “The breathing is regulated; its rhythm is slowed down and at the same time coordinated with the words of the Jesus Prayer. In modern Orthodox practice it is common to say the opening words of the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’, while breathing in, and the remainder—often with the word ‘a sinner’ added at the end—while breathing out.” Through the pattern of breathing one explores the inner self in the prayer of the heart. Heart is thought of in both a bodily and metaphorical sense. Ware (107) states, “According to Nicephorus, he is to picture his breath entering through the nostrils and then passing down within the lungs until it reaches the heart; at the same time he is to make his nous or intellect descend with the breath, so that intellect and heart are united.” The difference between historic Christianity and CTF is that the former regulates the use of breathing in prayer, whereas the latter prizes spontaneity and surprise; yet in both cases the role of breathing is important. Groaning or moaning (also a kind of breathing) is often heard during charismatic prayer with comparable sounds to making love, childbirth, longing, or desire. Some people are physically positioned on the floor, which supports the comparisons with childbirth or lovemaking. No one appears to be uncomfortable with the sounds, and some will say out loud phrases like “yes Lord” or “more Lord” along with other sounds of “ooh” and “ah.” Bodies will remain still or shake

Embo die d

Lov e

107

or tremble in a spasmic fashion. Some people will laugh, or you may even hear gentle crying. It is not always the entire group groaning or moaning but usually one or two people, while others may be resting, sleeping, or simply remaining still and quiet. The groaning is often associated with Romans 8, where Paul spoke about the Spirit interceding on behalf of those in need. One participant said, in a way that is suggestive of gestation and birth, “I remember I went into a season of eight months of really a groaning in me for just more, and more, and then suddenly bam I got hit with a fresh anointing, and revival started breaking out. So I’m in a place of hunger, desperation, and borderline depression just wanting more of God” (P97). This also suggests a disinhibiting quality about soaking prayer. Weight or pressure is another experience regularly described by people who soak. It is often talked about as a heavy weight felt on the body, especially in the chest. Some have spoken of the presence of God as an entombing experience during which they were unable to move. People will lie on the floor for several hours and say they were unable to get up because of the great weight upon them. Some have explained it as God laying hands on the person. “Laying on of hands” between people is thought to be an act of transferring the anointing or power of God from someone who is especially empowered by God to another person. In soaking prayer it is God who, metaphorically speaking, lays hands on the person praying, bypassing any other person. One participant said, “So I mean the weight part, I feel, the Bible talks about God’s glory as a weight of glory. I feel it’s perfectly fine for God to show up in that way, you know, when somebody lays his hands on you, he’s putting weight on you. And when the Almighty God, the Father God, He’s probably so huge, when He lays His hands on you, you’re gonna feel a little bit of weight and His hand is probably bigger than your whole body. When we lay hands on people, we feel a weight and we feel a touch and then we feel love.” (P48) Smell or olfaction, the physical experience of sensing the perfume of flowers, fruit, or some other enjoyable odor, is another experience reported during soaking prayer. It is not that common, but in some of our interviews people spoke of sensing a specific odor of some kind during prayer. In many cases it was usually something described as enjoyable, or if it was an unpleasant smell it was interpreted with some tension, often signaling a call to spiritual warfare prayer. Smelling

108

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

perfume or flowers was the more common experience while engaging in soaking prayer. In this case, the smell was identified as the presence of the Lord: “I’ve smelled different smells. In fact, I’ve had the experience where I woke up in the night. And I was smelling, you know, the presence of the Lord. It was strong enough to wake me up. So, I went, wow, you’re here, Lord. And then, I turned over and suddenly I could smell it again” (P63). Dreams and visions are another kind of experience that illustrates how charismatic Christianity is embodied. The key text for dreams and visions among charismatics is based in Acts 2 and is thought to be the confirmation of the prophecy given in Joel 2:28: “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17). Dreams and visions are not understood metaphorically in the renewal as, for instance, hopes and plans for the future, but as embodied experiences that involve mental impressions or pictures. Dreams are the normal process of experiencing sleep, but according to charismatics, dreams are occasionally special moments when God communicates to the believer. Visions are similar to dreams, but they occur during waking hours as spontaneous mental impressions or images. As one participant said, “It’s just one of those mysterious things that happens. You can’t really explain—I try to come up with words to explain the visions, but ‘they is what they is.’ It’s an encounter with somebody invisible, but it’s not really invisible anymore because you’re in that realm where He is” (P10). Often visions are described as visual and colorful. As one person said, “and in my vision, it was just all these colors and shapes and like what you’d picture in some ’70s psychedelic movie or whatever” (P57). Anthropologist André Droogers (1994) argues that the experiences of dreams and visions, healing, and prophecy in Pentecostalism represent a resistance to the mind-body dualism prominent in modernism.4 Charismatics, argues Droogers, oppose any kind of polarity such as the priority of reason over emotion, the profane over the sacred, or the mind over body. Instead charismatics seek a rehabilitation of the individual, the body, the sacred, and the emotions that is more holistic and integrated. Experiencing dreams and visions then allows for wholeness as the emotions are validated and prized alongside reason. This argument would make sense from the right-left brain teaching of charismatic Mark Virkler in Hearing God’s

Embo die d

Lov e

109

Voice Seminar Workbook (n.d.) and its role in hearing from God. The emphasis on the right brain accents the imaginative and creative elements in the human person and resists the rationalizing straitjacket of the “performance” orientation in culture (see Poloma, 2003). Dreams and visions have taken on a more therapeutic interpretation in the twentieth century, which is in some ways appropriated by charismatics. John A. Sanford (1978), an Episcopal priest with ties to the mainline charismatic movement, who later became a Jungian therapist, interpreted dreams as both spiritual and psychological. Dreams are rooted in natural life but reflect the divine through the image of God that resides in the human. For Sanford, God is the inner source and energy of life, and dreams link humans indirectly to this source of life. Sanford states, “The experience of God, psychologically speaking, is the experience of the depth, the height, and the unity of our own psyche. The search for God is the search for the depth and height of our own being, for the complete Christ-like being who is waiting within us to be consciously realized and expressed in our human relationships” (183). In other words, through dreams and visions people are indirectly touched by the divine energy within, which is the divine source of life. The feeling of heat, tingling, or electricity in the body is another experience talked about among charismatics. One of the soaking prayer coordinators in the United States explained, “It just feels like electricity, like you just put your finger into a plug and you encounter God’s raw power. You just feel like raw electricity because there’s no way my body could shake like that in the natural, and like I said, I’ve tried” (P1). Another person described the sensation as follows: “Sometimes there’s shaking, but there’s this electricity that is—or heat, that just is powerful. And I’ve had two healings. I think I may have mentioned this to you. Personally, I’ve had two healings during soaking” (P56). In some cases the sensation of heat, tingling, or electricity signifies the presence of God. Another common experience is spontaneous laughter that can be heard among charismatics. Sometimes it begins with just one person and then it comes to spread like a wave across the group. Laughter is associated with happiness, joy, and having fun. One person said, “And I’m just out on the floor laughing hysterically and I don’t really know why I was laughing. I was just laughing hysterically” (P40). A

110

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

man in Florida who teaches physics and considers himself very analytical began to laugh when he was prayed for. He said, “I just started laughing, like flat out, all out laughing. And I couldn’t stop. I tried to stop, and I laughed harder, to the point, like the next day my stomach hurt I’d laughed so loud. And it was uncontrollable. Then, I’m like I need to stop laughing, and I was just laughing louder” (P61). Love is the central experience claimed by charismatics that captures all of the experiences described above. The embodiment of love is the defining quality of soaking prayer; charismatics talk about it as a baptism of love, a love revolution, or a river of love. One interviewee said, “I had a vision one time at home where I actually felt like I experienced the Father’s love for the first time. I actually experienced Him as my Father, that He truly loved me as a daughter. And that was amazing. That just gave me a new perspective of God” (P17). The sense that one is loved by a higher power, a greater love, by the heavenly Father, is empowering, enriching, and enlivening for charismatics. It fills them with a sense of wholeness, peace, and acceptance, and it shapes their identity. It is also described as a love that is not just experienced by the individual; often people talk about feeling a greater love for other people. Over and over we heard similar comments to this one: “I don’t know anybody that has received deeply of the Father’s love that hasn’t in some remarkable way or some very obviously new and different way found a way to love those people around them” (P53). Experiencing the Father’s love and reciprocating that love is important in the practice of soaking prayer. As one soaking prayer coordinator said, “But even with your friends, sometimes just being with [them]—me sitting with my wife and we might not be even saying something but we’re in each other’s presence . . . I guess we find that the company you keep has an effect on the way you are as a person, and hopefully, as we keep company with the Lord, as we try to get into his presence, that we’ll become more like Him” (P123). At the same time, soaking prayer is claimed to be a way to cultivate the spiritual discipline of hearing God and discerning what God is saying through the “ears and eyes of faith.” Hearing, say charismatics, is more than the physical act of hearing with the ears; it is a way of knowing God and being guided by the Spirit. John Arnott, Marguerite Evans, and others have repeatedly spo-

Embo die d

Lov e

111

ken of the influence Mark Virkler had on their understanding of prayer and hearing from God (see Hearing God’s Voice Seminar Workbook, n.d). Virkler identified four keys for hearing the voice of God: 1) Recognizing God’s voice as spontaneous thoughts that light upon your mind. These thoughts can be in the form of ideas, words, feeling, or visions/pictures. 2) Quieting yourself so that you can hear God’s voice. Quieting the mind is a way to focus one’s heart attentively on God. 3) Looking for a vision as you pray. Part of Virkler’s teaching is that “hearing God” is a spontaneous thought that can come to the mind as a picture or vision. 4) Writing down your prayers and God’s answers in order to see what prophetic words God has for you and for others. Moreover, the act of hearing God’s voice is described as flow. Flow is the spontaneous, creative, and free flow of thoughts that are not cognitive but emotional. Virkler’s teaching allows charismatics to explain spontaneous mental and bodily activity.5 Hearing God’s voice and experiencing mental images or pictures are common occurrences for people who practice soaking prayer. One west coast participant commented, “when you’re just on the ground, surrendered to Him and you just feel His presence, and you just—like in this place of a deeper peace than you’ve ever felt before. And you just hear those words, I love you, I accept you, I choose you” (P51). A Christian counselor in Florida explained that hearing God’s voice was part of an emotional healing process. “And this was a step, a part of my own healing journey of learning to relax and to hear God speak. That He would speak in such a manner, that it would be very personal, and I found that initially He would simply say the same thing over and over, ‘I love you,’ and He would say it until I got it” (P22). Hearing God’s voice is also believed to be a conduit to speak love into the lives of others. As one person said, “This also translates into the—sort of the prophetic training route—how to hear God’s voice, because hearing God’s voice, it’s inward and it’s outward. Prophetic is where it’s kind of outward” (P46). One of the leaders of the renewal commented, “So for us, the people that are the deepest—the ones who encounter God the deepest are the ones that have the most profound impact on loving people but also on delivering people. They hear— they’re so accustomed to the voice of the Lord . . .” (P121). When asked what impact soaking prayer had, a woman from Washington

112

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

explained, “Well intimacy, hearing God’s voice and through that being able to hear God’s voice for others. Being able to prophesy over others. Being able to hear what God is saying for someone else maybe is one of the impacts. I think that prophecy was a gift I had that I never knew and it really didn’t start to emerge until after that experience that I talked about in the Bible study and through soaking prayer has sort of sharpened it” (P13). Soaking prayer, then, is an embodied spiritual practice in which the charismatic Christian experiences love by gazing upward to the source of unlimited love. The reception of love is experienced bodily as sensations, deepened breathing, groans, laughing, sounds, smell, or the feeling of weight. Speaking in tongues, prophecy, dreams, visions, and hearing God are also embodiments of love that motivate the charismatic Christian to share this love with others. Claims of bodily and/or emotional healing are the most dramatic examples of the embodiment of love, where love is experienced as wholeness. Receiving love through an upward gaze to the divine, it is claimed, is a precursor to its release and outward focus.

FIVE Apostolic Authority and Gender

Tell us by what authority you are doing these things, they said. Who gave you this authority? —Luke 20:2 NIV

A t a n A d v a n ci n g t h e Ki n g d o m s e m i n ar held in Vancouver in 2009, John Arnott spoke about the anointing as an especially important form of authority. Distinguished from the more general idea of blessing, that God has good gifts for all believers, is the more specialized blessing or anointing that may “fall upon” or be passed on to some individuals for the exercise of spiritual gifts, preaching, healing, or any other miraculous ministry needed to advance God’s kingdom. Referring to Luke 10, Arnott spoke about the authority that Jesus gave his disciples to follow in his footsteps. “Jesus has given you power and authority to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Just as his disciples were given authority and were sent out under an anointing, God wants to do the same today.” Arnott went on to talk about the relationship between authority, anointing, and the kingdom of God, saying, “The kingdom of God is near. It’s a simple message. Tell people the kingdom of Heaven is within your reach. Take hold of it. Jesus says, behold, I give you authority.” Arnott acknowledged that Jesus gave his disciples authority to cast out demons, but thought that too many Christians were preoccupied with demonic forces and instead ought to rejoice in God’s work, not that demons can be exorcised. “Be filled with the Holy Spirit,” admonished Arnott. “Rejoice in the Spirit. Pray ‘More, Lord, more.’” He went on to talk about how God has a ministry for everyone to spread the

114

C A TC H

T HE

F I RE

Gospel all over the world. Just as the early church grew under God’s anointing, the church today, when rooted and grounded in love, will advance and no other authority will stop it. The early disciples were called “little Christs” meaning “little anointed ones,” preached Arnott. The love of God fueled the early church. He then went on to talk about the mission work of CTF in Africa, Latin America, India, and Indonesia, and how he longed to be part of God’s work throughout the world. Arnott also made an important connection between authority, anointing, and love. He spoke about the anointing of God as a “liquid love” that flows into sickness, blindness, deafness, and death; it is a love that breaks every stronghold. He talked about how the plan of God is to use ordinary people and that the day of the superstar was over. “You,” he said, “you who believe in me [God], the works I do, you will do with the anointing.” The key to this anointing is found through prayer. “Breathe in the Holy Spirit. Let his presence come. We choose the anointing through the Holy Spirit.” After his sermon, Arnott spent the next two hours praying for people to be healed, followed by prayer for anointing through “impartation.” Impartation refers to the practice of passing on or releasing blessing, anointing, and authority from one person to another. During this part of the ritual he asked all those who wanted prayer for authority to advance God’s kingdom to line up in the auditorium. People stood in lines of about fifteen to twenty people and about ten rows deep. He asked that there would be sufficient space between the rows for him and the other leaders to pray for each person. The spacing also gave room for people who “fell” under the anointing of God to “soak” in God’s presence without being disturbed. As Arnott worked his way through the lines you could hear prayers offered with words like “more Lord” or “let your anointing come” and “Kingdom of God come, will of God be done.” Sometimes when he or others on his ministry team prayed, you could hear a “whooshing” sound or other sounds meant to signify the transference or impartation of blessing and anointing to the person being prayed for. Many fell to the ground while those around gently caught them and softly presented them onto the floor, where they stayed, soaking in God’s presence. The sermon on anointing and authority, the prayer for healing, and the impartation prayer, all point to a particular charismatic spirituality in

Ap osto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

115

operation. The references to the kingdom of God and the message of love, along with the anointing, described as liquid love, highlight the form charismatic Christianity takes as it spreads its message of love outwardly throughout the world. Charismatics practice, express, release, and understand authority in numerous ways. Authority is often referenced as the authority of scripture, the anointing, the ability to perform miracles such as healing, to exorcise demonic forces or do battle in a spiritual realm, to pray with authority and receive an answer, the loss of authority for the devil and demonic forces, the authority of the kingdom of God, God as the ultimate source of authority, that everything is under God’s authority, the impartation of authority, and the role of apostolic authority. The relationship between blessing, anointing, and impartation, or the notion of passing on or releasing a charismatic gift either from God to an individual or from one person to another, is central for understanding charismatic notions of apostolic authority. Pentecostals and charismatics speak about the transference of the Spirit from Jesus to the community to theologically describe this process. As CTF has institutionalized, however, authority has shifted from a more egalitarian view of “the Spirit falling on all flesh” to favor men as apostles and to imbue the network with authority.

Charisma and Authority Max Weber’s (1978) sociological views of religion are tied up with his larger view of sociology and the concepts of action and authority, among many more ideas. Weber defined sociology as a science concerned with interpreting social action. By action he had in mind the subjective meaning offered by an acting individual. Action was social in that its subjective meaning took into account the behavior of others. Weber was not overly concerned with the accuracy or correctness attributed to the social action of actors themselves. What was sociologically interesting was the way in which people gave meaning to the events of the world. The role of sociology was to offer an interpretation that took seriously the subjective meaning of social action. Notwithstanding the challenges posed by one’s position as insider/ outsider, understanding human behavior required empathy, leading

116

C A TC H

TH E

F I RE

to understanding through observation and explanation. Interpretation meant giving attention to context, including historical, cultural, and motivational factors. Motive for Weber was linked to the subjective meaning offered by the individual for explaining social action. In other words, part of the sociological enterprise was to take seriously the reasons for which people did what they did and to understand how their social action shaped their religion. For Weber the modern world was also increasingly characterized by a shift toward rationalization that shaped social action—a rationally calculated means-end approach to life. This did not preclude other types of social action, shaped by values, emotion, or tradition. All social action was influenced by some sense of legitimacy, including its exercise of power or influence over people. Weber identified three types of authoritative social action: legal authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority. Weber’s notion of charismatic authority is of particular relevance for our work. Charisma, said Weber, is “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (1978: 241). Charisma is considered to be divine in origin and sufficiently capable of influencing followers. Charismatic authority, for Weber, rested not in the leader alone, but in the relationship between the leader and followers. As such, the relationship required some ongoing proof or sign of divine blessing to legitimate one’s authority. Charisma was also governed by the community and included a range of social relationships among its members. Charismatic authority was revolutionary in that it superseded other types of authority; it also had the capacity to shape other social forms, including economic behavior. Following Weber’s logic, we could say charisma is also subject to a process of routinization, whereby it is transformed. Weber assumed that the inherently unstable quality of charisma always leads to some form of institutionalization, one result being the shift in authority from the leader to the community. Weber was not overly optimistic about charisma as a type of authority. Weber advanced other important ideas, including a church-sect typology, which is based upon the assumption that otherworldliness and religious zeal are replaced by the demands of organization whereby charisma is routinized. The

Aposto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

117

topic of religion and rationalization or institutionalization is long studied among sociologists of religion and requires some comment as it relates to charismatic Christianity, institutionalization, and religious revitalization.1 In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber (1958) showed how religious beliefs shaped the economic behavior of Calvinists. Specifically, he showed how Calvinist views of calling, vocation, and work contributed to a work ethic that had the unintended consequence of increased capital. Unsure about what to do with the profits, Calvinists did not want to give them away. Appearing to be selfish through hoarding it for self was also not an option. However, one could reinvest the capital into factories, which in turn acted as a catalyst for the development of capitalism. Weber is clear that Protestants did not cause capitalism. Rather, he argued that there is an important relationship between religious beliefs and economic behavior. The inevitability of the rationalization process, however, means that capitalism comes to operate with its own rationale devoid of its Calvinist beliefs. The rationalization and institutionalization of the economic system operated in the modern world according to a new set of values. Weber was pessimistic about this process and believed the new economic system would become an iron cage for people living in the modern world. Hence, rationalization and institutionalization for Weber presented an impediment for religion generally, and specifically for the traditional role of charismatic leaders.2 Thomas O’Dea (1961) further developed the idea that institutionalization for religious organizations was characterized by a series of dilemmas. O’Dea argued that institutions both needed and suffered most from institutionalization. But the process also created other tensions. O’Dea identified five important tensions that leaders had to navigate. These included the following challenges. First, mixed motivation among the followers and leaders was thought to bring about compromise and weakened the organization. Second, religious organizations faced the dilemma of keeping the symbols alive so that the next generation would come to understand and experience what was important to the emerging movement. Third, religious movements faced the challenge of moving from relatively simple organizational principles to a more elaborate bureaucratic system, which might negatively impact motivation among followers. Fourth, religious groups

118

C A TC H

T HE

F I RE

faced the challenge of translating the general ethos into more concrete ethical principles, which could lead to forms of legalism or the tension between the “letter of the law” and the “spirit of the movement.” Finally, O’Dea elaborated on power and its consolidation within the organization and offices of leadership as a dilemma. Each of these dilemmas of institutionalization was understood to be both blessing and curse and required careful management among religious leaders. A host of sociologists have examined the implications of rationalization and institutionalization. For example, Andrew Greeley (1972: 82–83) recognized the dilemmas of institutionalization, but he refused to accept that because a religion is organized, it is not authentic or is simply a secular organization masked as a religious one. Churches, argued Greeley, can still maintain a level of experiential vitality despite the development of routinized structures. Institutionalization defines the problem or the dilemma but does not inexorably determine the direction of the response. The question of vitality is one that leaders of religious organizations must manage. Sociologists have taken up these issues and examined all kinds of subjects about church growth, decline, social change, and renewal, among other factors (see Kelley, 1972; Hoge and Roozen, 1979). The routinization of charisma has especially been a focus of Donald Miller (1997; 2005) in his assessment of John Wimber and the Vineyard Church. Miller focused on how the Vineyard Church faced a crisis with the death of Wimber and tensions with the Toronto Blessing, leading to the removal of the Toronto church from the Association of Vineyard Churches. And yet, argued Miller, the Vineyard continued to grow and expand largely, due in part to its ability to organize. Margaret Poloma explored institutional dilemmas in her studies of Pentecostals and charismatics, especially the tension between charisma and organization. Poloma’s work is insightful for understanding institutionalization as an impediment, generally, for religion, and specifically for altruistic action. Poloma (1989) explored the dilemmas of institutionalization in the Assemblies of God (AG), arguing that the AG suffered from the process. For example, she showed that there was a tension between Pentecostal beliefs and practices within the denomination whereby the experience of the Holy Spirit was impeded and important symbols were in danger of not communicating meaning anymore. Institutionalization for the AG, argued Poloma,

Ap o sto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

119

was an impediment to the experience of Pentecostal practices such as Spirit baptism. Poloma and Green (2010) reexamined these dilemmas of institutionalization and discovered that while many of them still existed, there were also signs of renewal, especially among those where loving God and loving others was the focus. Where institutionalization had detrimental effects on the AG, signs of revitalization, argued Poloma and Green, were supported by high levels of experiential love and its related outcome of benevolence. Notwithstanding the work of sociologists on charisma and authority, including a range of issues surrounding the institutionalization of charisma, charismatics have developed theological views about the role of authority, including a biblical justification. An important element of charismatic thought and experience is found in their belief that the authority of a charismatic Christian is based on the transferring of authority from Jesus to the believer through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Basically, what they believe is that the same Spirit that gave Jesus authority to heal, perform miracles, and cast out demons is given to them. The basis is found in the book of Acts, which is central to their understanding of “the Spirit-filled life.” For charismatics the role of prophecy is especially important. One of the regional soaking coordinators explained it this way: One of the things that the renewal has done is to activate and encourage the prophetic gifts with people. We’ve been encouraged to ‘look’ to see what the Lord will show or say. And I can personally say that I have learned to use this gift on a regular basis. I believe that it is the fulfillment of Joel, Chapter 2, and quoted in Acts 2, that says I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. . . . So in renewal, when the Holy Spirit is pouring out in a tangible way, it seems natural that there would be more prophecy, and words of wisdom, words of knowledge, etc.3

A strong current in the charismatic movement is the restorationist view that argues that Christianity in its current form is weak because it does not follow a biblical model (see Blumhofer, 1993; Wacker, 2003). From the very beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement restorationist ideas have surfaced, including spiritual gifts, healing, and speaking in tongues. The early Pentecostals faced severe criticism for

120

C A TC H

TH E

F I RE

their beliefs and practices and were usually critiqued from another point of view, the cessationist perspective (see Ruthven, 1990). Cessationists argued that the early Christians needed apostles, miracles, and spiritual gifts to launch the Christian movement, but once the church was started miracles and gifts ceased. They were no longer needed. The church was the instrument through which the Gospel would spread. Pentecostals, however, argued that the church was weak throughout history precisely because it lost the power of the Holy Spirit in its ministry. Restoring the modern church through renewal, revival, and the practice of spiritual gifts was necessary if Christianity was to accomplish its purposes. Positions were developed by Pentecostal-charismatic scholars to defend the views and practices, which have implications for understanding CTF and authority. For example, Pentecostal scholar Roger Stronstad (1984) published a book that articulated a classical Pentecostal basis for the view of Spirit baptism, speaking in tongues, and vocation in the Luke-Acts narrative. His work also launched a number of scholarly studies on the theological implications of Luke-Acts in which narrative is seen as an important genre for Pentecostals (Menzies, 1994; Mittelstadt, 2004; Penney, 1997; Wenk, 2000). Stronstad argued that Luke-Acts depicts the “transference of the Spirit” from Jesus to the disciples and the people of God as an empowerment for vocation and mission. Stronstad states, The Pentecost narrative is the story of the transfer of the charismatic Spirit from Jesus to the disciples. In other words, having become the exclusive bearer of the Holy Spirit at His baptism, Jesus becomes the giver of the Spirit at Pentecost. . . . By this transfer of the Spirit, the disciples become the heirs and successors to the earthly charismatic ministry of Jesus; that is, because Jesus has poured out the charismatic Spirit upon them the disciples will continue to do and teach those things which Jesus began to do and teach (Acts 1:1). [49]

The transfer of Spirit depicted in Luke-Acts was also a transfer of authority to the disciples, who give oversight to the apostolic church, so that when the disciples proclaimed the Gospel and performed miracles in Jesus’ name they were doing so with the authority of Jesus’ charisma.

Ap o sto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

121

In Prophethood of All Believers, Stronstad (1999) played on Luther’s notion of vocation found in the theology of the “priesthood of all believers” to argue that the church is bestowed with charisma and prophetic empowerment as vocation. With the Spirit’s work at Pentecost the disciples formed the continuing community of Spirit-filled prophets and therefore had the same kind of prophetic ministry as Jesus. Jesus, the Spirit-anointed prophet, empowered his disciples and the burgeoning church as “a community of Spirit-­baptized prophets, the prophethood of all believers” (66). As prophets, the disciples are charismatically empowered to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God. The implication of Stronstad’s work is that prophecy is the hallmark of the charismatic community, and prophetic utterance is authorized through the charisma of Jesus vis-à-vis the disciples or leaders of the community. The late theologian Clark Pinnock (1996) also highlighted the importance of Acts 2 as a motif for understanding the continuation of the charismatic and prophetic ministry of Jesus in the work of the charismatic church. He states, “At Pentecost the church received the Spirit and became the historical continuation of Jesus’ anointing as the Christ. . . . He transferred the Spirit to them so that his actions would continue through their agency. The bearer of the Spirit now baptizes others with the Spirit, that there might be continuation of his prophetic and charismatic ministry” (118). Pinnock also argued that the church was an extension of the anointing of Jesus, rather than the incarnation, which began with the Spirit empowering the relationship between the Father and Jesus in his baptism and then continued with the Spirit being poured out at Pentecost on the disciples and the people of God. The idea behind the “transference of Spirit” is captured in the language and practice of impartation and release as a form of authority among charismatics. It also has implications for incorporating women into the work of ministry in that both “sons and daughters” are included in the Spirit’s outpouring. Women, we have observed, are more active in the practice of soaking prayer generally, and prominent in leading soaking prayer groups. Yet the role of women in CTF is changing as it becomes more institutionalized, raising questions about the role of apostles and gender in charismatic Christianity. As

122

C A TC H

TH E

F I RE

charisma is institutionalized, there is also a shift in authority from the leader to the growing apostolic network.

Authority and Apostolic Networks Charismatic organizations like CTF, Global Awakening, and International House of Prayer have created structures that acknowledge the ministry of apostles. Global Awakening holds an annual conference called Voice of the Apostles that draws thousands of participants who come to hear the messages of recognized apostles from around the world. We attended a Voice of the Apostles conference in Baltimore in 2009 with keynote speakers such as Heidi Baker, John Arnott, Che Ahn, Bill Johnson, Georgian Banov, and Randy Clark. These individuals are not just recognized as prominent evangelical speakers on a speaking circuit. They are apostles, recognized by their followers as having a special, divine gift for “advancing the kingdom of God,” or as we heard one evening, launching a “love revolution.” An ordination service was held at the conference where prayers were offered and the anointing was imparted to those charged with carrying the Gospel to the world. Apostolic authority among charismatics is viewed something like the Roman Catholic Church’s notion of apostolic succession, except without the centralized hierarchy. The best way to conceive of apostolic authority among charismatics is to understand the role of networks. Network analysis is well developed within sociology, and there are some important ideas that further our understanding of CTF as a global religious network. Network research focuses on the links or ties between people, groups, and organizations, including the numerous flows of resources, friendships, and communication (Wellman and Berkowitz, 1988). Global networks are increasingly important as they stretch across traditional borders and boundaries, constituting a single community or transnational network. Peter Beyer (2006) has argued that one of the new forms religions take in global society is the network, requiring detailed analysis of how networks are structured and their culture. Peter Hocken (2009) observed that charismatics value contemporaneity, flexibility, and networking, as well as taking an interest in

Apo sto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

123

the restoration of apostolic and prophetic ministries. Their networks are based on relationships with peers who have apostolic oversight, rather than on formal authority, position, or title. Charismatic networks are highly functional, pragmatic, adaptive, and productive, organized around the mission of the apostolic groups. They adopt an entrepreneurial approach to ministry and engage in church planting as a means of expansion. The leader, who is recognized for apostolic authority and is usually the pastor of a megachurch, gives oversight to the network and congregations that emulate the flagship church. Networks are not governed by regulations, but they give local churches the opportunity to engage the network for resources. The main objective is the development of relationships between the various people involved, and this requires an awareness that the mission takes precedence over issues such as building programs or institutional systems. William Kay (2007) offered an in-depth analysis of apostolic networks including the Vineyard and the Toronto Blessing. Apostolic networks, he argued, rely on a restorationist view that believes the New Testament model of the church is the basis for the network. The restorationist view of apostleship, according to Kay, focuses on the following: apostles being restored to the church; the role of apostle as church planter and/or builder; apostleship as a foundational ministry established through Christ; apostles having a gift for developing relationships in order to bring spiritual unity; apostles holding a particular authority based in personal relationships rather than position or rank; apostles having the authority to appoint elders; apostles traveling within the network to ascertain strengths and weaknesses of relationships; and apostles working with prophets and other collaborators in the network (246). Two patterns of apostolic networks have arisen since the 1970s, according to Kay. One pattern started with the establishment of a large congregation, sometimes by merging a number of smaller congregations or through the charismatic transformation of a non-charismatic congregation. Once established, the network makes resources available for ministry activities beyond the local setting of the congregation. The second pattern is the unifying of numerous smaller groups into a single entity through itinerant ministry. These two patterns could be combined if the large congregation “released” its apostolic minister to conduct itinerant ministry for expanding the network.

124

C A TC H

TH E

F I RE

The structures were flat, rather than hierarchical, and were based in relationships. The elders of congregations formed relationships with the apostolic figure while transforming the congregational structure, which used democratic selection since apostles are not recognized as such by a vote. As networks grew, structural problems emerged and the apostle had to find new ways to bring elders and leaders together for teaching, direction, and encouragement. The answer to this dilemma was to hold annual meetings or conferences for leaders, to host conferences and seminars for congregations, and to put on special events for young people or women’s groups. Because the work of itinerant ministry is too much for one apostle, teams were formed to work with the apostle in ministry. Furthermore, decision-making occurred at two levels, with elders or leaders often following policy decisions at the local level while the apostolic team provided direction, resources, and training at an upper level, especially for overall vision and new projects that furthered the mission.4 Kay argued that typical sociological theories such as the churchsect typology or inclusive/exclusive denominationalism are problematic for understanding apostolic networks. He also thought that the emergence of apostolic networks reflected the broader cultural milieu, which since the 1960s has become increasingly postmodern. Religious organizations reflected social, political, and economic changes such as a decline in religious authority, the relaxation of social and moral norms, social expectations of dress code, increase in social mobility, diminution of class distinctions, technological advances, and relative prosperity. For Kay, these changes have contributed to the rise of apostolic networks. One could easily add that spirituality began to be prized over formal religious organization and dogmatism. In the economic sphere, there has been a shift from rational hierarchies to horizontal relationships and entrepreneurialism. This new style of business prizes process rather than taskoriented production, flat hierarchies, team management, customer satisfaction, rewards based on team rather than individual performance, maximal contacts with suppliers and customers, and continuous training of all employees. Networks are open in structure, dynamic, adaptable, able to integrate new nodes (connections with other organizations), innovative, and flexible without threatening the organization.5

Apo sto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

125

The organizational structure of CTF follows the pattern of the apostolic network. John Arnott, Steve Long, and Duncan Smith are considered the apostles who oversee the mission of the organization. Long pastors CTF Toronto and provides administrative oversight, while Smith oversees the U.S. wing of CTF from Raleigh, North Carolina. Arnott is an itinerant apostle who speaks at conferences around the world, working to expand the ministry through renewal, which also coincides with expanding the network of relationships. Expansion is occurring in the UK, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as locations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The leaders of CTF have formed relationships with other apostles, such as Randy Clark of Global Awakening, Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California, Che Ahn of H-Rock Church, and others. Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries is also a highly visible speaker, and she is heavily invested in mission work among the poor in Mozambique, but it is not altogether clear whether she is considered an apostle in the network. The relationships between these apostles allow for the sharing of resources, training programs (CTF, Iris Ministries, and Global Awakening recognize each other’s training programs for equipping pastors and leaders), and the expansion of the network of renewal that includes other charismatic organizations such as the Christian Broadcasting Network, Restoring the Foundations, and International House of Prayer. The emphasis on social relationships defined by the interaction of love creates highly intensive social clusters where the apostles and members of the teams represent nodes in the network for the renewal’s expansion. In this sense, authority is expressed through the network. Charismatic apostles are responsible for a wide range of activities, including the regular activities of overseeing a congregation or a global network. On occasion they are even called upon to discipline one another. One of the more controversial figures in the charismatic movement was Todd Bentley, a Canadian who became known for his unconventional methods during his Lakeland, Florida, meetings in 2008. Bentley would at times act in a bizarre manner while performing ministry or, as was soon discovered, exaggerated his conversion and other ministry accomplishments. Not too long into the meetings, it was reported that his relationship with his wife was failing. Bentley took some time away from ministry and then the meetings

126

C A TC H

TH E

F I RE

began to dwindle, as followers were once again disappointed with the failure of a prominent charismatic leader. Bentley was to come under the counsel of other apostles and work toward some form of healing and restoration. However, it became clear that Bentley was not going to return to the most prominent of networks where apostles such as Randy Clark and John Arnott carried some weight. While in Toronto in 2009 at a Partners in Harvest conference we heard John Arnott deliver a message one evening. Arnott regularly brings together the Partners in Harvest members from all over the world, although primarily from the United States, Canada, and the UK for teaching, mutual support, and prayer. Arnott preached a sermon called Honoring the Anointing, in which he spoke about the need to have integrity and how he was disturbed by the events of Lakeland. He spoke about the need for people to experience healing for issues of the heart and said that we can never sacrifice integrity for giftedness. He asked the question, “Do miracles justify the person? No.” Rather, the sign of a true apostle is love, which is “a character issue, of the heart.” He went on to reference 1 Corinthians 13, saying, “If we speak in tongues but have not love, it profits nothing. If you can move a mountain but have no love, it might be impressive but you don’t have love.” He argued that it is not a matter of either/or but both/and—“giftedness and love.” Arnott then moved on to Mark 6 and Luke 4 and spoke about Jesus, the prophet without honor. And yet, Jesus honored the anointing, the Spirit came upon him, and he proclaimed the good news: “The blind see, the poor are fed, the captive is set free.” Jesus was rejected, and those who rejected him needed to move out of legalism and into love. They needed to move out of dishonor and into honoring the anointing. “Honor the Holy Spirit,” said Arnott, “and you will release the blessing. Dishonor leads to unbelief and no miracles.” He went on to say, “Don’t seek after the flesh, but seek after the Spirit.” Arnott then had all those in attendance repeat after him: “I will honor the anointing on my own life because I am a Christian.” Finally, Arnott concluded (without direct reference to Bentley, but it was not difficult to hear his point), considering the way he began his sermon. “Honoring the anointing is not excusing sin which disqualifies one for ministry. You can be restored to God, but ministry may take some time.”

Aposto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

127

The Authority of Women The issue over women and apostolic authority is contentious in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity. Overall, the view of women, even among charismatics, who often speak of the “Spirit falling on all flesh, on men and women alike,” is highly problematic and quickly censured. This represents the “gender paradox” within Pentecostalism, which is both liberating and limiting (see Martin, 2001). In our initial observations of the organizational structure of soaking prayer, women had a prominent role, though this appears to be shifting. Soaking prayer was the inspiration of Carol Arnott, whose passion for prayer and experiencing the healing effects of the Father’s love evolved from “carpet time” when people would come to Toronto for renewal and “rest in the Spirit” to a social structure involving national and regional coordinators, local soaking leaders, and participants who soak worldwide. While Carol Arnott is a prominent teacher and promoter of soaking prayer, CTF has relied on a number of women to facilitate and spread the practice. June Bain was first appointed coordinator for all soaking prayer activities. She tells her story this way. Bain was living in Ottawa when in 2003 she received a phone call from John Arnott asking her to lead the soaking prayer ministry. Her first response was “No,” because she was content living in Ottawa. John continued to phone her, asking her to lead the ministry. She finally agreed to meet with John and Carol to talk about the new soaking prayer ministry, but she was not sure she wanted to do it. When they asked if she was open to pray about it, she knew as soon as they started praying that she was to lead it. CTF then began to promote soaking prayer through television and at conferences, telling people that if they were interested in leading a group, a new kit was being developed and to call the ministry. Bain followed up by calling people all across North America. She would talk to them about soaking prayer and explain that CTF was there to help. Bain developed relationships with many of the current leaders from these initial contacts. Eventually, Toronto decided to offer a soaking school in 2003 with five students. Worship leaders Jeremy and Connie Sinnot did the teaching and June prayed over people. “I was praying for the people. And those guys got really soaked because every session, I was just walking around

128

C A TC H

TH E

F I RE

like one, two, three, four, five—okay, let’s go back to one, trying to do them all, again. And so it was really exciting to see. The first school was five. The next school was twelve. And then the third school was the one in October at Catch the Fire. And there were about eighty people there.” The basic approach for those early soaking schools, according to Bain, was to teach the values: “Hearing God’s voice, intimacy with the Father, getting healed up, and then giving it away.” Bain spoke about prayer as the soul of the renewal. “It is very contemplative in a way that takes people deeper into that place of contemplation.” The charismatic renewal and soaking prayer also blurred denominational lines. Pentecostals, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Christian Reformed people all worshipped together. Bain was raised Scottish Presbyterian, attended a Pentecostal church before encountering the renewal in Toronto, and while living in Ottawa attended a Roman Catholic charismatic church. She believed that God directed her to the Catholic Church in those days despite her hesitation as a Protestant. In the early renewal, when everyone was soaking on the floor, there was no difference based on denomination; everyone was the same worshipping God together. The common experience of the Father’s love and being “stuck to the floor,” unable to get up, was an equalizing ritual that made no male-female or denominational distinctions. In a way similar to how glossolalia functioned, charisma was available to anyone. The charismatic phenomena evident in the early stages of CTF had an egalitarian effect that afforded the group shared authority and responsibility. Women were included because they demonstrated the same charismatic gifting as men. With limited resources and workers in the early stages of the movement, women happily worked alongside men in the fulfillment of the mission. As the renewal has organized and became more administrative, women are being excluded from higher levels of authority, though they are afforded a place in ministry, usually in relationship to their spouse. Bain served in this position until 2009, when Jeremy Sinnot was appointed as the national coordinator for soaking in Canada. A new development was the Soaking in His Presence weekend, a sort of retreat format where there is more teaching on prayer, but also a focus on praying. He also worked at organizing the teaching notes in a more systematic fashion, taking the scattered notes and facilitating the transition into a soaking prayer manual. At the request of John

Apo sto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

129

Arnott, Steve Long, and Duncan Smith, Sinnot packaged all the notes for ILSOM (International Leaders School of Ministry). At the request of Duncan Smith, Sinnot is working to develop a teachertraining program for soaking prayer that incorporates CTF’s core values so that workers can be released to conduct soaking prayer schools. In the leadership transition we observed a shift from the influence of women as practitioners and contributors of material related to the contemplative and mystical side of prayer to the men who have bureaucratized the material, restructured it, and focused on passing on the information to others in a more administratively streamlined fashion. Developments in Canada were also evident in the United States. Marguerite Evans served as the national soaking coordinator in the States until she resigned her position in 2010. At that point Stacy Long and his wife, Casey, replaced her. Evans is originally from South Africa and is very open about her difficult family life, especially with her father, that ended with his death when she was a teenager. Evans made her way to Toronto at the age of twenty-nine to enter CTF’s ministry training program and later assumed the position of the national soaking coordinator, though it was not something she pursued. She also navigated the dilemma of women’s leadership within the renewal. Although she had her own business in South Africa and, because she was Miss Universe South Africa runner-up, was sought after as a speaker, when she moved to the United States her husband held a position in ministry while she played a supporting role. Her passion for soaking prayer, however, gave her an opportunity for ministry. Her ministry focus was for people to get their hearts healed, and to receive the Father’s love so that they can love a dying world. She wanted to see God’s presence manifest in the world where people seek after God. Evans’s role as the national soaking coordinator was to develop leaders, encourage people to pray, lead seminars, and teach about soaking prayer. Her passion, from our observations, was for prayer, for the heart of God and emotional healing. In February 2011 she started her own charitable ministry called Marguerite Evans Ministries.6 She says she did this with the blessing of John and Carol Arnott and Duncan and Kate Smith. Her May 2011 Newsletter stated, “This is a big step but a very exciting one for me. This is a faith adventure! The Lord has been preparing me over the last 15 years for

130

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

this new season.” Many of the teachings of her itinerant ministry are the same as soaking prayer: The Father Heart of God, the Kingdom, Resting, Intimacy, and the Prophetic. The shift in national soaking leaders, from women who see their role primarily in praying for other people to men who are concerned about the institutional process of administering the expansion of soaking prayer as a way to build the organization, is an interesting dilemma and one typically related to routinization. These new charismatics have developed a structure of apostolic authority that supports their notions of charisma; and while women are by far the ones who pray, have a passion for prayer, and have been responsible for the growth of soaking prayer, they are not granted the same kind of authority as men. Admittedly, women are involved alongside their husbands in resourcing and supporting the ministry. They even preach in local churches and major conferences. Yet it is clear that they are supporting their husband’s ministries. It is also not clear whether women can be apostles. There are certainly no women in CTF officially acknowledged as apostles. Heidi Baker is probably the most prominent woman who often speaks at key charismatic events. Ironically, her ministry is probably the most apostolic. Baker is a missionary in Africa, where she focuses on ministering to the most neglected. Her story is an interesting one that we heard at conferences in Seattle and Toronto and during a full day with the Flame of Love core research group in Costa Mesa, California. Telling her story, Baker said she was raised Episcopalian but as a teenager she experienced an overwhelming sense of God’s presence in a profound and life-changing vision. In a small southern Pentecostal church she spent an extended time lying on the floor in an ecstatic state speaking in tongues. Her parents were not pleased. However, Baker decided to attend an Assemblies of God school, Southern California College (now Vanguard University), and she met her husband Rolland at a small charismatic church in Costa Mesa. She also earned a PhD in Theology from Kings College, London, where she focused on constructing a theology of glossolalia.7 Baker related her teenage experience to another experience she had at Vanguard. A guest chapel speaker she heard there said that God had given him a city. She was indignant over his statement and was growing more and more irritated, until she had a vision of two

Ap osto li c

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

131

angels standing on either side of the speaker and heard God say that He had indeed given the man a city. The meaning of the statement, she claimed, is that the man was specially chosen by God to win the city for the kingdom of God. Baker then skipped forward in the story of her life to when she had traveled to Toronto to experience the renewal. She had worked in Indonesia and after completing her degree began missionary work in Mozambique. However, she contracted pneumonia and was exhausted. Nevertheless, she left the hospital and traveled to Toronto in 1996. Through her experience in Toronto where she lay on the floor and regularly soaked over several days, she claimed, she was healed and was reenergized to continue in her calling. At one point she said she had a profound experience of God’s love and a vision in which God spoke to her, saying he was going to give her a nation. Heidi returned in January 1998 at which point Randy Clark prophesied over her that she would receive an apostolic anointing and that God was going to give her the nation of Mozambique. Baker was doubtful, and experienced numerous struggles in her missionary work. The focus of her work is in Mozambique, on feeding and providing shelter for orphans and children who have been rejected by their parents, and on providing medical care for the sick who have been rejected. She oversees schools and training centers, hospital services, and other benevolent activities. Yet from hearing her speak, what is closest to her heart is holding and loving babies dying of AIDS or caring for sick children whom others have abandoned. According to Baker, being a representative of God’s loving presence is the most important aspect of her ministry (see Flinchbaugh, 2000). When we met her in California we spoke to her about her prayer practices. We learned that she practices soaking prayer on a daily basis, spending two hours soaking in the morning before her day begins and another hour soaking in the afternoon. She connected soaking prayer to the ancient church Fathers and mystics and talked about how “being with God is to empty out.” She related that prayer is about surrendering and receiving and that “the rest of our lives is about pouring out” for others. She also talked about how prayer is treated as a spiritual discipline when God’s presence cannot be felt during prayer times. She said, “Love is a verb. Don’t love with words and tongue but actions and truth.” Toward the end of the day, Heidi’s

132

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

husband, Rolland, joined the group and added to the discussion. He commented that compassion is more important than manifestations or other charismatic phenomena. He said that we “don’t try to save the world, but to love the world by the simple, day to day things. Think only of the person in front of you.” The most profound comment Heidi made was that “spending time in God’s presence in soaking prayer is the same as sitting in the dirt with the poor.” Baker’s book Compelled by Love (2008) is a compilation of stories about her missionary work that includes claims of miracles among the poor. She extensively references Mother Theresa’s work among the poor and discusses the role of love as motivation for her work. She says, “Every time I have a vision, I have been undone by Jesus’ eyes of love. They are like liquid flames of fiery love” (91). Furthermore, she says, “Love will cost you everything: laying down your life, living a life of passion and compassion, giving without expecting, feeling God’s very heartbeat, surrendering to His rhythm, and following the lamb wherever He goes—even to the ends of the earth” (142–43). Later Baker says, “We are transformed by His love; therefore, we transform the world around us. When we are truly compelled by love, then ours is the kingdom forever and ever. Amen” (151). The point of the book for Baker is to inspire Christians with her stories from her ministry. Baker also revealed some ambivalence about apostolic ministry. She understands the idea that apostles are sent ones, but her concern appears to be that exalting someone to the position of apostle, or at least the claim of some people to be apostles, is arrogant. She comments, “God spoke to me through this and said, ‘Apostolic is upside down.’ Unlike how people are often trying to exalt themselves, the apostolic is the lowest place. Apostolic is a place of laid-down love where we become possessed with the nature of the man Christ Jesus to become a servant of all” (50). At times she has even poked fun at the whole notion of the apostolic. In a message initially given in Toronto and broadcast through YouTube, she comments facetiously on the anointing in a large California church of new apostles recognized by their blue shirts and blue pens, but she quickly noted that God chastised her for her critical heart and she repented.8 Still, there is a sense in which the apostolic structure around which many of these charismatics function is an irritant and something with which she is

Ap o sto lic

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

133

uncomfortable, despite the fact that she is a sought-after speaker in these apostolic circles (see Lee et al., 2013). While women appear to be prominent in the leadership of the charismatic renewal, it is often as partners with their husbands. A common sight is a husband and wife team working together in leadership. John and Carol Arnott are a case in point. Carol is readily seen working alongside her husband in the work of ministry, preaching at conferences, producing video and teaching materials for their supporters, and co-authoring books with John. This pattern is replicated in other avenues such as CTF Montreal, where Gerry and Marcia Plunkett work together in the pastoring of their church, and CTF Houston, where Buck and Anna Eaton minister. In these cases, the women are partners in ministry working together to extend the kingdom and develop their own ministry in the context of conferences and churches. The case of Heidi and Rolland Baker, however, turns the roles around but still illustrates a gendered pattern, regardless of the sex of the ministry leader. Heidi takes a primary role in her missionary work and is a much sought-after conference speaker who has had a profound influence on many of our interviewees, while Rolland offers a supportive role to Heidi’s work. In an interesting reversal of roles, Rolland has become the assistant to her ministry. Working alongside Heidi, Rolland facilitates her work, and yet, he says, other men in ministry criticize him for doing so. The relationship between women, prayer, and charisma in the Pentecostal-charismatic tradition requires some explanation. An early work by Barfoot and Sheppard (1980) borrowed Weber’s distinction between priestly and prophetic to argue that in the early stages of a new religious movement women were afforded multiple and fluid roles and places of authority, including that of administrative authority such as the pastorate. However, as the new religious movement started to “routinize” and form stronger institutional structures, women were excluded from positions of authority and relegated to support positions under the authority of men. In the early stages, charismatic authority allowed for an egalitarian distribution of authority that was dispersed throughout the community, which included women in the ranks of leadership. However, in the institutionalization of the religious movement, priestly authority began to displace earlier charismatic forms of authority. The Pentecostal tradition, with its

134

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

emphasis on the charismatic Spirit, the pouring out of the Spirit, prophecy, healing, and glossolalia, made room for women in ministry. As the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions became more priestly and emphasized dogma and institutional practices, women were displaced from positions of authority. Historian Edith Blumhofer (1989) noted the process whereby women were excluded in the early Pentecostal organization of the Assemblies of God (AG). The first General Council of the AG dealt with the role of women in ministry and followed the view of the Pentecostal E.N. Bell, who grudgingly accepted the contributions of women to the Pentecostal movement and their right to prophesy according to the narrative of Acts 2, but generally thought them to be “busybodies” unable to “settle down” in order to accomplish lasting ministry. He believed that women in the Pentecostal movement who had already established pastorates had no biblical backing, and he objected to women who forsook their other callings, as mother and wife, in order to devote themselves to the work of ministry, or who exerted the authority of their office as ministers. The General Council followed Bell’s lead to insist that women in ministry must be attached to a mission of some sort and come under the authority of men. In the end, the General Council authorized the ordination of women as missionaries or evangelists but denied them pastoral or administrative duties, which were deemed to be the purview of men. An interesting counterpoint to the way in which the AG began to restrict the authority of women in ministry is Blumhofer’s analysis of Aimee Semple McPherson (Blumhofer, 1993). McPherson’s connection to Pentecostalism came initially via Ellen Hebden’s Mission in Toronto when Robert Semple, who became her husband, was engaged in itinerant ministry in southwestern Ontario. McPherson was later ordained as an evangelist with the AG, serving from 1919 to 1922, until she formed her own denomination, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, while pastoring Angelus Temple in Los Angeles (see Althouse, 2010: 170; Di Giacomo, 2010; Sloos, 2010; Stewart, 2010; Sutton, 2009). Pamela Holmes (2009) has described a similar process in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC). Women were part of the initial movement in Canada, such as Ellen Hebden, Alice Garrigus, Zelma and Beulah Argue, and McPherson, but with the for-

Ap o sto lic

A u t h o ri t y

an d

Ge nder

135

mation of the PAOC in 1919 and its close ties with the AG until 1925, women were quickly excluded from positions of authority. Women were allowed to function as evangelists or missionaries, but had to come under the authority of a pastor, and only men could be ordained as pastors. However, according to Holmes (2010), Zelma Argue’s ministry was so large that she deviated from the pattern of routinization that restricted women’s authority in ministry, in that she was able to operate in Canada and the United States in multiple ministry roles. Historian Linda Ambrose’s (2010) gender analysis of women in Pentecostal and charismatic ministry examines the various webs of relationships that women had with others in ministry as daughter, sister, wife, and mother. Bemoaning the lack of a gendered history in the context of the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, Ambrose probes the differing roles the traveling sisters Zelma and Beulah Argue assumed throughout their ministry. Literature that does exist looks at the way in which women have become excluded from administrative power in the process of institutionalization of new religious configurations in the ever-changing development of Pentecostalism. However, Ambrose argues that a gendered history approach reveals a more fluid understanding of the role of women in ministry. She writes, “Gendered history is a useful approach to help understand the experiences of early Pentecostal women in Canada because it considers the relationship between men and women, seeks to understand how the sexes cooperate and compete to reinforce and sometimes challenge existing roles, and explores how power relations operate both between the sexes and within each sex” (103–4). Ambrose also draws on a fourfold model for understanding the role that ministers’ wives assumed in the context of evangelical Protestantism (108–9). The Companion “held up her husband’s hands in his sacred calling”; the Sacrificer resigned herself to her husband’s calling; the Assistant worked alongside her husband, shared in the pastoral responsibilities and operated as an extension of her husband’s ministry; and the Partner developed a ministry alongside her husband. At various times in the unfolding of a woman’s ministry she could assume multiple or intermingling roles. At times, women in the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions could assume ministry roles of their own, either with or without the support of a husband.

136

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

The CTF apostles are charismatic exemplars who have the authority to oversee and make decisions for the network merely by virtue of their charisma, while other leaders and collaborators receive their authority from the apostles. Renewal networks are flat structures linked through nodes that better support charisma than other rational or professional structures. Charisma empowers everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, and women have been important leaders in the early stages of the renewal. However, changes are quickly occurring as CTF rapidly institutionalizes. In the routinization of the movement, women who are the bearers of charisma through prayer are beginning to be moved from positions of leadership, as the institution needs more administrative structures to help in its expansion. Nevertheless, there is a tone that we noticed in our observations of the new direction CTF is heading in, that seems somehow poised to betray the heart of the renewal. Administration takes much time and energy, and the work involved does not allow much time for prayer. Thus the leaders are faced with a dilemma, as yet unresolved, as to whether the global expansion that includes packaging the organization’s values in teaching about prayer is worth the loss of charisma for the women who do pray.

SIX Advancing the Kingdom of Love

Teach me Lord. I want to be a servant lover. I want to be a kingdom carrier. I want to be a servant lover. I want to be wholly given. I want to be laid down. I want to carry the kingdom, the glorious kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven. I want to walk like Jesus. I want to talk like Jesus. I want to smell like Jesus. I want to love like Jesus. I want to live empowered like Jesus. I want to heal like Jesus. I want to multiply food like Jesus. I want to love. I want to love. I want to soar. I want to live. I want to lay my life down for my friends. I want to live a holy life of love. —Heidi Baker, Voice of the Apostles1

In this chapter we examine the relationship between prayer, altruism, and Catch the Fire’s mission strategy. CTF’s mission is to spread the Father’s love throughout the world in order to “manifest the kingdom of God on the earth, as it is in heaven.” The mission is tied to the Great Commandment, which is to “love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, and then to love your neighbor as yourself.” Participants claim that through the reception of the Father’s love in the practice of soaking prayer they are energized and motivated to engage in benevolent care for others in the world. This activity can be as simple as showing more love to spouses and family members, or through extensive ministries of compassion, social transformation, and social justice. In order to explore these ideas we look at how CTF understands the relationship between prayer, love, and mission through the teaching of John Arnott and several cases of charismatic congregations that are involved in social engagement. Finally, we

138

C A TC H

T H E

F I R E

offer a sociological and theological assessment of current discussions on mission and put forward the idea of “renewal as mission” as an explanation for charismatic social engagement.

A Charismatic View of the Kingdom of God The theological impulse that orders CTF’s mission strategy is the expansion of what it views as the kingdom of God, sometimes referred to as the kingdom of heaven. Participants believe that this kingdom is a kingdom of love that impinges on the world in the manifestation of divine presence and charismatic renewal. Hunt (1995) describes this view as restorationist, wavering between post- and premillennialism, but a more accurate description is that the kingdom is inaugural: it is already here, as is felt during the emotional intensity of charismatic worship and prayer, but is not yet here in the sense that there is still sin and strife in the world. People who are devalued and hurting still need the hope of the kingdom in care and compassion. Charismatics are insistent that only God’s love is capable of bringing restoration and reconciliation between people who are in emotional and/or physical conflict, and especially between God and the world. Consequently, a tension exists between the signs of the kingdom of heaven manifested in charismatic prayer and worship, and the distance of that kingdom from a lost world. CTF proclaims that the expansion of the kingdom is extended through the expression of divine love, carried by renewed individuals equipped to reveal God’s love to the world. The importance of love is captured in CTF’s vision statement, “To walk in the Father’s love and give it away to Toronto and the world.” The statement hangs on a banner at the back of the church in Toronto and is used as a logo embossed on many of its products. Walking in love and giving it away, charismatics claim, have both personal and social implications. On the personal level, reception of the Father’s love has a cathartic effect and touches the depths of the human heart, body, and soul so that people who experience this love see themselves as “sons and daughters” who are truly loved. It includes a sense of closeness with God, the emotional realization of having been accepted and forgiven, and a willingness to accept and forgive others. It may

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

139

also inspire those who experience it to seek reconciliation with people. This loving presence, as our informants experience and describe it, is a relational presence analogous to the way a spouse is present in marriage, even though the analogy falls apart when one considers the absence of God in any real sense. On the social level, charismatic bodies worshipping together experience love communally. Charismatic rituals such as soaking prayer, dancing, and vocalized praise all contribute to a sense of the attunement of love energy and group solidarity, which Randall Collins (2004) refers to as interaction ritual chains. The emotional energy produced through charismatic ritual contributes to a sense of being loved; it can then be directed toward other social activities such as helping others, compassion for those in need, attempts at social transformation, or advocacy for social justice. In other words, the perceived interactions with the divine produce a greater sense of love and compassion that can be spent socially while interacting with others. According to CTF teaching, though, one needs to be continuously filled up with love in soaking prayer in order to be able to share God’s love with others. Put negatively, “You can’t give away what you don’t have,” meaning that love energy expressed in benevolent ministry will be depleted unless one constantly recharges this love through the ritual of prayer. The mission of CTF is the commandment of love, the Great Commandment mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” This defines and motivates how these charismatics interact in the sacred and the mundane world. They claim that love is not something that flows out of a sense of duty or obligation, because this would be a form of “works righteousness” or performance. Instead, love flows “like a river” from a God who loves them, who wants to be present and intimate with them in relationship. It is an interaction of love made existentially real by the palpable expressions of manifestations, impartations, and signs and wonders. CTF leaders claim that once you are filled up or soaked with divine love, then you can give it away. The ordering is important: the commission to advance the kingdom follows the relationship of love. Many of CTF’s conferences and events are named after different adjectival descriptions of love. Liquid Love, Intensive Love, Compelled by Love, Love Revolution, Baptism of Love, and Flame of

140

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

Love2 are some of the ways that CTF leaders describe the kind of love they experience and want to share with the world. The importance of divine love is also evident in CTF’s core values, which as we have already noted are captured in the acronym FIRE: F—The Father’s love; I—Intimacy with the Father; R—Restoration; and E—Empowering and equipping for the advancement of the kingdom.3 Advancing the kingdom is a CTF strategy for bringing charismatic renewal into the center of Christian life. The importance of the kingdom is encapsulated in CTF’s fourth value of “extending the kingdom through the equipping, anointing, and empowering of the Holy Spirit,” but hinges on the first two values. Advancing the kingdom is central to the vision of CTF as the leaders seek to bring the message of the Father’s love to people who are wounded and broken, to a Christian church that has lost its spiritual power, and to a world that is lost and in need of care and compassion

The Practice of Prayer and Benevolence In this section we present three cases that examine the practice of soaking prayer among CTF participants and evaluate each case for its social implications. More specifically, we explore the level of social engagement associated with soaking prayer, noting how charismatics claim God’s love enables them to love others more deeply. Our first case is based upon observations at River City Church, Jacksonville, Florida, which operates a compassionate ministry as it attempts to be a redeeming presence in a low-income African American housing complex. The experience of love motivates the pastor and congregation to provide material, physical, medical, and emotional support in a disadvantaged community. Just as important is the desire to be a loving co-presence in the community. The second example is from CTF Montreal, a French-speaking congregation that is motivated by love to seek forgiveness and reconciliation in its congregation and the city, where there is tension between the Haitian, West African, and French communities. Benevolence, in some cases, is spoken of as a love expressed to others through social development and transformation within marginalized communities where advocates of liberation and social justice work to advance the kingdom of God. Finally, we

A dvan c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

141

make some observations from Tierra Nueva in Burlington, Washington, a charismatic ministry that is intentionally working to expand the kingdom of love through its prison ministry, advocacy work with migrant farmers, local organic farming, fair trade coffee partnership with Honduran farmers, and support for working families in the Pacific Northwest. We have selected these three cases to demonstrate how charismatic renewal and soaking prayer cultivate compassion, forgiveness, and social justice as expressions of love with the goal of advancing the kingdom of God.

River City Church, Jacksonville, Florida—Compassion for the Poor River City Church (RCC) is a curious blend of charismatic, Episcopal, and Free Church practices, begun by Antley Fowler following his own personal renewal in England. Fowler was raised in the Episcopal Church and trained at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. His association with charismatic renewal came through St. Mary’s Church, England, which was influenced by the charismatic renewal through John Wimber, Holy Trinity Brompton, and the Toronto Blessing. RCC’s connection to Toronto is indirect and comes primarily through the Southeast United States soaking coordinators who are involved in his church. As Fowler tells the story, he was attending seminary in 2005 when he was invited by a friend to visit St. Mary’s Church. Impacted by the experience and the congregation’s strong sense of community, he decided he wanted to be a part of the church. Fowler says that as he looked out over the congregation, he saw people from all different racial and class backgrounds worshipping together, and he thought, “Wow, this is what heaven will look like!” The rector of St. Mary’s shared his vision of planting a church in Jacksonville and that he was praying with a group of people for someone to lead this new ministry. Fowler said that through an amazing set of events within two months, he believed God was calling him to lead a new church in Jacksonville. Following six months of training at St. Mary’s, he and his family started RCC in the fall of 2005. The congregation began in an African American low-income housing neighborhood where the church provided material and spiritual support to the poor. Although the congregation had grown and

142

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

since moved to a commercial location, it was still actively involved in the low-income housing development, hosting soaking prayer meetings in the community, participating in an addictions recovery center, and attempting to develop meaningful relationships with the community. The church partnered with City Rescue Mission, a low-income housing community in the Hollybrook and Lackawana neighborhoods in Jacksonville, as well as a philanthropic medical service called We Care Jacksonville, in order to offer medical care, job and life-skills training, and economic relief. Fowler also wanted to establish a redemptive presence in the community that would help to transform the community. Fowler quips about the church’s beginning that some people would not attend the church because they believed the neighborhood was too dangerous. But other people decided to stay, even though they were fearful at first. In a sermon preached in 2010, Fowler was determined to establish a church that was intentional in its compassion for the poor. “And I came back from England, and I had a meeting with somebody that worked at City Rescue Mission . . . this person said ‘Hey, I work over there. I want you to come look at the City Rescue Mission.’ And I was like, ‘All right, where’s the City Rescue Mission?’ It’s like, ‘Right over here in this crack neighborhood. Come on.’” Fowler began RCC in the neighborhood and remained for five years, only to move because the church had outgrown the facilities. He had his doubts that the church would succeed in the neighborhood. He said, “I’m thinking, there’s no way. There’s no way that the people on the advisory council are going to invite their friends here.” However, the congregation was established and developed a relationship with City Rescue Mission. “And so we started meeting there and sure enough, everyone started coming and inviting their friends, and you don’t know the stories that I heard, but it was the funniest thing. I would get phone calls and like, ‘Hey, I’m in this barbed wire fenced area. Are you sure this is a safe place to get out of my car?’ Literally, people would drive into the parking lot and you’d just see them like, ‘Really? You want me and my children to leave here out of the protection of my SUV and get out. There’s just no way that’s going to happen.’” Fowler said, “It created a passion in you because what started to happen is we started being blessed as we ministered to the poor.”

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

143

RCC’s ministry to the poor is one of its core values. A woman who self-identified as Roman Catholic, attends RCC, and volunteers in the Hollybrook community put it this way: “[RCC has] adopted a HUD housing complex. That’s where they have vacation Bible school. The Christmas party is there. They have something called a share shop. They have tutoring of the residents of the complex. They’re doing an awful lot to provide for their needs. And I think some of the people who are very involved with that are very intense soakers. Very intense soakers.” When asked about the community’s needs, she commented, “Well, to be black and to be poor in the South, you pretty much need everything. And start with salt and pepper. This public housing complex—no AC, no air conditioning. . . . You can imagine it’s a hot time in the summer. And when they have the vacation Bible school, they’ll have movie nights there. They’ll have a back-to-school party and they’ll give every kid a backpack filled with school supplies, clothing is available for free, baby items. I don’t know that everybody’s every need is met, but many were met” (P8). Another person from RCC who self-identified as Roman Catholic discussed in detail the activities in Hollybrook. “It’s a subsidized housing community up in the Ninth District, as they called it, of Jacksonville, and it’s where our City Rescue Mission is sort of located, which is where we hold our church, on the City Rescue Mission’s grounds. It’s not [a] building or anything. We just use, that’s where this church wanted to start. Very poor, and anyhow, it was the heart of people organizing things in our church that just felt led to actually hold our church meetings. And so it’s just kind of spilled out to the neighborhood.” One woman in particular works in the community and helps with tutoring, the share shop, Bible studies, and other events. Commenting on this woman, our informant said she helps others “out of an overflowing of love” rather than a sense of duty. “And she is there, she basically helps run the share shop at Hollybrook. And just freedom and love to just flow through her and to a situation that she could not have been comfortable in before. Do you know what I’m saying? Because of what she’s experienced, that’s all she wants to do. You know, it’s just her heart is just coming out and just flowing out of her” (P33). Soaking prayer plays a vital role in the mission to Hollybrook, not only in terms of producing a sense of love in the hearts of those who

144

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

volunteer in the mission, but as part of the mission itself. People in the rehabilitation program also practice soaking prayer as part of their recovery. As one person said, “People come off the street, live in their program for drugs or alcohol, or just needed to get off the street. And they have a [house], people can live in the program and do [soaking], and then they go through whatever steps and move on.” The soaking prayer meetings in the Hollybrook community have been inconsistent, however, in part because one of the leaders faced a serious health issue. Yet soaking prayer is still a vital part of the church’s practices that motivates the church to reach out to the poor.

Catch the Fire Montreal, Quebec CTF Montreal is a medium-sized, French-speaking congregation that meets in a commercial plaza on the west side of Montreal. Originally a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) church known as Église Chrétienne de l’Ouest, the congregation established a relationship with Partners in Harvest until January 2010, when it formalized its association with CTF. Pastor Gerry and Marcia Plunkett began their ministry in Quebec as Pentecostal English-speaking missionaries intent on reaching the Francophone population with the Pentecostal message. Montreal is a large multicultural city consisting of both Anglophone and Francophone people. Because Canada has a liberal immigration policy, much of the population consists of immigrants from French-speaking nations around the world, including people from West Africa and Haiti. The congregation is multicultural, comprising approximately a quarter African and Haitian participants, with the rest being of European heritage. In October 1994, the Plunketts were influenced by the events of the Toronto Blessing and brought the message of the Father’s love to Montreal. As they state, “Having experienced the love of the Father during the present renewal, our pastors desire with all their hearts to see everyone receive a revelation of the Father’s heart and of their identity as a son and daughter of God. They have a burning heart for the province of Quebec, and the Francophone world, and want to see the kingdom of God impact Montreal.”4 We initially made contact with the Plunketts in October 2009

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

145

while visiting CTF Toronto and then visited the Montreal congregation in November at the invitation of the Plunketts. Although the service itself was in French, Marcia Plunkett translated for us. The service was typically charismatic in style. A pop style music group played worship songs, and while they were singing, women came to the front of the church to dance. Many exhibited the behavioral phenomena of Toronto—spontaneous jerks, whooshing to imitate the blowing of the Spirit, hopping up and down, etc. The topic of the sermon was the mission to French-speaking peoples displaced in South Africa because of civil war in Congo. The pastor and a team of leaders traveled to South Africa to bring renewal and the message of the Father’s love to French-speaking refugees. According to the pastor, these French-speaking Africans were displaced and marginalized not only by the white majority, but also by the English-speaking Africans, who saw the migrants as an economic threat. Plunkett impressed on the congregation the severity of poverty among these French-speaking peoples. African pastors and Christian workers came from distant regions for the conference and many were without food and basic necessities. At one point, the missionary team had to figure out how to feed the people in attendance. The most striking part of the sermon was when the pastor confessed that he felt impressed by God to ask for forgiveness from the Africans for the colonial and racist practices that his white Anglo-Saxon race had committed against Africa and its people. The pastor spoke of the role that William Seymour, an African American son of emancipated slaves, had in the leadership of the early Pentecostal movement. The response of the Africans was one of surprise. They had never experienced a white missionary express this kind of love and ask for forgiveness for generations of racism and marginalization. In fact, the Africans seemed uncomfortable with the apology. According to Plunkett, the African pastors and Christians wanted to know why they had never heard this message of the Father’s love before. The African response was one of acceptance and a willingness to take the message of the Father’s love back to their homes and villages. Using Galatians 3:28 as his key text, that “there is neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, all are one,” the pastor then began to talk about the racism that existed in Montreal between black and white French-speaking peoples. He even commented on

146

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

the divisions that these practices had in his own congregation. At this point, he publicly apologized to the African and Haitian congregants for the way his white race had treated them, dehumanizing them and making them feel subhuman. With tears running down his face he confessed that they were equal under God and loved by the Father as sons and daughters. He begged for their forgiveness on his behalf and that of his race. As we observed, the church erupted. One black woman shrieked with emotional anguish. Many had tears in their eyes and openly wept in their seats. Blacks and whites openly embraced each other in love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. One black woman came to the front of the church and hugged the pastor. She spoke to the congregation of her love for the pastor and his act of apology and forgiveness while seeking reconciliation. The pastor prayed for the black congregants, that they would receive the Father’s love and healing. The conclusion of the service was a powerful moment of emotional intensity, where the energy of love was palpable. It was a moment of catharsis and potential transformation, both individually as people experienced love and forgiveness, and corporately as the divisions in the congregation were moved toward healing and reconciliation. Impediments to love were weakened by this vulnerable public apology rooted not in a political agenda but in hearing from God and the desire for action. In January 2010 we heard rumors that Église Chrétienne de l’Ouest had become an official CTF Montreal church, and so we returned to the church in May 2010.5 We heard of another mission trip and renewal conference in Togo, a deeply impoverished country in West Africa. The pastor’s topic was Healing for the Nations; he used the biblical images of the river of God, the water of life, and the tree of life, based in Ezekiel 47:12 and Revelation 22:1–2. Even though the Togolese are hard-working people, Plunkett commented, Togo has had difficulty developing economically in relation to other African countries and has suffered both politically and financially. He commented that historically a large number of slaves who were brought to North America came through Togo. He said the Togolese people have been socialized to view white people as superior. When the pastor started to speak of the Father’s love, repentance, and forgiveness, the impact on these Africans, he claimed, was profound.

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

147

The main Father’s Love conference was held in a commercial building owned by the government and often used by journalists. They also held another seminar at a local hotel. Over one hundred Togolese attended the conference, many traveling from remote villages. However, there were also problems. It was the rainy season, and the power would often be disrupted. After realizing that many of the African attendees had little food, the mission team decided to prepare a daily lunch for everyone. According to Plunkett, the Togolese in attendance had never heard of the message of the Father’s love as he presented it. The participants, he claimed, were radically changed by this newfound experience of love. Some repented of the way they treated their children. One African pastor traveled from Ghana with no money and shared how in his life he had been beaten and imprisoned. However, after experiencing forgiveness and love at the conference, he would return to his village and preach only of the Father’s love and not revenge. Similar to the experience in South Africa, Gerry Plunkett and the team repented for the racism and treatment of the black Africans by whites. He repented for the exploitation of African resources that left the people with nothing, comparing it to rape. He repented of the colonial practices that imposed white and French values on the Africans. It is one thing to bring new technology, claimed the pastor, but another to impose Western attitudes. He repented for how exploitation forced women into prostitution. He spoke of the practices of colonialism, slavery, and racism by Western nations that have contributed to sinful behavioral practices in society today. On behalf of his race Plunkett sought forgiveness from the Africans. At the end of the meeting, he said blacks and whites were embracing and hugging. At one point after his teaching on the Father’s love a wave of laughter swept through the meeting. At the end of the conference, Plunkett said he asked who was ready to give their time, to dedicate themselves, and perhaps even die for the Father’s love. To his surprise, he said, everyone in the meeting responded affirmatively to the message. Plunkett then addressed the Montreal congregation and commented that Africa has witnessed great miracles and that many people have experienced healing. Africans know about miracles and healing. But what they really need is the Father’s love. This love is like water in the desert. The pastor commented that continental and tribal wars have

148

C A TC H

T H E

F I RE

impacted Africa for centuries. Only the Father’s love can transform people and offer them the love and dignity they deserve. Although the charismatic renewal is known in the Christian community for its emphasis on miracles and healing, Plunkett stressed the role of love and forgiveness as more important than, though not in contradiction to, the miraculous (see Wilkinson and Althouse, 2012).

Tierra Nueva, Burlington, Washington—Love and Social Justice Tierra Nueva is a charismatic Presbyterian Church located in Burlington that was impacted by CTF Toronto. The church is located in a former office building that is home to numerous ministries for marginalized people in the city. The pastor and director, Bob Ekblad, has a ThD in Old Testament studies from the Institut Protestant de Théologie, in France. He first came into contact with CTF when his brother visited and experienced renewal. Bob Ekblad’s wife also went to Toronto, but Bob was skeptical about charismatics. Finally, after his brother and wife persuaded him to give it a chance, Bob went, and that is when he experienced personal renewal. He has written two books that illustrate his approach to ministry. The first is Reading the Bible with the Damned (2005), which focuses on the importance of moving the Bible out of the hands of professionals and giving it a place among those who are marginalized. Ekblad talks about how he uses his unique approach to reading the Bible with those in jail. Throughout the book he speaks about liberation, empowerment, and encounter as means of transformation. The second book is A New Christian Manifesto (2008), which offers a charismatic theology for his approach to ministry. Ekblad also shares his personal story of becoming tired from his work in social justice. Ekblad writes about how he now incorporates charismatic viewpoints with his social justice emphasis, including the role of signs and wonders, spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare, and prayer. Tierra Nueva (TN) translates as “new earth” and reflects the view that the work they are doing is building God’s kingdom on earth. TN’s values include Hosting God’s Presence, during which people “receive God’s love and are immersed in the Holy Spirit.” This they claim is their highest value. Second, they value Connecting People

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

149

with Jesus, which is understood to help people hear the good news of the kingdom and receive God’s love. The third value is Reading Scripture with Jesus, highlighting the importance of “finding Good News in Scripture through prayerful study and dialogical interaction with the poor, each other, and the Saints that precede and surround us.” People are encouraged to pray for the Holy Spirit to help them interpret and live the Scriptures. Fourth, TN values Empowering Disciples of Jesus, in which the people from the margins are loved and called to a new community “that announces and makes visible the kingdom of God.” Finally, TN values Bridging Divergent Worlds, which involves seeking to connect to bring together all people who are divided, reconciling each other “through respectful listening, hospitality, community”—and all this through the work of the Spirit. TN has numerous ministries that focus on the needy. There is the family support center, where staff and volunteers offer assistance and advocacy for people in need. TN believes the center is the embodiment of Jesus’ love for a needy world. They provide numerous items, including clothing and services like counseling, prayer, and legal assistance to help complete employment and housing forms. The staff also mediates conflicts between people and landlords, employers, and other organizations. Most people who make use of the center are Spanish-speaking new immigrants and migrant farmers who face deportation, misunderstanding, and discrimination. They also regularly visit the local Skagit County jail, where they offer spiritual support through prayer and study. The staff advocate on behalf of those in jail. They view their ministry as a redeeming one for those who do not feel worthy, face persecution, and are believed to have no value in society. TN searches out those who are condemned, the “damned of society,” to let them know God is not their judge but a loving Father who longs to heal and restore. TN offers a message of liberation, healing, hope, and restoration for the men and women in jail. One of the leaders in the jail ministry told us that many people have experienced healing and answers to prayers they believed to be miraculous. TN also practices soaking prayer in the jail. We were told that some women were impacted by prayer and said when TN staff prayed for them they felt a tingling sensation throughout their bodies. Now those in the jail refer to the staff as the “head ticklers.” Another important component of the jail ministry is the Bible study

150

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

led by Ekblad and other staff. Taking Luke 4:18 as inspiration, TN announces the good news of the kingdom of God “to liberate the prisoners and proclaim freedom to the oppressed.” TN also sponsors the People’s Seminary for the marginalized due to race, class, language, and social status, letting them know they are welcomed in the Church. The People’s Seminary offers three levels of courses, including those for needy people, where they receive mentoring, reading the Bible, theological reflection, worship, advocacy, and other ministry skills. They offer courses for pastors and congregations on a range of issues related to social justice, advocacy, and ministry with those from the margins. Another opportunity is for students who are taking courses for credit through Regent College, Vancouver, or the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. Students come to Burlington for an intensive course as it relates to a variety of topics, including a course offered in 2009 by Ekblad called Breaking the Chains: Biblical and Social Perspectives on Resisting Structural and Personal Evil. The course description states: Students will learn practical approaches to reading the Scriptures and spiritual practices that contribute to resistance to oppression and temptation in our personal lives and world. Through required reading, lectures and discussion students will study social prophetic perspectives, the Hesychast tradition of the early Greek Church Fathers, and charismatic perspectives on deliverance from evil spirits and spiritual warfare. The objective of the course is to develop a holistic approach to spiritual struggle against many of today’s most destructive forces that take both the whole witness of Scripture and the experience of the larger body of Christ seriously.

TN is also engaged in working with farmers in Honduras where the Ekblads worked until 1994 before moving to Burlington. By forming a partnership with farmers they support the work of local organic coffee growers, sustainable farming, health classes, education, and dealing with issues of reforestation and land redistribution. The church in Burlington has its own coffee roaster, which is used for roasting the Honduran beans. The coffee is then sold locally, with profits returning to the farmers. Farming initiatives are also developed in Burlington, where TN started New Earth Farm to support lo-

A dvan c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

151

cal organic products. New Earth Farm is said to be “cultivating God’s kingdom in Skagit Valley.” Volunteers are encouraged to get involved by donating time, purchasing organic produce, and making donations of money and farm tools. On Sunday TN offers an English-speaking worship service followed by a Spanish-speaking service, with a meal shared together between services. Regular Bible studies are offered for staff and people from the community. Ekblad follows the text very closely, inviting participants to dialogue with each other on the issues raised from the reading. Soaking prayer is practiced regularly at the church by a small group of people who facilitate the time of prayer. On occasion they have advocacy groups at Tierra Nueva including Witness for Peace, as well as speakers who address issues surrounding the sex trade, human trafficking, and gangs. Charismatic teaching on prophecy and how the prophetic operates in relation to social justice, liberation, and advancing the kingdom of God, shapes the various ministries of Tierra Nueva. Healing and renewal are important themes that shape the culture of the church. Healing, for example, is far more holistic than simply physical healing often associated with Pentecostals, especially the traditional healing evangelists. Healing includes the broader notion of “shalom” or peace, restoration, and wholeness. As a result, healing is discussed in the context of family relations, social relations, and inner or emotional healing, which relates to personal and social well-being. Rest, renewal, intimacy, the Father’s love, all support the church’s objectives to advocate on behalf of the poor and needy in the Pacific Northwest.

Charismatic Renewal and Altruism While psychology and social psychology in particular incorporate altruism into their analyses, it is somewhat odd that the sociology of religion has not made significant efforts to analyze altruism as it relates to religious behavior. Reviews of some of the better-known textbooks in the sociology of religion do not cover the topic (for example, see Dillon, 2003; McGuire, 2002; Roberts, 1995; Swenson, 1999). This is not to say topics of social engagement, political activism, faithbased social services, and social justice are not examined, but what

152

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

is strangely missing is any reference to altruism, even a critique of the theories and concepts. Sorokin’s work from the 1950s is probably the most detailed. Poloma and members of her research team are attempting to articulate how love is experienced and expressed, including a range of interactional relationships that highlight altruism. And members of the world’s religions generally, and charismatic Christianity specifically, speak of love as an important moral and ethical component of their social action. As we have studied CTF and its emphasis on experiencing the Father’s love with the intention of giving it away, we have learned that soaking prayer is a central practice favored by charismatics for encountering God. Participants continue to tell us that this experience has given them greater compassion and forgiveness toward others. It has also motivated many to participate in ministries that emphasize social action. Altruism generally refers to the love of one for another and from a sociological perspective includes the social dimension of congregations, prayer groups, ministry teams, and mission organizations intent on demonstrating love toward families, communities, neighborhoods, people with physical needs, the imprisoned, migrants, the poor, those separated by prejudice and discrimination, and a holistic message of love, hope, forgiveness, reconciliation, and liberation. This view of love, highly desired by charismatic Christians, is based on a culture of love that values the experience of love with a higher source, the divine, and in this context, the Father’s love. Soaking prayer is one ritual of renewal that brings charismatics together, energizing one another and sustaining an experience of love that spills over into those around them. By focusing on charismatic Christianity, especially on those impacted by CTF, our observations highlight an altruistic form of Christianity with a special emphasis on personal well-being, compassion, reconciliation, and social justice. These observations do not cover the entire spectrum of social engagement, or, in the words of charismatics, all manifestations of the Father’s love. They do, however, highlight a number of observations that require some discussion. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow (2000: 125–39) conducted a national study on forgiveness as a cultural construct mobilized by religious organizations, especially small groups, to bring about healing and reconciliation to social relationships. Forgiveness, according to Wuth-

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

153

now, is generated by much social capital. However, religious groups provide more than social means in the production of forgiveness. Religious groups also offer other resources that are cultural, emotional, and spiritual. For Wuthnow (127), forgiveness is a social process: “A culturally available category that people associate with a loosely defined set of attitudes and behavior that often includes making sense of or giving a new interpretation to a past action, overcoming anger or guilt, gaining a feeling of cleansing or wholeness, and being able to think about or interact with an offending or aggrieved person in a new way.” The production of forgiveness, according to Wuthnow, is related to the process of socialization, or the lifelong process of learning one’s culture and, in this instance, forgiveness. Religions play important roles in socializing members to understand the social script of forgiveness. Scripts are learned and religious organizations facilitate this learning, particularly in childhood (but not limited to childhood), about the importance of apologizing, confessing, forgiving, and reconciling, especially through sacred texts like the Bible. Forgiveness is also reinforced by religious organizations and for adults through interaction in small groups. Wuthnow hypothesized that participation in small religious groups would be positively related to forgiveness. He examined the effects of certain kinds of activities in generating forgiveness; for example, how closely connected people felt to each other, the role of studying and singing, the level of emotional support, sharing needs, reading the Bible, discussing forgiveness, and prayer. He discovered that these group characteristics were related to prosocial behavior such as helping others, and forgiveness especially in the area of broken relationships. In eleven of fifteen items measured, prosocial behavior was significantly associated with forgiveness (136). Wuthnow’s study shows that members of religious groups who participated in small groups experienced healing and forgiveness and worked on improving broken relationships. In other words, participation in small religious groups is positively related to forgiveness. Soaking prayer that occurs in a small group like those in Jacksonville appears to be related to the ability of its members to love and serve the poor. Sociologist Samuel Oliner (2008) also contributes to our understanding of altruism with his work on apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

154

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

Oliner sees an important relationship between apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation with altruism. He writes, “By altruism, we mean helping another person or group of people who are in need of help and welcome it, where help is voluntary and the helper expects no external reward. Altruism is associated with both apology and forgiveness—they are really the two sides of the same coin” (8). Forgiveness is a manifestation of love associated with empathy, efficacy, reciprocity, personal morality, caring, courage, and faith (11–27). Oliner’s view is that a process of reconciliation includes altruistic behavior (putting the welfare of others on a level with your own), true apology (taking responsibility and telling the truth), true forgiveness (renouncing vengeance and rehumanizing the enemy), restorative justice (making amends), empathy (finding common humanity), and reconciliation (reestablishing positive relations between victim and offender) (197). Oliner argues that these points are especially important for understanding intergroup forgiveness: Intergroup forgiveness does not take place rapidly. It takes time, especially between unequal groups; the weaker group must not be pressured into a quick accommodation. Healing has to take place slowly. This is especially true when harm has been done to the weaker group. Asking for forgiveness, in this social/political sense, must be performed by some prestigious authority, such as a president or important leader. While the consequences of private and interpersonal apology are much better known, social/political forgiveness, or collective forgiveness, is understudied. [162]

Oliner’s work is insightful for understanding forgiveness and reconciliation in the Montreal congregation. The public apology is a manifestation of love experienced between God and the pastor. It is then expressed to the congregation and embraced, leading to acts of reconciliation between the groups. However, its efficacy will be measured in the way the members in the community continue to experience love, reconciliation, and healing over time. Finally, Wuthnow (1991) also investigated acts of compassion and care. He discovered that Americans engaged in a whole repertoire of compassionate acts through voluntary associations as well as in dayto-day life. His interest was not just care and compassion as a human

A dva n c i n g

t h e

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

155

behavior, but the cultural framework that supports this behavior. In other words, what narratives support compassionate activity, and how do they motivate and make sense of people’s benevolent behavior? He also found that people who were religious and participated in religious communities were more likely to act in caring and compassionate ways, though non-religious people were benevolent as well. One narrative script that supported high levels of benevolence was the perception of a loving and caring God who serves as a role model for the believer to emulate. People who described God as loving and caring highly valued helping and caring for others. They were also more likely to donate their time to helping the needy (128–29). Wuthnow discussed the role that social justice played in compassionate activity as well. Compassionate people were also aware of the larger social issues of justice, human rights, social reform, and the government’s role in supporting fair and just structures. The sense, though, was that some changes were bigger than any individual or voluntary organization could address. However, there was also a general suspicion about the government’s ability to accomplish any reforms. The preference was for voluntary associations through which people could give their time and money to help and care for others. TN is an example of a charismatic community that demonstrates love to others through social justice, care, and compassion. Each of these examples illustrates different ways that charismatic communities practice soaking prayer and embody its views of a loving God who fills them, they claim, with a greater love for others. Each case offers insight into the social outcome of soaking prayer, whether that is through community work, reconciliation, or social justice. Furthermore, the practice of soaking prayer intersects with charismatic notions of mission work as understood by their theology of the kingdom of God. The kingdom theology of charismatics is central for understanding how they view God’s work on earth.

Charismatic Renewal as Mission From our observations of CTF we have noted a shift in its view of mission. While much of the early renewal of the Toronto Blessing focused on individuals experiencing a “fresh wave of the Spirit” in

156

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

a way that brought anointing and spiritual renewal, church leaders heavily criticized the movement for its “carpet time,” viewed as individual self-gratification without “lasting fruit,” meaning that it lacked social consequences for ministry or for the world. In other words, there was little in the way of social ministry or missionary endeavors emanating from Toronto. However, we have observed a shift in the institutionalization of the renewal (in a manner that still seems to maintain its charismatic fervor) and in its activity in mission and ministry. Leaders and participants in CTF are attempting to engage in compassion ministries in North America and abroad—specifically with concerns for well-being, with provision of basic human needs such as feeding the hungry, providing shelter for orphans, working for social transformation of impoverished communities, etc. Important for CTF, though, is that these activities are effective only after people have experienced a higher degree of love. Compassion is more than simply providing for others’ needs; it also involves being a loving co-presence of the divine. The charismatic self-perception is that mission is associated with renewal. If there is one key exemplar for this change, it is Heidi Baker, who was already actively involved in mission work in Indonesia and later in Mozambique, but was in danger of burning out prior to experiencing the Father’s love in Toronto through the practice of soaking prayer. Be that as it may, leaders and participants who are connected to CTF are now actively involved in mission activities that include actions leading to social well-being, compassion, reconciliation, and social justice. The late theologian David Bosch (1991) discussed the history of Christian mission and proposed at the end of the twentieth century a postmodern shift. Where mission was understood in the modern era as Western Christianity sending out professionals to the global south to proclaim the Gospel across national and cultural borders, a postmodern view of mission sees it through the lens of reverse global flows. Contextualization, social justice, and liberation are accents that form aspects of the postmodern paradigm. In other words, Western peoples and institutions are as much in need of the missionary encounter as the two-thirds world, and CTF sees charismatic renewal as central in this encounter. Bevans and Schroeder (2004) elaborated on Bosch’s work but added prophetic dialogue, which includes witness and proclamation, liturgy, prayer and contemplation, justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, as well as reconciliation. Of note

A dvan c i n g

t he

Ki n g d o m

o f

Lov e

157

is the role of the life of prayer and contemplation as a missional act for crossing boundaries. Prayer and contemplation embody practices that can be spontaneous, joyful, and ecstatic. Through prayer, charismatics claim, they are transformed while serving as co-workers with one another and God. Through contemplation, charismatics claim a deeper level of attention to the divine; this motivates them to acts of service in the world among the homeless, marginalized, and oppressed, while advocating for political and social justice. Through prayer, charismatics claim, they become aware of God’s will for the world and empathize with its needs and cares (367–68). Clark Pinnock (1996) argued that the Spirit is charismatically present in the church for the sake of mission. The transference of the Spirit from Jesus to the disciples at Pentecost meant that the disciples were empowered to carry out Jesus’ mission with the same authority. Thus the charisma of bearing witness, healing, praising God, miracles, dreams, and visions is described as impulses of power from the Spirit “to transform and commission disciples to become instruments of mission” (136). Whether through healing, visions, or other spiritual gifts, they all point to charismatic notions of the kingdom of God. They do not, however, replace the need for renewal. The relationship between renewal and mission is one that begins with personal transformation, leading to service in the kingdom of God, and ultimately, for the charismatic, hope for the transformation of the world. Based on our observations of CTF, their self-perception and practice of mission is related to their views of renewal. To add to Bosch’s repertoire, CTF practices “renewal as mission” and offers an explanation for understanding the role of mission in charismatic Christianity. Charismatics believe that it is not possible to serve out of a sense of obedience or duty, which is a form of “works righteousness.” The language they use is performance: the sin of performance spoils the joy and delight of working as co-laborers with God and produces anxiety in people. Co-laboring in the work of the Great Commission is about passion for sharing God’s love with others. This mission is exciting and adventurous; it inspires others to engage in the work of renewal. For charismatics, the Great Commission is important, but it flows out of the commandment of love. The Great Commandment begins with the double action of loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. However, loving God has a reciprocal sense in that charismatics believe their love for

158

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

God is a response to the intimate experience of God loving them. In soaking prayer, charismatic Christians claim to rest in the presence of God’s love and through this experience to be energized in care-love. Divine presence is viewed as relational, evidenced by the charismatic manifestations experienced in worship and prayer. These manifestations are interpreted as signs and wonders of divine love that are experienced as the presence of the Spirit in the world. “Renewal as mission” has at its core the outworking of love, in which social acts of care and benevolence flow from an experience of a higher love, which is then redirected to those in need. Other forms of mission, such as evangelism, liberation, justice, active hope, etc., are not excluded, but must flow from love experienced in social relationships. Charismatics engage in the work of mission because they claim to share an overabundance of love with others. Likewise, charismatics claim to have compassion for others because God has shown compassion to them; this compassion is experienced through inner healing, and through signs and wonders perceived to be the very presence of the Father in the coming kingdom of heaven. Charismatic renewal, therefore, is the mission of love through which they experience and express love toward others.

Conclusion

T h r o u g h o u t t h i s b o o k we have explored the relationship between the charismatic practice of soaking prayer and the claims made by charismatic Christians that loving God leads to loving others. This kind of love can be described as altruistic, with claims of greater love toward family members, employers, friends, and neighbors. It was also observed among charismatics that soaking prayer helps them engage in mission work in a variety of forms, including working in jails, operating clothing stores, assisting migrant workers, facilitating reconciliation, and a range of other benevolent activities. The language used by charismatics to describe soaking prayer as a time of resting, receiving, and releasing fits their cultural and theological views. Charismatics believe they have found a way to resolve the tensions of a fast-paced society that places expectations upon them to achieve and perform. Soaking prayer allows participants to receive what they claim is God’s love, embodied by individuals and supported by networked communities of charismatic ministries. Through regular ritualized activity, charismatics promote the practice, encouraging other pilgrims to find peace in something bigger than their own lives. A shared narrative shapes the subculture and animates the various social ministries that some churches and individuals promote. The internal logic of soaking prayer is consequential in the sense that those who practice soaking prayer believe they are encountering a loving God who energizes them with a greater love for others. This in turn acts upon the participants, motivating them to love others but also creating much energy for the institutionalizing and structuring of religious

160

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

experience in ministries that support benevolent activity. Soaking prayer, therefore, operates as a type of cultural practice that renews individuals and religious institutions. Soaking prayer did not develop in a vacuum, without historical and religious influence. CTF is a charismatic ministry that emerged out of the Pentecostal-charismatic movement of the twentieth century. When the so-called Toronto Blessing erupted, many journalists and scholars wondered where it came from and how so many, in spite of secularizing trends, missed it. However, scholars should not have been that surprised if they had paid attention to earlier moments of renewal, such as the Azusa Street Revival (1906–1909), the formation of denominations like the Assemblies of God, charismatic renewal among Catholics and historical Protestant churches, healing evangelists like Oral Roberts, the Jesus People movement in the 1970s, John Wimber, Calvary Chapel, and the Vineyard Churches of the 1980s. CTF stands in a long line of Christian renewal and revival movements that shape the religious culture of North America in the twentieth century. Soaking prayer is also a contemporary adaptation of previous Pentecostal-charismatic practices reconfigured for the particular interests of CTF participants at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Borrowing from such previous practices as being “slain in the Spirit,” from classical Pentecostals in the Holiness tradition, or “resting in the Spirit” from Catholic charismatics, the practice was quickly institutionalized and facilitated the expansion of a global ministry from Toronto across North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and other locations where CTF sought to influence Christianity. Soaking prayer contains an element of healing for practitioners who clearly speak of its therapeutic effects. CTF offers a type of spirituality that addresses the therapeutic, individualistic, and anti-establishment nature of American culture. The way in which they address culture, however, is to conform to its pattern while attempting to engage society with a religion that is shaped by it. Beyond any individual therapeutic claim, charismatics believe they are encountering a God of love who profoundly reorients who they are, including their relationships with family and friends, and empowers them to love in benevolent ways those in need. The sociologist Pitirim Sorokin theorized that there are those individuals who are able to rise above self-interest and love others in

co n clu sion

161

unselfish ways. Sorokin saw the expression of love in a variety of ways and described its social, psychological, ethical, and religious dimensions. His approach focused on the development of empirical measures that paid attention to variations such as the extensity and duration of love. In doing so he created space for the sociological study of altruism that accounted for a range of benevolent activities. Sorokin also recognized that not all acts of love were equal. In a very few cases he found exemplars, or what he called “apostles of love,” who had the ability to love, show compassion, empathize, and perform acts of love that were beyond what most people are capable of. Exemplars had the ability to motivate others, even in small ways, to see love as a powerful response to the world’s problems. Sorokin also observed that many of the historical exemplars he identified had religious practices that they claimed as the source of their loving actions. Prayer was one of those activities. One development from Sorokin’s work is the Godly Love model by Margaret Poloma, Ralph Hood Jr., Stephen Post, and Matthew T. Lee. The model functions as a theoretical and methodological optic that allows researchers to see a range of altruistic interactions. Religious practices such as soaking prayer cultivate the reception of love, which, according to these charismatics, is then expended toward beneficiaries. Collaborators help support the ministries of exemplars, and collaborators may become exemplars themselves in their own networks of influence. The model allows researchers to describe how social actors may experience love, including expressions of love toward other actors in the model. The model does not insist that only those who experience divine love are altruistic or that one even needs to be religious to engage in benevolence, but functions as a lens to observe a range of interactions. In our case we employ the model to understand how charismatic Christians claim to experience God’s love through soaking prayer, the role of charismatic leaders and collaborators, and the beneficiaries of their benevolence. Sociological studies of prayer mostly focus on frequency and do not offer detailed descriptions of how people pray, what they experience, and how the practice of prayer shapes other types of activities. We saw soaking prayer as an opportunity to add to the research on prayer. Specifically, we wanted to understand the theological beliefs that supported prayer, how soaking prayer was practiced, how

162

C A TC H

T HE

F I R E

c­ harismatics experienced and embodied prayer, and the social implications of soaking prayer. Charismatic Christians claimed that soaking prayer was a contemplative type of prayer, practiced alone, in groups, and at renewal events, that filled them with God’s love to such an extent that they had greater love for others. Exemplars like Heidi Baker, leaders like John and Carol Arnott, and teachers like June Bain and Marguerite Evans all promoted and supported the practice. CTF also produced teaching manuals, DVDs, CDs of soaking prayer music, and an organizational structure of national and regional coordinators that supported the practice. Soaking prayer schools and seminars were held on a regular basis. Major renewal events highlighted soaking prayer leaders, groups, and their ministries, which gave legitimacy and inspiration for those in attendance. Soaking prayer became regularized social activity, or what we called a ritual of renewal. Drawing upon Randall Collins and his theory of interaction ritual chains, we found a theoretical framework to discuss how soaking prayer was effective. The term “interaction ritual chains” refers to patterns of social interaction that generate culture, including social membership, moral beliefs, and ideas. Interaction rituals are characterized by mutual focus and emotional entrainment where participants engage one another in intense, regularized motivational activity supported by symbols that are internalized. Collins shows how successful rituals are characterized by emotional energy that is carried in bodies, with specific outcomes. Soaking prayer, in our view, is an interaction ritual. Participants follow patterns of interaction shaped by the beliefs of charismatic Christianity that in turn shape the participants, who believe they are experiencing the love of God. The emotional energy embodied by the participants becomes a motivating factor not only to continue meeting for prayer but also to extend the practice of love toward others. In this sense, the ritual of soaking prayer acts upon charismatics in such a way that they commit themselves to the beliefs and practices of CTF, including the renewal of central beliefs and practices. We also gave attention to how the embodiment of soaking prayer is understood among participants, including the ways love is embodied in their actions and ministries. Institutionalizing charismatic practices such as soaking prayer is, however, problematic. When religious groups are emerging and

co n clu sion

163

forming, there is greater flexibility that allows for the development of practices like soaking prayer and the role that women play in the religious group. Women played a significant role in the practice, including teaching and holding prayer groups within their homes. While men also practiced soaking prayer, women played a central role as teachers, facilitators, and regional and national coordinators. However, we observed very quickly during our research a transition where men were assuming key roles as teachers, leaders, and national coordinators. Institutionalization may be an impediment for the practice of soaking prayer and the benevolent ministries that emerge from the women who practice it. However, at this point we do not know how CTF will manage this process of organizational change or the role that soaking prayer will play in the future. Finally, soaking prayer has also served to motivate charismatic Christians to engage the needs of those represented within their congregations, prayer groups, families, cities, and local neighborhoods. How charismatics contextualize these ministries varies from place to place. However, there is a consistent pattern that relates to their teaching and theology, which accounts for their social action. Charismatics teach that they are to advance God’s kingdom. This too fits within the tradition of Christianity believing that Christians have a universal message for all people. It is a message of mission or outreach and highlights one way Christianity has thought about mission, whether that be mission as evangelism, dialogue, liberation, education, or any other way Christians have conceived it. In this case we see charismatic Christians from CTF adding to the variety of ways that Christians have conceived and practiced mission. More specifically, we understand the role of soaking prayer and renewal among charismatics to be central to their mission.

Appendix Survey Data Table A.1: Profile of Participants (N=258) Country USA 71.9% Canada 10.5% UK 7.0% Aus./NZ 4.3% Other 6.3% Age 18–24 3.5% 25–35 9.8% 36–45 15.7% 46–54 26.7% 55–64 33.3% 65 + 11.0% Sex Female 70.2% Male 29.8% Marital Status Single/Never Married 14.2% Married 73.9% Separated 1.2% Divorced 6.7% Widowed 4.0% Race/Ethnicity Euro-American/White 86.5% African American/Black 4.8% Latino/a 3.9% Asian 2.2% Other 2.6% Education Less than High School 3.1% High School 40.9% College/University 40.9% Graduate School 15.0%

166

A pp e n d i x

Table A.2: Identity Pastor/Ordained Minister No 73.9% Yes 26.1% Current Religious Affiliation Classical Pentecostal 14.8% Charismatic/ 50.0% Non-Denominational Mainline Protestant 7.4% Roman Catholic 0.8% Baptist 3.3% Evangelical 2.0% None 7.4% Other 14.3% Religious Affiliation Age 14 Classical Pentecostal Charismatic/

8.2% 4.5%

Non-Denominational Mainline Protestant 30.6% Roman Catholic 17.5% Baptist 15.5% Evangelical 5.7% None 14.7% Other 3.3% Spirit-Filled Yes 97.6% No 2.4% Tradition Pentecostal 12.3% Charismatic 34.9% Third Wave 4.3% Full-Gospel 7.2% Revival 16.2% Apostolic 10.6% Other 14.5%

A pp e n d i x

Table A.3: Participation in Renewal and Soaking Prayer Renewal Meetings Attended CTF Toronto

68.5%

Brownsville Assembly

21.0%

of God International House of

18.2%

Prayer, Kansas City, MO Bethel Church,

25.4%

Redding, CA Other 41.4% Soaking Prayer School Yes 40.3% Reason for Attending Soaking School Leader of Center

52.1%

Plan to Establish Center

11.1%

Participate in Center

21.4%

To Learn

30.8%

Personal Growth

46.2%

Soaking in His Presence Weekend Yes

39.1%

167

168

A pp e n d i x

Table A.4: Prayer Practices Frequency of Weekly Prayer Less Than Once a Week 0.4% Several Times 6.6% Daily 13.1% More Than Once a Day 20.9% Throughout Entire Day 59.0% Set Time for Prayer Yes 49.0% Types of Prayer Activities Talk to God in Own Words 95.9% Recite Memorized Prayers 12.7% Recite Bible Passages 41.6% Read & Reflect on Bible 71.0% Intercede for Personal Needs 77.1% Intercede for Others 90.6% Intercede for World Events 54.3% Fast 27.3% Listen to Christian Music 76.7% Pray on Internet Sites 13.9% Reflect on Devotional Readings 45.3% Other 27.8% Other Activities While Praying Drive Car 89.6% Exercise 45.4% Chores 72.1% Errands/Shopping 61.7% None of the Above 7.9% Percentage of Prayer Time Spent in Soaking Prayer 100% 0.4% 75–99% 7.5% 50–74% 16.3% 25–49% 25.4% 1–24% 45.4% None 5.0% Location for Soaking Prayer (all that apply) Home by Myself 86.8% Home with a Group 39.6% Church-based Center 38.7% Renewal Events 31.9% Other 15.3%

A pp e n d i x

169

Table A.5: Charismatic Experiences Daily Most Days Some Days

Once in Never a While

Don’t Know

Felt Presence of God

25.8%

38.7%

27.6%

7.1%

0.0%

0.9%

Spiritual Insight

15.2%

33.5%

Answer to Prayer

6.8%

31.1%

43.3%

7.6%

0.0%

0.4%

45.0%

14.9%

0.0%

Divine Call to Act

5.9%

14.9% 40.5% 34.7% 1.8% 2.3%

2.3%

Revelation from God

5.8%

19.3% 48.4% 25.1% 0.9% 0.4%

Consciousness of God

5.1%

10.6%

Inexpressible

3.2%

11.0% 27.5% 51.4% 5.0% 1.8%

Self Merging with God

3.7%

12.3%

23.3%

34.7%

16.0%

10.0%

Time Consuming Awareness of God

1.4%

6.4%

33.3%

44.3%

10.5%

4.1%

Vision of Heaven

0.0%

1.9%

13.6%

39.9%

39.0%

5.6%

Angelic Vision

0.0%

2.3%

11.0%

40.4%

39.4%

6.9%

Vision of Jesus

0.9%

4.6%

18.1%

44.9%

24.5%

6.9%

Audible Voice of God

0.0%

2.8%

11.5%

37.8%

38.7%

9.2%

Prophesy over Others

2.3%

7.8% 41.1% 40.2% 7.8% 0.9%

Prophesied Over

0.0%

4.1%

40.7%

52.9%

1.4%

0.9%

Physical Healing

0.0%

4.5%

16.8%

67.3%

7.7%

3.6%

Emotional Healing

2.7%

11.0%

38.4%

44.3%

1.4%

2.3%

Provision for Financial Need

8.7%

13.2%

27.4%

43.8%

3.7%

3.2%

29.2%

39.4%

9.7%

6.0%

Experience of God

Protection from Evil

24.8%

22.0% 23.9% 23.4% 0.9% 5.0%

Healing for Someone Else

1.9%

Demonic Deliverance

3.7%

Breaking of Generational Curse

3.7%

7.9%

24.5%

48.1%

6.9%

8.8%

Healing of Broken Relationship

4.5%

7.7%

26.2%

48.9%

6.3%

6.3%

Tongues

40.6%

9.8%

32.2%

43.9%

3.7%

8.4%

10.6% 22.9% 51.4% 6.0% 5.5%

28.1% 20.7%

5.1% 5.5% 0.0%

170

A pp e n d i x

Table A.6: Enabled by God to Overcome, Love, and Forgive Experiences

Daily

Most Days Some Days

Overcome Adversity Transcend Normal Talents

Once in

Never

a While

Don’t Know

11.9% 19.6% 31.5% 28.8% 4.6% 3.7% 9.0% 22.2% 28.1% 32.1% 3.6% 5.0%

Greater Compassion

25.7% 33.5% 30.7% 9.6% 0.0% 0.5%

Greater Hope

31.4% 36.4% 24.1% 7.7% 0.0% 0.5%

Greater Forgiveness 34.7% 31.1% 24.3% 9.5% 0.0% 0.5% Forgive Others 39.0% 39.0% 16.1% 5.5% 0.0% 0.5% for Hurts Forgive God

58.7% 28.2% 8.0% 1.4% 0.5% 3.3%

Forgive Self

40.9% 41.8% 14.1% 3.2% 0.0% 0.0%

Table A.7: Benevolent Behavior

Daily

Most Days Some Days



Once in

Never

a While

Don’t Know

Help Family Members 26.5%

26.0%

28.8%

17.8%

0.5%

0.5%

Help Friends

11.1%

31.5%

40.7%

15.7%

0.5%

0.5%

Help Acquaintances

6.8%

19.5%

35.3%

36.7%

0.5%

1.4%

Help Co-workers

9.5%

18.6%

32.2%

32.2%

3.0%

4.5%

Help Strangers

4.1%

12.0%

28.6%

50.7%

0.9%

3.7%

Help Those Who Dislike Me

3.8%

12.4%

26.2%

40.5%

1.9%

15.2%

A pp e n d i x

171

Table A.8: Response to Suffering

Daily

Most Days Some Days



Once in

Never

a While

Don’t Know

Saddened by Suffering in Foreign Countries

12.1% 19.1% 35.8% 30.2% 1.9% 0.9%

Saddened by Suffering in My Country

13.9% 24.1% 36.6% 21.8% 1.4% 2.3%

Saddened by Suffering in My Community

11.6% 25.1% 37.2% 22.3% 1.4% 2.3%

Saddened by Suffering of Strangers and Loved Ones

12.7% 17.4% 35.7% 23.9% 6.6% 3.8%

Table A.9: Response to World Need

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Important to Leave World a Better Place

45.1% 52.9% 1.5%

0.5%

I Support Causes for the Less Fortunate in the World

39.8% 50.2% 9.5%

0.5%

I Am Motivated to Help Humanity

39.7% 55.9% 3.9%

0.5%

172

A pp e n d i x

Table A.10: Giving of Time and Money Give Time to Help People in Past 12 Months Yes 97.2% How Often in Past 12 Months? Once 1.4% A Few Times 18.3% Once or Twice a Month 20.7% Once a Week 17.8% More Than Once a Week 29.3% Daily 12.5% Give Money to Help People in Past 12 Months Yes 97.2% How Much Money in Past 12 Months? < $100 11.5% $100–$499 30.7% $500–$999 16.7% $1,000–$5,000 30.2% >$5,000 10.9% Groups Helped Most Family 21.7% Friends, Neighbors, 32.4% Co-Workers People in Community 21.7% People in My 24.2% Country/World Percentage of Income Given to Charitable and Religious Causes 0% 1.0% 1–5% 8.8% 6–10% 18.6% 11–15% 40.7% 16–20% 17.5% > 20% 13.4% Yes, the Following Is Included in My Giving Tithes to Church 90.7% Other Offerings 93.2% Religious Charities 93.7% Non-Religious Charities 73.6% Family Members 87.3% Friends 93.0% Strangers 90.1%

Notes

Introduction 1. Catch the Fire website, www.catchthefire.com, accessed January 14, 2010. This statement has since been removed but is replicated on the Encounter His Love website at the In His Presence Groups section, http://www.encounterhislove.com/page/in-his-presence-groups, accessed July 19, 2013. 2. To describe the charismatics associated with Catch the Fire and soaking prayer we use the term “renewal,” aware that in some taxonomies charismatic renewal identifies Christians associated with the mainline charismatic movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The charismatics from the 1980s until the present are often labeled neo-charismatic, third wavers, or independent charismatics. However, our research indicates that the charismatics in our study self-identify with renewal as an important aspect of their brand of Christianity. For this reason, we use the term “charismatic renewal” generally to describe Catch the Fire and its organizational emphasis on renewal as a core value. 3. An Internet search with Google shows many critical sites that equate soaking prayer with New Age spirituality, Eastern practices, and transcendental meditation. 4. The Great Commandment is a reference to Matthew 22:26–40 and the Great Commission is found in Matthew 28:16–20. 5. We use the letter P to refer to Participant throughout the book. Interviews were conducted with 126 participants. P91 refers to participant 91 from our interviews. 6. See The Study of Godly Love, http://www3.uakron.edu/ ­sociology/flameweb/index.html, accessed August 9, 2011. 7. This too fits another of our theoretical assumptions from Grounded Theory (see Charmaz, 2006), which is to develop concepts and ideas based upon the data from our survey, interviews, and observations. Grounded Theory refers to qualitative research strategies that begin with “data” such as observations, allowing concepts to emerge from the data for the purpose of theorizing. As researchers, we collaborated at the data collection stage and had extensive conversations about data analysis. Since we both come from different disciplines, our conversations

174

NOTES

TO

P A GES

16 – 2 3

were synergistic about what we observed and how we interpreted charismatic activities. Interestingly, each of us brought different perspectives that were not competing but were complementary. In the end, we found our research strengthened by our collaborative activities, including the analysis. Multidisciplinary research has its strengths and weaknesses, as do all methods. In particular, sociologists of religion and theologians have different ways of seeing and interpreting the world. 8. See Sean McCloud’s book Divine Hierarchies (2007) for a critique of deprivation theories as applied to religion generally and Pentecostals specifically. 9. For a critique of methodological reductionism see Ralph W. Hood Jr.’s article “Methodological Agnosticism for the Social Sciences?” (2012) and Douglas V. Porpora, “Methodological Atheism, Methodological Agnosticism and Religious Experience” (2006). 10. The work of a few sociologists of religion is instructive on this point. For example, see Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead’s The Spiritual Revolution (2005) and Meredith McGuire’s Lived Religion (2008). 11. On this point we are referring to the work of Christian Smith, Moral Believing Animals (2003), in which he argues that humans are believers of cultural narratives that animate social institutions. 12. David Bosch wrote about the various forms that Christian mission takes, including mission as dialogue, mission as liberation, mission as contextualization, mission as evangelism, etc. In this sense we are exploring the idea of mission as renewal whereby renewal itself is central to the formation and practice of mission among charismatics. See Transforming Mission (1991).

1: Charismatic Renewal 1. See Mission, Vision, & Values, http://www.catchthefire.com/ about/vision-mission-values, accessed July 17, 2013. 2. We asked why all five hundred soaking groups were not registered with CTF and posted on the website. We were told that some groups were private and included people who did not want their names and locations to be posted. Only those who agreed to have their information, including private addresses and contact information, were listed on the website. The locations of soaking sites were taken off the website in 2011. 3. A Facebook site, not affiliated with CTF, has 3,295 “likes.” Accessed September 14, 2012. 4. There is some debate about the usefulness of the three-wave meta-

NOTES

TO

P A GES

2 9 – 37

175

phor to describe the history of modern Pentecostalism. While it generally makes sense in North America, we acknowledge that this is not a globally uniform story. See Allan Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism (2004), for details on the development of Pentecostalism in places like India and Argentina that does not follow this pattern. 5. These themes are also well discussed in Robert Wuthnow’s book After Heaven (1998) and Wade Clarke Roof ’s book, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (1999). 6. Irving Whitt was a student in Wimber’s course Signs and Wonders in the 1980s. Whitt shared his course notes with us. 7. We attended numerous conferences in Toronto, Baltimore, Houston, and Seattle where these individuals were the key speakers. 8. Jackson (1999:138) argues that Wimber disagreed with Wagner over the topic of “territorial spirits” and a theology of signs and wonders, which eventually led to a collegial separation. 9. Less directly influential was Rodney Howard-Browne, a South African who developed an independent charismatic ministry in the United States in 1987, with ties to Word of Faith teachings (Anderson, 2004: 163). Howard-Browne held services in which uncontrollable laughing occurred. Randy Clark visited Howard-Browne’s revival in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was “anointed by the laying on of hands,” which was characterized by renewal and the manifestation of laughter. In June 1993, Howard-Browne prayed for Arnott but without results. Claudio Freidzon, however, had been “anointed” by both Hinn and Howard-Browne, thereby completing the link (Poloma, 2003). 10. See Randy Clarke Leaves Vineyard, http://strangreport.com/ site-archives/134-peopleevents/people-events/465-randy-clark-leavesvineyard, accessed March 16, 2013. Also see the magazine Charisma, October 2001 (28–29), where Randy Clark talks about leaving the Vineyard to develop Global Awakening, an independent charismatic ministry. Clark cites differences over what he believed was a lack of signs and wonders in Vineyard churches following the death of John Wimber. He also speaks about his Armenian and Open Theology viewpoints that he claimed put him at odds with the vast majority of Vineyard pastors. 11. Heidi earned a PhD from Kings College, London, in which she explored the relationship between glossolalia, healing, and the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis. However, her life did not move in the direction of the university professor, but in the direction of a missionary. 12. See Bethel, www.ibethel.org/bethel-and-the-assemblies-ofgod, accessed July 6, 2011.

176

NOTES

TO

P A GES

4 0 – 51

13. See Catch the Fire, www.catchthefire.com, accessed January 14, 2010; interview with CTF leader. 14. On Catch the Fire, www.catchthefire.com, accessed January 14, 2010. 15. Letter from Fred Wright, www.partnersinharvest.org, accessed January 14, 2010. 16. History & Identity, www.partnersinharvest.org, accessed January 14, 2010. 17. Our Core Values, www.partnersinharvest.org, accessed January 14, 2010. Restoration is officially used on the Partners in Harvest site. However, it is regularly interchanged with Renewal in our interviews with CTF leaders. 18. Our Statement of Faith, www.partnersinharvest.org, accessed January 14, 2010. 19. Local, National and International Structure, www.partner ­sinharvest.org, accessed January 14, 2010. 20. Important Questions, www.partnersinharvest.org, accessed January 14, 2010. Of course, denomination does not mean a tight pattern of organizational structure, at least at this stage. However, if CTF still exists in twenty or thirty years, its organizational structure may also change and reflect a more institutionalized pattern. 21. On www.catchthefire.com, accessed January 14, 2010. 22. See Soaking Prayer Centers, www.catchthefire.com/soaking/ soaking-prayer-centers, accessed January 14, 2010.

2: Prayer and Altruism 1. See National Day of Prayer, http://pewforum.org/Prayer-inAmerica.aspx, accessed August 8, 2010. 2. Csordas based his analysis on the performative speech act theory of J. Austin and John Searle, which argued that speaking forth something produced its performative act. Empowerment, protection, revelation, deliverance, sacramental grace, and emotional release are performative categories. Anointing, the laying on of hands, sacramentals (holy water, consecrated oil, and blessed salt), tongues, resting in the Spirit, and soaking prayer are Empowerment acts. The verbal performative acts of calling down the blood of the lamb, lifting someone to the Lord, and calling on St. Michael or the Virgin Mary are Protective acts. Words of knowledge, words of wisdom, prophecy, and vision imagery are acts of Revelation. Discernment of spirits, binding of spirits, calling out spirits, prayer of

NOTES

TO

P A GES

57 – 6 2

177

command, and cutting ancestral bonds are Deliverance acts. Mass, Eucharist, and reconciliation through confession are Sacramental Grace acts. In many of these categories the performative acts are verbal or nonverbal forms of prayer, whereas others are embodied prayer through a host of biological-physical acts and responses. 3. According to St. Augustine (2002), the Father is love, the Son is the beloved, and the Spirit is the bond of love binding the Father and the Son. The language of the Father’s love in the charismatic renewal captures this Trinitarian nuance of love. 4. Irving Singer (1984) traced the development of the various concepts of love from the ancient Judaic and classical Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle to the theology of Martin Luther. Religious love, argued Singer, is a product of the Judaeo-Christian tradition that asserts God and love are one and the same. Eros comes mainly from Plato and Aristotle, who defined it as the soul’s search for the good. However, Christianity adds that the highest good is a personal and loving God. Aristotle’s definition of philia as perfect friendship is transformed by Christianity as human brother- and sisterhood—a community of believers and the bond between Christ and the church, between God and the human soul, and ultimately between Trinitarian persons. From its Jewish roots, nomos is a concept of love found in righteousness as the acceptance of and humble submission to divine law. Agape is divine, boundless love flowing outward from the creator of the world (and all that is in it deemed good), who bestows value and dignity on the beloved—first as Christ’s revelation of God in the world and second to humanity and all creation, in a way that transcends human love (159–60). 5. Charismatic Christians may not have a thorough understanding of the historical development of Christian love, but they have an implicit, broad-based understanding rooted in popular teachings of agape, eros, and philia. 6. See the Study of Godly Love, http://www3.uakron.edu/sociology/ flameweb/index.html, accessed August 9, 2011. 7. “Godly love” could also be understood as a type in the Weberian sense; a methodological tool devised to “see” social phenomena and to note where the data fits or does not fit the model. 8. There is some debate about the appropriateness of tests of significance for survey research, especially when the population is not based upon a random sample. See Jackson (1999:245–49) for a discussion about when tests of significance are not appropriate to use.

178

NOTES

TO

P A GES

7 0 – 7 9

3: Rituals of Renewal 1. Theories of ritual have shaped specific disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, and religious studies. Various scholars have drawn upon and developed ideas to understand the role of ritual for individuals, communities, and societies. Yet no one discipline has developed a coherent or single dominant theory of ritual. In this sense the study of ritual is multidisciplinary and in some cases interdisciplinary. While our focus is primarily sociological, we rely upon the interests and insights of sociologists, anthropologists, theologians, and religionists. 2. Collins’s model of IR is one that varies along two lines: mutual-focus and emotional entrainment. The creation of emotional energy is, however, prolonged through symbols that effect morality. As Collins states, “When the practices stop, the beliefs lose their emotional import, becoming mere memories, forms without substance, eventually dead and meaningless. By the same token, new symbols can be created; whenever the group assembles and focuses its attention around an object that comes to embody their emotion, a new sacred object is born” (37). 3. Seligman et al. (2008:20–43) expand on the subjunctive mood of ritual as an as if quality that is distinguished from other social worlds. The symbolic sharing of the subjunctive produces potentiality; a vision of what could be and through ritual grasps a sense of this world “as if ” it were real. Ritual play points to the incongruity of the world that is, and the world that could be. This “as if ” quality allows ritual to deal with the ambiguities of the social world in interaction with the unseen world, and to oscillate over boundaries in ways that not only cross them, but violate, blur, reaffirm, reestablish, and/or strengthen them. In a theological sense this other world is defined as the kingdom of God, which can be seen as both a future and a present “as if ” reality. 4. Pilgrimages of one sort or another appear to be a component of every world religion, both historically and in the contemporary world; e.g., Muslims travelling to Mecca, Jewish pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem, Christian pilgrimages to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome or to sites in Jerusalem, or the Anglican pilgrimage to the Marian site of ­Walsingham, in Norfolk, England (Turner, 1973; Coleman and Elsner, 2004; Pechilis, 1992). 5. Jesus Culture is the name of a youth worship band from Bethel Church in Redding. Their music is contemporary with a prophetic component. Some of their songs have received between six and eight million views on YouTube.

NOTES

TO

P A GES

8 0 – 9 6

179

6. Drawing on Roger Caillors, Seligman et al. (2008:77–78) divide play into four categories: agôn—competitive games that equalize external conditions in order to test innate skills of the players, e.g., football, chess, etc.; alea—games of chance in which players have little to no control over the outcome, e.g., casino games, dice, etc.; mimicry—imaginary play often simulated, e.g., pretending to be dragons, cops and robbers, etc.; and ilinx—(literally whirlpool) pursuit of vertigo or near panic behavior, e.g., spinning in circles, tickling, white-water rafting, riding roller coasters. Rituals of play can allow the self to remain in control or to lose control, and they either affirm or subvert the social order. Agôn and alea affirm social roles and in doing so reveal the identity of the players (aggressive or defensive; tacticians or strategists). Mimicry and ilinx allow players to abandon their identities and roles, to give up self-control. The implication for ritual is that some forms of ritual play follow external rules in order to cultivate and shape participant identities, social roles, and self-control and to reaffirm social boundaries, e.g., high church liturgies or rules of faith. Others allow participants to assume alternate identities, to assume other roles and to “let go” of control, and to subvert social boundaries, e.g., charismatic ritual. “Surrender” or “letting go” is an important trait cultivated in the rituals of soaking prayer and charismatic renewal.

4: Embodied Love 1. Arnott’s style in conducting a healing service is strikingly similar to John Wimber’s. Wimber had developed an integrative approach to healing that incorporated other models. His approach included meditative and relaxing prayer, inner or psychological healing addressing fear, anger, hurt, pain, and resentments deeply embedded in the psyche, that brought with it the healing of somatic conditions. Throughout the healing prayer Wimber would encourage the person being healed to go deeper, so that the person experienced “degrees of release” and “degrees of penetration” as God deals with the “emotional realm and its pockets of fear, anger, hostility and pain.” It is, according to Wimber, a “release of the person from the inside out.” Those being healed might have involuntary spasms, shaking, or emotional outbursts, and might even fall down, though Wimber did not place much emphasis on the last effect. Knowing who God wanted to heal was discovered through “words of knowledge” in which either Wimber, prayer ministers, or congregants would get impressions or mental pictures of the bodily ailment that God wanted to heal and would then call out the ailment and ask those in the

180

NOTES

TO

P A GES

1 01 – 11

congregation who suffered from the ailment to come to the front, or stand in the congregation for prayer. Emotional release, delving deeper into the emotional psyche to deal with past hurts and pain, was an important part of the bodily healing process. The difference between Wimber and Arnott is that for Wimber the performance was more in the style of a lecture, but for Arnott healing was in the context of intense emotional worship. See Signs and Conference, 1985 4/12, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=oRH0Zif-cIU, accessed August 31, 2011. See also Wonders Conference, 1985 4/12, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRH0ZifcIU, accessed August 31, 2011. 2. One of the researchers was pressed into the role of catcher, which allowed him to hear what was said to each person as the leaders “anointed” the petitioners and prophesied over each of them; this usually involved mental images or “prophetic revelations” for each person. One researcher was eventually anointed and told that his “revelation” was a mental picture of sweet honey all over his head and face. The taste of sweetness is an important part of the revelation. No explanation was offered as to what the revelation meant, though honey is a biblical image for God’s blessing. 3. This was our experience, too, as we participated in the practice of soaking, noticing how our breathing changed within minutes and the muscles in our bodies started to relax. As the breathing deepened, the body relaxed, the mind slowed down, as did the pulse rate, as far as we could perceive. 4. Koet (2006) and Miller (2007) offer biblical explanations of dreams and visions within the context of ancient Judaism, and Mallone (1983) offers a defense of the experience, noting that the Christian tradition has viewed dreams and visions as moments of divine guidance. In both the Old and New Testaments and in the patristic Fathers such as Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine, dreams and visions were experiences that provided divine guidance and help with making decisions. Interestingly, Irenaeus believed that dreams and visions functioned in a way that conveyed God’s likeness even in divine darkness or invisibleness. In general, the importance of dreams and visions as well as charismatic gifts diminished after the fourth century, though with exception in the mystics; however, they emerge as an important component of charismatic Christianity in the twentieth century. 5. Csordas (2002) described these embodied perceptions as somatic modes of attention that are pre-objective, and therefore not easily collapsed into the mind-body dualism that has guided the modern world.

NOTES

TO

P A GES

117 – 3 0

181

5: Apostolic Authority and Gender 1. For a more detailed discussion of Weber’s usage of charisma, see Swenson (2005). 2. Weber spoke of revitalization prophets. See his Sociology of Religion (1963). 3. Personal communication; email message to authors, March 22, 2011. 4. Although apostolic networks appear to have an Episcopal structure, the apostle becomes an exemplar by virtue of charismatic gifting rather than by rank or education. This does not mean rank is absent or not important. The rank of apostle does carry authority. The followers, however, recognize that authority in relation to the gift. Both are necessary. These networks are also not Presbyterian in structure because they do not have an assembly of ministers who oversee and govern the local churches. They are also not Congregational in structure in that there is no system of voting. The apostles and network leaders are recognized by followers based on giftedness and function, rather than popular vote or education, and they give trans-local oversight. See Max Weber (1978) and his analysis of different types of authority, especially charisma and authority. 5. Applying network research, the node is a point of connection between organizations, primarily autonomous congregations that may or may not be related to denominations. The social cluster is the social interaction between individuals in a highly integrated social group such as an apostolic team. If only one person from cluster A has some kind of social interaction (i.e., node connection) with another person from cluster B, then the two clusters become connected via the node. When this jumps to multiple clusters, then a “small-world” phenomenon occurs. According to Kay (2007:291), “In high clustering almost every node (person) is fully connected to all the people he or she could be connected to; in low clustering there are some richly connected people and some isolated people. What the mathematical model shows is that the small-world phenomenon occurs when clustering is high and path lengths are averagely low; this is because the relatively small number of random links between one cluster and the next make it possible to discover surprising common friendships.” 6. See Ministry, www.margueriteevans.com/ministry/, accessed September 9, 2011. 7. The title of Baker’s doctoral thesis is “Pentecostal Experience: Toward a Reconstructive Theology of Glossolalia.”

182

NOTES

TO

P A GES

13 2 – 4 6

8. See Radical Love Equals Radical Obedience, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=L8_GXfFqY3k, accessed August 29, 2011.

6: Advancing the Kingdom of Love 1. Heidi Baker, Voice of the Apostles Conference, Baltimore, MD, DVD-ROM (Mechanicsburg, PA: Global Awakening, October 29, 2010). 2. The Flame of Love Project was named after Clark Pinnock’s book by the same title (1996). Pinnock was one of the core research members prior to his death in 2010. 3. There is some inconsistency in the term used for the third value. In some cases John Arnott will speak about the R standing for renewal. In the Partners in Harvest literature it is restoration. 4. See About Us, http://ctfmontreal.com/en/about-us/leaders, accessed January 5, 2011. 5. The church leaders and pastors mediated a relationship between the denominational structures of the PAOC and the congregation, though the relationship was at times tense. Plunkett taught at the French-speaking school of the PAOC in the 1990s, but when he embraced renewal was asked to resign. Though some wanted him to fight the resignation, he graciously chose to resign quietly in order to avoid conflict. The church negotiated an amicable withdrawal from the PAOC and aligned itself with CTF Toronto.

Bibliography

Albrecht, Daniel E. 1999. Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/Charismatic Spirituality. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield University Press. Alexander, Kimberly E. 2006. Pentecostal Healing: Models in Theology and Practice. Dorset, UK: Deo Publishing. Althouse, Peter. 2003. Spirit of the Last Days: Pentecostal Eschatology in Conversation with Jürgen Moltmann. London: T&T Clark. ———. 2010. The Ideological Development of ‘Power’ in Early Pentecostalism: An Historical, Theological and Sociological Study. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press. Althouse, Peter, and Michael Wilkinson. 2011. “Playing in the Father’s Love: The Eschatological Implications of Charismatic Ritual and the Kingdom of God in Catch the Fire Ministries.” ARC: Journal of the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies 39:1–24. Ambrose, Linda M. 2010. “Zelma and Beulah Argue: Sisters in the Canadian Pentecostal Movement.” In Wilkinson and Althouse, Winds from the North, 99–127. Anderson, Allan. 2004. An Introduction to Pentecostalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arnott, John. 1995. The Father’s Blessing. Orlando, FL: Creation House. ———. 2008. Manifestations & Prophetic Symbolism: In a Move of the Spirit. West Sussex, UK: New Wine Press. Arnott, John, and Carol Arnott. 2009. Grace and Forgiveness. Chichester, UK: New Wine Press/New Wine Ministries. Augustine. 2002. On the Trinity. Edited by Gareth B. Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baer, Richard A. 1976. “Quaker Silence, Catholic Liturgy, and Pentecostal Glossolalia—Some Functional Similarities.” In Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism, edited by Russell P. Spittler, 150–64. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker. Baesler, E.J. 2002. “Prayer and Relationship with God II: Replication and Extension of the Relational Prayer Model.” Review of Religious Research 44: 58–76. Baker, Heidi. “Pentecostal Experience: Toward a Reconstructive Theology of Glossolalia.” PhD thesis, King’s College, London, 1996.

184

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

———. 2008. Compelled by Love. Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House. Baker, J.O. 2008. “An Investigation of the Social Patterns of Prayer Frequency and Content.” Sociology of Religion 69: 169–85. Barfoot, Charles H., and Gerald T. Sheppard. 1980. “Prophetic vs Priestly Religion: The Changing Role of Women Clergy in Classical Pentecostal Churches.” Review of Religious Research 22(1): 2–17. Bell, Catherine. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press. Berg, Bruce L. 2004. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences, 5th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Bethel and the Assemblies of God. Open Letter from Bill Johnson and the Leadership of Bethel Church, Redding, California. Bethel, http:// www.ibethel.org/bethel-and-the-assemblies-of-God (accessed July 6, 2011). Bevans, Stephen B., and Roger P. Schoeder. 2004. Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Beverley, James A. 1995. Holy Laughter and the Toronto Blessing. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religion in Global Society. New York: Routledge. Bialecki, Jon. 2008. “Between Stewardship and Sacrifice: Agency and Economy in a Southern California Charismatic Church.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 372–90. ———. 2009. “The Kingdom and Its Subjects: Charisma, Language, Economy, and the Birth of a Progressive Politics in the Vineyard.” PhD diss., University of Southern California. Blumhofer, Edith. 1989. The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism. 2 vols. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House. ———. 1993. Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Boddie, S.C., and R. Cnaan, eds. 2007. Faith-based Social Services: Measures, Assessments, and Effectiveness. New York: Routledge. Bosch, David J. 1991. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Breslin, Michael J., Christopher Alan Lewis, and Mark Shevlin. 2010. “A Psychometric Evaluation of Poloma and Pendleton’s (1991) and Ladd and Spilka’s (2002, 2006) Measures of Prayer.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(4): 710–23. Brown, Candy Gunther. 2012. Testing Prayers: Science and Healing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

185

Brown, Candy Gunther, ed. 2011. Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing. New York: Oxford. Brown, T.T. 2009. “Rational Praying: The Economics of Prayer.” Journal of Socio-Economics 38: 37–44. ———. 2010. “The Economics of Altruism: The Role of Religious Experience.” The ARDA (Association of Religion Data Archives), http:// www.thearda.com/rrh/papers/altruism.asp (accessed August 10, 2010). Burgess, Stanley M., and Eduard M. Van Der Maas, eds. 2002. New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Cartledge, Mark, ed. 2006. Speaking in Tongues. Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster. Catch the Fire Ministries. 2009. Student Manual: Soaking Prayer Center Training School. Chan, Simon. 1998. Spiritual Theology. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press. ———. 1999. “Evidential Glossolalia and the Doctrine of Subsequence.” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 2: 195–211. Chappell, P.G. 1988. “Healing Movements.” In Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, edited by Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee, 253–372. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Charmaz, Kathy. 2006. Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis. Los Angeles: Sage. Chevreau, Guy. 1994. Catch the Fire. London: HarperCollins. Christenson, L. 2002. “Bennett, Denis Joseph and Rita.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 369–70. Clark, Randy. 2004. School of Healing and Impartation Workbook: Revival Phenomena and Healing. Mechanicsburg, PA: Global Awakening. Cnaan, R., S.C. Boddie, F. Handy, G. Yancey, and R. Schneider. 2002. The Invisible Caring Hand: American Congregations and the Provision of Welfare. New York: New York University Press. Cnaan, R., R.J. Wineburg, and S.C. Boddie. 1999. The Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion in Partnership. New York: Columbia University Press. Coleman, Simon, and John Elsner. 2004. “Tradition as Play: Pilgrimage to England’s Nazareth.” History and Anthropology 15(3): 273–88. Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton, NJ: Prince­ ton University Press.

186

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

Csordas, Thomas J. 1990. “Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology.” Ethos 18(21): 5–47. ———. 1994. The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1997. Language, Charisma & Creativity. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2002. Body/ Meaning/ Healing. New York: Palgrave. Curtis, Heather D. 2007. Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860–1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dayton, Donald W. 1987. Theological Roots of Pentecostalism. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Dempster, Murray. 1991. “Evangelism, Social Concern, and the Kingdom of God.” In Called and Empowered: Global Mission in Pentecostal Perspective, edited by Murray Dempster, Bryon D. Klaus, and Douglas Petersen. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. Di Giacomo, Michael. 2010. “Aimee Semple McPherson: ‘A Shot in the Arm’ for French-Canadian Protestantism.” In Wilkinson and Althouse, Winds from the North, 151–68. Di Sabatino, David. 2006. Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher. Video Recording: Jester Media. Dillon, Michelle, ed. 2003. Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doucet, D. 1997. “Soaking in the Sunshine.” Spread the Fire (June): 12– 13. Droogers, A. 1994. “The Normalization of Religious Experience: Healing, Prophecy, Dreams and Visions.” In Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture, edited by Karla Poewe. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Droogers, A.F., and Anton van Harskamp. 2006. Playful Religion: Challenges for the Study of Religion. Delft, the Netherlands: Eburon. Ekblad, Bob. 2005. Reading the Bible with the Damned. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. ———. 2008. A New Christian Manifesto: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom of God. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Ellison, C.G. 1996. “Turning to Prayer: Social and Situational Antecedents of Religious Coping among African Americans.” Review of Religious Research 38: 111–31. Faupel, D. William. 1989. The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought. PhD diss.,

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

187

University of Birmingham, UK. ———. 2010. “The New Order of the Latter Rain: Restoration or Renewal? In Wilkinson and Althouse, Winds from the North, 239–64. Flanagan, Kieran. 2001. “The Return of Theology: Sociology’s Distant Cousin.” In The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion, edited by Richard K. Fenn. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ———. 2008. “Sociology into Theology: The Unacceptable Leap.” Theory, Culture & Society (25): 236–61. Flinchbaugh, C. Hope. 2000. “Floodgates of Love in Mozambique.” Charisma Magazine. http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/evangelism-missions/21floods-of-love-in-mozambique, accessed September 17, 2013. Foster, Richard J. 1992. Prayer. NY: Harper Collins. Gallup, G. Jr., and D.M. Lindsay. 1999. Surveying the Religious Landscape. Harrisburg, PA: Moorehouse Publishing. Garzon, F., and M. Poloma. 2005. “Theophostic Ministry: Preliminary Practitioner Survey.” Pastoral Psychology 53: 387–96. Gohr, G.W. 2002. “Kansas City Prophets.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 816–17. Greeley, Andrew M. 1972. The Denominational Society. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman. Griffith, R. Marie. 1997. God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission. Berkeley: University of California Press. Grimes, R. 1982. Beginnings in Ritual Studies. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Harrison, M.I. 1975. “The Maintenance of Enthusiasm: Involvement in a New Religious Movement.” Sociological Analysis 36: 150–60. Hejzlar, Pavel. 2010. Two Paradigms for Divine Healing: Fred F. Bosworth, Kenneth E. Hagin, Agnes Sanford, and Francis MacNutt in Dialogue. Leiden: Brill. Heron, Alasdair I.C. 1983. The Holy Spirit. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Higgins, Thomas W. 2012. “Kenn Gulliksen, John Wimber, and the Founding of the Vineyard Movement.” Pneuma 34: 208–28. Hilborn, David. 2006. “Glossolalia as Communication—A LinguisticPragmatic Perspective.” In Cartledge, Speaking in Tongues, 111–46. Hocken, Peter. 2002. “Charismatic Movement.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 477–519. ———. 2009. The Challenges of the Pentecostal, Charismatic and Messianic Jewish Movements: The Tensions of the Spirit. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

188

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

Hoge, Dean R., and David A. Roozen. 1979. Understanding Church Growth and Decline: 1950–1978. Pilgrim Press. Holmes, Pamela M.S. 2009. “Ministering Women in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada: A Feminist Exploration.” In Wilkinson, ed., Canadian Pentecostalism, 185–94. ———. 2010. “Acts 29 and Authority: Towards a Pentecostal Feminist Hermeneutic of Liberation.” In Wilkinson and Studebaker, eds., A Liberating Spirit, 185–212. Hood, Ralph W. Jr. 2012. “Methodological Agnosticism for the Social Sciences?” In The Science and Theology of Godly Love, edited by Mathew T. Lee and Amos Yong, 121–40. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. Hunt, Stephen. 1995. “The ‘Toronto Blessing’: A Rumour of Angels?” Journal of Contemporary Religion (10)3: 257–71. ———. 1997. “‘Doing the Stuff ’: The Vineyard Connection.” In Charismatic Christianity: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Stephen Hunt, Malcolm Hamilton, and Tony Walker, 77–96. New York: St. Martin’s Press. ———. 2009. “The ‘Toronto Blessing’—A Lesson in Globalized Religion?” In Wilkinson, ed., Canadian Pentecostalism, 233–48. Hutchinson, Mark. 2010. “The Latter Rain Movement and the Phenomenon of Global Return. In Wilkinson and Althouse, Winds from the North, 265–84. Jackson, Bill. 1999. The Quest for the Radical Middle: A History of the Vineyard. Cape Town, South Africa: Vineyard International Publishing. ———. 2005. “A Short History of the Association of Vineyard Churches.” In Church Identity and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, edited by D. Roozen and J. Nieman, 132–40. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Jackson, Timothy P. 2003. The Priority of Love: Christian Charity and Social Justice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Johnson, Rolf M. 2001. Three Faces of Love. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. Kay, William K. 2007. Apostolic Networks in Britain: New Ways of Being Church. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kearns, Cleo McNelly. 2005. “Irigaray’s Between East and West: Breath, Pranayama, and the Phenomenology of Prayer.” In The Phenomenology of Prayer, edited by Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba, 103– 18. New York: Fordham University Press. Keenan, William J.F. 2003. “Rediscovering the Theological in Sociology: Foundation and Possibilities.” Theory, Culture & Society 20(1): 19–42.

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

189

Kelley, Dean M.. 1972. Why Conservative Churches are Growing. New York: Harper. Kim, D. 2004. “Lukan Pentecostal Theology of Prayer: Is Persistent Prayer not Biblical?” Asian Journal for Pentecostal Studies 7: 205–17. Knibbe, Kim, and André Droogers. 2011. “Methodological Ludism and the Academic Study of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 23(3/4): 283–303. Koet, Bart J. 2006. Dreams and Scripture in Luke-Acts: Collected Essays. Leuven, The Netherlands: Peeters. Kraft, Charles. 1989. Christianity with Power. Servant Publications. Krause, N. 2004. “Assessing the Relationships among Prayer Expectancies, Race, and Self-esteem in Late Life.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43: 395–408. ———. 2005. “Exploring Race Differences in a Multidimensional Battery of Prayer Measures among Older Adults. Sociology of Religion 66: 23–43. Kydd, Ronald, A.N. 1998a. “A Retrospectus/Prospectus on Physical Phenomena Centred on the ‘Toronto Blessing.’” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 12: 73–81. ———. 1998b. Healing Through the Centuries: Models for Understanding. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Labanow, Cory E. 2009. Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church: A Congregational Study of a Vineyard Church. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Ladd, K.L., and B. Spilka. 2002. “Inward, Outward, and Upward: Cognitive Aspects of Prayer. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41: 475–84. ———. 2006. “Inward, Outward, Upward Prayer: Scale Reliability and Validation.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45: 233–51. Land, Steven J. 1993. Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield University Press. Lee, Matthew T., and Margaret M. Poloma. 2009. A Sociological Study of the Great Commandment in Pentecostalism: The Practice of Godly Love as Benevolent Service. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Lee, Matthew T., Margaret M. Poloma, and Stephen G. Post. 2013. The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God’s Love. New York: Oxford University Press. Lee, Matthew T., and Amos Yong, eds. 2012a. The Science and Theology of Godly Love. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. ———. 2012b. Godly Love: Impediments and Possibilities. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

190

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

Levin, J.S., and R.J. Taylor. 1997. “Age Differences in Patterns and Correlates of the Frequency of Prayer.” Gerontologist 37: 75–88. Luhrmann, T.M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Lyon, David. 2000. Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern Times. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Macchia, Frank D. 1993. Spirituality and Social Liberation: The Message of the Blumhardts in the Light of Wuerttemburg Pietism. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. ———. 2006. Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. MacNutt, Francis. 1974. Healing. New York: Bantam Books. ———. 1977. The Power to Heal. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press. ———. 1988. Overcome by the Spirit: The Extraordinary Phenomenon That Is Happening to Ordinary People. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books. Mallone, George. 1983. Those Controversial Gifts: Prophecy, Dreams, Visions, Tongues, Interpretation, Healing. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Marostica, Matthew. 2011. “Learning from the Master: Carlos Annacondia and the Standardization of Pentecostal Practices In and Beyond Argentina.” In Candy Gunther Brown, ed., Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, 207–27. Martin, Bernice. 2001. “The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: A Cautionary Tale for the Sociology of Religion.” In The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, edited by Richard K. Fenn, 52–66. Oxford: Blackwell. McCloud, Sean. 2007. Divine Hierarchies: Class in American Religion and Religious Studies. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. McClymond, Michael, ed. 2004. Embodying the Spirit: New Perspectives on North American Revivalism. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. ———. 2010. “Prosperity Already and Not Yet: An Eschatological Interpretation of the Health and Wealth Emphasis in the North American Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement.” In Perspectives in Pentecostal Eschatology: World Without End, edited by Peter Althouse and Robby Waddell, 293–312. Eugene, OR: Pickwick. McCullough, M.E. 1995. “Prayer and Health: Conceptual Issues, Research Review, and Research Agenda.” Journal of Psychology and Theology 23: 15–29.

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

191

McGee, G.B., and B.A. Pavia. 2002. “Charles Peter Wagner.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 369–70. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. McGuire, M.B. 1975. “Toward a Sociological Interpretation of the ‘Catholic Pentecostal’ Movement.” Review of Religious Research 16: 94–104. ———. 1977. “Testimony as a Commitment Mechanism in Catholic Pentecostal Prayer Groups.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 16: 165–68. ———. 1988. Ritual Healing in Suburban America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ———. 2002. Religion: The Social Context. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. ———. 2008. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Melloni, Alberto, ed. 2003. ‘Movements’ in the Church. London: SCM Press. Menzies, Robert P. 1994. Empowered for Witness: The Spirit in Luke-Acts. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Miller, Donald E. 1997. Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2005. “Routinizing Charisma: The Vineyard Christian Fellowship in the Post-Wimber Era.” In Church, Identity and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, edited by D. Roozen and J. Nieman, 141–62. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Miller, Donald E., and Tetsunao Yamamori. 2007. Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement. Berkeley: University of California Press. Miller, John B.F. 2007. Convinced That God Had Called Us: Dreams, Visions and the Perception of God’s Will in Luke-Acts. Leiden: Brill. Miskov, Jennifer A. 2012. “Life on Wings: The Forgotten Life and Theology of Carrie Judd Montgomery.” PhD diss., University of Birmingham, UK. Mittelstadt, Martin W. 2004. The Spirit and Suffering in Luke-Acts: Implications for a Pentecostal Pneumatology. London: T & T Clark International. Moore, S. David. 2003. The Shepherding Movement: Controversy and Charismatic Ecclesiology. London: T & T Clark International. Nestrop, Louise, Kevin Magil, and Bradly B. Onishi. 2009. Christian Mysticism. Surrey, UK: Ashgate. Nygren, Anders. 1953. Agape and Eros. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. O’Connor, E.D. 1971. The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

192

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

O’Dea, Thomas. 1961. “Five Dilemmas in the Institutionalization of Religion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 1: 30–39. Oliner, Samuel P. 2008. Altruism, Intergroup Apology, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House. Oord, Thomas J. 2010. Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific and Theological Engagement. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Opp, James. 2005 The Lord for the Body. Montreal-Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press. Pechilis, Karen. 1992. “To Pilgrimage It.” Journal of Ritual Studies 6(2): 59–91. Penney, John M. 1997. The Missionary Emphasis of Lukan Pneumatology. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Percy, Martyn. 1996. Words, Wonders and Power: Understanding Contemporary Christian Fundamentalism and Revivalism. London: SPCK. ———. 1998. “The Morphology of Pilgrimage in the ‘Toronto Blessing.’” Religion 28(1): 281–88. ———. 2005. “Adventure and Atrophy in a Charismatic Movement: Returning to the ‘Toronto Blessing.’” Journal of Contemporary Religion 20(1): 71–90. ———. 2011. “Adventure and Atrophy in a Charismatic Movement: Returning to the ‘Toronto Blessing.’” In Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians, edited by Martin Lindhardt. 152–78. New York: Berghahn Books. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. 2007. At http://religions.pewforum.org/ (accessed August 5, 2010). Pinnock, Clark H. 1996. Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Pipes, P.F., and H.R. Ebaugh. 2002. “Faith-based Coalitions, Social Services, and Government Funding.” Sociology of Religion 63(1): 49–68. Poloma, Margaret M. 1989. The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ———. 1991. “A Comparison of Christian Science and Mainline Christian Healing Ideologies and Practices. Review of Religious Research 32: 337–50. ———. 1997. “The ‘Toronto Blessing’: Charisma, Institutionalization, and Revival.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36: 257–71. ———. 1998. “Inspecting the Fruit of the ‘Toronto Blessing’: A Sociological Assessment.” Pneuma 20: 43–70.

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

193

———. 2002. “Toronto Blessing.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 1149–52. ———. 2003. Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira. ———. 2006a. “Glossolalia, Liminality and Empowered Kingdom Building—A Sociological Perspective.” In Cartledge, Speaking in Tongues, 147–73. ———. 2006b. “Old Wine in New Wineskins: The Rise of Healing Rooms in Revival Pentecostalism.” Pneuma 28: 59–71. ———. 2009. “Pentecostal Prayer within the Assemblies of God: An Empirical Study.” Pneuma 31: 47–65. Poloma, Margaret M., and G.H. Gallup. 1991. Varieties of Prayer. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International. Poloma, Margaret M., and John Green. 2010. The Assemblies of God: Godly Love and the Revitalization of American Pentecostalism. New York: New York University Press. Poloma, Margaret M., and Lynett F. Hoelter. 1998. “The ‘Toronto Blessing’: A Holistic Model of Healing.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37: 258–73. Poloma, Margaret M., and Ralph W. Hood Jr. 2008. Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church. New York: New York University Press. Poloma, Margaret M., and B.F. Pendleton. 1989. “Exploring Types of Prayer and Quality of Life: A Research Note.” Review of Religious Research 31: 26–53. ———. 1991. “The Effects of Prayer Experiences on Measures of General Well-Being.” Journal of Psychology and Theology 19: 71–83. Porpora, Douglas V. 2006. “Methodological Atheism, Methodological Agnosticism and Religious Experience.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 36(1): 1–62. Post, Stephen G. 2003. Unlimited Love: Altruism, Compassion and Service. Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation. Richards, D.G. 1991. “The Phenomenology and Psychological Correlates of Verbal Prayer.” Journal of Psychology and Theology 19: 354–63. Richter, Philip. 1997. “The Toronto Blessing: Charismatic Evangelical Global Warming.” In Charismatic Christianity: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Stephen Hunt, Malcolm Hamilton, and Tony Walker, 97–119. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Riis, Olie, and Linda Woodhead. 2010. A Sociology of Religious Emotion.

194

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

Oxford: Oxford University Press. Riss, Richard. 1987. Latter Rain: The Latter Rain Movement of 1948 and the Mid-twentieth Century Evangelical Awakening. Etobicoke, ON: Honeycomb Visual Productions. Robbins, Joel. 2011. “The Obvious Aspects of Pentecostalism: Ritual and Pentecostal Globalization.” In Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians, edited by Martin Lindhardt, 49– 67. New York: Berghahn Books. Roberts, Keith A. 1995. Religion in Sociological Perspective. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Roof, Wade Clark. 1999. Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ruthven, Jon. 1990. On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Postbiblical Miracles. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Sandford, Agnes. 1947. The Healing Light. New York: Ballantine Books. Sanford, John A. 1978. Dreams and Visions. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Scandrett-Leatherman, Craig. 1999. “Ritual and Resistance: Communal Connectivity in a Church Retreat.” Missiology: An International Review 17(3): 311–31. School of Healing and Impartation Workbook. 2004. Schouten, Ronald. 2003. “Rituals of Renewal: The Toronto Blessing as a Ritual Change of Contemporary Christianity.” Journal of Ritual Studies 17(2): 25–34. Schwartz, Kelly Dean, Buetta Warkentin, and Michael Wilkinson 2008. “Faith-Based Social Services in North America: A Comparison of American and Canadian Religious History and Initiative.” Social Work & Christianity 35(2): 123–47. Segers, M., ed. 2003. Faith-based Initiatives and the Bush Administration. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Seligman, Adam B., Robert P. Weller, Michael J. Puett, and Bennett Simon. 2008. Ritual and Its Consequences. New York: Oxford University Press. Sherrill, John L. 1964. They Speak with Other Tongues. New Jersey: Revell. Shilling, Chris. 2005. The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. London: Sage. Sider, Ronald J. 1993. Good News and Good Works: A Theology for the Whole Gospel. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. Silverman, David, ed. 2004. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

195

Practice, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Singer, Irving. 1984. The Nature of Love. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sloos, William. 2010. “The Story of James and Ellen Hebden: The First Family of Pentecost in Canada.” Pneuma 32(2): 181–202. Smith, Christian. 2003. Moral Believing Animals. New York: Oxford. Smith, James K.A. 2006. “Tongues as ‘Resistance Discourse’—A Philosophical Perspective.” In Cartledge, Speaking in Tongues, 81–110. Milton Keyes: Paternoster. ———. 2010. Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Philosophy. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Smith, Richard J.A. 1999. “Consideration of the Toronto Blessing.” Didaskalia (Fall): 15–30. Solomon, L. 2003. In God We Trust? Faith-based Organizations and the Quest to Solve America’s Social Ills. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Sorokin, Pitirim A. 2002 [1954]. The Ways and Power of Love. Philadelphia: Templeton. ———. 1957. Social and Cultural Dynamics, one-volume ed. Boston: Porter Sargent. Stake, Robert E. 2005. “Qualitative Case Studies.” In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed., edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 443–66. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stewart, Adam. 2010. “A Canadian Azusa? The Implications of the Hebden Mission for Pentecostal Historiography. In Wilkinson and Althouse, Winds from the North, 17–37. Stronstadt, Roger. 1984. The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. ———. 1999. The Prophethood of All Believers: A Study in Luke’s Charismatic Theology. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Sutton, Matthew Avery. 2009. Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. Harvard University Press. Suurmond, Jean-Jacques. 1994. Word and Spirit at Play: Towards a Charismatic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Swenson, Donald. 2005. Society, Spirituality, and the Sacred. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. ———. 2009. “The Canadian Catholic Charismatic Renewal. In Wilkinson, ed., Canadian Pentecostalism, 214–32, Synan, H.V. 2002. “Kansas City Conference.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 816.

196

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

Taves, Ann. 1999. Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and ­Explaining Experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tindall, George Brown. 1988. America: A Narrative History, 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton. True, Julie. 2009. Breathe You In. TrueHeart Worship. Audio CD. Turner, Bryan S. 1996. The Body & Society. London: Sage. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1973. “The Center Out There: Pilgrim’s Goal.” History of Religions 12(3): 191–230. ———. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1979. Process, Performance and Pilgrimage: A Study of Comparative Symbology. New Delhi: Concept Publishing. ———. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. Turner, Victor, and Edith Turner. 1978. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press. Unveiling the Prophetic (Conference). Toronto, May 12–15, 2010. At http://www.tacf.org/events/conferences/unveiling (accessed January 13, 2010). Vacek, Edward Collins. 1994. Love, Human and Divine. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Versteeg, Peter. 2006. “A Prophetic Outsider: Experience and the Boundaries of Meaning in a Local Vineyard Church.” Pneuma 28 (Spring): 72–88. ———. 2010. The Ethnography of a Dutch Pentecostal Church: Vineyard Utrecht and the International Charismatic Movement. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Virkler, Mark, and Patti Virkler. 2005. How to Hear God’s Voice. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers. ———, n.d. Hearing God’s Voice Seminar Workbook. Buffalo, NY: Communion with God Ministries. Volf, Miroslav. 1996. Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Vondey, Wolfgang. 2010. Beyond Pentecostalism: The Crisis of Global Christianity and the Renewal of the Theological Agenda. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

197

Wacker, Grant. 2001. Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wagner, C. Peter. 1988. The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit. Ann Arbor, MI: Servant. ———. 2002. “John Wimber.” In Burgess and Van Der Maas, New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 1199– 1200. Ware, Kallistos. 1997. “‘My Helper and My Enemy’: The Body in Greek Christianity.” In Religion and the Body, edited by Sarah Coakley, 90– 110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warren, Kelley [Augi]. 2003. Breathe on Me Breath of God. Heaven’s Whisper Publishing and Productions. Audio CD. Weber, Max. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. ———. 1963. The Sociology of Religion. Boston: Beacon Press. ———. 1978. Economy and Society, Vols. 1 & 2. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wellman, Barry, and S.D. Berkowitz. 1988. Social Structures: A Network Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenk, Mattias. 2000. Community-forming Power: The Socio-Ethical Role of the Spirit in Luke-Acts. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield University Press. Wheeler, Bonnie. 1999. “Models of Pilgrimage: From Communitas to Confluence.” Journal of Ritual Studies 13(2): 26–41. White, John. 1988. When the Spirit Comes with Power. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press. Wilkerson, David. 1963. The Cross and the Switchblade. New York: B. Geis Associates. Wilkinson, Michael. 2010. “Public Acts of Forgiveness: What Happens When Canadian Churches and Governments Seek Forgiveness for Social Sins of the Past?” In Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Restoration, edited by Martin Mittelstadt and Geoffrey Sutton. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications. ———.. 2012. “The Institutionalization of Religion: Impediment or Impetus for Godly Love?” In Godly Love: Impediments & Possibilities, edited by Matthew T. Lee and Amos Yong, 153–70. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books Wilkinson, Michael, ed. 2009. Canadian Pentecostalism: Transition and Transformation, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Wilkinson, Michael, and Peter Althouse. 2012. “Apology and Forgiveness as an Expression of Love in a Charismatic Congregation” PentecoStudies:

198

B I BL I OG R A P H Y

An Interdisciplinary Journal for Research on the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements 11(1): 87–102. Wilkinson, Michael, and Peter Althouse, eds. 2010. Winds from the North: Canadian Contributions to the Pentecostal Movement. Leiden: Brill. Wilkinson, Michael, and Steven M. Studebaker, eds. 2010. A Liberating Spirit: Pentecostals and Social Action in North America. Eugene, OR: Pickwick. Williams, Don. 2005. “Theological Perspective and Reflection on the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.” In Church, Identity and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, edited by D. Roozen and J. Nieman, 163–87. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Wimber, John, n.d. “Healing Ministry and Church Growth: MC510.” Course Handouts, Fuller School of World Mission. ———. 1986. Power Evangelism. New York: Harper and Row. Winters, Amanda. “Bethel Burgeons under Pastor’s Visions of Prosperity.” The Record Spotlight, redding.com, Saturday, January 16, 2010. At http://www.redding.com/news/2010/jan/16/bethel-burgeons-under-pastors-visions-of/ (accessed August 17, 2013). Wood, R. 2003. “Religion, Faith-based Community Organizing, and the Struggle for Justice.” In Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by M. Dillon, 385–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 1993. “Altruism and Social Theory.” Social Service Review 67(3): 344–57. ———. 1998. After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2000. “How Religious Groups Promote Forgiving: A National Study.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39(2): 125–39. ———. 2004. Saving America? Faith-based Services and the Future of Civil Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yin, Robert K. 1994. Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yong, Amos. 2012. “Observation-Participation-Subjunctivation: Methodological Play and Meaning-Making in the Study of Religion and Theology.” Religious Studies and Theology 31(1): 17–40.

Index

Ahn, Che, 35, 122, 125 Altruism, theory of, 12–15, 52–56, 151–55, 161 Ambrose, Linda, 135 Anderson, Allan, 175 Anointing, 8, 10–11, 34, 41, 51, 81–83, 86–87, 96, 100–101, 106–7, 113–15, 121–22, 125–26, 131–32, 140, 156, 175–76, 180 Apology, 145–46, 153–54 Arnott, Carol, 1, 4, 7–8, 14, 22, 33–36, 40, 86, 90–91, 127, 133, 162 Arnott, John, 1, 7–9, 14, 22, 32–36, 40, 81–84, 86, 90, 95–97, 101–2, 110, 113–14, 122, 126–27, 129, 133, 137, 162 Assemblies of God, 23, 34, 37, 58, 60, 118–19, 130, 134–35, 160 Association of Vineyard Churches, 3, 23 26, 29, 31, 34, 43, 101, 118, 160, 175 Attunement. See Interactional Ritual Authority: apostolic, 113, 115, 122–25, 127, 130–36, 181; gender, 21, 69, 113, 127–30, 133–35; transference of, 86, 113–15, 119, 120–21; Weber’s types, 20, 115–16, 122, 133 Azusa Street Revival, 23, 160 Bain, June, 42, 127–28, 162

Baker, Heidi, 23, 32, 35–36, 48, 88, 96, 122, 125, 130–33, 138, 156, 162 Baker, Rolland, 23, 35, 133 Banov, Georgian, 35, 122 Baptism of power, 4, 11 Benevolence, 4, 14–15, 17–18, 52–54, 57–58, 60–61, 119, 140, 155, 158, 161 Bentley, Todd, 125–26 Bethel Church, 5, 35–37, 75, 125, 167, 178 Beyer, Peter, 122 Bickle, Mike, 26–27, 35–36 Body. See Embodiment Bosch, David, 156–57, 174 Calvary Chapel, 30, 160 Catch the Fire (CTF): consolidation, 38–40, 118; core values, 5, 41, 74, 89–90, 129, 140, 176; CTF Houston, 40, 87, 100, 133; CTF London, 40; CTF Montreal, 130, 140, 144–48, 162; CTF Raleigh, 35, 40, 86, 90, 125; Friends in Harvest, 22, 41–42; history of, 19, 23–24, 29–33, 43, 120, 160, 173; institutionalization, 3, 22, 42–44, 77, 115, 136, 156, 163; leaders, 95–96, 136, 162; mission strategy, 74, 137, 140, 156; networks, 5, 22, 32, 35–36, 40, 44, 90, 92, 122, 125; Partners in Harvest, 22,

200

I NDEX

40–42, 126, 144, 176; teaching, 43, 14, 39, 70, 77, 81–82, 98, 102, 123, 128, 156; vision statement, 3, 22, 138, 140; women, 121, 127–28, 130 Christian Broadcasting Network, 35, 76, 125 City Rescue Mission, 142–43 Clark, Randy, 23, 32, 34–36, 96, 99, 122, 125–26, 131, 157, 175 Collins, Randall, 20, 60, 72–73, 89–90, 139, 162, 178 Compassion, 4, 10, 14, 36, 54, 57, 61, 65, 71, 83, 85, 132, 137, 138, 139, 140–42, 152, 154–56, 158, 161 Conferences, 4–5, 27, 33, 35, 38–40, 53, 58, 74, 77, 94, 96, 102, 124–25, 127, 130, 133, 139, 175 Contemplation, 7, 11, 23, 43, 49, 71, 92, 99, 128–29, 156, 157, 162 Csordas, Thomas, 20, 47, 51, 81, 99, 176, 180 Culture: charismatic culture, 6, 21, 71, 90, 102–3, 109, 151–52, 159–60, 162; Flanagan’s view, 16–17; networks, 122; Sorokin’s view, 12–13, 56; subculture, 5, 14–15, 29; therapeutic, 33, 150; Wuthnow’s view, 54, 153 Deprivation, 16–17, 174 Droogers, André, 79–80, 108 Durkheim, Emile, 16, 53 Ecstatic, 9, 34, 51, 81, 94, 98, 101, 130, 157 Ekblad, Bob, 148, 150–51

Embodiment: breathing, 20, 32, 86, 90, 97, 103–6, 180; dance, 12, 59, 78–80, 94, 97–98, 139, 145; dreams and visions, 10, 19, 90, 93, 102–3, 108–9, 112, 157, 180; emotion, 99, 111; flesh, 93, 115, 119, 126, 127; groaning, 106–7; healing, 19, 29, 32, 50, 85, 95–96, 99–100, 112, 179–80; heat, 109; holistic view, 93; love, 20, 137–39; moaning, 106, 107; music, 97, 102; phenomena, 12, 20, 34, 52, 72, 78–79, 94–95, 97, 101, 103; renewing, 33; resting, 9, 105, 180; rituals, 51; sensation(s), 50–51, 95, 99, 109, 112, 149; shaking, 22, 31, 51, 52, 95, 106, 109, 179; smell, 90, 95, 103, 107–8, 112; theory of, 20, 151–52, 94, 97–99, 101, 105, 177, 180; tingling, 95–96, 100, 109, 149; weeping, 3, 12, 22, 24, 34, 52, 90, 95, 97; weight or pressure, 72, 90, 95, 103, 107, 112, 126 Emotions: hurt, 7, 10, 12, 34, 103, 138, 146; integration, 50, 77, 108; intensity, 5, 12–13, 19, 59, 73, 94, 138, 146, 179–80; intimacy, 8, 138; negative, 91, 99; release, 50–51, 176, 179, 180; sociology of, 73, 97; support, 140, 153 Empowerment, 8–9, 11, 19–20, 32–34, 41, 51, 61, 70, 82, 89, 97– 98, 107, 110, 120–21, 136–37, 140, 148–49, 157, 160, 176 Entrainment. See Interactional Ritual

I n DEX

Evans, Marguerite, 6–7, 9–10, 42, 110, 129, 133 Flanagan, Kieran, 15–17 Forgiveness, 4, 20, 47–48, 51, 57, 65, 81, 83–86, 95–96, 106, 140–41, 145–48, 152–54 Foster, Richard, 49 Fowler, Antley, 141–42 Freidzon, Claudio, 34, 175 Global Awakening, 23, 35, 99, 100, 122, 125, 175 Glossolalia, 3, 10–11,19, 20, 23–25, 30–31, 37, 50–51, 58, 63, 65–66, 87, 90, 92, 97–100, 112, 119–20, 126, 128, 130, 134, 169, 175–76, 181 Godly Love Model: beneficiaries, 14, 46, 161; collaborators, 14, 46, 59–60, 123, 136, 161; exemplars, 13–14, 46, 52, 54–55, 58, 60–61, 136, 156, 161–62, 181; institutional impediment, 61, 81, 117–19, 146, 163; theory, 7, 13–14, 58–60, 161, 173, 177 Great Commandment, 8, 45, 60–61, 137, 139, 157, 173 Great Commission, 8, 139, 157, 173 Green, John C., 46–47, 60–61, 119 Habitus, 5, 17 Healing: forgiveness, 83–84, 96, 106, 146–48, 151, 153–54; Francis MacNutt’s view, 4, 28–29, 52; Heidi Baker, 36, 88, 131; love, 4, 19, 20, 85, 93, 112, 146–47, 149; history of, 23, 25–29, 43, 160; impartation

201

or transference, 86, 114–15, 119, 157; inner or emotional, 7, 10, 20, 33, 35, 47, 50–52, 71, 95–97, 111–12, 126, 128–29, 151, 158, 169; John Arnott’s view, 82–84, 95–96, 113–14; John Wimber’s view, 29–33, 43, 82; physical or bodily, 19, 47, 38, 51–52, 85, 95–97, 99, 100, 108–9, 161; reconciliation, 146–49, 151–58, 154; school, 6, 128; women, 27, 50–51, 93, 134 Hearing God, 7, 9–10, 35, 37, 41, 43, 61, 87, 91, 100, 108–12, 128, 146 Hinn, Benny, 28, 34, 175 Hocken, Peter, 25, 122 Holy Trinity Brompton, 34, 141 Holmes, Pamela, 134 Hood, Ralph W., 60, 161, 174 Hope, 8, 12, 65, 108, 110, 138, 149, 152, 157, 158 Howard-Browne, Rodney, 81, 87, 175 H-Rock Church, 35, 125 Hunt, Stephen, 30, 33, 37, 138 Hutchinson, Mark, 24 Impartation, 4, 10–11, 24, 74, 81, 86–88, 95, 99–100, 114–15, 121, 139 Institutionalization, 22, 24, 33–40, 58–61, 77, 81, 89, 115–19, 121–23, 130, 133–35, 156, 159–60, 162–63, 176; O’Dea’s dilemmas, 58–60, 117–19 Interactional Ritual (IR): attunement, 20, 73, 97, 139; emotional energy (EE), 20, 60, 72–74, 89, 92, 139, 162, 178;

202

I NDEX

entrainment, 20, 69, 90, 162, 178; group solidarity, 8–9, 72, 98, 139; theory, 71–72 (see Ritual) International House of Prayer, 27, 35, 75, 79, 122, 125 Iris Ministries, 23, 35, 125 Jesus Culture, 79, 178 Johnson, Bill, 32, 35–37, 96, 122, 125 Johnson, Rolf, M., 57–58 Kansas City Prophets, 26, 34, 36 Kay, William, 123–24, 181 Kingdom: advancing, 18, 82, 85, 113–14, 122, 139–41, 151, 163; core value, 41, 130, 133, 140, 149; imminent, 25; of God, 31, 98, 121, 131–32, 144, 148–51, 155, 157–58, 178; power of, 10; signs and wonders, 31–32, 44, 82; subjunctive, 74, 92 Ladd, Kevin, 47, 49, 52 Latter Rain Movement, 24, 26, 28–29 Laughter, 3, 7, 12, 20, 22, 24, 34, 52 59, 78, 86, 90, 94–95, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 110, 112, 147, 175 Laying on hands, 5, 24, 50–51, 86, 106–7, 175–76 Lee, Matthew T., 13–14, 36, 46, 52, 59–61 Long, Sandra, 40 Long, Stacy, 129 Long, Steve, 35, 40, 96, 125, 129 Love: —divine love, 4, 10–12, 17, 20, 45,

48, 52, 53, 56–57, 59, 60–61, 69, 92, 138–39, 140, 158, 161 —Johnson’s types: appreciationlove, 57–58; care-love, 57–58, 158; union-love, 57–58 —loving others, 7, 18, 59, 69, 89, 119 —Sorokin’s empirical measures: adequacy, 55–56; duration, 55–56, 161; extensity, 15, 55–56, 161; intensity, 15, 55–56, 72, 75, 89, 92, 138, 146, purity, 55–56 —unlimited, 13, 59, 112 Lyon, David, 35 Macchia, Frank D., 19, 24, 57, 98 MacNutt, Francis, 4, 28–29, 32, 51–52 Martin, Bernice, 127 McClymond, Michael, 24, 28, 98 McGuire, Meredith, 47, 50, 151 Miller, Donald E., 29, 118, 180 Mission: renewal as, 7, 80, 155–56, 174; strategy, 40–42, 137–38; women, 134–35 Music, 7, 23, 30, 43, 63, 79, 80, 87, 88, 90, 94–97, 102–4, 145, 162, 178 Mystic, 38, 48, 52, 56–58, 61, 91, 98–99, 129, 131, 180 Networks, 4, 14, 22–24, 27, 32, 34–37, 39–42, 44, 53, 58, 76, 89–90, 92, 115, 122–26, 136, 159, 161, 181 New Age, 6, 73 O’Dea, Thomas, 58, 117–18 Oliner, Samuel, 153–54

I n DEX

Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, 134–35, 144, 182 Percy, Martyn, 4, 22, 29, 76, 87 Performance, 91, 109, 139, 157 Pinnock, Clark, 121, 157, 182 Play: methodology, 79–80 Plunkett, Gerry, 133, 144–48, 182 Plunkett, Marcia, 133, 144–45 Poloma, Margaret, 13, 22, 27, 36, 38, 46–48, 52, 58–61, 81, 99–101, 109, 118–19, 152, 161, 175 Post, Stephen, 13, 54, 57, 59, 161 Prayer: frequency, 19, 45–48, 63, 67, 161; study of 46–53, 61 Prophecy: as cultural critique, 54, 58; Bible, 108, 119, 121, 126; core value, 130; ministry, 101, 123; in relation to others, 66, 103, 112, 131, 168; practice of, 4, 10, 24–26, 36–36, 41, 43, 87, 103, 111–12, 119; social justice, 150–51; symbolism, 101–2; Weber, 133; women, 131, 134 Qualitative Research, 14–16, 49–52, 173 Reconciliation, 4, 57, 71, 138–40, 146, 152–56, 177 Resting in the Spirit, 4, 28, 50–51, 81, 89, 95, 100–101, 127, 160, 176. See Slain in the Spirit Restoration, 20, 24, 41, 50–51, 84, 89, 93, 119, 123, 126, 138, 140, 149, 151, 176 Restoring the Foundations, 83, 125 Revelation, 65–66, 91, 95, 99, 100, 144, 176–77, 180

203

Revitalization, 17, 58–61, 71, 95, 117, 119, 181 Riis, Olie, 73 Ritual: collective, 16; communitas, 75–76, 78; liminality, 71, 76–77; objects, 88; pilgrimage, 4, 56, 71, 74–78, 178; pilgrims, 22, 38, 39, 59, 75–76, 159; play, 20, 78–80, 98, 178–79; renewal, 20, 70, 74, 89–90, 92, 178; site, 18, 77; subjunctive, 20, 71, 74–76, 79, 80, 90, 92, 178; symbols, 76, 90. See Interactional Ritual River City Church, 140–44 Robbins, Joel, 90 Roberts, Oral, 27, 28, 151, 160 Routinization, 116–18, 130, 135–36 Sacred space, 51, 70, 71, 78, 98 Sanford, John A., 35, 84, 109 Sanford, Paula, 84 Seligman, Adam B., 74, 178–79 Shilling, Chris, 90, 97 Signs and Wonders, 22, 31, 33, 35, 43, 81–82, 85, 95, 139, 148, 158, 175 Simmel, Georg, 17 Sinnott, Connie, 42, 78 Sinnott, Jeremy, 42, 78 Slade, Dan, 42 Slain in the Spirit, 3, 28, 89, 160. See Resting in the Spirit Smith, Duncan, 35, 40, 86, 99, 129 Soaking Prayer Center, 7, 18, 23, 40, 42–43, 72, 88, 92, 167–68, 176 Soaking Prayer Coordinator, 9, 23, 43, 85, 89, 109–10; inter-

204

I NDEX

national, 42; national, 7, 42, 127–29, 163; regional, 42, 119, 127, 141, 162–63 Social justice, 54–55, 60–61, 137, 139, 140–41, 148, 150–52, 154–58 Sorokin, Pitirim, 12–13, 15, 53–56, 60, 152, 160–61 Speaking in Tongues. See glossolalia Spilka, Bernard, 47, 49, 52 Stronstad, Roger, 21, 120–21 Subculture, 5, 145, 159 Suurmond, Jean-Jacques, 80, 98 Therapeutic, 6, 29 50, 109, 160 Third Wave, 23–26, 29 Tierra Nueva, 148–51 Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. See Catch the Fire Toronto Blessing. See Catch the Fire True, Julie, 104

Turner, Bryan, 20, 97 Turner, Victor, 75–77, 178 Virkler, Mark, 35, 43, 87, 108, 111 Wagner, Peter, 23, 30, 33 175 Weber, Max, 16, 20, 47, 53, 90, 115–17, 133, 181 Wellman, Barry, 122 Wimber, John, 26, 29, 30–36, 43, 82, 101, 118, 141, 160, 175, 179, 180 Women, 6, 9, 21, 27, 50–51, 58, 69, 93, 121, 124, 127–30, 133–36, 147, 149, 163 Woodhead, Linda, 73, 174 Word of Knowledge, 83, 99–100, 119, 176, 179 Wuthnow, Robert, 15, 53–54, 152, 153–55, 175 Yin, Robert K., 14–15 Yong, Amos, 14, 80