Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization [1 ed.] 9783954895700, 9783954890705

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Matthias Deininger

Global Pentecostalism

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An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization

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Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

Deininger, Mathhias: Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Hamburg, Anchor Academic Publishing 2014 Buch-ISBN: 978-3-95489-070-5 PDF-eBook-ISBN: 978-3-95489-570-0 Druck/Herstellung: Anchor Academic Publishing, Hamburg, 2014 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Bibliographical Information of the German National Library: The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography. Detailed bibliographic data can be found at: http://dnb.d-nb.de

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Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

Content 1.

Introduction ........................................................................................................1

2.

Studying Global Pentecostalism ........................................................................5

3.

Theoretical Contexts .........................................................................................13

4.

5.

6.

3.1

Religion, Modernity and Secularization ......................................................13

3.2

Globalization ................................................................................................18

3.3

Globalization of Religion .............................................................................28

Mapping Global Pentecostalism ......................................................................36 4.1

Definitional Matters .....................................................................................37

4.2

(Re)-Constructing the Global Pentecostal Network.....................................42

4.3

The Emergence and Formation of Global Pentecostalism ...........................45

Globalization of Pentecostalism.......................................................................55 5.1

Conversion ...................................................................................................57

5.2

Pentecostal Cosmology ................................................................................58

5.3

Global Outreach and Spread ........................................................................61

5.4

A Short Synopsis..........................................................................................67

Pentecostalism and Capitalism ........................................................................69 6.1

The Theology of Prosperity .........................................................................70

6.2

Discussing the Pentecostal-Capitalism Nexus .............................................79

Conclusion and Outlook ...................................................................................92

8.

Bibliography ......................................................................................................95

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7.

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved. Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

1. Introduction Let me set up the following study with a brief illustration of my first encounters with Pentecostals: Back in 1999, while traveling around in the US I was kindly invited by a group of young and eager Bible college students to join them in their weekly church service on Sunday. They belonged to a Pentecostal inspired church called ‘The River’, situated in the Tampa Bay Area, Florida, and run by a charismatic preacher from South Africa, who liked to call himself ‘the Holy Ghost Bartender’. Curious about it, I accepted their invitation. Thus, the next Sunday, I found myself amidst a huge congregation — by my count there must have been around three to four thousand attendees — all neatly dressed up in their churchgoing outfits and ready to ‘get filled with the Holy Ghost’. What I experienced during the church service, however, was something I had never seen before (at least not in Europe). As the pastor wandered through the aisles, fervently trying to spread the ‘Fire of the Holy Spirit’ by touching people on their foreheads, the worshippers started to break into uncontrollable ‘holy laughter’. Some began dancing ecstatically through the aisles, shaking their bodies as if possessed. Others were jerking spasmodically on the ground, their eyes wide open, uttering strange words nobody could understand. They were, as one of the students explained to me later, ‘slain in the Spirit’, meaning that they had personally encountered the Holy Spirit and thus were touched by God. To an outsider like me, the whole scene seemed rather surreal and the density of the atmosphere left me with a queasy feeling lasting several days. I would have written off this episode as a typical ‘Crazy-American-Christians’ kind of experience that one encounters in the US quite frequently, if I hadn’t had a similar experience just a few years later. This time I had the chance to visit a Pentecostal church in Soweto, South Africa. The ecstatic performance of the congregation during the church service reminded me strongly of the one I had witnessed in ‘The River Church’ in Tampa. AltCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

hough there were minor differences in the way they conducted their church ceremony and the manners as well as the intensity of experiencing the Holy Spirit varied (for example, the people in Soweto didn’t seem to bother much about ‘holy laughter’ but stressed the importance of healing through exorcism) the emphasis and centrality given to the presence of the Holy Spirit were alike. On my recent field trips to Indonesia and Singapore, I could observe similar patterns of Pentecostal worship, however, again with slightly different accentuations. I believe that these kinds of Pentecos1

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

tal manifestations can be detected around the world, be it in Chinese Pentecostal congregations in Sydney, among migrant African Pentecostals in London or Philippine Charismatics in Hong Kong.

The reason for starting off with an illustration like this is neither to bore the reader with some trivial droll story of my life, nor to bring the religious practices of Pentecostals into discredit. Instead, my intention is to point out to the interesting fact that despite the different cultural contexts in which Pentecostalism could establish itself globally, the religious characteristics of Pentecostal churches and charismatic groups resemble each other in considerable ways. What makes the Pentecostal movement so unique is not so much its global expansion. Religions, such as Christianity and Islam that claim universal relevance have always been viewed as possessing globalizing tendencies. The spread of Pentecostalism is insofar outstanding that it has the ability to adapt itself to local conditions while maintaining and preserving its distinct religious features at the same time. In this sense, Pentecostalism can be considered being truly the first global religion and historically, the first and paradigmatic case of a decentered and de-territorialized global culture (Casanova 2001: 437). The birth and rapid global expansion of Pentecostal movements has led to widespread recognition of Pentecostalism as a major force in the Christian globalization enterprise, and a significant subset within the broader globalization movement. A main thread running through the study of global Pentecostalism, therefore, is its adaptability to the modern world system and, concomitantly its increasing visibility in the public sphere. Underlying the assertion of cultural adaptability is the assumption that the world’s economic, political, and other societal structures have shifted (and continue to shift), and that Pentecostalism as a religious orientation has the ability to accommodate, or maybe even leverage, those shifts. This does not seem to fit into the common picture of religion as being merely a private matter. In this secularCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

ist reading Pentecostalism is mainly conceived as being ‘other-worldly’ with a strong emphasis on personal salvation and basically indifferent towards social, economic, environmental and political issues. Accordingly, this reductionist conception treats Pentecostalism (or religion in general) as an independent and analytically separate domain within society and equates it too readily with abstract beliefs, doctrines and practices. Yet, one can observe that Pentecostals around the world are increasingly involved in social ministry (Miller and Yamamori 2007), business networks (Koning 2

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

and Dahles 2009) or even in political activities (Marshall 2009; O’Neill 2010), altogether helping to facilitate socio-economical and political change and transformation in global society. Rather than just responding to globalization processes Pentecostalism acts on and actively shapes the dynamics of globalization, and thus can be viewed as yet another powerful force in the ‘re-sacralization’ or ‘re-enchantment’ of the world (cf. Csordas 2011). Put differently, Pentecostalism seems to be “flexible and resilient enough to adapt to and be at home with both modernity and its elusive successor, post-modernity” (Anderson 2004: 285). Out of these preliminary considerations emerges following interrelated complex of questions which I want to discuss in this book. The first question asks about the origins of Pentecostalism and the historical trajectories of its emergence. How did Pentecostalism expand globally and what were the conditions for its development? What theoretical framework is suitable to define this fluid and reticular movement? The second question refers to the reasons for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism. Why is it, that Pentecostalism attracts so many people around the world? How can the global success story of Pentecostalism be explained? What external and internal factors account for making the Pentecostal movement a ‘global winner’? Underlying these two topics is another, more fundamental question that runs like a common thread through this book: How does global Pentecostalism relate to processes of globalization and modernization and what forms does it take in an increasingly globalized setting? Or, more generally speaking: How, under global conditions, can new forms of religion and religiosity like that of Pentecostalism be adequately described and analyzed scientifically? In short, the central aim of this study is to understand Pentecostal expansion within the theoretical framework of globalization and in terms of its internal religious characteristics. In my opinion, Pentecostalism can serve as a heuristic entry point to understand the complexity of cultural globalization processes more general-

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ly. With this end in mind and for this purpose, Pentecostalism is regarded as an active agent of globalization; as a transnational movement characterized by fluidity, innovation, and practicality within the context of an increasingly complex and plural world order, particularly in terms of the wider discourses on globalization. Entering the academic field of discourse on religion and globalization in general and that of the interrelationship between globalization and Pentecostalism in particular, can be confusing and at times even frustrating. For one thing, there are numerous 3

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

theoretical approaches that have been employed in attempting to understand Pentecostalism’s complex nature. However, none provides a wholesale account of what Pentecostalism is all about: they merely give insights into certain aspects. Moreover, the problem with these contrasting approaches is that they tend to take a static picture of a movement that has constantly been in a state of transition and metamorphosis. As Hunt (2010: 197) rightly points out “Pentecostalism appears to change its colors not only according to wider cultural transformations from modernity to postmodernity but also as a result of dynamics within the movement itself.” Next, and in reference to John Urry’s concept of complexity, Pentecostalism mirrors the current state of the globe as a strangely disordered, complex and non-linear world, which can be characterized by unpredictability and irreversibility (Urry 2004: 11). Urry (ibid.) argues that such global systems lack “finalized ‘equilibrium’ and ‘order’ [and therefore,] do not exhibit and sustain unchanging structural stability.” One side effect of this increasing complexity is that commonly used analytical categories (such as society, culture, religion, the sacred and the secular, etc.) no longer possess the explanatory stability and force necessary for examining these “strangely ordered systems” (ibid.). However, despite this unsatisfactory condition, there seems to be no alternative than to stick to already established concepts, at least for the time being. Given the fact that today’s social configurations are fundamentally complex, multiple, and dynamic, any theoretical approach to Pentecostalism will always remain ephemeral and amorphous, thus only possessing the capability of generating and reproducing a ‘kaleidoscopic’ image of the religious phenomenon we label as the ‘Pentecostal movement’. This book therefore, does not provide any clear-cut and definitive answers to the complex nature of globalization and Pentecostalism. Rather it should be understood as an explorative approach that seeks to untangle some of the complexities that emerge when theorizing global Pentecostalism. As such I do not intend to ‘prove’ any hypothesis but attempt to critically discuss various lines of arCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

guments within the discourse on the academic study of Pentecostalism and globalization.

In order to do so, this book is structured as follows: In the subsequent chapter I will first briefly look at the emergence of Pentecostalism as a subject of academic research, followed by a reflection on the process of my own field research in Southeast Asia. Chapter three contextualizes the discourse on global Pentecostalism by examin4

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ing some theoretical developments on topics such as modernity, secularization, globalization and the globalization of religion. This will lay the foundation for my further analysis on the spread and impact of Pentecostalism in the contemporary global context. In chapter four I will turn to definitional issues, trying to identify Pentecostalism and addressing some problems that arise with it. Further I will discuss and trace back the global historical origins of the Pentecostal network. The succeeding chapter looks at some of the internal factors that constitute Pentecostalism as a globalized religion and the ways it relates to external processes of globalization. In chapter six I will go into a more detailed analysis of the interrelationship between Pentecostalism and capitalism, discussing the Pentecostal prosperity gospel and some of the sociological approaches that try to account for this nexus. Finally, chapter seven, provides the reader with a brief summary of the main arguments made in his book.

2. Studying Global Pentecostalism “Our preserved theories and the world fit together so snugly less because we have found out how the world is than because we have tailored each to the other” (Hacking 1992:3)

The global expansion of Pentecostalism is one of the most striking religious phenomena in our present-day world. Along with Islam, Pentecostalism seems to represent “the largest shift in the contemporary global religious economy” (D. Martin 2011: 66). Today, Pentecostal Christianity is by no means some marginal or peculiar denomination within world Christianity. It is not simply a niche product in the global religious market, but the most dynamic and fastest growing religious movement within the contemporary Christian world (Casanova 2001: 435; Anderson 2004: 1). According to Barret and Johnson, approximately a quarter of the world’s two billion Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Christians are believed to be Pentecostals (Barret and Johnson 2003: 24-25). Whereas in 1970 less than 10 percent of Christians identified with Pentecostalism, Barret and Johnson predict that by 2025, fully one-third may be Pentecostal (ibid.). However, putting numbers on this emergent expression of Christianity is a difficult endeavor, as is the process of drawing a hard line between Pentecostals and other forms of Christian charismatics. For Barret and Johnson (2003), for instance, the Pentecostal movement includes all Christians who consider themselves Pentecostal or charis5

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matic and pursue the corresponding religious praxis. Catholics and Protestants — not just members of organized Pentecostal churches — are therefore also included in their calculations. Any statistics on Pentecostalism must therefore be looked at critically, as they depend on what definition of Pentecostalism and charismatic movements one adopts. Further, when evaluating statistics on the size of the Pentecostal movements one needs to remember the great range of churches that are grouped under this rubric (Robbins 2004: 122). According to Barret and Johnson (2003), not less than 740 recognized Pentecostal denominations can be counted as belonging to the wider Pentecostal movement. However, there is also a significant segment of the movement that is independent and not organized into denominations. Nevertheless, even conservative estimates see the Pentecostal movement as currently having around 250 million adherents worldwide (D. Martin 2002: 1). Interestingly Pentecostalism’s most explosive growth has occurred in the southern hemisphere so that today around two-thirds of Pentecostal adherents live outside the West. The following summary statement by Anderson (2005a: 29) represents a brief but telling report on this phenomenon: According to Barrett and Johnson’s statistics, there were 1,227 million Christians in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania in 2004, 62% of the world’s Christians, while those of the two northern continents (including Russia) constituted only 38%, [thus showing the] dramatic evidence of how rapidly the western share of world Christianity has decreased in the twentieth century. If present trends continue, by 2025 69% of the world’s Christians will live in the South, with only 31% in the North. Even though we have to take these figures with a grain of salt, it is evident that there is a decrease in the western share of world Christianity. The center of gravity in the

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Christian world shifts inexorably southwards, to Africa, Asia and Latin America, with most of the dramatic church growth taking place in Pentecostal and indigenous and independent Pentecostal-like churches (Anderson 2005b: 151; Jenkins 2002: 2). As such, one aspect of this religious ‘resurgence’ is the disintegrating relationship between the West and Christianity. We could even state that Christianity is now returning to its roots by becoming a post-Western religion dominated by the peoples, cultures, and countries of the global South.

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This radical southward swing of Christianity has not gone unnoticed. The Economist, for instance, published an article on the influential growth of Pentecostal megachurches in Guatemala, going so far as to conclude that a “century after its birth Pentecostalism is redrawing the religious map of the world and undermining the notion that modernity is secular” (The Economist 2006). Similarly, the Time Magazine proclaims, “Christianity’s surge in Indonesia,” stating that a “religious revolution is transforming Indonesia” in that there has been a “boom in Christianity,” especially in its Pentecostal and evangelical guise (Beech 2010). Looking at these tendencies and on the basis of my own observations, especially in Southeast Asia, Casanova might be right in his prediction “that Pentecostalism is likely to become the predominant global form of Christianity of the 21st century” (Casanova 2001: 435). However, the globalization of Pentecostalism in general and the observable surge of Pentecostal and charismatic forms of Christianity in the ‘Global South’ in particular, have only recently fallen below the radar of scholarly attention. Cultural anthropologists and sociologists long had the propensity to discount the importance of Christianity as an object of study, generally “denying [that] it is a meaningful system like others with its own coherence and contradictions” (Robbins 2007:6). For Robbins, however, this neglect is not merely accidental, but is actively produced “by those interested in studying religion who choose to avoid Christian societies when they pick field sites” (ibid.). Robbins writes in this regard of an “overdetermined history of neglect” (2006: 220), suggesting that Christians are “too similar to anthropologists to be worthy of study and too meaningfully different to be easily made sense of by the use of standard anthropologist tools” (2003a: 192). The latter difficulty arises because Christianity draws on part of Western cultural traditions, which is “in critical dialogue with the modernist ideas on which anthropology is founded” (ibid.). Similarly, Fenella (2005: 340 ) argues that

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despite the existence of distinguished ethnographies on Christian areas, there has been a tendency to avoid or undertheorize the subject of Christianity or to assume that its meanings are ‘obvious’ because they are part of the culture from which anthropologists themselves are largely drawn. By looking at the historical formation of anthropology and sociology as absolute ‘secular’ disciplines (at least in their self-understanding), Fenella further observes, “that the idea of Christianity as an universally and essential ascetic and other-worldly 7

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religion [has] embedded itself, unrecognized, in aspects of anthropological [and sociological] theory itself” (ibid.: 341). Thus, anthropological and sociological approaches to Christianity are often informed by a rather selective understanding of Christianity, stressing its ascetic components premised on a body-spirit dualism and seeing its importance mainly as “a harbinger of secular modernity” (ibid.). Hence, where Christianity was studied outside the ‘West’ it has usually been peripheral and viewed as an alien intrusion, undermining local cosmologies. However that may be, the rapid and pervasive expansion of Pentecostalism and other charismatic forms of Christianity has compelled scholars to critically reconsider their neglect of one of the fastest growing religious movements in the world. Accordingly today there is an ever increasing academic interest in understanding the dynamics of global Christianity in general and the rise of Pentecostalism in particular. Pentecostalism and its relation to globalization has been the subject of much scholarly debate recently, especially in disciplines such as sociology of religion and social anthropology of religion. Unfortunately, this has by far not affected the research agendas in the science of religion (Religionswissenschaft) departments as it should have, at least to my observation. It seems that for most science of religion scholars, the preoccupation with research topics related to Christianity is preferably left to theologians, church sociologists, or other social scientific disciplines (but see Währisch-Oblau 2009; Bergunder 2008).1 In this book, I therefore want to step into this gap by focusing on the different theoretical attempts made to explain the massive global expansion of Pentecostalism and its relation to broader processes of globalization.

Making up for ‘wasted’ time and methodological concerns After having discussed how Pentecostalism has emerged as a subject of academic

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research, I will now provide a short review of my own experiences ‘on the field’. For reasons of transparency, I will reflect on the actual process of how the idea to this book has been evolved and the sometimes unpredictable ways these ideas finally are shaped, reshaped or even dismissed. These insights will further help to understand

1

At least in the German-speaking academia this neglect might in some cases be caused by the institutionalized integration of “science of religion” departments into theological faculties.

8

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

why the following discussion is not based on any empirical findings, but instead solely relies on theoretical premises. The observable emergence of Pentecostalism as a global movement created the starting point of a small research project I intended to carry out in June/July 2011 in the city of Surabaya, Indonesia. The aim was to analyze, why and by what means Pentecostals in Surabaya engage themselves socially in their community and to what extent these social activities help to provide and promote the building of bridges and links towards wider society. Admittedly, the scope of my research interest was rather wide-ranging. As there were too many unknown factors related to the success of the project, I thought that a broad approach would make sense. Keeping my research questions open and general I intended to generate theoretical assumptions out of the research process itself, rather than to stick to a particular theory and test specific hypothesis constructed beforehand. However, I had to realize that this approach only makes sense, when conducting field research for a longer period of time. Doing research from scratch, off the beaten path and with no other reliable data available takes considerably more time than I had at disposal. Besides time constraints, I encountered other obstacles which showed me the limits of my endeavor: First, getting access into the research field proved to be rather difficult due to my underestimation of the big size and diversity of Pentecostal churches in Surabaya. Second, although I finally had a ‘gate keeper’ to get access into one church, it was impossible to get to know any person in a responsible position as to gain insights about their theological doctrines on social ministry or the structure of their church organization. Third, the interviews I planned to conduct largely failed because of my elementary Indonesian language skills and the rudimentary command of English on behalf of my interview partners. In short, neither did the actual outcome of my small research project meet my expectations, nor was the quality of the data I had gathered good and sufficient enough to base my study on. Nevertheless, I didn’t write this experience off as a total Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

failure. On the contrary, I think I have gained a lot of interesting insight, culturally and scientifically. Further, and more importantly, this experience stimulated me to pose some fundamental epistemological questions about the nature of social-scientific methodology in general, its limits in creating meaning as well as the contestable relationship between theory, method and the research field. It led me to revise some of my basic assumptions about the reliability and validity of data gained from field research and 9

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

to be cautious about how to apply them. As Law and Urry argue, research methods are performative of the social, meaning that they both produce and are constituted by the social and thus “can help to bring into being what they also discover” (Law and Urry 2003: 3). Methods do not simply describe social realities and social worlds as they are, but also enact and produce the realities that they understand. As such, research methods and the data gained from them are neither self-evident nor objective representations of ‘the world’, but rather constructed models that need to be explained and interpreted (Law, Savage and Ruppert 2011). In other words, scientific methods are not innocent, but make a “system of interference and work together with science towards making particular forms real while eroding others” (Law and Urry 2003: 3). This is not the place to discuss the (political) implications of this argument. Instead, what I try to show is how seemingly self-evident ‘truths’ about socialscientific methods, ones that one encounters in university seminaries and textbooks on methodology over and over again, loose some of their plausibility when actually doing field research. Most of the Pentecostal churches in Surabaya I visited, neither had any kind of institutionalized ‘social welfare program’, nor were social concerns a predominant part of their religious everyday-lives. This is not to say that social activities, such as donating for the poor or providing basic health care services, were completely absent. However, my observation was that most of these social engagements were rather informal, carried out on an irregular basis and initiated privately rather than organized by the church. They were simply not a distinct feature of Pentecostal religiosity. So I could have stuck to my original research idea in the sense of ‘seek, and you shall find’, integrating the meager outcome of my research data into a theoretical framework and thus presenting a well-fitting, coherent picture of Pentecostals in Surabaya and their social engagement in their community. In other words, I could have constructed and described a social reality while completely ignoring other, maybe more important aspects of Pentecostal societal involvements. In my opinCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

ion, this would not have done justice to the Pentecostal people I have met in Surabaya. It would have felt like betraying them. After this, at first sight, rather frustrating experience I had to rethink and redefine the thematic priority of my scientific interest. Looking back at the time I spent in Surabaya what struck me most was the considerably high percentage of Chinese middle-class people in the Pentecostal congregations I had visited. As some scholars have noticed, Pentecostalism has not only grown among the poor and marginalized 10

Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook

people in the outskirts of megacities around the world, but also noticeably among the upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class (cf. Koning & Dahles 2009; D. Martin 2011: 62-83). The economic and cultural globalization has led to significant social restructuring and introduced new measures of status and value in the form of material accumulation and consumption. Significantly, Pentecostalism has shown remarkable ability to adapt in pace with these radical socio-economical transformations, transposing novel value systems, challenges and opportunities onto its basic cosmology of personal salvation. Pentecostal salvation, as we shall see later, is very much 'thisworldly' and results in a 'new life' in both material and spiritual terms (Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001: 7). It provides direction and a supportive arena for individuals to advantageously reinvent their everyday lives and provides a means of effectively re-imaging one’s place in relation to contemporary processes of globalization (Lewison 2011). Pentecostal and charismatic movements explicitly endorse success, wealth and prosperity as expressions of both efficiency-oriented achievements and divine approval. These Pentecostal ‘prosperity teachings’ found fertile ground in various parts of the Global South, especially in nations of so-called emerging economies. Many of these charismatic churches appear to give expression to a “new capitalist culture” (Hunt 2000: 340), one, in which worldly success is interpreted as a sign of God’s blessing and thus “fits neatly with the worldview and experiences of a rising middle class in which material accumulation is highly valued” (Tong 2008: 12).

With these thoughts in my mind, I again headed down to Southeast Asia in January 2012. Only this time I didn’t intend to do any research in the sense of collecting valid data to ‘prove’ some hypothesis about the ‘elective affinity’ between Pentecostalism and economic globalization. Being deeply suspicious about the validity of socialscientific methodology (as discussed before) my aim of this short field trip was rather Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

experimental and investigative. I wanted to experience firsthand the ‘material dimension’ of (Asian) Pentecostal religiosity, its ecstatic worship styles and distinct aesthetic forms. All in all, I spent one week in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), one in Singapore and two weeks in Surabaya (Indonesia). In Singapore, I had the chance to meet a Pentecostal theologian with whom I had some very interesting discussions. He gave me insights into the theological doctrine of the ‘prosperity gospel’ and shared with 11

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me his thoughts on the emerging Pentecostal and charismatic movements in Singapore and their rapid spread throughout Southeast Asia. Further, I had the chance to visit two Pentecostal mega churches during their Sunday services. Both churches are located inside a huge shopping mall in the city center and are very well-frequented. In Surabaya, I refreshed some of the ties I had established during my previous field trip. Unfortunately, other than being invited to a prayer meeting (which eventually lasted the whole night!), I wasn’t able to attend their church service because of time constraints. However, on the advice of a friend, I had the chance to visit a Pentecostal church congregation inside one of the more upscale shopping malls in the city, which mainly caters to busy, middle-class Chinese Indonesians. This church conducts its service every Sunday on an hourly basis, promising its attendees “short, but full blessings” and the “instant curing of illness” (as advertized at the entrance). Gereja satu jam (one-hour church), as this church names itself serves as a good example on how Pentecostalism finds ways to accommodate itself to the rapid socio-economic changes and processes of social restructuring in a globalized world. Coming back to Europe, I first had to sort things out. The longer I tried to make sense of my field trip experiences and to insert them into a broader theoretical framework, the more I felt I was losing my focus. I was more and more getting into a state of confusion. With no divine ‘signs or wonders’ in sight, I had to (again) stand back and start to reflect on the material I already had, all the literature I had read and above all become clear about the focus of my study. Eventually, I opted, to go back to where my whole ‘Pentecostalism project’ started, raising the more fundamental questions about the interrelationship between Pentecostalism and globalization as well as the reasons behind its successful global expansion. It was within this context that lay ground for my decision to choose a theoretical approach and base this book

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on extensive literature research.

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3. Theoretical Contexts In order to contextualize the thematic of this study, it is important to examine some theoretical developments in the social scientific study of religion (particularly in the sociology of religion and anthropology of religion) that form the foundation for understanding current debates about and analysis of the spread and impact of Pentecostalism in the contemporary global context. Theorizing contested concepts like religion, secularization and modernity and their interrelation to globalization can be an interesting, but also a very trying endeavor. As Beyer and Beaman (2007:2) state in their introduction to Religion, Globalization and Culture: The contested meaning of globalization constitutes another aspect of its complexity. This takes the shape of a continuum ranging from complete denial of its existence to a tendency to frame all analytical possibilities in terms of globalization. This continuum and its myriad forms intersect with contested concepts in the social scientific study of religion, such as secularization, lived religion, and deinstitutionalization, to render ‘religion and globalization’ a complex, fascinating, and sometimes frustrating field of study. Entering the ‘minefield’ of theoretical debates always involves the danger of making oneself vulnerable to criticism. It further implies making choices about what kind of theory to take into consideration and which ones to leave out. The range of theories I will refer to is therefore inevitably selective, but not arbitrarily so. I will only delineate and reflect on those theoretical threads that I think are useful to my further elaborations on Pentecostalism. As globalization theories related to religion are embedded in wider theories about modernity, secularization and globalization in general, I will first focus my discussion more broadly on these themes before moving on to the is-

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sue of religion and globalization.

3.1

Religion, Modernity and Secularization

“The world today…is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever” (Berger 1999:2).

For more than a century, the vast majority of Western social scientists have been convinced that religion was a declining historical force (cf. Hefner 2010). Deeply

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embedded in the historical development of sociology as an academic discipline, secularization stood out as the predominant paradigm for explaining processes of modernization and the changing role of religion within modern society. Indeed, from its beginnings to present the idea of secularization lies at the very core of sociological imagination and “has been the pivotal theme in the reproduction of the identity of the sociologist of religion (at least in the West)” (Robertson 2007: 17). Secularization served as a central scientific category of interpretation to comprehend societal transformation processes in Europe between the late Middle Ages and the modern era. In this sense, secularization was understood as a process leading to the differentiation of society, ultimately facilitating the decline of religious influence in the public domain and the loss of its relevance to society in general (cf. Casanova 1994). The evolutionistic idea that modern society is functional differentiated into different sub-systems (such as economy, politics and science) and therefore, engenders the emancipation from religious institutions and norms plays an essential role in almost all secularization theories. This process is seen as being constitutive for the development of modern societies and remains broadly undisputed in the social sciences, especially within European sociology (Casanova 2006: 9). Indeed, the idea is firmly grounded within classical sociology. According to Casanova, the theory of secularization is nothing more than a subtheory of general theories of differentiation, either of the evolutionary and universal kind proposed by Durkheim or of the more historically specific kind of Western modernization theory developed by Weber (Casanova 1994: 18). For Émile Durkheim and Max Weber secularization was a precondition and result of modern societal differentiation processes (cf. Zachhuber 2007).2 Central to Weber’s reflections was his concept of rationality as a distinctive feature and driving force

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behind the cultural development of modern Western Europe. To him, the incipient rationalization process starting from the 17th century played an important part in the constitution of the modern bureaucratic state and the establishment of a capitalist economic system. With the increasing predictability and controllability of the world, modern society would lose its magic and extraordinary moments. Accordingly, in a 2

The following thoughts on Durkheim and Weber are taken from Zachhuber (2007). As the works of Weber and Durkheim today belong to the widely recognized body of knowledge in social sciences, I will not cite the original sources (i.e. their English translation) in this passage.

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more and more rationalized world, any consistent and comprehensive religious interpretation of meaning becomes obsolete. Weber was certainly critical about these developments and thus referred to the rationalizing of modern reality as ‘disenchantment of the world’. Durkheim, on the other hand, ascribed the decline of religion in modern society to processes of individualization. According to Durkeim’s functional understanding of religion as an essentially collective matter, the decrease of religious practices and beliefs went hand in hand with the overall decline of solidarity within society. As a consequence, religion is no longer capable of fulfilling its integrative function for society and thus loses its relevance altogether. In one way or another, these assumptions were picked up by later social scientist generations and incorporated in their theories on modernity, thus continuing to write the master narrative of secularization in which modernization was supposed to make religion secular, a functional system, or a private matter (cf. Casanova 1994: 18). Yet, against all predictions by secularization and modernization theorists of religion’s imminent privatization and decline, the past decades have seen wealthaffirming and individual-‘empowering’ religiosities take root across the globe, ranging from Islamic piety movements over Buddhist reformist groups to charismatic forms of Christianity (cf. Hefner 2010). The most successful of the new religious streams have recruited a mass following by promoting a more upbeat and accommodating message on markets, consumerism and wealth (see Kitiarsa 2008; Hefner 2010; D. Martin 2011; Berger 2010; Turner 2010a). Some of the new movements also appear preoccupied less with otherworldly transcendence than with innerworldly well-being (Hefner 2010). In this light, the claim that secularization is an inevitable outcome of modernization seems oversimplified. It does not account for the multifaceted and complex ways religions respond and accommodate to processes of modernization. Hefner (1998: 98) asserts in this regard that

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contemporary refigurations of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity remind us that, contrary to conventional secularization theories, religion in modern times has not everywhere declined as a public force, nor been domiciled within a sphere of interiority. Not a reaction against but a response to the modern world, the most successful religious refigurations thrive by drawing themselves down into mass society and away from exclusive elites, if and when the latter lose their hold on popular allegiances.

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Further, the hypothesis that secularization is constitutive for the development of modern society hardly appears plausible when applied universally. There are numerable examples showing that religions thrive despite or even because of modernization processes.It is obvious that in today’s world there exist modern societies, which are secular while at the same time deeply religious (e.g. USA). Even if we look at the socalled developing (or emerging) regions in Latin-America, Asia or Africa, we hardly can observe any continuous religious decline in spite of the fast paced ‘modernization’ processes many of these countries are currently undergoing. Within Asian cities (Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, etc.) modernization and urbanization do not appear to contradict the presence of a high level of religious consciousness and practice. Against this background, Robertson is probably right by stating that the often postulated intrinsic correlation between modernization and secularization is “indeed one of the great shibboleths (at least, category errors) in the history of the social sciences” (Robertson 2007: 18). 

Much of the contemporary debate on modernization and religion problematizes or even dismisses the ‘Eurocentric’ meta-narrative of secularization, “challenging longheld assumptions about the secular nature of modernization and modernity” (Hefner 1998: 85) and abandoning the idea of a unitary and universal process of modernization as a general model to which other societies eventually will converge to (cf. Casanova 2007: 332). As Vásquez (2008: 153) states in this regard: Flying in the face of modernization and secularization theories, religion today is public, compelling, and paradoxical, equally at home in the reconstructed bodies of itinerant Latino gang members who have converted to Pentecostalism and in transnational movements such as Hindutva, which rely heavily on

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a planetary cyber-space to convey a ‘long-distance nationalism’. The prominent ‘return’ and visibility of the religious on the world stage has therefore prompted scholars to critically revise classical assertions of secularization theories. Just a brief look into history shows that social scientists have always proven to be quick studies in adjusting their academic terminology to changing societal circumstances. Accordingly, it has become popular in recent debates to speak about the “resurgence of religion” (cf. Riesebrodt 2000), the “de-privatization of religion” (cf. Casanova 1994), or even predicting a trend towards “de-secularization” and the 16

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emergence of a “post-secular society” (cf. Berger 1999). However, it is questionable whether the ‘hunger for spirituality’, or religion in general has ever disappeared in society and if the putative ‘return of religion’ is not rather the result of its increasing medial thematization (cf. Romano 2005; Robertson 2007). Further, we can state with Olivier Roy (2010) that the emergence of religious revitalization movements as well as the observable fundamentalistic tendencies within religious conservative groups around the world do not necessarily put secularization as such into question but rather can be read as a reaction to and product of the secular world itself. Finally, Beyer (2007: 168) remarks that, [the] transformation in the understanding of the place and importance of religion in the globalized context is […] about more than just ‘resurgence’, whether in the attention of observers or in terms of an actual increase in religion. It is also, more subtly perhaps, about the forms that religion takes under contemporary global conditions [emphasis in original]. Instead of either linking modernization to processes of secularization or, conversely, taking the return of the religious for granted we should shift our attention to the different ways religions and religious practices are engaging and reacting to modernity. There are various pathways for religions to respond to the challenges of modernization. Religious forms, regardless of size or whether occurring within existing established religions or outside of them, can be effective sites for critique, tension, cooptation, adaptation, and even catharsis in relation to the condition of modernity. In this regard, Hefner (1998: 98) points out that, in situations where social borders are porous to transcultural flows, “cultural organizations that lay claim to ultimate meanings […] face a dilemma: how to maintain a coherent world-view and steadied social engagement while acknowledging the pluralism of the modern world.” One response,

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according to Hefner (ibid.), is that religions are defining their own alternative modernities on a grand scale, which happens when religions cast their own vision of the social order, the nation-state, and even beyond it. This idea is closely related to S.N. Eisenstadt’s concept of multiple modernities, where modernity is understood as an open-ended horizon in which there are spaces for multiple interpretations (cf. Eisenstadt 2000). Eisenstadt observes the emergence of new centers of modernity all around the world in which the originally Western model of modernity is continuously reinterpreted and reconstructed. The varying interpretations of modernity manifest 17

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themselves in different institutional and ideological patterns, and are carried forward by different actors such as social or religious movements. Eisenstadt summarizes the idea of multiple modernities as follows: The idea of multiple modernities presumes that the best way to understand the contemporary world indeed to explain the history of modernities is to see it as a story of continual constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programs. These ongoing reconstructions of multiple institutional and ideological patterns are carried forward by specific social actors in close connection with social, political, and intellectual activists, and also by social movements pursuing different programs of modernity, holding very different views on what makes societies modern (Eisenstadt 2000: 2). In this sense, religions can be seen as yet another ‘social actor’ on the world stage, deploying alternative imaginaries of modernity that give rise to new kinds of public (religious) cultures and identity formations (cf. Appadurai 1996: 6-7). These imaginaries of the world, “position self and others in the world conceptually, socially, and politically, mobilize people into mass movements, and determine spaces of action” (Meyer 2010: 117). Thus, they challenge the modern state and its role in articulating the imagined community of the nation (ibid.). It is at this point, where the concept of globalization comes in as a heuristic tool to further understand how these religiously informed ‘alternative imaginaries’ of the world (i.e. what it means to be modern) transgress boundaries and create what we might call ‘global imagined religious communities’.

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3.2

Globalization

‘Globalization’ seems to be the neologism of the new millennium (cf. Beyer 2006) or as the Economist described it, “the most abused word of the 21st century” (Chanda 2002). Moreover, as a highly charged term both in non-academic and academic debate it has “acquired buzzword status, invoked in a broad range of contexts and for a large number of purposes” (Robertson and White 2003: 1; see also Beyer 2006: 18; Droogers 2001: 51). As such, it has become “one of the most employed and debated

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concepts” (Robertson and White: ibid.) and is used to capture everything from the rise of global financial markets to the fall of the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001. However, the development of globalization as a theoretical construct has been rather slow and laden with difficulties (cf. Gill and Thompson 2006). By its nature, globalization spans a multitude of academic disciplines, scientific communities and cultures, therefore allowing for a variety of viewpoints. Depending on their disciplinary background, scholars focus on the economic, social, cultural or political aspects of globalization, thus giving way to countless definitional attempts and theoretical reflections in order to understand the complex dynamics of globalization processes. In his book “Globalization: A Very Short Introduction,” Steger (2003) illustrates very well the problematic of defining globalization by referring to the ancient Buddhist parable of the blind men and their encounter with an elephant, stating that, …the ongoing academic quarrel over which dimension contains the essence of globalization represents a postmodern version of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Even those few remaining scholars who still think of globalization as a singular process clash with each other over which aspect of social life constitutes its primary domain (Steger 2003: 14). Similar to the problematic issue of defining ‘religion’, any definition of ‘globalization’ is highly ambiguous and contested within academic discourse. Arweck (2007: 254) reminds us that “however many aspects a definition may capture, sufficient exceptions will be found to render the definition invalid or only partially applicable and thus lay such definitions open to challenge.” Accordingly, there is not a single ‘theory of globalization’ but many theoretical discourses on globalization. Robinson

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points to the same direction when he argues that, …there is no consensus on what has been going on in the world denoted by the term ‘globalization’; competing definitions will give us distinct interpretations of social reality. Hence the very notion of globalization is problematic given the multitude of partial divergent and often contradictory claims surrounding the concept (Robinson 2008: 126).

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Not least, we have to bear in mind that the term brings with it a multitude of hidden agendas. The concept of globalization often functions as a ‘proxy’ for theoretical discourses in the social sciences (cf. Arweck 2007). As we know, scientific concepts are not thing-like entities with settled boundaries, but historical constructs with shifting contours. Knowledge claims, therefore, are not neutral but grounded in situated social and historical contexts, often in competing social interests. Considering the political implications of these claims it is clear that, at the least, globalization has become an essentially contested concept. As Arweck states, [g]lobalization theory (or globalization theories) re-casts (re-cast) ‘traditional’ theoretical approaches in social scientific research and places (place) these within a new frame—approaches such as conflict vs. function, Marxism vs. capitalism—or re-packages (post-)structuralist thought in the language of globalization. The globalization debate could thus be considered a proxy for theoretical debate in social science and in some instances it can be observed that the term ‘globalization’ is used with different ideological overtones. (Arweck 2007: 254) Even though the academic usage of ‘globalization’ is relatively new, the historical developments to which the term refers to have been “the subject of analysis and controversy for a significant longer period” (Beyer 2006: 18). Similar to Arweck’s argument, Beyer (2006: 19ff.) observes that ‘globalization’ is a successor term for earlier social-scientific concepts of modernization, thus “coining a new word for old processes” (ibid.: 18). As such, much of the literature on modernity, postmodernity and globalization can be seen as a continuation of older versions of the modernization narrative under a new rubric (cf. B. Martin 2010: 37; Robinson 2008: 139). Beyer argues that in light of the growing fragmentation and pluralization of modernity, it

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is increasingly difficult to conceive modernity in the singular.3 This understanding is captured, for example, in the already mentioned concept of ‘multiple modernities’ (see Eisenstadt 2000) or the notion of ‘postmodernity’ as a historical condition that marks the reasons for the end of the conceived singularity of modernity. According to Beyer, the concept of ‘globalization’, then, serves as a new meta-narrative for explaining the social dynamics of today’s (world)-society: it “suggests itself as the new 3

The idea of modernization as a universal process can already be traced back to Marx, Comte and Spencer (Beyer 2006: 19).

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singular, as the universal historical process in which we are all implicated” (Beyer 2006: 19). The idea of globalization thus “at a minimum […] indicates an awareness of this singularity” (ibid.).

Globalization as an analytical concept only started to become fashionable during the 1990s, at a time when political upheavals and economic restructuration in the former Soviet Union and China paved the way for the emergence of a truly global capitalist market system (Beyer 2006: 19; see also Osterhammel and Petersson 2007: 7; Rehbein and Schwengel 2008: 11). Deregulating and liberalizing the former state controlled economies, as well as technological innovations brought about a global consumer market and saw the emergence and further integration of a world economy (Osterhammel and Petersson 2007: 8). The observable process of the increasing interconnectedness between world regions and people through a globalized capitalist market system, therefore, is often seen as the driving force behind globalization processes.4 Not surprisingly ‘globalization’ is prevalently defined in economic terms, often denoting it monolithically as being synonymous with the worldwide expansion of western capitalism or as a kind of western cultural imperialism (Robertson, 2003: 15–19; Beyer 2006: 18f, 23). According to this understanding, “globalization is essentially a product of global capitalism extending capitalist formations invented in the West […] so that economic structures become globally interdependent” (B. Martin: 2010: 37). However, merely equating globalization with the rise of the capitalist world-economy often sidelines that globalization also involves political, social, historical and cultural dimensions (Robertson 2003: 3). Further, it reproduces a Eurocentric perspective by locating the historical origins of globalization in the ‘West’ while ignoring, or at least sidelining, important world- historical developments and their interrelations in other parts of the world (cf. Pieterse 2006).

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Dimensions and characteristics of globalization A brief literature review on globalization theories seems to convey the impression that despite all differences, there are some common grounds within the academic discourse on globalization. There is a widely acceptance that the globalization pro4

This ‘economistic‘ perspective is especially observable in the world-systems theory of Immanuell Wallerstein, an Marx informed sociologist. For a more detailed elaboration on Wallerstein see Rehbein and Schwengel (2008: 56ff.).

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cess comprises first, the development of a globalized economy involving new systems of production, finance and consumption and worldwide economic integration; second, the emergence of new transnational or global cultural patterns, practices and flows, and the idea of global cultures; third, the rise of new transnational institutions, and concomitantly, the spread of global governance and authority structures of diverse sorts; and fourth, the unprecedented multidirectional movement of peoples around the world involving new patterns of transnational migration, identities and communities (Robinson 2008: 126). It is not my intention here, to provide a systematic overview of the now extensive literature on globalization or rehearse the main arguments advanced in globalization theories. This task lies beyond the scope of my expertise. Further, given the subject of this book, it does not make sense to comprehensively go into all the different dimensions of globalization just mentioned above. Rather than analyzing different theories on globalization, I will only confer to those aspects of globalization which I think are relevant to my argumentation and can serve as heuristic tools for my further elaborations. Following, I will therefore go into the historical and cultural dimensions of globalization and discuss some of the key features or characteristics that seem to be constitutive of today’s globalization processes.

First, regarding its historical dimension, globalization refers to the historic emergence, compression and increasing significance of worldwide interrelations (cf. Osterhammel and Petersson 2007: 24). Rather than using globalization as a sociological category for describing the present world condition, the focus here lies on the nonlinear and contingent dynamics as well as the intensity and impact of the historical establishments (or de-establishments ) of global networks (ibid.). From a historical perspective, globalization is not a consciously orchestrated project or a law-like process (cf. Coleman 2000: 50; Gill and Thompson 2006: 14). It is neither a single conCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

cept that can be defined and encompassed within a set time frame, nor is it a process that can be defined clearly with a beginning and an end. As Obadia rightly states in this regard, “differing definitions of globalization naturally result in different criteria by which to measure its advance, and thus lead to these different understandings of its history” (Obadia 2010: 283). Hence, there are different models of reconstructing the historical trajectories of globalization.

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Importantly, processes of worldwide interrelations and interconnectedness are nothing new in itself (cf. Obadia 2010). Depending on the theoretical concept and definition, globalization may be traced back to the history of colonialism when international trade took place across the globe. In this sense globalization is a process coterminous with the spread and development of capitalism and modernity. On the other hand, globalization is conceived as a relatively recent phenomenon and associated with such processes of post-industrialization, postmodernization or the restructuring of capitalism. Yet, in another reading globalization in some degrees is understood as having started much earlier with the interactions of various civilizations across the globe (cf. Osterhammel and Petersson 2007). For example, Robertson and Inglis (2006) demonstrate that the sense of a ‘global consciousness’ (i.e. the imagination of the world as a single place and the idea of being intimately interconnected with each other, in one way or another) was already evident in ancient Greek and Roman thought: ideas and attitudes that are in many ways closely analogous to modern notions of ‘globality’ […] were relatively common sentiments among GraecoRoman social elites from the Hellenistic period onwards through to the height of Roman imperial power in the first two centuries after Christ…The GraecoRoman world produced forms of thinking that reflected upon what was taken to be the increasingly interconnected and unified nature of that world itself. Graeco-Roman civilization may therefore be seen as having engaged in what is often taken to be an essentially modern mental activity, namely a reflexive selfinterrogation of its own ‘globalizing’ tendencies (Robertson and Inglis 2006: 30; 31) Be that as it may, my point here is not to recapture all the different attempts that have

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been made to classify processes of globalization into different phases or periods5. I will therefore, not enter the on-going controversy about the historic origins of globalization. My interest lies rather in raising the awareness of the historical multicentricity of globalization processes. However we trace back the historical roots of globalization and whatever model of its periodization we adopt, it is crucial not to underestimate the significance of other world regions outside the ‘West’ in the making of the 5

For a more detailed account on various historical conceptions of globalization see Campbell (2007); Gills and Thompson (2006).

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global economy and world society. As already indicated the Eurocentric perspective which reiterates the metanarrative of ‘the Rise of the West’ and makes Europe the lynchpin of world historiography misses an important point: namely, that from its beginnings the historical process of globalization has been global in the very true sense of the word (cf. Pieterse 2006; Osterhammel and Petersson 2007; Rehbein and Schwengel 2008). Therefore, any attempt of historicizing globalization needs to be sensitive about making claims about a (historical) legitimated ‘Western’ supremacy.6 This also applies to so-called ‘oriental’ globalization literature, which falls into the same pitfall by seeing the radius of globalization typically if not invariably from the ‘East’ outward and thus represents itself as “a kind of retroactive Sinocentrism and Indocentrism” (Pieterse 2006: 61). I stress this point here because later, in my discussion about Pentecostalism’s historical origins, we will see that the establishment of a worldwide Pentecostal network was a global endeavor right from its beginnings. Pentecostalism grew out of the ferment of a global network of evangelical missions during the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, Pentecostal expansion took place from several geographical centers around the world and cannot be considered to be a movement originating exclusively in the ‘West’ (cf. Anderson 2005b).

A second important dimension comprises the interrelationship between globalization and culture. In its basic meaning cultural globalization refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings and values across national borders, thus helping to constitute a ‘global culture’ and evoking the image of a ‘global village’ (cf. McLuhan 1962). According to Robertson (1992) the rapid growth of the mass media and resultant global cultural flows and images in recent decades have raised an awareness of the world as a single place. Similarly, Albrow (1996:4) alludes to “the reflexivity of globalism, where people and groups of all kinds refer to the globe as the frame of their beliefs.” Globalization enhances our sense of consciousness or ‘imaginary’ of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

belonging to a global community. Such a global consciousness means that the domain of reflexivity becomes the world as a whole, implying a shift from the world being merely “in itself” to a condition of the world being “for-itself” (Robertson 6

Since the 1990s there have been considerable attempts to examine history from a global perspective. The ‘global history’ approach as a distinct academic field within historical studies focuses on the transnational character of global-historical (inter)relationships. Thus, one important aim is to transcend ‘western historicism’ and avoid ethnocentric historiographies. For a more detailed elaboration on the interrelation between globalization and the ‘global history’ approach see Gill and Thopmson (2006); Osterhammel and Petersson (2007).

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1992: 55). Hence, Robertson defines globalization “as a concept that refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” (ibid.: 8). He further states that “the world has become increasingly characterized by (1) extensive connectivity, or interrelatedness and (2) extensive global consciousness, a consciousness which continues to become more and more reflexive” (Robertson 2003: 6). As already mentioned globalization is not a recent phenomenon. Confining the development of a global consciousness or ‘globality’ solely to modernity can be therefore, misleading (cf. Robertson and Inglis 2006). However, although forms of global consciousness may indeed have been prevalent in history, I would argue that they can be observed as being qualitatively distinctive from our era. The present perception of globality is unique, mainly because of its intensity and its pervasive influence beyond the borders of nations, and in every aspect of modern life. Indeed, the global integration of social worlds has reached a point where it makes sense to speak about a single global society (cf. Beyer 2006: 26).7 Current globalization processes are “rapidly and perhaps profoundly altering the social relations and social networks of existence that compose the very basis of the human community, whether locally or globally constituted” (Gill and Thompson 2006: 4).They have relocated existing notions of subjectivity in open concepts of cultural and social space and have set up new boundaries of belonging to an extent never seen before (cf. Coleman 2000: 55). Subjective and cultural boundaries are being simultaneously permeated and re-established. Electronic mass media as well as transnational migration, for example, have helped to create and disseminate images of the world. (ibid.: 58; see also Appadurai 1996). They offer “new resources […] for the construction of imagined selves and imagined worlds” (Appadurai 1996: 3) and thus bring forth a new and unprecedented sense of ‘global’ belonging. Importantly, the subjective construction of an imagined global consciousness does not only appear Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

on the level of cognition, but also involves the adoption of “certain physical orientations towards and material practices in relation to the global realm” (Coleman 2000: 63). Referring to the ‘somatic’ response to global influences Coleman states that, 7

However, this does not mean that all social lives are integrated into a single ‘world society’ to the same extent. The degree of the effect of globalization processes varies. There are certainly people living at the margins of global society. Yet, as Beyer (2006: 27) argues, “a mark of the fundamentally ‘imperialistic’ nature of this globalization process, its impetus to occupy all the social space available, is that life entirely outside its forms is not only increasingly impossible, but most of those inside […] them also view such a life as unacceptable marginal and, indeed, as inhuman.”

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“globalization can offer not only expanded ways to develop the imagination, but also potentially new ways to experience and orient the self towards the world in physical as well as aesthetic and broadly material terms” (Coleman 2000: 61). As we shall see later, this argument will be crucial for understanding the ‘material’ dimension of Pentecostalism in a global context.

Next to the notion of an increasing reflexive and embodied orientation towards the globe, globalization in the cultural sphere engenders distinct and apparently contradictory dynamics, each of them being subject to different ways of interpretation. The inherent paradox structure of cultural globalization processes (e.g. local vs. global; universalism vs. particularism; homogenization vs. heterogenization) poses fundamental questions about how to adequately explain the impact of these seemingly conflicting globalizing dynamics on cultural patterns. I use the term ‘seemingly’ here, because I think that these dynamics are not necessarily mutually exclusive or grounded on opposing logics. Instead, and in accordance with Robertson, globalization can be described as a dialectical and interdependent process between the local and global, the particular and the universal and between forces of heterogenization and homogenization. Put in Robertson’s (1992: 100) words, “we are, in the late twentieth century, witnesses to - and participants in - a massive, twofold process involving the interpenetration of the universalization of particularism and the particularization of universalism.” Robertson argues that universalism and particularism have become part of a single global nexus and thus are intrinsically interrelated and inherent to processes of globalization. Globalization universalizes certain aspects of modern life (like the nation-state; financial markets; consumption trends) and simultaneously “encourages particularization by relativizing both ‘locale’ and ‘place’ so

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that endeavors to articulate uniqueness or difference are stimulated” (van Elteren 2011: 150). The universal ideas and processes involved in globalization are interpreted and absorbed differently according to the vantage point and history of particular groups. They are adapted and appropriated to local conditions. Hence we can state that the cultural integration of the world is best understood as an uneven and differential process in time and place. In this sense, the local is not seen as the counterpart to the global but as a constitutive component of the global (cf. Robertson 1992). Lo-

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cal-global interactions and influences are thus reciprocal and can reinforce each other. Robertson has famously coined the simultaneity and interpenetration of the local and global as ‘glocalization’, which “brings into alignment the universal and the particular so that the production of locality […] is also the production of globality” (Wilkinson 2007: 380). The concept of glocalization has by now become a useful and widely recognized analytical tool in different academic fields. Similarly, the much debated question, whether globalization leads to a divergence (i.e. heterogenization) or convergence (i.e. homogenization) of global culture can be answered by looking at them as being mutually inclusive processes. However, depending on the theoretical framework both dynamics are often analyzed onesidedly as either leading to a standardization of a single global culture or promoting its diversification. Homogenization arguments generally posit that globalization is marked by growing cultural convergence at the transnational level. Proponents of the homogenization thesis thus view the world as dominated by a single culture that erases differences of local cultures. The notion of cultural standardization as the outcome of globalization processes is best captured in the term coined by Ritzer (1993) stating the ‘McDonaldization’ of the world. According to Ritzer the global success of ‘McDonald’s’ serves as an illustration for describing the institutionalization of uniform cultural standards in world society, which undermines cultural diversity and eventually dehumanizes social relations on the local level (cf. Robinson 2008: 140). Conversely, heterogenization arguments contend that global processes maintain or facilitate cultural diversity or divergence. As Lehmann (2002: 409) argues in this regard, globalization is […] by no means a process which moulds all the cultures which meet within its dynamic into a single homogeneous whole. Indeed it is equally plausible to claim the contrary: globalization may bring about the un-

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packing of local cultural complexes, but in the process it creates multifarious local identities and criss-crossing frontiers, so that diversity comes to rule more than ever before in local spaces, even while similarities and links across social and spatial distances also become ever more evident. Alternatively, globalization can also be read as a process leading to a hybrid condition in which cultural mixture and adaptations continuously transform and renew cultural forms and identities (Robinson 2008: 140). This perspective emphasizes that 27

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globalization not always leads to cultural homogenization, but also produces hybrid local cultures by synthesizing foreign and native cultural features. However, the concept of hybridity is problematic “in so far as it suggests the mixing of completely separate and homogeneous cultural spheres or identities while the anthropological and historical records show that all cultures are hybrid” (van Elteren 2011: 166). Put differently, the hybridization thesis runs into danger of reifying ‘traditional’ cultures as static and homogenous entities. It is not clear to me why the encounter of different cultural traditions, and with it, processes of cultural change results in hybridity. Referring to Robbins (2004) it is not sufficient enough to explain cultural change with concepts like syncretism, cultural fusion or hybridism. What follows from cultural change is not hybridity, but a new cultural system in its own right (ibid.: 10).

Summing up, we can state that globalization is a complex combination of both homogenizing forces of sameness and uniformity and heterogeneity and difference (van Elteren 2011: 168). While globalization brings about the coexistence of different cultures, often reinforcing boundaries and articulating sociocultural differences, it simultaneously creates “shared cultural identities and social spaces, in which an intermingling of ideas, knowledge, values, lifestyles and so on takes place” (ibid.: 150). Hence, it is crucial to closely look at those intersections, where cultural homogenization and heterogenization patterns emerge, in order to distinct one from another. Only then we are able to discern and theoretically fixate if, where and under what parameters processes of cultural convergence and divergence emerge under global conditions.

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3.3

Globalization of Religion

“I regard the phase of globalization in which we now live as having a distinctively religious characteristic in its own right” (Robertson 2007: 10)

After having delineated some of the main dimensions and characteristics of globalization I will now turn my attention to the interrelationship between globalization and religion, in order to understand the distinctive roles religion plays amid global and

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transnational processes. Religion has mainly been considered as a discreet chapter of Globalization Studies and its relation to globalization still remains undertheorized (cf. Obadia 2010: 477). Thus, according to Thomas Csordas (2009: 11) “the time has most certainly arrived for serious theorization of religion and globalization, and the globalization of religion.” Theorizing the religion-globalization nexus only recently became a distinct subject of academic research. Some notable attempts in trying to make theoretically sense of religion under globalized conditions are evident in the works by Roland Robertson (1992) and Peter Beyer (2006). Further, since the mid-1990s there have been an increasing number of social-scientific studies, which refer to the religious dimensions of globalization, in one way or another (for an overview see Csordas 2009: 11f.). However, although globalization is a term to be found in most new publications dealing with contemporary religion, for many it merely denotes a descriptive tool rather than a theoretical perspective (cf. Turner 2007: 145). As Obadia (2010: 480) states: Globalization consequently (as modernization did in its time) helps define a prominent theoretical frame, which helps make transformations of religion (or religions) more intelligible. Then again, global approaches to religion neither stand for a theoretical unity, nor they have been designed from and for the study of religions. Even though religion is regularly mentioned as a parameter or as one of the main historical forces in the accomplishment of globalization (cf. Obadia 2010: 478), much of the (sociological) attention given to the religion-globalization nexus is rather informed negatively. On the one hand, many scholars focus narrowly on the issue of religious fundamentalism, regarding it as the principal consequence of or reaction to

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globalization. On these grounds, the emergence of religious fundamentalism is often pejoratively seen to be anti-modern, thus posing a challenge to the secular hegemony of Western liberal-democratic political culture (cf. Turner 2007: 145; B.Martin 2010: 38). On the other hand, some postulate a “religious-based ‘clash of civilizations’ as a driving force for conflict in our integrated and globalized world” (Beyer 2007: 167). Either way, religion is regularly regarded as something external to globalization, denoting it as a problematic anomaly that needs to be accounted for (Beyer and Beaman 2007: 2). However, analyzing religion and globalization by merely equating 29

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it to fundamentalism or viewing it as a potential threat to world society neglects the far more complex and multi-dimensional ways religions are implicated in the processes of globalization (ibid.). Therefore, instead of talking about the relation between ‘religion and globalization’ as two separate analytical domains it is more productive to talk about the ‘globalization of religion’ as necessarily coeval and intimately intertwined social processes (Csordas 2009: 2). Within this perspective, religion is regarded as an “integral aspect of globalization and not an ‘outside’ respondent or victim” (Beyer and Beaman 2007: 4).

Since religion and globalization studies are only emerging as a new academic subfield, it is rather difficult to recapture all the theoretical attempts made at this stage. Following, I will therefore focus on two main features, which mutually impact the globalization of both institutionalized and non-institutionalized religions.8Again, I will only discuss those issues that are important to my further elaborations on global Pentecostalism. First, regarding the spatial dimension, what is new to global contemporaneous forms of religion is the extent and means to which they globalize (Obadia 2010: 492). Religions are increasingly undergoing a process of deterritorialization. They transgress spatial and social boundaries and create new forms of transnational imagined communities and networks “in which denominations and ethnicities superimpose and merge” (Obadia 2010: 488). By means of migration, missionization, increasing mobility of individuals, mediatization or through pilgrimage and religious tourism, religions and religious ideas traverse geographic and cultural spaces and become detached from any absolute connection with localities, regions or nations ‘of origin’(cf. Csordas 2009: 5f.). Once more, it can be argued that these dynamics are nothing new in themselves: “all religions are mobile, in one way or another ,by virtue of the need to bridge their claims to universal truth and their focus on the salvation, Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

redemption, or transformation of the self” (Vásquez 2008: 157). In this regard religious organizations, such as Christian missionary societies, Buddhist monastic orders, and Muslim Sufi brotherhoods have been globalized (or deterritorialized) for many centuries, connecting local cultures across vast territories and drawing new 8

In a world where the nation-state is undermined by globalization processes, religion can be as much an institution as a non-institutionalized social movement, depending on the religious position it adopts toward secular society.

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populations into their orbit through religious conversion (Stolow 2010: 547). As Stolow (ibid.) remarks, they “might be even thought of as prototypical forms of what we often refer today as ‘global society’.” Hence, Csordas probably is right when he states metaphorically that what we subsume today under the term globalization of religion “maybe old wine in new skins” (Csordas 2009: 10f.). Yet, it can be counter argued that processes of religious deterritorialization and transnationalization have accelerated in the current global condition and have touched more people than ever before. The qualitative impact of current globalization processes on religion and the role that these dynamics play in transforming the contemporary religious landscape are arguably different than before. In this regard, Freston (2007: 575) points out that, …globalization undermines territorially-based national religion, with its monopolistic claims which parallel those of the nation-state. Under globalization new forms emerge or are strengthened in all world religions, at individual, group and societal levels. Individual mysticism, always an option for elites and religious virtuosi, becomes more generally available (reaching at least the middle classes in Latin America); at the group level, there are expanded possibilities for voluntary associations on the ‘denominational’ model; and transnational churches, freed from territorial constraints, reappear as globalized imagined communities. The transnational dimension of religious globalization is especially evident in regard to migration flows and the increasing mobility of individuals. The growth of migration and permanent settlement has brought forth diasporic communities, which are “typically held together by their religious beliefs and practices in such a way that in modern societies, the distinction between ethnicity and religion begins to become

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irrelevant” (Turner 2010b: 654). Another way how religiously inflected global networks today differ from those in the past and help to shape and establish transnational religious spaces is the use of media. (Vásquez 2008:174). In a migratory context, new communication technologies like the Internet permit more frequent and intimate connections between those who move and those who remain behind. Further, they provide means to spread and reinforce the awareness of global religious identities,

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thus creating new forms of global imagined religious communities.9 As Vásquez illustrates, transnational movements such as Hindutva rely heavily on a planetary cyber-space to convey a “long-distance nationalism” (ibid.: 153). Members of the transnational Hindutva movement are able “to combine racial and religious primordialism, that is, the recovery of an imagined ancestral land and a unified people with a glorious myth of origins, with hypermodernist, deterritorialized, and de-centered cyber-spaces” (ibid.: 174). However, as much as globalization contributes to the deterritorialization and transnationalization of the religious, it also helps to set up new or reestablish existing boundaries of belonging. Religious traditions such as Christianity and Islam have always been ‘ethnicized’ and ‘territorialized’ in practice. To spread their messages successfully and stay meaningful through time and across space, religions have had to be flexible enough to adapt to local circumstances. Yet, this does not mean that deterritorialized religious individuals and groups do submerge themselves in a meaningless cultural mélange. Instead, they manufacture new senses of located cultural identity: global religion may be deeply deterritorialized and deterritorializing, but it does not automatically erase local or personal modalities of religion. Rather global, local and personal religious processes are engaged in a complex and paradoxical interplay that often intensifies all parties involved (Vásquez 2008: 160). Against the diagnosis of fragmentation of socio-political entities and national religious systems, “globalization produces new communities and locally redesigns the sense of national or regional unity” (Obadia 2010: 488). It generates a proliferation of new, reformulated and cross-cutting boundaries. Global religious movements and

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cultures create strong transnational ties of belonging and similarity while emphasizing the boundaries between their followers and their social environment. As Obadia (ibid.) observes in reference to Appadurai (2001), “territoriality still plays a crucial role in the realm of social imagination, in creating or rebuilding symbolic territories 9

Muslim youth in Germany, for instance, increasingly identify with a global 'ummah' (religious community) rather than ethnic or national groups, even though their parents' identity may be bound up with these.

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[and] in re-establishing ideological topologies of religious Otherness.” Thus, globalization also contributes to the re-territorialization of religious identities by “perpetuating mutated versions of traditional forms and cultural presuppositions” (B. Martin 2010: 40). The de-territorialization and re-territorialization of religion under globalized circumstances can therefore be seen as a dialectical process in which boundaries and localities are constantly shifted and reshaped.

A second important feature of how religions and globalization interrelate is the different ways globalization processes transform ‘the religious’ to make it compatible with both neoliberal capitalism and consumer culture (cf. Barker 2007; Lewison 2011; Turner 2010b; Kitiarsa 2010). As Turner observes, the globalization of religion has led to a massive global trade in on-line and off-line religious commodities, thus helping to spread urban, commercialized forms of religiosity (Turner 2010b: 654). This process is best understood against the complex background of neoliberalism and its effects on wider society and the religious sphere, in particular. Neoliberal economic restructuration processes which include “the decentralization of governance vis-à-vis social policy, the reorganization of work, increasing personal and national financial instability, urbanization, and labor migration” (Barker 2007: 408) have today deeply affected nearly all domains of human social life. ‘The market’ has gradually taken on roles and functions previously occupied by the state across broad social arenas. As such, we can observe that we now live not only in a market economy, but also in a market society, where the market and its categories of thought have come to dominate ever more areas of our lives. Under neoliberal conditions the market has gradually become disembedded from society and the very character of life becomes increasingly consumeristic and commercial. The dislocations set in motion by neoliberal restructuring and consumer capitalism, in turn, have led to the emergence of social and political countermovements, who respond “to the ascendance of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

neoliberalism alongside the expansion of deregulated global markets” (ibid.). However, as Barker states, “these movements do not necessarily spell the end of the neoliberal market as we have come to know it” (ibid.). On the contrary, some forms of reaction lead to a ‘positive’ alignment to neoliberal deregulation processes. They embed neoliberal economic activities by integrating them into society and providing individuals with non-state resources to adapt to each of these processes of neoliberal restructuring (ibid.). Religions play a vital role in providing such resources. Howev33

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er, other than just responding to neoliberal capitalist orders religions also accommodate to modern forms of consumerist capitalism, thus bringing forth a variety of socalled prosperity religions (cf. Hefner 2010). By offering not only material wellbeing, but also “confidence and moral security in the pursuit of near at hand concerns” prosperity religions promulgate a new economic ethic under religious auspices (ibid.: 1038). I will discuss later to what extent this might apply to the Pentecostal context and how we can situate these developments in a broader theoretical context.

What we can state so far is that religious life has become increasingly channeled through the complex mechanisms of a neoliberal marketplace and therefore has, to some extent, transformed the experience of religiosity. Neoliberal globalization has evoked the process of turning religious faith or tradition into consumable and marketable goods (i.e. into commodities), thus leading to the commodification of the religious (cf. Kitiarsa 2010). ‘Commodification’ in its broadest sense refers to the activities of turning things into commodities and of commercializing that which is not commercial, in essence. Accordingly, religious commodification can be defined as, an emerging multifaceted and multidimensional marketized process which turns a religious faith or tradition into consumable and marketable goods. It is an interactive and iterative relationship between religion and market, simultaneously involving both market force commodifying religion and religious institution taking part in marketplace and consuming culture (Kitiarsa 2010: 565). Again, it can be stated that the “production, circulation, and consumption of religious

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goods have always interacted with the dynamics of ‘profane’ economies” (Vásquez 2008: 175). World religions have always satisfied such material interests, for instance, in the sale of amulets or in providing pilgrimages to sacral sights (Turner 2010: 651; see also Kitiarsa 2010: 566). The growth of popular, de-institutionalized and commercialized forms of religion is not an invention of modern society, “but a more or less permanent feature of religious history as such” (Turner 2008: 232).Yet, it can be argued that popular religion in world society becomes the “dominant not the

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subordinate dimension of religion” (ibid.). Further, there is a qualitative difference. As Turner argues in reference to Rudolf Otto’s notion of the ‘numinous’, in religion there was always an element of sacredness in which the ineffable nature of divinity or holiness was present […] God could not be known as such and the sacred was manifest through the communication of intermediaries – prophets, angels, mythical creatures, landscapes, or spirits - but the essence of sacredness was ultimately unspeakable. In the modern world […] the role of these traditional intermediaries is breaking down and the ineffable hierarchy of beings is being democratized by popular manifestations of religion. The sacred is now effable (Turner 2010b: 651). In other words, through the profound commodification of religion “gods can also be goods […] the message of the gods becomes effable in the immanence of consumer goods that carry a message of immediate fulfillment in this world” (Turner 2008: 233). The ineffable nature of religious communication has become democratized and has engendered an effable system compatible with the modern world (Turner 2010b: 658). Accordingly, “this ‘effability’ can now be sold as both commodities and services on religious markets" (ibid.: 659). In short, the growth of a consumer society has had a significant impact on religion in terms of the relationship between consumer goods and ‘gods’. Religion adopts market logics and is perfectly compatible with the life styles of a commercial world in which the driving force of the economy is domestic consumption. Religious commodification creates a ‘spiritual marketplace’ in which “the predominant norm is not adherence but consumption” (Obadia 2010: 489) and where general spiritual rather than narrowly ecclesiastical services are provided (Turner 2010b: 651). Thus, Turner concludes that in a globalized world religion survives “not so much as a re-

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flective faith but more as health and wealth cults offering a range of services to a variety of this - worldly needs of human beings” (ibid.). As a consequence of the incorporation of religion into modern consumerism the tensions between religion and the secular begin to disappear (ibid.: 663). Similarly, Vásquez states that “in the wake of global neo-liberal capitalism the imbrications of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ has intensified to such an extent that it is blurring the boundaries separating religion and economics” (Vásquez 2008: 175). This raises the question if the ‘elective affinity’ between the religious and neoliberal capitalism is yet ‘one more nail in the coffin of 35

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secularization theory’ or, on the contrary, leads to an “evaporation of the transcendence” (cf. Turner 2012: 142) by leveling the contrast between the sacred and the world. I will come back to this point later, when discussing the Pentecostalcapitalism nexus.

4. Mapping Global Pentecostalism In the previous chapter, I have tried to recapture some of the major themes that circulate in social scientific debates on secularization, modernity and the globalization of religion. My next task is to apply and incorporate these theoretical considerations to global Pentecostalism. Over the last decade social scientists have led the way in employing the concept of globalization as an appropriate and relevant cotemporary category for describing the emergence of Pentecostalism as a global cultural movement (see Robbins 2004; Droogers 2001). As Adogame (2010: 505) has put it: The nascence and rapid expansion of the Pentecostal movement in the twentieth century lead to a recognition of Pentecostalism as an integral part of the globalization process but also as a product or consequence of it. The application of globalization to Pentecostalism therefore refers to its geographical expansion, demographic spread, and its cultural influence. Already over fifteen years ago, theologian Harvey Cox (1995) predicted that the shape of Pentecostal spirituality fit the twenty-first century. He foresaw that this “religion made to travel” (ibid.: 102) would contextualize itself globally and be the primary texture of Christianity in the 21st century. Central to the globalization of Christianity, Pentecostalism provides the “contemporary archetype of Christianity as ‘a community without an institution,’ but a community of a new type, proper to the Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

forms of diffuse, individualized, and nonisomorphic forms of connectedness in our globalized world” (Marshall 2009: 208). Similarly, Turner (2010a: 15) observes that “Pentecostalism is highly congruent with the flexible, plural world of liberal capitalism, and appears to promote rather than reject the emotional individualism of late modernity.” Pentecostals, thus, seem to have a unique ability to interact with modernity and adapt to processes of globalization. In what follows I will examine to what extent and in what sense and ways these assertions are plausible or not. In reference 36

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to Will Sweetman’s (2003) study on the construction of global Hinduism and taking over the expression of his book title (Mapping Hindusim) I will try to ‘map’ Pentecostalism in a global context. Following, I will therefore, first look at some of the difficulties in defining Pentecostalism. In a second and third step, I will examine and theorize the historiography of the Pentecostal movement by looking at its emergence in a global conte

4.1

Definitional Matters

So far, I have been using the terms Pentecostalism, Pentecostal and charismatic movements or Pentecostal and Pentecostal-like churches synonymously without giving a substantial definition of what they actually mean. The reason for my rather careless usage of these categories is not accidental, but indicates one of the core problems in studying global Pentecostalism: how to scientifically grasp such an amorphous and fluid religious phenomenon in a meaningful way. This not only applies to Pentecostalism itself, but to the category ‘religion’ in general. As Droogers has observed, the task of defining any religious phenomenon is “necessary explorative and useful” but paradoxically also “superfluous, impossible and ethnocentric” (Droogers 2008: 263). Indeed, a closer look at the relevant literature on the social scientific study of Pentecostalism shows that there is little terminological standardization in the application of terms such as Pentecostalism, charismatic Christianity, fundamentalism, evangelicalism, etc. (Robbins 2004: 119; Anderson 2004: 10).

The problem of finding a universally valid definition stems from at least two interrelated sources: First, Pentecostalism does not represent a uniform doctrine or an organizational unity. It neither refers to a “common dogmatic basis nor to a common institutional framework” (Bergunder 2010: 53), but rather consists of multifarious Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

streams and manifests itself through a wide variety of expressions across the globe. Because of the great diversity within Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, it is very difficult to find some common unifying features or distinctiveness by which they might be defined (Anderson 2004: 10). In addition, the observable internal diversity of Pentecostalism itself has become part of Pentecostal self-description. As Anderson states, “Pentecostals have defined themselves by so many paradigms that diversity itself has become a primary defining characteristic of Pentecostal and Char-

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ismatic identity” (ibid.). Indeed, there is a huge diversity in the types of churches and movements that choose to call themselves Pentecostal or charismatic (Droogers 2001: 46). However, these categories are often used loosely and interchangeably in various contexts, which makes scientific attempts to achieve a precise definition complicated, if not impossible (cf. Suarsana 2010). Against this background, Anderson is probably right to conclude that it is better to speak of a whole “range of Pentecostalisms” in the contemporary global context, instead of using its singular form (Anderson 2010: 15.). A second, reason for terminological confusion lies in the fact that social scientists often “employ the folk terms used by the groups they study, mistakenly assuming that local meanings will be widely understood by those working elsewhere” (Robbins 2004: 119). They often do not reflect that their terms used as analytical categories are also emic terms, which themselves can possess a wide range of meanings (ibid.). From an emic perspective, Pentecostalism is used as a self-descriptive term and is usually charged normatively to demarcate the boundaries of inclusion versus exclusion. Within Pentecostal discourse labeling someone as ‘Pentecostal’ is highly contested and not always clear-cut. On the one hand, it is used polemically to exclude self-claimed Pentecostals from the community of those who are seen as rightfully ‘baptized in the Holy Spirit.’ According to Hollenweger, Pentecostals tend to deny other groups with a different Pentecostal theological understanding and type of religiosity their status as “true Pentecostals” (Hollenweger 1969: XXII). In this sense, the word Pentecostalism becomes more of a theological shibboleth to define who should belong to the Pentecostal community and who not (Suarsana 2010: 12f.). On the other hand, Pentecostals may deliberately distance themselves from any form of labeling in order to avoid negative external ascriptions from wider society. As Währisch-Oblau observes, many Pentecostal migrant churches in Germany, for example, ”try to avoid denominational labels and therefore, would not denote themCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

selves as either “Pentecostal” or “charismatic […] on the fact that [it] may lead to one’s church being suspected as a ‘sect’ or even ‘cult’” (Währisch-Oblau 2009: 42). Because the term Pentecostalism simultaneously serves as a point of reference and identification within Pentecostal discourse any attempt to construct a ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ conception of this religious phenomenon is difficult. As it is, the complex interrelation between emic and etic terminologies is inherent to the study of Pentecostalism, which again is closely related to its history of research. The academ38

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ic work on Pentecostalism is young and still at a nascent stage (Anderson 2010: 4). By nature, the scholarly field of Pentecostalism is very much multidisciplinary with each of the disciplines (be they theological, sociological or anthropological) producing “a particular type of approach and thematic interest” (ibid.: 5). Up to the present a common ground has hardly been defined and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of Pentecostalism are still in its initial, exploratory stages. However, historically, the impetus to study Pentecostalism as a religious phenomenon came from Pentecostal theologians themselves. As such, they have made important contributions to the study of Pentecostalism and influenced later social scientific research agendas. Thus, analytical conceptions and terminologies constructed by theological informed Pentecostal scholars later expanded to the academic research and were partly taken over by social scientists. This is why today both discourses on Pentecostalism, social-scientific and Pentecostal-theological, are closely interwoven, which makes it hard to establish a new, external terminology (Suarsana 2010: 14). The answer to the complex question about what Pentecostalism actually is and how we shall identify it therefore requires first, to critically reflect the history of Pentecostal research by acknowledging its theologian roots and second, to understand the emic/etic terminological distinction and the implicit essentialist and normative tendencies underlying the discussions on how to define Pentecostalism (cf. Droogers 2010: 30).

However, as contested a category as Pentecostalism is, it should be distinguished from Christian fundamentalist movements (cf. Robbins 2004; see also Cox 1995, 2006). The two are not the same. Even though there are similarities between both strands within evangelical Christianity10 (e.g. conversionism, orthodox Christology, biblical literalism, emphasis on missionization), it is misleading to view Pentecostalism as a mere extension of fundamentalism (Cox 2006: 16). According to Cox, the perceived similarities are “superficial, while the differences between the two are Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

more important than the surface similarities” (ibid.: 15). Thus, “several analysts point to cultural differences between the two movements that suggest reasons for their incompatibility and indicate the analytic reasons it is useful to distinguish them” (Rob10

Importantly, the term ‘evangelical’ is not to be confused with the German word ‘evangelisch’ referring to the denomination of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Evangelicalism in this context denotes the religious movements and denominations which sprung forth from a series of revivals that swept the North Atlantic Anglo-American world and other parts of the globe in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As such, Pentecostalism can be seen as having emerged out of the broader evangelical movement in the early twentieth century.

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bins 2004: 123). Cox (1995: 302) highlights this difference by pointing out that in .

emphasizing on the direct and emotional experience of the divine, Pentecostal religiosity is more ‘experientialist’ than fundamentalist in nature: “While the beliefs of the fundamentalists, and of many other religious groups, are enshrined in formal theological systems, those of pentecostalism [sic!] are imbedded in testimonies, ecstatic speech, and bodily movements” (ibid.: 302). As the term ‘Pentecost’ already suggests, Pentecostalism refers to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament (Acts 2): When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of ire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them (Acts 2: 1-13). Pentecostals tend to see their movement as reflecting the same kind of spiritual power, worship styles and teachings that they think were essential in this early period of Christianity. Thus, an important feature that all the phenomena gathered under the rubric Pentecostalism have in common is the central place ascribed to the presence and transforming experience of the Holy Spirit (Droogers 2001: 45; Casanova 2001: 435; Anderson 2004:10). Being ‘slain in the Spirit’ is an all- encompassing experience that shapes the Pentecostal worldview in a definitive way. This shared emphasis on ecstatic and immediate experiences in the Spirit is principally available to all believers. One of the main concerns in Pentecostal spirituality, therefore, is to receive the charismatic ‘gifts of the spirit’ (charismata), such as glossolalia, healing, prophecy and exorcism. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, tend to reject the centrality

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Pentecostal Christians ascribe to the experience of the Holy Spirit, believing that they “ceased to be available to people after they were given to the Apostles during the original Pentecost” (Robbins 2004: 123). Similarly, as concerning the opposition between textual and tactile orientation to faith, Corten and Marshal-Fratani (2001: 5) state that Pentecostalism tends to have a surprisingly open and flexible approach to Biblical interpretations […] The almost complete absence of an overarching

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structure or authority according to which orthodoxy may be determined or policed, or any institutionalized mode of legitimating leadership, as well as the emphasis on individual Biblical study, means that, in practice, the sacred text is more or less ‘up for grabs’. The emphasis given to the role of the Holy Spirit as a mediator for divine revelation stands in contrast to the fundamentalist understanding, where the principals for guiding Christian moral, religious, and political action rests alone on the Bible (Coleman 2000: 25). In this regard “Pentecostals have more in common with Saint Catherine of Siena than with John Calvin” (Cox 2006: 16). Finally, there are historical reasons for distinguishing Pentecostal from fundamentalist movements. While equally conservative in nature, both draw upon different sources for their development and have responded differently to modernity. As a movement, fundamentalism emerged in the early twentieth century from a coalition of diverse evangelical groups who articulated a theologically based opposition, in particular to the historical-critical biblical approaches advocated by liberal theologians and more general to different forms and ideologies of modernism (e.g. Darwinism, secular labour politics, etc.) (Coleman 2000: 25).11 As such, Christian Fundamentalists aim to remake the political sphere along religious lines. The development of the Pentecostal movements (which I will discuss later) and their responses to modern developments within society differ from that of Christian Fundamentalists. In some ways, they are less theologically and politically polemical than fundamentalists and less vociferous in their rejection of modernity (ibid.: 26; see also Robbins 2004: 122). Put in a more blunt way: while fundamentalists react against modernity, Pentecostal Christians finds ways to work within it (D. Martin 2002). Therefore, and especially in regard to the Christian context, it is analytically sensible to distinguish between Pentecostalism and Christian Fundamentalism.12 Rather than treating the

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Pentecostal movement as a branch of fundamentalism as it is often done even by 11

In the wake of the formation of this coalition, a series of pamphlets named The Fundamentals were published. The by now excessively used term ‘fundamentalism’ has thus emerged out of this historical context. 12 I think it is crucial to be sensitive towards the inflationary application of the term ‘fundamentalism’ and therefore important to try to avoid lumping together whichever form of religious conservatism we encounter under this rubric. However, we equally have to recognize that the distinction between Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism is not always as clear-cut as set out above (cf. Coleman 2000).

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well-informed scholars, we should thus regard it as part of Christian Protestant conservatism (i.e. evangelicalism).

4.2

(Re)-Constructing the Global Pentecostal Network

The current academic research on Pentecostalism operates with a rather broad and inclusive understanding of Pentecostalism, using it as an umbrella term for the various streams within the global Pentecostal movement (Bergunder 2010: 53; Anderson 2004: 13). However, a too broad definition runs into the danger of rendering the term almost meaningless and thus raises the question “whether it makes analytical sense to lump all these churches together” (Robbins 2004: 122). Alternatively, any definitional argument insisting on the diversity of global Pentecostalism runs the risk of becoming circular in that it “only returns to the question of why we speak of global Pentecostalism as a single phenomenon in the first place” (Bergunder 2010: 53). Nevertheless, the academic approach to understand Pentecostalism as a single global phenomenon has proven to be useful and without any real alternative (Bergunder 2005: 178; Robbins 2004: 122). Still, the question remains what actually unifies all the different strands and manifestations subsumed under the term ‘Pentecostalism’ and how we can theoretically and methodologically justify such a broad and inclusive understanding of this religious phenomenon (Bergunder 2010: 53). As already indicated, Pentecostalism’s unity cannot be described in terms of a common institutional framework (Bergunder 2010: 53). Pentecostalism is not a movement that has a distinct beginning in North America or anywhere else, nor is it a movement based on a particular theology. Instead, it is a series of movements that emerged after several years and several different formative ideas and events. Unlike other Christian denominations, the Pentecostal movement manifests itself as a complex, transnational network, which operates mostly outside established traditional Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

church boundaries (Suarsana 2010: 18). To be sure, there have been attempts to classify Pentecostal movements and churches into different types (see, for example Miller and Yamamori 2007). However, given the fluid and reticulate character of the Pentecostal movement any effort to formulate some sort of taxonomy runs into danger of being pigeonholed into categories which “emphasize the differences to such an extent that […] will go beyond [those] recognized by church members themselves” (Anderson 2010: 16). 42

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A closer look at Pentecostal doctrines and practices reveals a similar fragmented picture. Pentecostal theology “is entirely dependent on its articulation and mutual affirmation within the [Pentecostal] network and […] subject to constant change and transformation” (Bergunder 2010: 55). As the Pentecostal theologian Frank Macchia observes, “there is a rich potential in the varieties of Pentecostal theologies that erupts from different church struggles and cultural contexts” (Macchia 1999: 25). Historically, there does not exist a theological agenda which can serve as a point of departure to exactly trace back any historical roots or theological essences within Pentecostalism. This non-essentialist and pluralist view is also accepted by most Pentecostal theologians. For Everett Wilson, “it is […] futile to assume that the experience of the first set of Pentecostals provides a model for the future […] If this is not recognized, then the written record of the founding fathers tends to stand unimpeachable, like a preemptive definition of everything that follows" (Wilson 1999: 106).

In order to substantiate the broad and inclusive understanding of Pentecostalism theoretically, Bergunder suggests defining Pentecostalism as an international discursive network instead as a preconceived or reified religious conception (cf. Bergunder 2010; 2006; 2005). According to Bergunder, the term ‘Pentecostalism’ refers to a certain discourse related to scholarship and religion and only comes into being through constant and contested discursive processes of negotiation within Pentecostal and academic networks (Bergunder 2010: 53f.). Defining Pentecostalism this way deliberately avoids the idea of a ‘core’ or a fixed ‘origin’ within the Pentecostal movement and does not try to determine its distinct margins beforehand. Instead, it opens up the possibility to work out the dynamics of Pentecostal identity formations in its respective different cultural contexts (Bergunder 2006: 163). Further, it accounts for the substantial fluidity and variability inherent to the Pentecostal moveCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

ment and thus avoids the common pitfalls of essentialist and normative approaches (ibid.). However, methodologically, this non-essentialist definition requires some fixing limits, even though Bergunder admits that “within a poststructuralist framework, any fixation of limits has to be regarded as highly unstable because of the differentiality of any referring” (Bergunder 2010: 54). Consequently, any fixation of limits is necessarily contingent and contested as it is part of the discursive Pentecos-

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tal network itself and therefore, cannot be considered as something “that refers to an entity behind its representation” (ibid.).13 Bergunder suggests that two formal criteria have to be fulfilled in order to map a Pentecostal network as a global discursive formation. The first criterion demands that synchronous links to the current Pentecostal discursive network must be proven: “no church, movement, or ministry can be considered Pentecostal as long it is not shown whether and how it is embedded in the Pentecostal network” (ibid.: 55). Analyzing theological discourses and organizational demarcations helps us, to comprehend the respective localization of the denominations and churches within the global Pentecostal network. It further allows us to delineate some common characteristics (e.g. common doctrines and shared practices) within Pentecostalism, which have shown themselves to be suggestive of forming a distinctive Pentecostal identity (Währisch-Oblau 2009: 42f.; see also Robbins 2004 and Droogers 2001). Importantly, these common features are not to be understood as a precondition for defining Pentecostalism, but are themselves articulations of particular discourses within the global Pentecostal network (Bergunder 2010: 55). As Währisch-Oblau states in this regard, “these practices in themselves are expressions of certain discourses which are circulating globally within the pentecostal/charismatic movement, both through mass media and through the varied and international personal contact” (Währisch-Oblau 2009: 43). Therefore, in order to avoid prescriptive and nominalistic definitions, any phenomenological attempts that aim to describe common ‘typical’ characteristics of contemporary Pentecostalism can only do so on mere descriptive grounds (Suarsana 2010: 22). In addition to the proof of synchronous interrelations within the Pentecostal network, the existence of historical connections has to be evident. This second, diachronous criterion implies,

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… that we only can speak of Pentecostalism in history when the synchronous Pentecostal network stands in a diachronous, direct, continuous historical relationship to previous synchronous networks, that is, in a historically verifiable line of reception and tradition (Bergunder 2010.: 56).

13

In discourse theory the meaning of linguistic signs, i.e. the formation of identity, emerges through the difference from other signs and are not inherent the signs themselves

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This means that other parallel phenomena, which have no direct historical linkages (e.g. cargo cult movements), cannot be considered to belong to the Pentecostal network (Bergunder 2005: 189). Historicizing the Pentecostal network diachronically, effectively helps to prevent a teleologization of historical reconstructions and moves beyond the question of Pentecostalism’s historical ‘origins’ (Bergunder 2010: 59). Instead, the main historical interest lies in working out the history of its reception and tradition while also taking into account the historical trajectories of discontinuity and continuity within the respective synchronous network (ibid.). Accordingly, the term ‘Pentecostalism’ only refers to the synchronous Pentecostal network at a certain period in history and therefore, has to be redefined each time anew (Bergunder 2006: 165; 2010: 60). In this sense, “Pentecostalism is […] what contemporary Brazilians, Koreans and Africans demonstrate that it actually is… In Pentecostalism every generation is the first generation [emphasis added]” (Wilson 1999: 106; 109). In this book, I will follow Bergunder’s methodological approach, defining Pentecostalism “as a constructed category that can be meaningful applied when it refers to both a diachronous and synchronous network of global dimensions” (Bergunder 2005: 191).

4.3

The Emergence and Formation of Global Pentecostalism

The global history of Pentecostalism has mostly been written from western, and predominantly North American, perspectives (cf. Anderson 2005b: 147). Thus, the bulk of Pentecostal historiographies considers the US as the birthplace of Pentecostalism and the driving force behind its global expansion. Reading Pentecostal history this way, Pentecostalism can be seen as having emerged in three ‘waves’ or ‘waves of revival’. The first wave is commonly referred to as the period of classical PentecostalCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

ism, with its theological roots lying in the doctrines of the Methodist Holiness movement14 (Anderson 2004: 25f.). The Holiness movement stressed the importance 14

During the nineteenth century, Methodism was the most important evangelical denomination in North America. It was distinguished from others by its doctrine of ‘Christian perfection’ or ‘sanctification’. This doctrine holds that the saved will experience a ‘second blessing’ or ‘second work of grace’ after that of conversion during which the inbred original sin people carry, owing to Adam's fall, is removed. In the second half of the nineteenth century, a largely Methodist Holiness movement arose around groups that experimented with different understandings of the nature and number of postconversion experiences that affected a person's salvation.

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of a personal experience of God or a ‘new birth’ by the Holy Spirit and saw speaking in tongues as the necessary physical evidence of Spirit baptism. Advocates of the Holiness movement believed they were experiencing a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit much like the early church experienced in the book of Acts. They further believed that a new, miraculous era of the Spirit was occurring, which would end in the second coming of Christ. This doctrinal theology was spread by several holiness preachers and led to different revivals throughout the US. However, in the beginning, these revivals remained regional. They didn’t have the same impact as the famous Azusa Street revival that started in 1906. The main initiator of this great revival, which many scholars see as the birth of modern Pentecostalism (cf. Robbins 2004: 120), was William Seymour, an African American holiness preacher from Louisiana. Seymour moved to Los Angeles and began his revival ministry in an abandoned African Methodist Episcopal Church on Azusa Street. Synan recaptures very well the scene that must have been taken place during this revival:15 Men and women would shout, weep, dance, fall into trances, speak and sing in tongues, and interpret their messages into English. In true Quaker fashion, anyone who felt ‘moved by the Spirit’ would preach or sing. There was no robed choir, no hymnals, no order of services, but there was an abundance of religious enthusiasm. In the middle of it all was ‘Elder’ Seymour, who rarely preached and much of the time kept his head covered in an empty packing crate behind the pulpit. At […] times he would ‘preach’ by hurling challenges at anyone who didn’t accept his views […] to others he would shout: “Be empathic! Ask for salvation, sanctification, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, or divine healing” (Synan 1997: 98f.). The revival that had been initiated through Seymour’s preaching and lasted until

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1909 had a considerable global impact. From Azusa Street, revivals spread throughout the U.S. Holiness leaders from the Church of God in Christ (Memphis, Tennessee), the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), and the Pentecostal Holiness Church (Georgia and the Carolinas), were present at Azusa, and carried its message back to their churches. In addition, from its beginnings, the movement put a great

15

In his illustration Synan refers to a polemic article printed in the Los Angeles Times on April 18th 1906 with the title: “Weird Babel of tongues. A new sect of fanatics is breaking loose”.

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emphasis on evangelistic outreach. Only four years after the commencement of the Azusa Street revival it was reported that Pentecostal missionaries were active in over fifty nations (Anderson 2005b: 153). In time, Pentecostalism spread throughout the world and major denominations, such as the Assemblies of God were established. However, it must be kept in mind that the emerging Pentecostal movement was always very heterogeneous and never had the aim to build up an institution comparable to the Catholic or Protestant Church. This transnational and non-institutional character of Pentecostalism’s emergence is crucial for understanding its global impact. I will return to this aspect in more detail later. The second wave of Pentecostalism, also known as the charismatic or neoPentecostal movement, emerged around 1960 within confessional and traditional churches (such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant and Lutheran Church). Before, members of non-Pentecostal denominations, who had experienced the Spirit baptism, were often expelled from mainline churches and had to join Pentecostal ones (Robbins 2004: 121). This was due to the prevalent doctrine that the gifts of the Spirit had been a one-time event taking place back in apostolic times and ceased to be available for the contemporary believer. But, as more and more members within the mainstream churches started to experience and receive the charismata, the mainline churches began to open up and tolerate these practices. As a consequence, believers who had received gifts of the Spirit could retain their membership and often succeeded in forming charismatic subgroups within them (ibid.). In the last few decades, another neo-Pentecostal, or neo-charismatic type of movement has become evident that includes Christians, who have received Pentecostal-like experiences, yet claim no association with either the classic Pentecostal or charismatic movements referred to above. Possessed of middle-class leadership with the educational and financial resources to formulate and project their own visions, the neo-charismatic movements have proven to be a breeding ground for doctrinal Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

innovation, and many new ideas generated within them play important roles in the contemporary globalization of Pentecostalism (Robbins 2004: 122). For example, the Faith Movement, which promotes the ‘health and wealth’ or ‘prosperity’ gospel, has spread a set of doctrines promising believers both physical health and material success on earth (cf. Coleman 2000). This movement, which has emerged since the 1980s, is commonly labeled as ‘Third Wave Pentecostalism’. The term was first used

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by C. Peter Wagner, one of the leading figures of the neo-charismatic movement, in 1983. Referring to the historical development of Pentecostalism, Wagner stated that: I see historically that we're now in the third wave. The first wave of the moving of the Holy Spirit began at the beginning of the century with the Pentecostal movement. The second wave was the charismatic movement which began in the fifties in the major denominations. Both of those waves continue today.[…] I see the third wave of the eighties as an opening of the straightline evangelicals and other Christians to the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that the Pentecostals and charismatics have experienced, but without becoming either charismatic or Pentecostal. I think we are in a new wave of something that now has lasted almost through our whole century (Peter Wagner 1983: 2). The sheer diversity of the ‘third wave’ movement makes it hard to classify it accordingly. Pentecostal scholars estimate that there are approximately over 19.000 denominations or groups, which can be identified as neo-charismatic, ranging from smallscale independent ‘living-room churches’ (also called ‘cell churches’) over nondenominational para-church organizations, such as the Christian relief agency ‘World Vision’, to post-denominational mega-congregation, such as the Korean based ‘Yoido Full Gospel Chruch’ with over 780.000 members (cf. Burgess and van der Maas 2002). With its rapid global growth, neo-charismatic or neo-Pentecostal Christianity has become one of the biggest movements within the contemporary Christian world, far outnumbering classical Pentecostals and charismatic adherents within the confessional churches.

So far, I have tried to capture the historical emergence of Pentecostalism by applying

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the ‘three waves- model’, focusing on its North-American ‘origins’. According to this reading, Pentecostalism is understood to have emerged out of the context of American evangelicalism in the 19th century. The global spread of the Pentecostal movement can then be seen as the necessary result of Pentecostal missionary work from North America (Bergunder 2005: 180). From this perspective, Pentecostalism reflects the successful ‘export’ of American theology and spirituality, or, in a more pejorative language, is perceived as a distinctive means of the hegemonic effort to

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promote the ‘Americanization’ and ideological control of and across the world (Bergunder 2006: 163; 2005: 199 ). However, as already indicated, taking events such as the Azusa Street revival as starting point for our historiography of the Pentecostal movement is problematic. It only reproduces a western-centered theory of Pentecostal identity and thus fails to adequately represent the historical genealogy of Pentecostalism in academic discourse. As Anderson (2004: 15) notes, Pentecostalism has “become globalized in every sense of the word” demanding that we “make more visible and accessible the ‘non-western’ nature of Pentecostalism without overlooking the international importance of the movement emanating from North America.” Recent scholarship has shown that there were several centers from which great Pentecostal expansions took place (Anderson 2005b: 153). Although the Azusa Street revival can be seen as a catalyst in the emergence of early Pentecostalism (Anderson 2007: 9), it wasn’t the only birthplace of the Pentecostal movement. Indeed, revivals occurred in other parts of the world contemporaneously and independently to Azusa Street and to some extent, even well before the twentieth century. For instance, there were revivals in India (Tirunelveli 1860-1865; Travancore 1873-1881; Mukti Mission revival in Poona 1905-1907)16, Jamaica (1880/81), Korea (from 1903 onwards, altogether four phases), Wales (1904-1905), Liberia (1917), and China (see Anderson 2005; Gerloff 2005). Edwin Orr, a Pentecostal historian, refers to the concurrence of many different revivals especially during the time period between 1900 and 1910 as “Fifth General Awakening” and remarks that …it was the most extensive Evangelical Awakening of all times, reviving Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Disciple, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and Reformed churches and other evangelical bodies throughout Europe

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and North America, Australasia and South Africa, and their daughter churches and missionary causes throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, winning more than five million folk to an evangelical faith in two years of greatest impact in each country (Orr: 1976: 99). Thus, the various revivals around the world were equally important to the formation and expansion of Pentecostalism. As Anderson states, “they were not primarily a 16

For a detailed elaboration of the history of Pentecostalism in India see Bergunder (1999).

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movement from the western world to ‘foreign lands’, but more significantly movements within these continents themselves” (Anderson 2005b: 157). As such “they were the soil in which a locally contextual Pentecostalism was able to grow and thrive” (Anderson 2007: 10). In order to understand this transnational aspect of Pentecostalism’s early nascence, it is necessary to go into a more detailed analysis of the factors that historically contributed to the formation and establishment of a global Pentecostal network. First of all, it is crucial to recognize that from its beginnings the Pentecostal movement was neither a theological nor phenomenological novelty, but emerged out of the religious discourse which had shaped the whole range of revivalist movements throughout the 19th century (Suarsana 2010: 53). Of special interest here is the distinctive missionary orientation of these movements and with it, the development of a global missionary network. Within the context of colonialism, a huge number of missionary societies, so-called ‘faith missions’17 were founded. Through this vast network of faith missions, American holiness circles became part of the global missionary movement. This in turn affirmed a strong missionary awareness among them and eventually became a decisive theological root for the Pentecostal movement (Bergunder 2005: 181). During the second half of the 19th century premillennialist and eschatological ideas permeated evangelical missionary circles in Britain and the United States, which had a deep influence on their mission strategy. The aim was not to convert the whole world to Christianity, but “to be a witness to all nations and to give the chance to as many people as possible to accept the Christian message before Christ’s Second Coming” (Bergunder 2005: 183). They were convinced “that Christ’s Second Coming would occur within their lifetime, making theirs the last generation to bear such an awesome responsibility” (Goff: 1988: 72). The occurrence of revivals around the world, in particular, the one at The Azusa Street, was seen as the initial evidence of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

an ongoing worldwide end-time revival and thus the imminent return of Christ. It was in this context that had led to the successful establishment of a global network of believers, missionaries and different (missionary) organizations, who all acknowledged the commencement of a ‘second Pentecost’. It is crucial to understand that this network not only consisted of ‘western’ or foreign Pentecostal missionaries. In many 17

Faith missions were strictly interdenominational organizations in which missionaries were not seen as employees, but members of the mission and therefore were not supported financially.

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ways indigenous Christian converts in Asia, Latin-America and Africa played a vital role in the missionary network. Unfortunately, this fact is often ignored in Pentecostal historiographies. As Anderson (2005a: 37 & 42) reminds us: Thriving Pentecostal “indigenous churches” were established in many parts of the world without the help of any foreign missionaries […] The growth of Pentecostalism was not the result of the efforts of a few charismatic leaders or “missionaries.” The proliferation of the movement would not have taken place without the tireless efforts of a vast number of ordinary and virtually now unknown women and men. These networked across regional and even national boundaries, proclaiming the same message they had heard others proclaim which had sufficiently altered their lives to make it worth sharing wherever they went. However, regardless of their formal institutional or theological background, they all identified themselves as belonging to a network of Christians with the same shared immediate experience of the Holy Spirit (like speaking in tongues, healing and prophecy) (Bergunder 2006: 156). Because of the basic openness and inclusive attitude towards different and divergent streams, as well as the broadness of belief with explorations of divers avenues within theology, “internal tensions and splits were a fundamental part of the movement right from its beginnings” (Begrunder 2005: 184). Thus, we can see that the already discussed pluralism as a central characteristic of the Pentecostal movement was already evident from the outset.. Importantly, the astonishingly quick spread of a global Pentecostal network could not have taken place without a new global infrastructure that mainly emerged out of the European-American imperialist endeavor (Suarsana 2010: 72). From its beginnings, Pentecostals knew how to find means and ways to exploit the increasing

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globality of the world to their own advantage. Bergunder observes that the formation and maintenance of a Pentecostal network took place in at least three different but interrelated ways (Bergunder 2005: 184; 2006: 157): personal correspondence and the distribution of magazines; evangelistic journeys and personal contacts; and direct missionary work. Because Pentecostals initially could not find any publishers for their books and magazines, they were forced to found publishing houses and establish their own distribution network (Hollenweger 1969: 309). This laid the founda-

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tion of a global market of Pentecostal literature, which was accompanied by extensive international mail networks. In a crucial way, Pentecostal brochures, periodicals and other print matters helped to bring about and form a global imagined Pentecostal community, “that assured the individual believer of the international success of the revival and made it attractive to join in” (Bergunder 2005: 184). Following quote from The Apostolic Faith, a journal founded by Azusa Street, illustrates this very well: We rejoice to hear that Pentecost has fallen in Calcutta, India, over ten thousand miles away on the other side of the world. Praise God. We have letters from China, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, Australia and other countries from hungry souls that want their Pentecost. Some of these letters are in foreign languages. Missionaries write that they are hungry for this outpouring of the Spirit which they believe to be the real Pentecost. The world seems ripe for the Pentecost in all lands and God is sending it. Amen (The Apostolic Faith february/march 1907; quoted after: Robeck 2006: 235). The probably most effective way of Pentecostal global outreach and networking can be seen in the Pentecostal missionary efforts to evangelize the world. Next to the premillennialist expectation of Christ’s Second Coming, the conviction to possess the spiritual gift of speaking in foreign tongues in order to preach the Pentecostal message in the vernacular (xenoglossia), was seen as an effective instrument for proselytizing (Bergunder 2006: 156).18 After all, by receiving the ability to speak in foreign languages from the Holy Spirit, missionaries no longer had to depend on learning foreign languages, an often time-consuming and painstaking endeavor. The importance of having received the ‘gift’ of speaking in tongues as a precondition for

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missionary work is well described by Robeck, a profound expert of the US-American Pentecostal movement. Referring to a four-stage missionary recruitment program which was assessed at Azua Street he states that,

18

‘Xenoglossia’, or speaking in ‘foreign tongues’, refers to the circumstance that one is able to speak in a natural language previously unknown to the speaker. It has to be distinguished from ‘glossolalia’, referring to the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables which lack any readily comprehended meaning, and are considered to be part of a ‘sacred language’. Both phenomena are attributed to the power of the Holy Spirit.

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… first, they attempted to identify the language. Second, if they felt they had identified it, they sought to establish whether the speaker believed he or she had received a missionary ‘call.’ Third, if the tongues-speaker claimed to have such a call, the mission staff tried to discern whether the call was genuine and whether the person was ready and willing to go. Finally […] they gave the candidate the money to reach the foreign field, and he or she left town within days, if not hours (Robeck 2006: 239). The idea of speaking in tongues was especially prominent in the Azusa Street revival and from there successfully channeled “through the vast evangelical and missionary network that was receptive to revivals” (Bergunder 2005: 183). However, it must be noted that not in all revivals and not within every missionary circle speaking in tongues was equally important (Bergunder 2010: 61). In some cases, it played no theological role at all or was at least interpreted differently. For instance, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (at that time, an important evangelical mission of the holiness movement) considered speaking in tongues merely as a “spiritual and emotional expression of revival times” and not as the “initial evidence” of Spirit baptism (ibid.: 62). Regarding the importance given to glossolalia as an evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles and the Mukti revival in Poona, India, proved to be exceptions rather than the rule. Further, we have to keep in mind that Azusa Street was simply a part in a series of world-wide revivals. As such Pentecostalism was rather a later by-product than a crucial factor during the global revivals of early 1900 (ibid.: 61). This view, however, stands in contrast to the Pentecostal self-understanding, which at that time claimed the whole ongoing revival movement for themselves. Azusa Street declared to be “the definitive formula for and sure beginning of the end-time revival, fulfilling all the revival hopes that were transmitted through the missionary movements” (Bergunder 2005: 183). Therefore, it

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was crucial that their theological views were accepted within the international evangelical circles (ibid.). And they succeeded. Only four years after the commencement of the Azusa Street revival the Pentecostal movement had taken root in over fifty countries around the globe (ibid: 185). Without its immediate global establishment, the Azusa Street revival would probably have probably fallen short of all expectations according to its self-image as the starting-point of a world-wide revival (ibid.: 186).

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However, the eschatological understanding of mission work and the use of xenoglossia as means to proselytize the ‘unreached’ soon underwent a severe crisis. First, the gift of speaking in foreign tongues could not keep its promise. Many ‘western’ missionaries had to realize that their attempt to speak in ‘foreign tongues’ apparently did not correspond to any existing foreign language. Consequently, the doctrine of speaking in tongues as a missionary practice was discarded and “transformed from a revival phenomenon into an everyday spiritual practice” (Bergunder 2010: 63). Second, the expectations of Christ’s Second Coming were not realized. Thus, due to the delay of parousia, “global revival enthusiasm had gradually declined, and many felt that the time of awakening was over” (ibid.). This situation laid out the way for the establishment of an experience-oriented spirituality, based on the practice of glossolalia and the exercise of other gifts of the Holy Spirit, in particular healing, exorcism and prophecy (Bergunder 2006: 157). According to Bergunder ,it was only in this stage of disillusionment and change that a distinct global synchronous network of churches, congregations and organizations established itself, which could be named ‘Pentecostalism’ in the true sense (Bergunder 2010: 63).

To sum up, Pentecostalism grew out of the ferment of a global network of evangelical missions and within the context of the concurrence of various world-wide revivals during the beginning of the 20th century. The believe in speaking in tongues as the initial evidence for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, coupled with a premillennial expectation of a global revival to precede the imminent return of Christ lay ground for extensive missionary efforts to spread the Pentecostal gospel to many parts of the world. In this regard, the Azusa Street revival played a prominent role, as it was the imaginative center, the ‘new Jerusalem’ of the proclaimed global revival. However, regardless of this Pentecostal self-understanding, it must be remembered that Azusa Street was simply a part of a vast network of global revivalist missionary movements Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

and not the originator of Pentecostalism. In this regard, Azusa Street and other revivals throughout the world can be seen as the prelude to the establishment of a global synchronous Pentecostal network. Thus, we can state with Bergunder that “Pentecostalism has been a global endeavor right from its beginning [and] no other country or place can claim the origin of [it]” (Bergunder 2005: 199). ‘Pentecostalism’, in the true sense of the word, only came into being after the disillusioning experience of the delay of parousia and the inability to speak in foreign tongues, which forced most 54

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Pentecostals to reassess their mission strategy and theological principles. However, staying close to Bergunder’s approach, it is important to comprehend that the just outlined establishment of a synchronous Pentecostal network only tries to describe the beginnings of its formation at a certain period of time in history. If we take Wilson’s assertion serious that “in Pentecostalism every generation is the first generation” (Wilson 1999: 109), it only refers to the global Pentecostal network at the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, Bergunder is right when he suggests that the current synchronous Pentecostal network possibly only emerged in the past two or three decades. As such, the development of present Pentecostalism can be understood as a global progressive conflation of ‘classical” Pentecostalism’ (as just described), later Pentecostal forms, and Charismatic movements within the mainline churches (Bergunder 2010: 60).

5. Globalization of Pentecostalism Having looked at the historical development of Pentecostalism as a global religion, I will now delineate key terms from Pentecostal discourse and analyze how they relate to cultural globalization processes. Despite the evident internal pluralism of the Pentecostal movement, there are some unifying features that constitute the basis for a contemporary global synchronous Pentecostal network; ones which have shown to be suggestive of forming a distinctive Pentecostal identity and are relevant for its global appeal and expansion.19 Most commonly mentioned in this regard are the centrality of the Holy Spirit and its manifestation in ecstatic experiences, the stress on being Born Again, a dualistic worldview based on the opposition between God and the Devil and the this-worldly global orientation entailing a strong urge to transform the world through evangelism Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

(cf. Droogers 2001; Meyer 2010a). Following I will discuss these issues more thoroughly. However, beforehand it is important to notice that these common characteristics are always filtered and reinterpreted through the framework of local cultural con19

Given the fact that Pentecostalism has its emphasis in experience and spirituality rather than in formal theology or doctrines (Anderson 2004:14; Casanova 2001: 435), I will, at this point, not elaborate on the common theological grounds that can be found within the Pentecostal movements. A more detailed discussion on the so-called prosperity doctrine will be given later in chapter 6.1.

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texts and, owing the fluid nature of the Pentecostal movement, cannot be fixed in a set framework. As Meyer (2010a: 121) states in this regard: Pentecostalism can best be described not as an essential substance, made up of a fixed set of doctrines and practices, but as evolving around a number of core features that can be deployed in local arenas in specific ways through which these arenas become part of a broader imaginary of the world. To avoid an over-essentialist picture of contemporary Pentecostalism, the following distinctions must therefore be understood as ideal types (Droogers 2001: 44).20 As such, they are not mutually exclusive, but in considerable ways overlap and intersect with each other. On the other hand, and to make things more complicated, some of the features that characterize the spread of the Pentecostal movement as a cultural process are paradox by nature (cf. Robbins 2003; B. Martin 2010). These antinomies often mirror the contradictions immanent to cultural globalization processes. However, as I have already discussed earlier these antagonisms can, at least partially, be theoretically resolved. Further, by taking up the cultural anthropology of religion as a disciplinary frame of reference, I will ground the following analysis on Pentecostals’ own views and practices. Taking people’s believe and experience as a point of departure stays close to Pentecostalism’s own vocabulary and resists imposing a ‘neutral’ analytical language which tries to explain its common features solely by referring to non-religious factors (Meyer 2010a: 117). This does not mean to underestimate the influences of external conditions. However, as Droogers (2001: 41) convincingly argues, a far-reaching account of Pentecostalism’s expansion and appeal must necessarily commence from “the particularities of a specific religion” (ibid.) and proceed from there to the impact of, and expression with, external social processes, and not the other way around. Looking at the internal religious characteristics

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of Pentecostal discourse and discursive practices and their articulations within the external circumstances of globalization thus avoids a reductive understanding and takes the specifics of Pentecostalism serious (ibid.).

20

Ideal-types in a Weberian sense serve as analytical and heuristic tools to compare similarities as well as deviations between social phenomena. As such, they never fully correspond to empirical reality but rather are idea-constructs through which an understanding of, and an explanatory model for reality is formed.

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5.1

Conversion

These preliminary remarks lead us to a first common thread that runs through Pentecostal Christianity and is constitutive for forming a global Pentecostal identity: the experience of a new life articulated in personal narratives of conversion, and the transition from an ‘old’ life to a ‘new’ one. This ‘new’ life is controlled by the Holy Spirit, which is manifested in glossolalia, pneumatic gifts, charismata, and in diverse miracles. As Robbins has observed, Pentecostal discourse is “littered with images of rupture and discontinuity” (Robbins 2004: 127), thus emphasizing the need to “make a complete break with the past” through conversion (Meyer 1998: 182). In Pentecostal terms, identifying oneself as sinful and then trying to overcome this condition by embracing Christianity is an essential part of the salvation process. For many, the conversion experience is a dramatic personal event that fundamentally changes the parameters of their lives (Droogers 2001: 45). Along with the act of conversion, people are ‘baptized in the Spirit’, a process in which the evil is cast out through the purifying force and intervention of the Holy Spirit (Meyer 2010a: 118). Renouncing the past sinful life and turning to Pentecostal Christianity in an ultimate way implies a “dissociation […] from earlier social and cultural affiliations” (Meyer 2010a: 121). Thus, the transition to an entirely new realm and way of life is commonly referred to metaphorically as being ‘born again’. However, as Robbins rightly points out, the concern for religious transformation can be observed, at least to some extent, in all conversionist religions (Robbins 2004: 127). What makes the Pentecostal understanding of conversion distinct is the way it elaborately ritualizes discontinuity. By offering postconversion rituals, Pentecostals constantly reiterate and renew the necessary break from their ‘sinful’ past, thus aiming to deepen the break made at con-

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version. Baptism in the Holy Spirit, where believers receive the gifts of the Spirit can be seen as one example for such rituals. For Pentecostals, Spiritual ‘gifts’ are regarded as the necessary initial physical evidence of Spirit baptism and interpreted as a direct personal encounter with God (ibid.: 120). Thus, they are understood as signs of continued commitment and belief in God. Other techniques that emphasize the disjunction with the past include rituals of deliverance, where believers seek “to rid themselves of the demonic influences brought upon them by the traditional ritual

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practices of their unconverted kin and the ritualized practices of ‘spiritual warfare’ by which communities attempt to rid themselves of territorial spirits they engaged within the past (ibid.: 128).21 Robbins (ibid.) observes in this regard that, Pentecostalism maintains discontinuity through an ascetic code embedded in a thoroughgoing dualism of great hermeneutic force; it preserves that which it breaks from; and its dualism provides a flexible language of satanic influence that is very sensitive to local social concems. .

5.2

Pentecostal Cosmology

These “rituals of rupture” (Robbins 2004: 127f.) that accompany conversion and post-conversion phases are thus closely linked to a second essential characteristic of Pentecostalist discourse: its dualistic world view which draws a clear distinction between good and evil. Similar to the convert’s temporal division of his life history into pre- and post-conversion phases, Pentecostal dualism divides the world into two spatial realms: on the one hand that of God and his believers and on the other hand, that of the devil and his followers (Droogers 2001: 46). Importantly, we have to bear in mind that this dichotomous model is basically universal (and simultaneously particular in that each society, or religion, produces its own form of it) and therefore, nothing new in itself. However, it can be argued that the “modes of insertion and locales” (D. Martin 2011: 68) of Pentecostal cosmology are unique.

As it should have become clear by now, Pentecostalism plays a central role in the rise and spread of a specific global imaginary (or world-view); one that is not confined to local or national settings and one in which the world is seen as the site of an ongoing spiritual war between demonic forces and God (Meyer 2010a: 117). Both

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features of are mutually dependent. For one thing, the war between good and evil is seen to be all-encompassing. It does not only affect every aspect of human existence but also includes spaces, institutions or even whole countries as sites for the struggle between the opposite forces (Meyer 2007: 16). The construction of the dichotomy between the divine and the satanic brings forward a clear moral conception of good and evil. It provides the believer with a moral orientation and makes the world com21

For a more detailed analysis on these rituals and their relation to discontinuity see Robbins (2003)

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prehensible (Droogers 2001: 56; Robbins 2004: 128). However, as Birgit Meyer (2010a: 118) points out, the personal (embodied) experience of the spiritual war and the imagination of the world as the site of this war are closely interrelated: [The] tight linkage between experience and embodiment, on the one hand, and imaginary and cosmology, on the other, ensures a deep sense of certainty about the state of the world at large, the reality of demonic assaults, and the need for protection, as well as the need of salvation and new beginning. In short, the Pentecostal imaginary structures personal experience, while at the same time the latter authenticates the former truthful and real (ibid.).

The ability of this ‘objectified’ reality to cross any number of cultural barriers and to adapt to diverse cultural contexts has led many scholars to think of Pentecostalism as having uncanny assimilative powers and thus commonly stress its hybrid nature(Cox 2006: 16; D. Martin 2011: 69). Yet, the cultural adaptability of Pentecostalism doesn’t mean inculturation or mere syncretism. (cf. Robbins 2003b). Pentecostals do not retain the normative presuppositions of the moral value of the indigenous spiritual world, a process which we can observe, for instance, in the “traditional Catholic pattern of generous accommodation and condescending toleration of local folklore and popular magical beliefs and practices” (Casanova 2001: 437). On the other hand, Pentecostals never claim that the spiritual worlds of the folk religions they encounter are illusory. Rather, they demonize indigenous spirits by making them representatives of the devil, “proclaiming that God can defeat and vanquish them” (Robbins 2004: 128). Put differently, Pentecostalism tends to preserve and accept indigenous spiritual ontologies (i.e. people’s believes in spirits, witches and other occult powers) and therefore, is extremely open to localize itself in different cultural contexts (Robbins 2003b: 223; Robbins 2004: 128). It is in their struggle to combat the local spir-

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itual world and to exorcize ‘negative’ spirits as demonic that Pentecostals prove how locally rooted they are (Casanova 2001: 438; D. Martin 2011: 69). As Cox (2006: 17) observes, Pentecostal preachers often passionately inveigh against [emphasis in the original] local indigenous religious practices at the very moment those same practices are re-emerging, often in only slightly modified form, within Pentecostal worship itself. […] The people in the congregation may be grateful for 59

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the high wall their strict moral codes erect between them and the dangerous fallen world around them, but at the same time they see that spiritual world as a continuum of contending forces and clashing powers [emphasis in the original]. In pointing out to the paradox of the local character of Pentecostalism Casanova (2001: 437) states that Pentecostalism is de-territorialized and local at the same time, because “it is an uprooted culture engaged in spiritual warfare with its own roots.” He goes on to argue that, Pentecostalism is not a translocal phenomenon which assumes the different forms of a local territorial culture. Nor is it a kind of syncretic symbiosis or symbiotic syncresis of the general and the local. Pentecostals are […] everywhere leading an unabashed and uncompromising onslaught against their local culture […] The Pentecostal attitude is neither compromise nor denial but frontal hand-to-hand combat, what they call ‘spiritual warfare’ (ibid.). Hence, what makes Pentecostalism so unique and different from other forms of Christianity is how it, on the one hand, preserves its distinctness from the culture into which it is introduced and on the other hand, engages those cultures on their own terms (Robbins 2004: 117). Similar to Casanova, Robbins points out that this leads to a paradox situation within global Pentecostalism in that “it becomes local without ever taking the local into itself” (Robbins 2003b: 223). Put in the framework of Robertson’s concept of ‘glocalization’ we therefore can state that the identity of Pentecostalism is to be found in the combination of a global Pentecostal meta-culture with certain local particularity. Both local distinctiveness and global generality are simultaneously apparent. Global Pentecostalism transcends locality and denominational loyalty by promulgating a universal and definite Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

worldview, which is grounded in a dualistic cosmology of good and evil and characterized by the immediate experience of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, Pentecostalism’s distinctive spirituality, worldview and practices are incorporated into the sociocultural contexts of any new cultures it encounters. Importantly, however, they are not indigenized in the sense that they create a syncretic symbiosis between the local and the Pentecostal culture. Instead, Pentecostalism combats local folklore and popular magical beliefs and practices and refashions them along its own lines, thus

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profoundly altering the way they are understood. The attempt to ground the global in the local involves a fierce spiritual war against and yet at the same time the negative incorporation of local culture (Meyer 2007: 12). Pentecostalism thus leads to a preservation of people’s traditional cultures and social concerns they reflect, “albeit as resituated within Pentecostalism as an aspect of the demonic world” (Robbins 2004: 130). The openness to local spiritual ontologies allows Pentecostal’s dualistic cosmology to “operate differently and mean different things in different places” (ibid.: 129) and therefore contributes to the inherent heterogeneity and pluralism within the Pentecostal movement. Thus, we can state that the globalization of Pentecostalism acts in both ways: once as a homogenizing force by promulgating its own universal ‘imaginary of the world’ and on the other hand, as a transformative power of indigenous appropriation and differentiation, consequently engendering and reproducing local diversity (cf. Robbins 2003b).

5.3

Global Outreach and Spread

Besides the ability to globalize through localizing itself as just discussed, Pentecostalism goes ‘glocal’ in at least two further senses: through missionization and migration. The global outreach of Pentecostalism and with it, its capacity in successfully building institutions and mobilizing ‘the masses’ thus can be seen as a third feature of its expansion and appeal. Following I will look at some of the distinct ways and dynamics Pentecostalism spreads through evangelization, migration and other means. Again, I will do this by discerning both internal and external factors. As we have seen, the centrality given to evangelization was apparent right from its beginnings. All Pentecostal missionary strategy placed evangelism at the top of its priorities, linked as it was to a particular premillenial eschatology (Anderson 2005a: 153; Anderson 2007: 8). Actively endorsing global outreach, Pentecostal Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

churches operate in global networks that bring together born-again Christians under the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere, not tied to one privileged locality. A ‘transposable message’ and ‘portable practices’ thus are vital to Pentecostalism’s globalization project (Meyer 2010b: 742). One way of explaining the centrality Pentecostals give to missionization is by looking at their doctrine. On the one hand, proselytizing the ‘unreached’ is closely related to the already mentioned conversion experience and the inherent Pentecostal dualis61

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tic world-view. As Pentecostal converts move from the ‘satanic’ to the divine realm, they often experience a new and powerful sense of belonging. They feel compelled to tell their own life-turning experience and their discovery of their ‘new’ helpful and therapeutic world-view to others (Droogers 2001: 46). Perceiving the world as being in a constant state of spiritual warfare between God and the devil, they thus want to be part of this ‘greater picture’, saving ‘lost souls’ and help to spread the ‘good news’ until the devil finally will be defeated (ibid.). However, probably the most important feature of Pentecostal doctrine in this regard is the idea that all Pentecostals are qualified to initiate and participate in missionization. Pentecostals construct their identity not first and foremost along social lines, but see themselves as ‘children of God’, belonging to a global community of the saved, in which all believers can receive the gifts of the Spirit, such as healing and prophecy, equally regardless of their class, race, ethnicity, or gender (Droogers 2001: 56; Robbins 2004: 125). Based on this egalitarian doctrine, Pentecostalism encourages all converts to see themselves as missionaries or evangelists (Droogers 2001: 42f.). Regardless of educational qualifications, every spiritual inspired believer has the ability and duty to ‘go out on faith’, to preach and start their own ministries and be involved in mission and evangelism wherever they find themselves (Robbins 2004: 130). Thus, Pentecostal egalitarianism can be seen as an evangelistic tool that “makes the field of potential converts truly universal and serves as an important ground for appealing to the unconverted” (ibid.: 125). In this sense, it is not surprising that one vital reason for Pentecostalism’s global rapid growth can be seen in their constant urge, not only to ‘save lost souls’, but to revive Christianity throughout the world. Accordingly, Pentecostals believe that the coming of the Holy Spirit brings an ability to do ‘signs and wonders’ in the name of Jesus Christ. Pentecostals emphasize that these ‘signs and wonders’ should accompany their missionary efforts, in Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

order to authenticate their message and persuade others to become Christians (Anderson 2010: 34). They are understood “as manifestations of divine power intended to prompt the conversion of unbelievers and increase the faith of believers” (Csordas 1990: 18). Thus, divine healing and miracles can be considered as indispensable parts of Pentecostal evangelistic methodology (Anderson 2010: 34). The emphasis on healing and miracles is so central to Pentecostal evangelism “that large public campaigns and tent meetings preceded by great publicity are frequently used in order to 62

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reach as many ‘unevangelized’ people as possible” (ibid.). The ‘signs and wonders’ promoted by independent evangelists have led to the rapid growth of Pentecostal churches in many parts of the world. Healing Evangelists like Reinhard Bonnke or Randy Clark expect miracles to accompany their spectacular evangelistic rallies (socalled ‘crusades’) and have created a mass following, especially in Africa and Latin America (cf. Brown 2011). The focus on the embodied experience of the Holy Spirit through miracles and healing can thus be seen as an entry point into PentecostalChristian faith. This is especially true in regard to healing. In promising to meet practical, everyday needs, Pentecostalism competes with other indigenous religions and traditions by claiming superior healing powers and thus successfully acts as an alternative source of healing (cf. Brown 2011). The Pentecostal belief that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have the power to cure believers of their spiritual, bodily, and psychological ills, as well as provide relief of social maladies such as unemployment, alcoholism and general deprivation, is an important impetus for the global growth and appeal of Pentecostalism (Brown 2011: 14). Oblau (2011: 325) for example, has observed that “divine healing […] may be the single most important factor explaining the extraordinary growth of Christianity in China.” Similarly, Chesnut (2003: 45) argues, though with a slight bias towards Rational Choice terminology, that “recent research on Ibero-American Pentecostalism substantiates the role of faith healing as its most compelling product in attracting new customers to its brand of faith.” Importantly, the Pentecostal understanding of disease (mental, social and physical) and healing resonates with many African, Asian, and Latin American cultures “that envision health as depending upon right relationships with the natural and spiritual worlds” (Brown 2011: 7). Anderson (2010: 34) states in this regard: Indeed, in many cultures of the world, healing has been a major attraction for Pentecostalism. In these cultures, the religious specialist or ‘person of God’

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has power to heal the sick and ward off evil spirits and sorcery. This holistic function, which does not separate ‘physical’ from ‘spiritual,’ is restored in Pentecostalism, and people see it as a ‘powerful’ religion to meet human needs. In this context the issue of Pentecostalism’s cultural adaptability comes again to the fore. Bergunder (2011: 288) for instance, argues that certain practices of Pentecostal miracle healing and exorcism in South India “exhibit phenomenological parallels to 63

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popular Hinduism.” Likewise, Kim (2006: 27-33) has made a point by stating an affinity between Korean shamanism and Pentecostal Christianity. However, again, I want to stress the argument I made before: even though one of Pentecostalism’s great strength lies in its capacity to integrate pre-Christain cultural expressions into Pentecostal practice, this does not necessarily lead to mere syncretism. It is therefore, crucial to carefully look at the particular local context and specific modes how Pentecostalism engages with local religious traditions. Only then we can observe the inherent paradox of Pentecostalism’s ‘glocal’ nature. In regard to Korea, for example, this paradox unfolds in that Pentecostals incorporate and Christianize elements of the Shamanistic cosmology and practice, but at the same time preach against Shamanism, conceiving it as ‘demonic’ (Kim 2006: 31).

In addition to the doctrinal factors just laid out, there are other reasons for the institutional success of Pentecostal churches. One can be seen in Pentecostalism’s ability in soliciting intense institutional commitment on the part of its members (cf. Chesnut 1997; Robbins 2009). As Robbins (2009: 56f.) points out, Pentecostalism has the ability “to engage people’s time in the construction and maintenance of congregations that regularly come together to worship and whose members work to evangelize those who do not belong.” Pentecostals regularly participate in time consuming church services and activities, volunteer to fill in church offices and are willing to give materially to their churches (ibid.: 57). In studying Pentecostalism in Brazil Chesnut (1997) collected quantitative data on participation and volunteering among urban Pentecostals and found that members engaged on average in 4.7 church activities per week (ibid.: 141) and 79.5 percent among those he interviewed held church offices on a voluntary basis (ibid.: 135). My observations on Pentecostals in Surabaya, Indonesia depict a similar picture. Much of the people I met were engaged voluntarily in time-consuming church activities (e.g. leading prayer meetings; organizing Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

mission trips, etc.) next to their often busy work-lives. Nearly all Pentecostal churches I visited held several church services on Sundays, not to talk about the wide range of other activities during the weekdays. This evident intense institutional involvement leads us to the question about how Pentecostal churches solicit such a kind of engagement. Robbins (2009: 56f.) provides an interesting answer by pointing out that it is Pentecostalism’s promotion of ritual to the center of social life that grounds its

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unusual institution-building capacity.22According to Robbins (ibid.: 62) “it is the Pentecostal mastery of the technology of ritual production that makes these churches work.” Pentecostals place a premium on bodily events and practices ranging from “revelatory sensory imagery and the sacred swoon of being overcome by the Holy Spirit, to ritual gestures such as the laying on of hands and prostration in prayer” (Csordas 2009: 91). Thus, praying, praising, worshipping, healing, or performing some other ritual together is essential to the social life of Pentecostals. These shared bodily practices reinforce the emotional commitment and bind each believer to the faith community. Again, it is the Pentecostal idea of egalitarianism that supports the high frequency and intensity of ritual interactions, observable in most Pentecostal congregations: … all church members are qualified to initiate and participate in ritual performances. The clergy has no monopoly on ritual. Everyone participates, and whoever is moved by the Spirit can initiate rituals in most settings. There is no need for those who initiate rituals to have formal training or possess church office (Robbins 2009: 60). Further, Robbins (ibid.: 61) point out that the structures of Pentecostal rituals forms are easily identifiable to participants, looking everywhere very much the same and therefore, makes it possible for people to perform them in almost any cultural setting. The global diffusion and spread “of a limited number of widely shared ritual forms thus provides an important foundation for Pentecostalism’s noteworthy ability to travel widely throughout the globe and produce recognizable versions of itself wherever it alights” (ibid.). The insistence on transforming the world through missionization reflects Pentecostalism’s strong orientation towards “world-making” (Robbins 2004: 130-131).

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In the Pentecostal imaginary, the ‘world’ is not so much a setting characterized by mundane pleasures that seduce people onto the ‘broad path’ that will eventually lead to hell, but a space in need of redemption. Pentecostalism thus carries an “inbuilt dynamic” that leads to the successful establishment of churches around the world, even in places where proselytism is officially forbidden or challenges certain local 22

Robbins draws his reflections on Randall Collins’ theoretical work Interaction Ritual Chains (Collins 2004, especially 47- 101). Although highly interesting I will not elaborate further on Collins’ theory here or Robbins’ reading of him.

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religious monopolies (B. Martin 2010: 41).23 Pentecostal churches are missionary by nature with the result that the dichotomy between ‘church’ and ‘mission’ does not exist to the same extent as it is observable in other Christian streams (Anderson 2005b: 37). However, given the transnational character of the Pentecostal movement, where African, Asian, and Latin American Pentecostals now form a substantial part of global Pentecostalism and thus contribute to wider, global religious discourses, these missionary activities cannot be understood in ‘traditional’ terms. What we can observe today is not so much an ‘Americanization’ of the Pentecostal gospel. On the contrary, Pentecostal churches are often local from the start, having been created by evangelists with local roots. In most cases, “Pentecostal churches are staffed from top to bottom with locals who constitute them as institutions responsive to local situations” (Robbins 2004: 130). Further, ‘non-Western’ Pentecostal movements are now expanding to Western countries, “with a renewed effort towards ‘reverse-mission’” in order to bring back Christianity to a secularized West (Adogame 2010: 513; see also Währisch-Oblau 2009). Pentecostal migrant-missionaries have established churches in their new host countries around the globe, thus increasing the strategic significance of non-Western missions and revising the direction of the missionization force by taking the ‘first world’ as its target (Adogame 2010: ibid.; Velho 2009: 40). Accordingly, most studies on the transnational dimension of Pentecostalism focus on the role of Pentecostalism in situations of migration. In this regard, it has been argued that transnational Pentecostalism encourages stability in situations of migration and provides for cultural continuity by maintaining the link between the home and host society, thus offering migrants a ‘home away from home’ (cf. Vertovec 2009). In addition, migration has facilitated “the multiplication of diaspora Pentecostal communities” and as such has helped to foster global imagined communities of Pentecostal believers (B. Martin 2010: 42). Under diasporic conditions, “local Pentecostalisms do in some senses ‘re-terriorialize’ the movement, identify it Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

with local traditions in a way that becomes part of local Pentecostal identity and may be carried into the European [or other] contexts into which diasporas move” (ibid.:

23

This coincides with my observations made in Indonesia. In an environment, where the vast majority is Muslim by birth, Pentecostal churches are thriving in an ever-expanding pace, especially in urban centers. In Surabaya, for example, the second biggest city in terms of its population, one of the bigger Indonesian Pentecostal churches (Gereja Graha Bethany) has alone twelve ‘satellite churches’ spread across the city. Not to speak of their dependencies in other cities in Indonesia and even abroad.

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51). Diaspora Pentecostal communities thus contribute to both the deterritorialization and re-territorialization of Pentecostalism. However, transnational spaces are not only shaped by international migration but also by processes of communication and exchange generated by networks of media communications, and by exchanges of educational and financial resources (cf. B. Martin 2010). Pentecostal transnational ties and networks can be established for instance via travelers, television and the Internet. Thus, besides the migratory ‘SouthNorth’ connection, there are increasingly important ‘South-South’ linkages within the global Pentecostal movement that do not essentially relate to migration processes (cf. Freston 2005; van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010). These linkages, which we can observe, for example, in the case of transnational Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Africa or the expansion of Singaporean Pentecostals churches to Indonesia, create new forms of networks and shape the process of Pentecostal globalization in distinct ways, thus showing that Pentecostalism is not necessarily part of a single globalizing Western modernity (cf. Velho 2009). The perceived shifting contours and center of gravity of Christianity from the North (Western countries) to the South (Africa, Asia, Latin America) is now well evidenced by the rapid proliferation of Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Hence, the sustained transnational ties, links and exchanges with Pentecostal movements globally, have resulted in mutual enrichment, revitalization, transformation and change in each local religious context (Adogame 2010: 514).

5.4

A Short Synopsis

So far, I have discussed some of the key characteristics of Pentecostalism and the complex ways they relate to external processes of cultural globalization. Out of the vast literature on Pentecostalism (especially within anthropology of religion) I disCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

cerned three different but interrelated threads that seem to be central to Pentecostal discourse and its fit with globalization: First I examined the importance given to conversion and how it engenders personal and social discontinuity. I further argued that this life-changing experience is embedded in Pentecostalism’s dualistic cosmology, in which the world is seen as a constant battlefield between both ‘evil’ and ‘good’ forces. This dualism structures Pentecostal reality as a whole and thus leads to a paradox situation in regard to Pentecostalism’s ability to localize itself: it at once 67

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preserves local ontologies of the spiritual world it encounters and combats them. By demonizing traditional moral systems and redefining them on Christian terms, Pentecostal Christianity has shown a remarkable capacity to localize itself, albeit “without ever taking the locale into itself” (Robbins 2003b: 223). This makes Pentecostalism a driving force behind radical cultural discontinuities. In this context, Pentecostalism can be regarded as a paradigmatic case of Robertson’s concept of ‘glocalization’: it transcends locality by promulgating a universal ‘imaginary of the world’, while at the same time incorporating itself successfully into the sociocultural contexts of any new cultures it encounters. Concomitantly, Pentecostalism acts both, as a homogenizing force and as a transformative power, reproducing local diversity and fostering internal heterogeneity. A third topic I touched was related to the transnational character of the Pentecostal movement and the complex ways it spreads across the globe. Two factors seem to be especially important in this regard: the expansion of Pentecostalism through its efforts in proselytizing the ‘unreached’ and the means it expands via the increasing mobility of people. Central to Pentecostal mission strategies is its emphasis on miracles and healing. In promising to meet practical, everyday needs and owing to its egalitarian doctrine, Pentecostalism successfully acts as an alternative to other religious movements. The capacity to establish churches and its ability in soliciting intense institutional commitment on the part of its members is grounded in Pentecostalism’s promotion of ritual to the center of social life. These widely shared and easily identifiable rituals reinforce the emotional commitment and bind each believer to the global Pentecostal community and thus provide an important foundation for Pentecostalism to travel widely across the globe. Further, I traced the distinct ways of global Pentecostal flows and how transnational ties and networks are established. In this regard, it is crucial to notice that Pentecostal transnational spaces are not only shaped by international migration from the ‘South’ to the ‘North’, but that ‘SouthSouth’ linkages are getting increasingly significant in the process of Pentecostal Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

globalization. These transnational exchanges, linkages and ties transform and shape the Pentecostal network in distinct and sometimes unpredictable ways and in turn mirror the de-centralized and de-territorialized nature of global Pentecostalism. In sum we can state with Robbins (2004) that Pentecostalism expands via a simultaneous process of “world-making” and “world-breaking”. As much as Pentecostalism fosters discontinuity and rupture it is also strongly oriented toward this world. Rather than a religious rejection of the world, Pentecostalism accommodates to the 68

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world and modernity with the result that the boundaries between Pentecostal life styles, and those of the wider world appear to be shifting and becoming increasingly permeable (Coleman 2000: 24). In the next chapter I will thus discuss the much commented connection between the spread of capitalism, consumption, and the appeal of Pentecostalism.

6. Pentecostalism and Capitalism Over the past decade, a host of studies probing into the relation between Pentecostalism and capitalism emerged in the interface of religious studies, anthropology of religion and sociology of religion. Many scholars have noticed a consonance or elective affinity between Pentecostalism and the advance of global neo-liberal capitalism (cf. D. Martin 2001; Barker 2007; Hunt 2000; Lewison 2011; Meyer 2007; Berger 2010). Meyer (2007: 6f.) for example, speaks of Pentecostalism as “a world religion in the true sense of the term, exceptionally well suited to face the dilemmas of neoliberal capitalism and seize its new opportunities [emphasis in original].” Similarly, Barker (2007: 407, 408) suggests that “Pentecostalism has embedded the selfregulated aspects of neoliberal capitalism [...] [fostering] norms and behaviors that harmonize well with the demands of neoliberal economies.” Jean and John Comaroff (2000: 292) observed at the turn of the millennium, the triumph of global capitalism has been accompanied by a proliferation of occult practices, money magic, and prosperity gospels that constitute “enchantments […] of a decidedly neoliberal economy whose ever more inscrutable speculations seem to call up fresh specters in their wake.” Hunt (2000: 344) in turn argues that “Pentecostalism serves to develop attributes, motivations and personalities adapted to the exigencies of the de-regulated

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global market.” The final explanation is drawn from Max Weber; that Pentecostalism, like Puritanism before it, is an instrument of modernization. Peter Berger (2010) argues that “Max Weber is alive and well and living in Guatemala City.” Pentecostals are restoring much that the Puritans drove out of Christianity, such as visions, miracles and healing cures and embrace the material opportunities of consumer culture as signs of God’s blessings. Similarly, Turner (2010b: 15) states that,

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Pentecostalism is a social movement that is devolved, voluntary, local and fissiparous; it works within a competitive religious market that offers spiritual uplift, social success and emotional gratification. Pentecostalism is relevant to the work skills and personal attributes of the post - industrial service economy, especially the attributes of self -monitoring and a refusal to accept failure. Following I will look at some of these theoretical claims and approaches in more detail. Beforehand I will, however, discuss how Pentecostals themselves theologically legitimate their relation to capitalism and materiality by looking at the doctrine of prosperity.

6.1

The Theology of Prosperity

“You must realize that prosperity is the will of God for you” (Copeland 1974: 50)

One of the most influential aspects of contemporary Pentecostalism is the related development of a theology often conferred to as the ‘prosperity gospel’. For some scholars, the affinity for prosperity messages is even the most significant characteristic of Pentecostal belief (cf. Attanasi and Yong 2012). Originating in mid-twentieth century US evangelism, the ‘theology of prosperity’ has largely been associated with a number of enterprising Pentecostal evangelists, such as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin. Out of their networks emerged a new generation of nondenominational churches that grew to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. These churches gained explosive popularity in the last two decades of the twentieth century and in the beginnings of the twenty-first century. As Anderson (2004: 156) states, “these networks of independent churches were soon the fastest-

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growing segment in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement in the Englishspeaking world, spreading to become hundreds of independent global networks.” In describing this new movement and in order to distinguish it from classical forms of Pentecostalism, the term ’neo-Pentecostal’ began to be used interchangeably with the general term charismatic or, later, neo-charismatic. However, as already discussed, any attempt of constructing (sociological) taxonomies in regard to Pentecostalism is difficult. For one thing, it runs into danger to reify the unity of earlier forms

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of Pentecostalism. Further, it fails to acknowledge Pentecostalism’s fluid nature and does not account for the interconnections and mutual influences between different strands within the Pentecostal movement. Pentecostalism has spread throughout the world as a whole, but has itself been transformed in new, pluralist contexts. This elusive character of Pentecostalism thus renders any classification difficult. Simply putting a ‘neo’ in front of Pentecostalism in order to distinguish it from older forms is not exactly an ideal solution. Sticking to Bergunder’s (2010) non-essentialist concept, I therefore view these recent Pentecostal formations as belonging to the same synchronous Pentecostal network and will not use any prefixes or hyphens to identify them.

Contemporary Pentecostalism can thus be best described as comprising congregations, networks, fellowships, mega-churches and para-church organizations which all act within a huge and increasingly transnational network of denominational and nondenominational Christians. The theology of prosperity is especially promoted by one wing of the contemporary Pentecostal network, usually referred to variously as the Faith, Prosperity, Health and Wealth or Word Movement (Coleman 2000: 27). On the surface, then, this movement may be understood as one of many strands of Pentecostalism, quasi a ‘movement within the movement’. However, as Hunt (2000: 332) points out the choice of the word ‘movement’ is in itself problematic, stating that, In some respects, the designation of this relatively new religious phenomenon as a ‘movement’ is a misnomer, since the distinctive Faith gospel is represented by hundreds of independent ministries which might depart, to one degree or another, in both practice and doctrine, from the core teachings.

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In discussing the so-called prosperity gospel, we therefore have to keep in mind that the ‘Faith network’ is clearly decentralized and diffuse and cannot be attached to any single organization. Prosperity churches have myriad different titles and do not fall neatly under one, specific denomination. Consequently, we have to be careful about tying all different varieties of prosperity churches under the banner of Pentecostalism. Even though many prosperity churches may be Pentecostal, and the origins of the prosperity gospel is closely linked to Pentecostal teachings, not all Pentecostals do preach prosperity. Yet, according to the findings of the Pew Foundation’s 2006 71

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cross-national survey on Pentecostalism (Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals 2006: 1), “Even more than other Christians, Pentecostals and other renewalists believe that God, working through the Holy Spirit, continues to play a direct active role in everyday life.” For instance, Pentecostals were more likely to say that God had specifically answered a particular prayer (ibid.: 16). Similar, when asked about the believe that God grants believers prosperity and health, a significant higher percentage of Pentecostals responded positively (ibid.: 29). Thus, what is striking to the observer and cries for an explanation is the increasing global significance of ‘Faith ministries’ and the successful diffusion of prosperity ideas around the world, especially among Pentecostals (see Attanasi and Yong 2012). Brouwer et al. (1996) have argued that Christianity has proven to be a modernizing and westernizing religion “which has spread over the globe in concert with the mercantile and industrial expansion of capitalism and the establishment of colonial empires” (Hunt 2000: 334). The expansion of new forms of Christianity (like Pentecostalism) would enable the US to re-make the world in their own image and promulgate the American ideal of a neo-liberal order. According to this reading, the dissemination of fundamentalist evangelical expressions of Christianity thus fosters US- American economic and cultural dominance in post-colonial settings (Brouwer et al. 1996: 1-3). However, the attempt to understand the spread of prosperity doctrine from the US to the rest of the world simply as an American export product falls short of explaining its global success. According to Hunt (2000), the use of the ‘hegemonic model’ as an analytical framework, stating an evangelical-fundamentalist ‘McDonaldization’ of the world (cf. Ritzer 1993) has its limitations. Although ideas of the prosperity gospel have clear North American origins and are associated with highly powerful ministries in the US, they have been transferred to, as well as transformed within, numerous contexts around the world. As such, “they are subject to constant forms of [selective] appropriation, repackaging, and redissemination into the Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

transnational realm” (Coleman 2000: 36). Similarly, Hunt (2000: 332) argues that, Across the world, hundreds of thousands of people subscribe to ministers, such as Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland in the USA. In turn, they have served as a source of inspiration and as catalysts for the global dissemination of similar ministries which are identified by their vast scale of organisational structure and financial resources.

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There is an ever increasing amount of studies looking at the distinct ways in which prosperity teachings have gone global, particularly in Africa (see, for example Gifford 1998; Meyer 1999; Hackett 1995) and Latin America (see, for example Chesnut 1997; Lehmann 1996). In explaining the emergence and the role of indigenous styles of relating to and appropriation of the prosperity doctrine in Africa, Hackett for instance notes (1995: 211): We [should not] forget the predominantly American origins of the pentecostal and charismatic revival in Africa. Yet in its present phase, the forces of appropriation and negotiation seem to be more active, with more evidence of agency by African evangelists. It is hard to resist gospel ships and their cargo, but indigenous inspitational literature is now beginning to proliferate and some African evangelists are becoming well known on the global circuit. At one level they appear to be content to reproduce the theological tenets of the movement […], but it is in the process of selection that we find an African emphasis and creativity- in the importance attributed to deliverance, healing and experience, for example. Thus, we see that the already discussed concept of ‘glocalization’, where the local and the global as well as the universal and the particular are mutually dependent, can also be applied within this context. Next I will look at some of the theological specifities of the prosperity gospel more closely. In its basic meaning prosperity theology teaches that Christians are entitled to well-being and, because physical and spiritual realities are seen as one inseparable reality, this is interpreted as physical health and economic prosperity (Hunt 2000: 332). Importantly, from a historical perspective, the notion of prosperity is not a novelty to Christian thought, especially within North American evangelical circles (cf. Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Yong 2012). In the US of the nineteenth century, economic success and premillenial expectations of the ‘Second coming of Christ’ were commonly conflated, “and the connections between living a correct life and gaining bountiful wealth and prosperity were pointed out by clergy as well as lay people” (Coleman 2000: 41). However, it can be argued that Pentecostalism (or at least some forms of it) was the main ‘catalyst’ in spreading these ideas on a global scale thus leading to a variety of different theological interpretations of the prosperity gospel. Therefore, we can state with

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Yong (2012: 27) that “the prosperity theology is not one idea but many, such that we can and should legitimately think about prosperity theologies” [emphasis in original]. Yong (ibid.) even goes so far to claim that “most Christians operate with a prosperity mentality but without a prosperity theology “[emphasis in original]. Further we have to keep in mind that the role of the prosperity gospel around the world varies tremendously and is influenced by the contextual factors that are associated with distinct regions. Given the inherent plurality of prosperity theology (or if you will mentality) the following remarks should therefore be understood in an idealtypical manner.

The central message of prosperity theology lies in “the assurance of ‘divine’ physical health and prosperity through faith” (Hunt 2000: 333). Prosperity theology contends that there are known spiritual laws according to which God operates and which always will produce the desired results. These laws are activated through faith in the promises of God to provide health and prosperity. The Prosperity Gospel, therefore, promulgates the idea that God desires everyone to be prosperous. As Joseph Prince, the senior pastor of New Creation Church in Singapore, who identifies himself as having roots in the ‘Word of Faith’ movement states in his book Destined to Reign. The Secret to Effortless Success, Wholeness and Victorious Living: You are called by the Lord to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health, and to enjoy a life of victory. It is not the Lord’s desire that you live a life of defeat, poverty, and failure […]When you reign in life, you reign over sin, you reign over the powers of darkness, you reign over depression, over poverty, over every curse, and over every sickness and disease (Prince 2007: 1). From the perspective of prosperity theology God has promised and will provide

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prosperity to those who activate these covenants through their faith and through laying claim to this prosperity through their words and especially through their action (cf. Coleman 2000). Prosperity theology teaches that the spiritual and material fortunes of a ‘believer’ are dependent on faith and on how much he gives spiritually and materially to God or his representative in the world. Typically, proponents of the prosperity gospel ask believers to contribute money or goods in kind to the church; these gifts, usually referred to as ‘seeds’ are understood to carry the promise of a divinely increased ‘harvest’ (cf. Wiegele 2012). Through such offerings, believers 74

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work to integrate themselves into a heavenly economy of superabundance. Kenneth Copeland, a leading Prosperity evangelist, thus claims that giving to God and his works is like a heavenly savings account […] If you let heaven be your financial reservoiryour bank and depository where you place your trust- regardless of what happens to the world’s system, you will always have more than enough” (Copeland 1974: 70). The promise that giving in this way will lead to magical prosperity is clearly attractive in societies where poverty is rife and there seem to be few ways of escaping it. Sometimes, the tithes of the poor support a pastor in maintaining a highflying lifestyle. In his study on Pentecostalism in Ghana Gifford (2004) reveals that in some of the new Pentecostal churches in Ghana, members are sometimes urged to borrow money, if necessary, in order to give to the church; they are told that they thus qualify for supernatural monetary blessing. There are numerous other cases that report on financial misappropriation by church leaders. Only recently, Kong Hee, the founder of Singapore's largest megachurch City Harvest was arrested on charges that he misused up to S$18 million church funds to support the aspirations of his wife’s popmusic career (cf. Kin 2012). The materialism promoted by prosperity theology has thus fueled a lot of criticism. Citing the Nigerian journalist, Chris Ngwodo, Jenkins (2006: 93-94) that: The now prevalent free market capitalist brand of Christianity has as its purveyors, the nouveau riche smooth talking prophets of profit peddling a feel good gospel of greed. The competition for the hearts and minds of the poor and the gullible is so intense that self-promotion and marketing is being taken to outrageous heights. With each TV and radio jingle, each banner, poster and Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

handbill, the next anointed man of God struggles to outdo the last by making even more brazen claims. The damage being done to the Christian witness is incalculable. However, as Jenkins rightly points out we have to be careful not to take cases of financial exploitation, corruption or misuse as a prototypical foil in order to reinforce already existing prejudices against prosperity theologies in general (Jenkins 2006:

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94). For one thing, theological informed criticisms, especially on part of older established churches, are often evoked because their prosperity-oriented rivals are more effective in recruiting members (ibid.). Further, we have to recognize that for advocates of the prosperity gospel, the idea of God’s desire to bless the believer with spiritual, physical, and material abundance is firmly grounded in their Bible exegesis. In reference to the Old Testament, for instance, they suggest that “God not only called Abraham the ‘father’ of God’s chosen and elect people but also blessed him abundantly in every way: socially, economically, and materially” (Yong 2012: 19). Similarly, Prince makes a point in referring to the biblical parable of the feeding of the multitude: When the little boy brought his five loaves and two fishes to Jesus, did He gobble them up and say, ‘I am giving you a lesson in poverty?’ Of course not! […] Jesus did not feed the multitudes with just enough food. He blessed them with more than enough food. He is the God of more than enough and that is His style. Likewise, Jesus wants to bless you with more than enough, so that you can be a blessing to others (Prince 2010: 238). Giving can thus be seen as one of the core features of the prosperity gospel. According to Copeland, (1974: 30, the basic principle of God’s law of prosperity is: “Give, and after a while it will come back to you again […] The more you give, the more you will get; the more you get, the more you will have to give.” Copeland builds this reasoning on the spiritual-natural law effect – when one gives, one activates the spiritual law of reciprocity, and God is obliged by this law to multiply the believer’s prosperity. Simon Coleman (2000), who studied the Swedish Word of Life Church, argues that members of churches who emphasize on prosperity teachings are involved in a complex gift exchange system, in which all the good things that happen

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to them are reinterpreted as gifts of God, in return for the tithes they make (for a similar account, but in regard to Catholic Charismatics in the Philippines see Wiegele 2005). As Wiegele (2012: 176) points out, believers should continuously give tithes and offerings “not necessarily in gratitude for miracles nor out of obligation, but as a way to elicit [emphasis in original] miracles from God.” However, in regard to the theological heterogeneity within the ‘Faith Movement’ as mentioned before, not all proponents of prosperity teachings interpret the notion of giving the same way. A different view is promulgated, for instance, by Jo76

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seph Prince. Stating that “there is no such thing as a ‘prosperity gospel’ [but] only one gospel” (Prince 2010: 29), he sees prosperity as God’s “unmerited favor” to the believer. To him “success is not what you have, but rather who you have” (ibid.: 3), thus stressing that prosperity (i.e. receiving material and physical blessings from God) and success does not come through human effort, but alone by God’s grace: “Even if you lack the necessary qualifications, His unmerited favor can propel you forward” (ibid.). As the subtitle of his book Destined to Reign (2007) already suggests, Prince emphasizes on an effortless success, which is not achieved by actively ‘doing’ something but by faith alone. He thus argues: The more occupied you are with Jesus, the more money follows after you! Now why is that? It is simply because when you seek first the kingdom of God, and put Jesus, His righteousness (not your righteousness), His joy and His peace as your first priority, God’s Word promises you that ALL the material things that you need will be added to you [emphasis in original] (Prince 2010: 233-234). Prosperity theology holds that the covenant with God to provide health and prosperity is activated by the use of ‘positive confession’. The idea of positive confession is based largely on Mark 11:24: “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” Just as money is to be kept flowing, so words can only become living and gain power when spoken. According to Hunt (1998: 276), “positive confession, put succinctly, seems to embrace a law of metaphysical causation in that what is spoken by the believer in faith operates the spiritual law of faith itself and brings what is ‘confessed’ into material reality.” Coleman (2000: 28) speaks in this regard of “objectifications of reality” in that words spoken ‘in faith’ establish “palpable connections between human will and the external world.” Thus,

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positive confession places an incredible amount of power on the individual’s spoken word as being demonstrative of his or her faith in God. Or, in the words of Copeland (1974: 96): Faith is released with the mouth. […] You can have what you say! [emphasis in original] In fact, what you are saying is exactly what you are getting now. If you are living in poverty and lack and want, change what you are saying. It will change what you have!

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According to positive confession, that which is spoken, if filled with the Holy Spirit, will be fulfilled. Therefore, if a sick person declares freedom from illness, it is believed that he or she will become well. Furthermore, by declaring wealth it is believed that financial blessings will overflow in the believer’s life. Similarly, Prince argues on his homepage (www.josephprinceonline.com) that, The power of life and death is in your tongue. (Proverbs 18:21) So use your tongue for life. Don’t sit around saying, “I am getting old and forgetful.” Say, “I have the mind of Christ. My mind is sharp and quick because it is the mind of Christ!” Believe it, confess it, and see your thinking and memory live up to it! (Prince 2004) The emphasis put on positive confession has led critics to call the prosperity theology ‘name it claim it’ or ‘blab it and grab it’. However, these often pejorative judgments are not so far away from prosperity theology’s own terminologies. As Kenneth Hagin (2000: 30), an influential prosperity preacher states: “The Lord said to me, ‘Don’t pray about money like you have been. Whatever you need, claim it in Jesus’ Name. And then you say, ‘Satan, take your hands off my money. Go, ministering spirits and cause the money to come.’” Through spoken identification (naming) and declarative ownership (claiming), this notion suggests that you can receive what you ask for in the name of Jesus. Through this principle of naming and claiming, it is the individual’s responsibility to initiate the process of receiving God’s blessings (but see Prince 2007; 2010). The particular language of positive confession is intimately interwoven into the fabric of prosperity church services. From the sermon, to the singing, to prayer, there is certain embodied language that is directly connected with this notion of positive confession to bring about both healing and prosperity. According to Coleman,

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presentations of a positive demeanor through deploying a specific body language can be understood as a form of self-actualization as well as proof of the presence of divinity (Coleman 2000: 150): ‘Positive Confession’ can be extended beyond the realm of spoken language into forms of self-representation that demonstrate the empowerment of the physically and spiritually healthy person, ranging from dancing, raising hands

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and even quaking during services to employing an enthusiastic demeanor in all circumstances (ibid). Thus, a person’s appearance (e.g. the type of clothes, the car, the house, but also the charisma of a person) is seen as an indication of an interior spiritual state. Appearance can thus be regarded as a prime concern for Pentecostals. My own observations among Pentecostal congregations in Indonesia and Singapore support this claim. Regardless of how the individual believer’s socio-economical background or state of health may be, most adherents I encountered appeared to be always in an overwhelming positive and enthusiastic state of mind. Successes in material terms were displayed openly and any sense of understatement, as one can commonly observe in Western Europe, was inexistent. It seemed to me that the classical protestant ethic of asceticism was a thing never heard of in this context.

6.2

Discussing the Pentecostal-Capitalism Nexus

The rapid growth and worldwide spread of Pentecostalism in general, and its ‘prosperity offspring’ in particular, inspired scholars to look for the reasons behind it. The question why Pentecostal prosperity teachings attract so many people, and more general, how they relate to neoliberal capitalism has been answered in numerous ways. Most scholars routinely deploy broad sociological arguments about the role of deprivation and anomie in fostering Pentecostalism’s growth or use a ‘hegemonic model’ to explain its dominance around the globe (cf. Hunt 2002; Robbins 2004). Following, I will only briefly sketch out these two approaches before entering the discussion on the benefits and limitations of employing Max Weber’s theory of the Protestant ethic Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

to Pentecostalism. Some scholars have argued along Marxist lines that Pentecostalism’s expansion to the ‘Third World’ brings about a “thoroughly endorsement of dominant Western values,” thus indicating “a capitulation to the hegemony of Western culture” (Hunt 2002: 15). This often leads to a suspicion that Pentecostalism is a part of the expansion strategy of American-based multinational corporations. Pentecostal mission organizations are seen as partners of the corporations, with the task of preparing social-

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cultural conditions for the global market. Accordingly, Pentecostalism, especially in its ‘health and wealth’ guise, can be interpreted as a major carrier of the North American capitalist ideology, which praises the virtues of the free market (cf. Brouwer et al 1996).24 More established, however, are theories, which associate the growth of Pentecostalism with a broad but largely different set of deprivations. Pentecostalism, it is argued, is especially appealing to the deprived, because it “offers ecstatic escape, hope for millennial redress, and an egalitarian environment in which everyone is eligible for the highest religious rewards” (Robbins 2004: 124). David Martin (1990: 278), for instance, states in regard to his observations in Latin America, that the democratic and egalitarian tendencies in Pentecostalism opens ‘open social space’ for the poor and marginalized. As such, Martin’s theory implies an optimistic view that Pentecostalism, with an individual transformation approach, enables the poor to improve their personal qualities so as to have respectful roles in the market economy, which in turn upgrades their social position. Thus, Martin maintains that the global success of Pentecostalism is derived from its ability to offer solutions to both individual and collective problems and to deal with the specific needs of distinct socioeconomic groups (ibid.). Another reason is seen in Pentecostalism’s ability to establish closely-knit communities with a high-intensity, time-consuming ritual life and a collectively policed ascetic moral code, thus providing a social foundation and sense of direction for displaced persons (ibid.). Further, urban migrants are attracted to Pentecostal doctrines, because they help them to cope with personal and household problems like poverty, alcoholism, and illness (Gooren 2010: 360). Bernice Martin (1998: 126-129) contends in this regard that the success of Pentecostalism in attracting many urban people, lies in its offering of power to overcome the confusion and inconvenience, as well as the excesses, which result from the transition of society to post-modernity. She believes that the Pentecostal theological emphasis on healing and hope in the Holy Spirit creates a sense of self-confidence and a drive to a more Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

orderly life, which have practical, constructive consequences in economic life. Similarly, Brouwer et al. (1996: 79) suggest that Pentecostalism …helps people exercise control in a seemingly uncontrollable world through strict standards of “right living.” Incomprehensible cycles of poverty and violence are made comprehensible through an all-encompassing theology and by 24

I will not comment further on this perspective, as I already have critically elaborated on it before.

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the personal authority of the pastor. And, access to an everyday miracle religion empowers people; it gives them hope of negotiating insurmountable obstacles of an unknown future. On the other hand, Pentecostal prosperity teachings do not only appeal exclusively to the disinherited living at the margins of society, but also constitute an ideology of the socially upwardly-mobile. As such the prosperity gospel meets the needs of an ever emerging middle-class (especially in emerging countries like Brazil, China, Indonesia) and helps them to overcome a range of emotional-psychic deprivations and financial uncertainties (Hunt 2002: 16). Finally, Barker (2007) situates Pentecostalism’s growth and appeal within a broader context of the neo-liberal economy, suggesting that Pentecostalism has the capacity to offer a non-state mechanism that successfully “embeds neoliberal economic activities by integrating these activities into society [and providing] adherents tools to respond to the vagaries of the neoliberal organization of the economy (ibid.: 409). To Barker neoliberal globalization is marked by a number of social dislocations. Neoliberal economic restructuring on the organization of production, on governance and social policy has set in motion a host of social dislocations and has had a direct (negative) impact on social reproduction (ibid.: 416). The dislocations initiated by neoliberal restructuring have not gone without reaction, thus bringing forth a “range of social and political countermovements responding to the ascendance of neoliberalism alongside the expansion of deregulated global markets” (ibid.: 408). Barker argues that Pentecostalism reflects yet another social response to neoliberal economic restructuring, addressing and meeting social reproductive needs engendered in a neoliberal economic. According to Barker, Pentecostalism offers resources for meeting these needs in ways that harmonize with the economic conditions in a neoliberal era of adestabilized state, thus representing “a soul for the soulless conditions of our times” (ibid.: 427).

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This cursory glance shows that deprivation arguments are not only narrowly applied to material issues alone, but are interpreted within a range of different interrelated socio-economic and psychological contexts. However, even though deprivation theories have their value, solely relying on functionalist explanations do not capture the full picture. Already in 1981 Andrew Walker, a long-time scholar of Pentecostalism, commented:

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Recently, sociologists have been forced into a major rethinking and clearer understanding of the phenomenon of Pentecostalism. What has happened, in a way, is that it has gotten out of hand: what was once thought by many social scientists to be a sectarian expression of economic and social deprivation has turned out to be a massive social movement beyond sectarian boundaries and incorporating the middle-classes (Walker 1981: 89). In similar vein Hunt states: Theories of deprivation carry the acute danger of establishing stereotypes and are now largely outmoded. For the most part, they are no longer considered to have explanatory power in themselves. For instance, being ‘poor’ does not necessarily mean being alienated or anomic. All such meaning cannot be established by examining it from a distance, but requires to be understood from the perspective of the actors’ own interpretations and feeling (2002: 23). Given the fact that deprivation arguments today are widely criticized within Pentecostal studies, I will now turn to another approach, which takes Weber’s famous thesis about the relation between the Protestant ethic and the rise of capitalism as an important point of reference (cf. Berger 2010). Max Weber analyzed in great detail the relationship between Protestantism and capitalism in his seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published in two parts in 1904 and 1905.25 Ever since then it has lost none of its importance, especially within the sociology of religion. As Gifford (2011: 6) states: The “Protestant Ethic” has become in recent years a platform for examining modern religious movements and their effect on the twenty-first century global economy. With the rise of neo-liberal capitalism, some scholars are at-

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tempting to demonstrate the relevance of Weber’s thesis (or at least some interpretation of it) in the contemporary world. Central to Weber’s reflections was his concept of rationality as a distinctive feature and driving force behind the cultural development of modern Western Europe. To him, the rationalization process played an important part in the constitution of the modern bureaucratic state and the establishment of a capitalist economic system. 25

In this thesis I take Taclott Parson’s translation (1920) as source of quotation.

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With the increasing predictability and controllability of the world, modern society would lose its magic and extraordinary moments. Everything becomes understandable and tameable, even if not, for the moment, understood and tamed. Accordingly, in a more and more rationalized world, any consistent and comprehensive religious interpretation of meaning becomes obsolete. Weber was certainly critical about these developments and thus referred to the rationalizing of modern reality as ‘disenchantment of the world’. According to Weber, this historical rationalization process had religious roots, dating back to the Axial Age, a transition phase marked by the shift from magical religions of archaic tribal societies to the emergence of world religions within ancient civilizations. The concept of the Axial Ages, which was later more fully elaborated by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), basically refers to the time period between 800 and 200 B.C.E, in which in at least four different cultural regions (China, India, Orient, Occident) the mythical culture was both simultaneously and independently from each other replaced and supplemented by a theoretical one. While in the pre-axial time the mythical cosmology was based on a homologous order between the transcendence and the immanence, the civilizations of the Axial Age engendered a discontinuity between both categories. This development set free societal dynamics, resolving the tension between the immanence and transcendence by either secular or religious means and enabling the formation of religious, political, cultural and economic centers. However, Weber points out that the historical conditions, trajectories and impacts of these processes were different in each civilizational context (Höllinger 2011: 221). For Weber, the European-occidental form of rationalization originated in Protestantism and thus was distinctive from other world religions or any preceding developments within Christianity: Protestantshave shown a special tendency to develop economic rationalism

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which cannot be observed to the same extent among Catholics either in the one situation or in the other. Thus the explanation of these differences must be sought in the permanent intrinsic character of their religious beliefs, and not only in their temporary external historico-political situations (Weber 1920: 230) According to Weber, the radical disenchantment of the world laid the basis for the emergence of the Protestant work ethic, which in turn was a crucial precondition for 83

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the formation of what he called the ‘spirit of capitalism’. Weber suggested that the values present within the Protestant ethic provided a foundation for capitalism to develop. In Weber’s theory, the Protestant work ethic was an important factor in the economic success of Protestant groups in the early stages of European capitalism in that worldly success came to be interpreted as a sign of the individual’s election to eternal salvation. Encompassed within this ethic are two principles which Weber identified as integral to the spirit of capitalism: inner-worldly asceticism and the notion of vocational calling. Protestant inner-worldly asceticism taught the fulfillment of obligations in the world as the sole method of proving religious merit. It helped to make people work harder, save what they earned and re-invest their profit. By applying asceticism to the “market-place of life” in their business practices, Weber suggested that Protestants were able to engage in the accumulation of capital which was a necessary precursor to the development of capitalistic society: “Christian asceticism […] now strode, into the market-place of life, slammed the door of the monastery behind it, and undertook to penetrate [the] daily routine of life” (Weber 1920: 154). Moreover, the occupational status was affirmed by the religious concept of calling, which states that one’s job, whatever that may be, is ordained by God. Weber claims that in Protestantism, labor in everyday life was seen as a God appointed task. Withdrawal from the world into monasteries was deemed a form of selfish idleness; true holiness meant fulfilling your worldly duties so as to glorify God. By offering a concept of the worldly ‘calling’, Protestantism demanded that believers fulfill their duties within this world and thus gave worldly activity a religious character. While important, this alone cannot explain the need to pursue profit. One branch of Protestantism, Calvinism, does provide this explanation. Rooted in the ideas of John Calvin, Calvinism was based on the doctrine of predestination: that individual salvation was preordained by God. Weber argues that this, in fact, has led to an increasingly rational engagement in worldly activity. For while believers can never know whether Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

or not they are of the elect, it remains their duty to believe that they have been chosen, and to work for the utmost glory of God through their allotted vocation. Thus, they came to value profit and material success as signs of God's favor. Weber argues that this new attitude broke down the traditional economic system, paving the way for modern capitalism. However, in the course of the increasing rationalization process and the concomitant spread of the spirit of capitalism, Protestant (i.e. Calvinist) values were no longer necessary, and their ethic took on a life of its own. The ration84

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al consequences of this doctrine, Weber argued, soon grew incompatible with its religious roots, and so the latter were eventually discarded. In comparison to the seventeenth-century Calvinists, who at least still understood hard work as a religious project that could reveal whether they belonged to the elected, in the early twentiethcentury people had lost this religious dimension. In other words, the ethic propounded by Protestantism was necessary for the coming into being of modern Western capitalism, yet its religious basis was no longer needed once it was in place (Meyer 2007: 8). Stripped of its religious roots, rationalization became an end to itself. Due to bureaucratic rationalization and the acceleration of capitalism, modern man was now confined by the capitalist work ethic based on purely teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control; a condition where hard and efficient work is taken for granted and the resistance of pleasure is an absolute necessity (ibid.: 9). Weber described this modern situation with the metaphor of the ‘iron cage’: In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the “saint like a cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.” But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage. Since ascetism undertook to remodel the world and to work out its ideas in the world, material goods have gained an increasing and finally inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history. Today the spirit of religious ascetismwhether finally, who knows?- has escaped from the cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. […] No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self importance 1920: 181-

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182). It is around Max Weber’s notions of ‘inner-worldly asceticism’, ‘rationalization’ and ‘disenchantment’, that scholars like Peter Berger (2010) have tried to prove the validity of Weber’s theory in the context of contemporary Pentecostalism, arguing that, for instance, Pentecostal churches in Latin America bear “a striking resemblance to their Anglo Saxon predecessors,” in that they help generate a new, Protestant, economically productive middle class (ibid.: 4). Berger detects that Pentecostalism in Latin America is closely associated with a desire for education, a strong work ethic, 85

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individualism, and an affinity for democratic politics, thus claiming that Pentecostalism … promotes personal discipline and honesty, proscribes alcohol and extramarital sex, dismantles the compadre system (which […] with its fiestas and other extravagant expenditures discourages savings) and teaches ordinary people to create and run their own grassroots institutions. The roles and contribution of women in society are recognised and expanded, as is the importance of education for children. It is a culture that is radically opposed to classical machismo […] women take on leadership roles within the family, ‘domesticating’ their husbands […] and paying attention to the education of their children [all emphasis in original] (ibid.). Berger’s comparisons between Pentecostalism’s position in the modern global economy and Weber’s analysis of Protestantism’s position in industrializing Europe have spurred further research on this topic. In 2008, South Africa’s Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) completed an extensive study aiming to determine Pentecostalism’s potential social and economic role in RSA. The researchers proposed that Pentecostalism will do for South Africa what Max Weber argued Calvinism did for eighteenth-century Europe. The report thus identifies Pentecostals as descendants of early Protestants who have inherited the ‘Protestant Ethic’, and characterized by a “this-worldly (or world-accepting) asceticism, a disciplined and rational approach to work and social activity, and a deferral of gratification and instant consumption” (2008a: 12). Based on their findings the authors conclude that Pentecostalism in South Africa fosters “personal agency,” implying a “more intense family life, working life, and business activities and that, in turn, “these themes boil down to something approximating the central features of Calvinism, as described by Max Weber: a

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sense of purpose and therefore, confidence in worldly engagement, strengthened by this-worldly asceticism” (2008a: 25). The CDE report further claims that Pentecostalism promotes a “quasi-Calvinist pattern of deferred gratification, leading to an improvement in financial security and material conditions in the family,” and “that ‘tithing’ acted as a spur to deferred gratification, financial planning and discipline in handling family and personal finances” (2008b: 71). Similarly, Stephen Hunt (2000: 344) observes in regard to the prosperity gospel:

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.

Pentecostalism serves to develop attributes, motivations and personalities adapted to the exigencies of the de-regulated global market […] it has integrated the urban masses into a developing economy through the protestant work ethic and active citizenship […] At the same time, the mobile new professionals and the educated in mega-cities carry a work ethic that results from a strict Pentecostal upbringing […] The explanation for the success of the Faith movement is that it can adapt itself to such complexities. This makes it a global ‘winner’.

However, as Meyer (2007; 2010) and Gifford (2011) have convincingly argued, we should be cautious of applying the Weberian concept of The Protestant Ethic to contemporary Pentecostalism, especially to its particular form that emphasizes on prosperity teachings. As Meyer (2007: 11) argues, although Weber’s thesis is of considerable heuristic value, “scholars should be wary to take as a point of departure the assumption that current [Pentecostal churches] would mirror and confirm the Weberian model.” Gifford (2011) for example, has demonstrated the limits of the South African CDE research by presenting a case study of an African Pentecostal church in Ghana (Winner’s Chapel) that does not conform to the Weberian model of the Protestant Ethic. Whereas a centerpiece to Weber’s thesis was that Protestantism had adopted rationalism, which made for the perfect marriage between Protestantism and capitalism, the doctrine promoted by the Winner’s Chapel …proudly rejects a rationalistic approach when it comes to the methods of attaining success and financial abundance […] Winners’ Chapel is unashamedly about victory (and financial victory in particular), and even though one can find elements in their message of motivation, entrepreneurship, practical morality and even organizational skills, its primary emphasis is on sowing (mon-

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ey) in faith and prophetic declaration (Gifford 2011: 21). According to Gifford, members of the Winner’s Chapel thus fail to introduce a new work ethic at the expense of introducing consumerism. While Berger refers to Weber so as to explain Pentecostalism’s success as a modernizing factor, Gifford dismisses such claims, and presents Pentecostal endeavors as hindering development and progress. The fact that Berger and Gifford both come to opposed conclusions about the capacity of Pentecostalism to induce an ethic that is conducive for being successful

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in capitalism shows that it is problematic to make generalizing statements regarding Pentecostalism’ s achievements. As Birgit Meyer has noted, before a comparison can be made between, for instance, South African Pentecostals and the pre-industrial Calvinists of Northern Europe studied by Weber, one must first question if such a comparison between actors is useful considering the dissimilarity of stages. “If it was Weber’s concern to highlight the role of Protestantism in bringing about capitalism, today the question is more complicated […] In our time, we need to examine the popularity of [Pentecostal churches] against the backdrop of the fact that by now capitalism is well in place” (Meyer 2007: 11). In her critique, Meyer thus argues that some researchers tend to use the Protestant Ethic as a model out of context: While the link between Pentecostalism and neoliberal capitalism certainly demands our attention, when invoking Weber we need to be aware of the differences that exist between the period analyzed by him and the contemporary era […] [it] need not imply that the relation between these [Pentecostal] churches and capitalism is the same as Weber had in mind (Meyer 2010: 114). Assuming that Pentecostalism is a self-contained sphere ignores the long history of capitalism and its own effects in the formation of identities (both global and local), leading eventually to Pentecostalism’s own “entangle[ment] with the culture of neoliberalism” (Meyer 2007: 12).

The apparent ‘misfit’ of contemporary Pentecostalism with the ascetic spirit of capital accumulation that Weber sought to account for can be further highlighted and refined by considering two interrelated issues. First, on a more broad level, we can observe that contrary to Weber’s notion

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of the disenchantment and secularization of the world, we face, at least to some extent, re-enchantment and religionization as a result of globalization processes (Meyer 2010a: 115).26 The religious realm has not merely become ‘the other’ of the secular, but is an integral part of wider changes in different societal arenas (e.g. global economy, politics, law, media, etc.) (cf. Woodhead 2012). Many contemporary forms of 26

Similarly, for Turner (2012: 137) one of the major developments in the contemporary global religious landscape lies in the “pietization of everyday life” which he sees as a consequence of religious revival. However, it should be clear that the degree and impact of the religious‘re-enchantment’ is not everywhere the same. Secularized Western Europe might prove to be the big exemption.

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religious revivalism assume a public presence and diffuse into other societal spheres instead of remaining a matter of private belief (Meyer 2010a: 115). The Eurocentric tale of secularization, in which the secular is universally conceived of as an allencompassing immanent framework, while the religious realm seems to function merely as a residual category of the secular, or in Casanova’s words, as a “superstructural and superfluous additive, which both humans and societies can do without” (Casanova 2011.: 55) must thus be rewritten. Moreover, the idea that the increasing societal rationalization has relegated the place of religion more and more from the rational into the irrational realm and therefore, has now become an antirational transpersonal force per se does not comply to the recent global transformation of the religious and its alignment with modernity. The interpenetration between the religious and the secular is particularly observable in Pentecostalism. As Meyer (2007: 21) points out: Pentecostalism appears to be entangled with the culture of neo-liberalism to such an extent, that it is impossible to still conceptually confine religion to a separate sphere […] [Pentecostal churches] are not confined to a separate, relatively autonomous realm that is losing ever more ground to the secular realms of politics and the market. On the contrary, Pentecostal Christianity has become enmeshed with the neo-liberal environment into which it seeks to spread, the opportunities of which it seeks to seize, and upon whose devices its spread depends. Conversely to Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis and its implicit assumption of the incompatibility between magic and modernity, Pentecostal religiosity endorses both, rational modernity and a view of the world as a site of war between God and the devil (cf. Meyer 2007: Höllinger 2011). Weber’s distinction between ‘irrational’ magical

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religiosity, “that attributes power to religious act, substances and rituals” (Meyer 2010b: 744) and ‘rational’, disenchanting salvation religions that transcends the body, the senses and outward religions forms cannot be applied in the Pentecostal context. As it should have become clear by now, the characteristic feature of Pentecostalism lies in its ability to combine ecstatic and magical forms of religiosity with an ethic that resembles the classical type of the ascetic Protestant ethic. Pentecostal ethic is not solely geared to inner-worldly asceticism, but very much embraces and seeks to “transform the ‘world’, seizing the consumerist possibilities and media tech89

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nologies offered by neo-liberal capitalism” (Meyer 2007: 21). Thus, Meyer argues that “[t]he classical Protestant striving of ‘being in the world’ yet not ‘being of the world’ is hardly applicable here” (ibid.).This suggests a paradox in Pentecostalism, one of several that define the movement:27 [On one side] Pentecostalism is very positive about life in this world, about health and well-being as an arena of salvation, but at the same time […] has strong ascetic elements, and it condemns the hedonistic experiential excess that have accompanied consumer capitalism in the secular West even while welcoming material goods as part of the ‘good’ promised by God (B. Martin 2010: 47-48). This antinomy draws us to another related issue in regard to the limits of Weber’s thesis to explain the Pentecostal-Capitalism nexus. Meyer (2007: 9) points out that Weber overlooked the importance of consumption for the rise and perpetuation of capitalism: Instead of keeping people in an [‘iron cage’] that requires discipline and hard work, capitalism appears to owe its appeal to a large extent to the promise of pleasure via the consumption of goods that become central to the construction of identity (Meyer 2010: 116). While Weber recognized that material goods exercises power over people, the thrust of his analysis points towards the Protestant embracement and preference of innerworldly asceticism that stresses hard work and re-investment over that of desire, pleasure and consumption (Meyer 2007: 9). However, consumerism seems to be the primal characteristic of today’s capitalist life worlds, thus shifting Weber’s notion of the ‘spirit of capitalism’ towards a ‘spirit of modern consumerism’.

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Consumerism has been described as a process in which people “become enmeshed in the process of acquisition- shopping- and take some of their identity from a procession of new items that they buy and exhibit” (Stearns 2001: ix). In other words, capitalism requires the expectant consumer, for whom buying and displaying goods is an inalienable element of self-making, and thus part of a search for his authentic self. According to Peter Stearns (ibid.: 33), “[t]he arrival of modern consumerism is no 27

Bernice Martin argues in this regard, Pentecostalism “embodies multiple paradoxes” and therefore does not fit neatly into Weber’s model (2006: 141).

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mystery. It resulted from a number of factors operating concurrently, from new products and new earnings to new needs, framed by changing culture including growing urban influence.” Though the development of consumerism has been the result of numerous interacting factors that have varied across different contexts, it is certain that much of the world today is dominated by an ever-intensifying consumer culture. Moreover, consumerism is now directly linked to the rapidly expanding theme of globalization in which international networks unify people in disparate locations around the world. The commodification of everyday life has profoundly influenced modern religious formations. As Turner (2010b: 662-663) remarks, “[t]he embodied habitus of modern religion is basically compatible with the life styles of a commercial world in which the driving force of the economy is domestic consumption.” Whereas Weber concentrated on world-rejecting religions, the notion here lies on the world-accepting orientations of religions to global capitalism and the “ineluctable subversion of the religious to commodity” (Turner 2011: 280). Such a this-worldly attitude towards faith and moreover, the deliberate attempts to globalize religious values with the help of the market is particularly mirrored in Pentecostalism. If for Weber’s Calvinists, work was framed as a religious duty, here the successful acquirement of consumer items (e.g. fine cars, lavish homes, designer clothing) is religiously legitimated as a sign of explicitly divine blessing. As Comaroff and Comaroff (2000: 315) have argued with an admittedly slight pejorative bias: Inner-worldly asceticism has been replaced with the concern for pragmatics of material gain and the immediacy of desire […] The return on capital has suddenly become more spiritually compelling and imminent…than the return of Christ. This shift is endemic to the new religious movements of the late twentieth century. For them, and for their many millions of members, the

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Second Coming evokes not a Jesus who saves, but one who pays dividends. Or, more accurately, one who promises a miraculous return on a limited investment. However, despite the evident affinity between Pentecostalism and consumerist capitalism, the Pentecostal ambitions, values, and goals sought are not to be confused with profit-maximizing or self-orienting pursuit of fame. As Robbins states, Pentecostalism “clearly helps people cope with many of the disorienting aspects of moder91

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nity, but it does not necessarily lead them to single-mindedly quest to build modern lives in the same way, say, market ideology does” (Robbins 2010: 172). In a similar vein, Cox (2006: 21) argues that “Pentecostalism cannot be cast merely as the handmaiden of market globalization. There are simply too many elements in the Pentecostal worldview that do not compart well with market capitalism.” Thus, Cox concludes that “how the Pentecostal […] movement will ultimately relate itself to the new late-capitalist revolution remains an unfinished story” (ibid.:22). To sum up, there have been different theoretical attempts to explain the evident (s)elective affinity between Pentecostalism and Capitalism, ranging from hegemonic models, over functionalist deprivation arguments to the endeavor of applying Weber’s model of the Protestant Ethic. However, as we have seen all of these approaches can only partially account for Pentecostalism’s complex relationship to capitalism. To my opinion, this has to some extent to do with the internal contradictions within Pentecostalism, which cannot be definitively resolved because they are what constitute the movement. On the other hand, we could ask with B. Martin (2010: 52) if it not the elective affinity between Pentecostalism and neo-liberal capitalism that allows us to grasp Pentecostalism’s inherent paradoxes. So far, a convincing explanatory framework that places the Pentecostal-capitalism nexus in a broad theoretical context has yet to be developed.

7. Conclusion and Outlook In the preceding chapters I discussed to what extent and in what complex ways the Pentecostal movement is interrelated to processes of (cultural) globalization. We have seen that Pentecostalism is historically and presently rooted in many cultural

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contexts throughout the world. As such it is a religious movement that is both shaped by globalization processes, but also a major contributor to the globalization of religion. Thus, Pentecostalism can be regarded as a paradigmatic case of a ‘glocalized’ religion in that it transcends locality by promulgating a universal ‘imaginary of the world’, while at the same time incorporating itself successfully into the sociocultural contexts of any new cultures it encounters. The fundamental ‘fluidity’ of the transnational Pentecostal network is conducive for its flexibility to react on the enormous

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upheavals and changes in a globalized world and to accommodate to them in constructive ways. According to many scholars, there seems to be an ‘elective affinity’ between Pentecostalism and the advance of global neo-liberal capitalism. Pentecostalism, it has been argued, is well suited to face the dilemmas of neo-liberal capitalism and has the ability to adapt itself to the exigencies of the de-regulated global market. In a globalized world, where most of the world’s realities are vague, indefinite, and full of discontinuities, Pentecostalism provides means to meet the needs of people living under neoliberal conditions, marked by economic and social uncertainties. Not surprisingly, one of the most significant ways, Pentecostal ideas have spread globally is through the promulgation of ‘prosperity theology’. This doctrine holds that material, and physical well-being is a sign of God’s blessing. The belief that God desires everyone to be prosperous is clearly attractive in societies where poverty is rife and there seem to be few ways of escaping it. However, embracing the material opportunities of consumer culture as signs of God’s will stands in sharp contrast to Weber’s Protestant ethic of inner-worldly asceticism, a theoretical framework which has been tried to be applied to explain the Pentecostal-capitalism nexus. Pentecostalism in its prosperity guise has a clear this-worldly attitude towards faith and deliberately attempts to globalize Pentecostal-Christian values with the help of politics and the market. We could thus conclude with Turner (2008: 233) that in this regard the “message of the gods becomes effable in the immanence of consumer goods that carry a message of immediate fulfillment in this world.” Accordingly, the boundaries between the sacred and the religious, then, become blurred in that the sacred is now able to relocate and diffuse itself into consumer culture. Yet, this is not the end of the story. Given the inherent paradox structure of Pentecostalism, we also can observe the opposite. As we have seen, Pentecostalism not only fosters a work ethic that is conducive for being successful in capitalism, but at the same time also fails to do so at the expense of introducing an ethic based on Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

consumerism, which in turn can be hindering development and progress. More importantly, however, is that Pentecostalism’s religious doctrines are additionally geared towards ‘world-breaking’. Despite Pentecostalism’s capability to adapt and even endorse major tenets of modernity, it also is clearly ‘anti-modern’. As much as Pentecostals help people to bridge the dislocations initiated by neoliberal restructuring, it also facilitates social, cultural and individual disembedding. Pentecostalism’s world-view is littered with images of rupture, thus making it a driving force behind 93

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radical cultural discontinuities. Pentecostalism’s all-encompassing dualistic world view, the necessity to ‘make a complete break with the past’ through conversion, and its emphasis on proselytism makes it also an intruding localizing power within a globalized setting. By demonizing traditional moral systems and redefining them on Christian terms, Pentecostal Christianity localizes itself “without ever taking the local into itself” (Robbins 2003: 223). Thus, Pentecostalism acts in both ways: as a homogenizing force that promulgates its own universal and dualistic world view and as a transformative power of indigenous appropriation and differentiation, consequently engendering and reproducing local diversity and fostering internal heterogeneity. In short, Pentecostalism’s ability to act in different and opposite ways at once, its inherent contradictions, antinomies and paradoxes are what constructs the movement, they are its grounds. This comes especially apparent when looking at the global dimension of the Pentecostal movement. Therefore, any theoretical accounts that try to explain Pentecostalism and its relation to globalization are unavoidably incomplete and limited. As such, Bernice Martin (2010: 52) may be right when she states: Perhaps all we can do is document the variety of ways in which Pentecostal subjects live out their own modernities, negotiating [global] secular contexts and juggling the various, mostly creative tensions within Pentecostal faith, not least the exchanges between the local and the global. In this study, I primarily stayed on a macro-level of analysis. A next step would be to ground some of the assertions made in local contexts. Given Pentecostalism’s flexible nature it would be for instance interesting to see, how Pentecostals react and adopt themselves to the increasing observable world-wide critique of the neo-liberal

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order. It would not come to me as a surprise, if some strands within the Pentecostal movement would hop on this train and develop an own social theology, thus engendering yet another ‘alternative’ Pentecostal imaginary of modernity. Whatever new ways Pentecostalism will find to spread its ideas and transform the world according to its own cosmological understanding remains to be seen. This makes it all the more a fascinating object for further research.

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Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization : An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ProQuest Ebook