Realness through Mediating Body: The Emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal Communities in Beirut [1 ed.] 9783737007191, 9783847107194

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Kirche – Konfession – Religion

Band 71

Herausgegeben vom Konfessionskundlichen Institut des Evangelischen Bundes unter Mitarbeit der Evangelischen Zentralstelle für Weltanschauungsfragen von Mareile Lasogga und Reinhard Hempelmann in Verbindung mit Andreas Feldtkeller, Miriam Rose und Gury Schneider-Ludorff

Oleg Dik

Realness through Mediating Body The Emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal Communities in Beirut

V& R unipress

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet þber http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. ISSN 2198-1507 ISBN 978-3-7370-0719-1 Weitere Ausgaben und Online-Angebote sind erhÐltlich unter: www.v-r.de  2017, V& R unipress GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Breite 6, D-37079 Gçttingen / www.v-r.de Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich gesch þtzt. Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen FÐllen bedarf der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. Titelbild:  Lisa Fahnestock Dyck

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1. Introductory remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1. Emergence of the central research question and aim . . 1.2. Methodological procedure and field research in Beirut 1.3. Positioning and contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2. The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut . 2.1. Introductory remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1. Negotiation of the self-reference “Charismatic/Pentectostal” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2. A comparative perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3. Historic context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.4. Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in the urban space of Beirut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.5. Organisational structure and quantitative estimation . . . 2.2. Ritual as bodily mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1. Representing Charismatic/Pentecostal rituals in four communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2. Approaching ritual from etic and emic perspectives . . . 2.2.3. Demarcating ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4. Internal cohesion through narrative performance . . . . . 2.2.5. Agency, body and text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5.1. Approaching agency from etic and emic perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5.2. Divine agency within the Charismatic/Pentecostal body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.6. The ritual body within the Lebanese context . . . . . . .

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2.2.6.1. The ritual body and material culture . . . . . . . 2.2.6.2. The ritual body and socio-economic conditions . 2.2.6.3. The ritual body and politics . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.6.4. The ritual body and official religion . . . . . . . . 2.2.6.5. The ritual body and gender . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.7. The failure of ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3. Bodily mediation in the everyday life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1. The everyday reality from an etic perspective . . . . . . . 2.3.2. Ex-tension between the ritual and the everyday . . . . . . 2.3.2.1. Ritual and socio-economic context . . . . . . . . 2.3.2.2. Ritual and politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2.3. Ritual and official religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2.4. Ritual and gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3. The failure of the mediating body in the everyday life . . 2.3.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4. Testimony as bodily mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1. Approaching testimony from etic and emic perspectives . 2.4.2. Aim, setting and audience of testimony . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3. The bodily efficacy of testimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4. Testimony as mediation between lived and written stories 2.4.4.1 Testimonies of three Charismatic/Pentecostal leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4.2. Charismatic/Pentecostal testimony as historiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.5. The failure of testimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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94 96 101 105 109 114 125 125 125 128 136 143 149 164 174 178 181 181 184 188 196

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3. Interlude: Sketching theoretical perspectives 3.1. Ontological and ethical inevitability . . . 3.2. Three trajectories in Social Sciences . . 3.2.1. Reductive Naturalism . . . . . . . 3.2.2. Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3. Non-reductive Naturalism . . . . 3.3. God as theoretical possibility . . . . . . 3.4. Conclusion: Theory in tension . . . . .

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4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. What is realness? . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Charismatic/Pentecostal realness 4.3. Academic realness . . . . . . . .

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4.4. Change of realness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5. Projections for further research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Object index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Preface

My thesis has been a continuous journey. When I first encountered the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement, I felt intrigued by the energetic rituals and vivid stories. The growing movement, which remained for the most part invisible in the urban context of Beirut, caught my attention. Throughout the year of 2009, I researched a particular Pentecostal group through the lens of social identity for my MA thesis. However, I soon realized the limitations of this theoretical approach. In my PhD thesis I significantly extended my field research towards a cross denominational Charismatic/Pentecostal movement in Beirut and developed the paradigm of realness. This project could not have been accomplished without the generous help of others. First and foremost, I thank the members of various Charismatic/Pentecostal communities who shared their faith and their lives with me and vulnerably allowed me to learn about their deepest concerns. Special thanks go to the Faculty of Religious Studies at Saint Joseph University, in particular Dr. Fadi Daou, Dr. Nayla Tabbara and Prof. Dr. Thomas Sicking, who stimulated my thinking in relation to the particular Lebanese context. Furthermore, I appreciated the generous research scholarship of Orient Institute of Beirut throughout the year of 2010 and for the financial help for the printing which I received from German Society for Mission Studies. The interdisciplinary critical discourse at OIB triggered new questions and sharpened my analytical skills. In particular, I benefited from my OIB research advisor Dr. Thomas Scheffler, who challenged me to consider the larger socio-political context. Moreover, I am grateful for the crucial insights from my second advisor Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland inspiring me for further research in urban sociology. I am deeply indebted to my academic advisor Prof. Dr. Andreas Feldtkeller at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. He patiently offered encouragement and wise assistance in navigating new areas of research. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Lisa Fahnestock Dyck, whose academic expertise in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies enhanced greatly my perspective. Moreover, Lisa patiently proof read the thesis draft and corrected it knowing the typical mistakes

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Preface

made by a native Russian speaker. Lisa’s friendship and emotional support carried me through this project and meant everything to me in this endeavor and beyond.

Abbreviations

(AL) (CMTC) (CN) (C/P) (EC) (IC) (if) (i/i.t) (MC) (MwG) (s/e.t) (TC) (tf) (TOP)

Abundant Life Charismatic Movement within Traditional Churches Chemin Neuf Charismatic/Pentecostal Evangelical Charismatic/Pentecostal Churches Independent Charismatic/Pentecostal Churches Immanent Framework Individualist/Internal Definition of Testimony Charismatic/Pentecostal Migrant Churches Meeting with God Social/External Definition of Testimony Traditional Churches Transcendent Framework Tent of Praise

1.

Introductory remarks

1.1. Emergence of the central research question and aim Every reflection begins with a question. Questions arise when I am uncertain about that which I took for granted previously. Uncertainty is experienced as bodily or mental imbalance within the world. Mostly, this state occurs when the background for my habitual action changes and the previous unquestioned social structure forces itself upon my body. My body and mind seek to restore the past order and create a possible coherent world within which I am able to live. My earliest memory of an intense reflection about the world was when I emigrated from Russia to Germany at the age of 10. My completely new surroundings triggered a lot of questions. Reflection is therefore an action of our embodied minds about the “is” and “ought” of the world. The question itself proceeds and sketches out the nature and the horizons of the answer.1 Thus, in order to understand the direction and the scope of the answer, the genesis of the question within a particular life context must be uncovered. Through this process, the answer will be rooted within a particular life setting which is a precondition for abstraction and theoretical extension to other, similar phenomena. The questions a person asks emerges out of their embodied situatedness within a particular life world and the larger discourse s/he is exposed to vis / vis a concrete encounter with other human beings or material objects. The particular biography, gender, geographic world and socio-economic habitus of a person generate different kinds of questions and how these are answered. In the following chapter, I will sketch out the origin of my research question and the discursive context of the question which triggered the reflection for my thesis. My earliest memory about religion can be traced back to one experience when I was about five or six years old. I grew up in the 1980’s in the city of Omsk in Russia. My father was a lecturer on Marxism/Leninism and Economics at the local College for Applied Sciences. Every year, we would travel to visit my 1 Gadamer, 1995, p. 162.

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Introductory remarks

grandparents in a Siberian village. My grandfathers’ parents had been accused of being “Kulaki”2 during the Stalinist repressive regime and were murdered as part of “cleansing activities” in the 1930’s. My grandfather therefore, was orphaned, never visited school and remained illiterate. However, he remembered the Lords’ prayer from his Lutheran parents and would murmur this prayer every night before falling asleep. I did not understand any German back then and thought that he was whispering some sort of magic spell. One day while walking home with my father we were caught in a downpour of rain and roaring thunder. I was impressed by this event in nature and told my father about my grandmother in the village who shared with me about a God who is up there controlling nature. I asked my father, “What is this God like?” My father dismissed my question as nonsense telling me that old people in the village are not very bright and make up all kinds of fairy tales. He then went on to explain to me how thunderstorms develop as a natural phenomena. For the first time I became aware of two possible views on what constitutes a real world. For my father, the real world could be conceptualised as causal events within a spatio-temporal immanent framework. For my grandparents, God was the super-human agent who stood beyond this immanent framework and was able to interact with it. However, even if these two views seemed contradictory, these views existed within a world, which contained them both. These two answers are examples of what I call the antagonistic tradition within the western discourse on the nature of reality. The one views reality as an immanent framework (if), which is exhausted through causal events, the other views reality as a transcendent framework (tf) with a divine being beyond the spatio-temporal confines. Charles Taylor views these opposites as poles, which create “cross pressures” in social discourse, as all other positions are suspended between these two extremes.3 Constructing sharp (tf) or (if) boundaries is understandable during times of crisis or out of a desire for a clearly demarcated identity negotiation in order to establish an authoritative framework of understanding. However, the every day interaction between humans with diverse views about the nature of reality betrays a more fluid negotiation process. Charles Taylor, in his genealogical account of the secularization process draws a complex interaction between various religious and secular spheres in creating a pluralist modern framework. He rejects a subtraction theory of modernity as too simplistic.4 Therefore, the initial 2 “Kulaki” is a derogatory term referring to the bourgeois class. 3 Charles Taylor, 2007, p. 598. 4 Charles Taylor summarizes subtraction theory as the following: “Concisely put, I mean by this stories of modernity in general, and secularity in particular, which explain them by human being having lost, or sloughed off, or liberated themselves from certain earlier, confining horizons, or illusions, or limitations of knowledge. What emerged from this process – mo-

Emergence of the central research question and aim

15

impression of hardened identities and definitions is misleading and academic reflection must subvert these pragmatic power games and uncover mechanisms which underlie these constructions. My initial childhood impression confirmed the sharp boundary between (if) and (tf). The setting also allowed me to associate (if) with progress and modernity, as my father, an urban academic, embodied this view. On the contrary, my grandparents, although loved by me, embodied (tf) as a passing tradition, within an ignorant past. Only much later did I begin to understand and question this typical modern narrative. I did not initially set out to do research on the C/P movement in Beirut upon moving to Lebanon in 2007. However, one day, I was walking through my neighborhood of Furn el-Chebbak and heard singing and clapping coming from an apartment. I later learned that what I had heard was a Pentecostal Ethiopian migrant workers’ group meeting. This awoke my initial curiosity and I discovered in the process an entire religious movement, which was almost invisible in the urban setting, yet growing in numbers in unexpected places. While researching the emergence of the Charismatic/Pentecostal (C/P) groups/churches in Beirut I found myself living and thinking within seemingly incommensurable life worlds: On the one hand, I was a research fellow at the German research institute which embodied a sober, rationalized world order. On the other hand, I spent my evenings with the C/P believers who met in art studios, shopping malls, in church basements and private houses. They danced, sweated, shouted enthusiastically and their prayers called down divine interventions into the immanent sphere thereby questioning the definition of the real world my colleagues at the Institute took for granted. Both the secular academics and the C/P believers lived and thought in accordance with the life world background which they presupposed to be real. At an academic reception, in the beautiful garden of the research institute, while sipping from my wine glass, I talked to my German colleague about my research. He looked at me with surprise and exclaimed: “Why are you researching those weirdos?” His evaluative statement suggested a sharp boundary between his seemingly logical reality which he took for granted and the C/P believers’ life world, which he perceived to be an illusion. When I asked a C/P believer, who happened also to be a professor at a prestigious college, as to why he became a C/P believer, he explained: “The Holy Spirit made it clear to me. Jesus became real to me.” Similarly, throughout other interviews, similar expressions were used in order to describe the motivation for conversion into C/P form of life. Thus, “realness” is not static, but dynamic. Both C/P converts and secular academics, who also converted into (if) framework dernity or secularity – is to be understood in terms of underlying features of human nature which were there all along, but had been impeded by what is now set aside.” Taylor, 2007, p. 22.

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Introductory remarks

from their religious backgrounds,5 describe their transition as a journey toward a more realistic conception of the world. Thus, what is perceived as real does undergo changes. However, in order to change between (if) and (tf), there must be a common framework in order for understanding to occur. In order to answer the question as to why C/P movement emerged, I begin with the claim of C/P believers themselves and construct a hypothesis how “realness” can be conceptualized. Based on this theoretical tool, I will employ ethnography in order to understand and explain the emergence of post war C/P movement in Beirut. Theoretical reflections emerged during the process of my field research. Therefore, theory will be addressed towards the end as an outgrowth of empiric research. In my concluding remarks, I will apply my hypotheses of realness to the academic context as well in order to show that the difference between (if) and (tf) can be conceptualized within a common world.

1.2. Methodological procedure and field research in Beirut Since I took the key answer about the emergence of C/P groups from my informants, I employed primarily an intensive approach6, starting with participant observation within particular groups, describing and interpreting concrete practices and situating them within specific socio-cultural contexts. I based my interpretation on my field research notes. However, I did not distinguish clearly between empirical findings and analytical interpretation. Even though transcription of particular interviews evokes a notion of objectivity and preserving the voice of researched people, it remains an artificial construct as interviews depend highly on the particular approach of the researcher and a constructed setting. While in theory a distinction between the voice of the other and the interpretation is helpful, in practice these two often merge as the unarticulated subjective assumptions of the researcher and the conversation dynamics can not be fully uncovered. To avoid this methodological difficulty, I simply followed interpretative anthropology7 which advocates a close link between social reality and interpretation. While employing qualitative methods, I entered each of the main chapters with a prior theoretical discussion in order to clarify the point of departure. As Sayer pointed out, social sciences mainly relies on abstraction and careful conceptualisation.

5 Antony, 2007. 6 Sayer, 2000, p. 20. 7 An example for this way of writing ethnography can be found in Geertz, 2000.

Methodological procedure and field research in Beirut

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Much rests upon the nature of our abstractions, that is, our conceptions of particular one-sided components of the concrete object; if they divide what is in practice indivisible, or if they conflate what are different and separable components, then problems are likely to result.8

As ethnography attempts to represent a social phenomenon through a particular medium of writing, it begins with and ends with reduction of and generalisation of lived reality. Therefore, theoretical questions can not be separated from empirical research, for “[…] research without theory is blind, and theory without research is empty.”9 Researchers setting out to study lived practices are not able to understand any social phenomena without a prior theoretical concept about it. Thus, as Gadamer pointed out, any understanding begins with a prejudice (German: Vorurteil). While a “Vorurteil” stands at the beginning of any understanding, it can also prevent a person from moving beyond a preconceived understanding about the researched social phenomena. As Talal Assad pointed out, the Protestant definition of religion as a mental assent to the propositional truth has influenced European theorizing about religion thus preventing European sociologists to engage with other, non-Protestant conceptions of religion.10 Therefore, the “Vorurteil” must be dissected by theoretically and historically tracing the employed concepts. However, in order to avoid the hermeneutical circle and arrive at a progressive spiral, the empirical phenomena must be brought into conversation with the prior “Vorurteil” in order to draw out insights, which surpass the prior horizon of “Vorurteil”. Connecting what has been seen prior as distinct generates new insights about the shared reality. Thus my work engages both a particular empirical case and a theoretical discourse in order to arrive at a hermeneutical model which will help to understand both (tf) and (if). Just as my selection of the theoretical discourse is very particular, so is my relationship to the C/P movement contingent on lived interactions within a specific field culture. Researching a minority religious group proved to be more challenging than I initially expected. My field research depended mainly on the trust of particular groups. The degree of immersion determined the depth of trust and disclosure. As I immersed myself within the Lebanese context, I attended a seminar entitled “cultural and religious dynamics in the Middle East” at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. An American researcher presented a paper on the question of religious 8 Sayer, 2000, p. 19. 9 Bourdieu quotes Kant here. If the aim of research is the production of knowledge, both empirical research and theory have to be brought into fruitful interaction. “Consequently, it has more to gain by confronting new objects than by engaging in theoretical polemics that do little more than fuel a perpetual, self-sustaining, and too often vacuous metadiscourse around concepts treated as intellectual totems.” Bourdieu, 1992, p. 161. 10 Asad, 1993, pp. 40–54.

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Introductory remarks

identities which he conducted on various campuses. A Lebanese scholar challenged him on the question of the usefulness of formal interviews within the institutional setting. As I related to students on the campus of American University of Beirut, they shared with me that they often answer the questions posed by Western scholars according to the expectations of the AUB professor through whose permission the Western scholar got his field entry. Therefore, the expectation of the Western scholar implied within the set questionnaire predetermines the answers. There are several reasons as to why quantitative methods in isolation fail within the Lebanese context. In the Lebanese society the concept of honour and shame regulates the social status of the clan, family and the individual. The insiders usually provide an outsider with information which s/he perceives would enhance their honour. In Lebanon information becomes a means to gain power as the religious communities struggle for influence within a power field constantly under foreign intrusion.11 During Syrian occupation of Lebanon it was dangerous for people to state publicly their opinions and therefore it became second nature to conceal their true views. Mary, the founder of one C/P group, gave me the following explanation,12 Sometimes, western Christians come and want to find out how Christians live with Muslims and Druze. Muslims and Druze tell them: “Oh, we love Jesus!” We have three Bibles at home. We love Jesus and Christians. And the Westerners go home and tell that Lebanon is an open minded country with peaceful coexistence. However, in reality, they are hiding the truth. They do not say what they mean. We have a saying here: ‘I show you a lot but not what is in my stomach.’ Christians, Muslims and Druze lived together in this country for a long time. Sometimes there was pressure on Christians. Nominal Christians absorbed the culture in order to survive. They learned how to survive. We have a saying: ‘If you are not a wolf, wolves will eat you.’ Because Christians lost their faith, they became like Druze and Muslims.

Mary weaves historical, sociological and religious perspectives into a cohesive narrative which seeks to provide an explanation as to why Christians do not say what they really mean. She enhances her narrative with well known sayings. The sectarian past of the Lebanese society, the current socio-economic inequality and my cultural otherness as a researcher create high barriers to get inside the C/P culture in order to better understand the native point of view. I have attempted to cross the boundaries which would only allow me a very surface look at the C/P 11 As I am editing this paper the civil war in Syria threatens to unsettle the confessional balance of Lebanon as both Alawite, Christian and Sunni refugees flee into Lebanon. Lebanon is moreover the scene of a tug of war between larger sectarian powers. 12 Most of the following interview/conversations quotations are dynamic-equivalent translations from Lebanese Arabic dialect.

Methodological procedure and field research in Beirut

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culture. The following thesis is a result of my ongoing negotiation of my position vis / vis the C/P culture. My research position can not be easily described as an insider or an outsider, as identity boundaries are fluid and meaning polyphonic. Instead, my position can be described as fluid transgression of boundaries. As a Christian, I was to some degree accepted as an insider. However, as culturally western, I remained an outsider. The otherness was further emphasized as I did not share all the C/P practices and could not commit to the same degree as did group members, which are preconditions for belonging to the core group. Several of my interview partners asked me if they could read over the thesis if I quoted them directly and mentioned their names. They were very aware of the contextuality of any propositions, as the academic representation is not value free and detached from particular interests. Unfortunately, I was not able to receive and incorporate the feed back of C/P believers, which would go well beyond an academic thesis. However, I became aware of the limits of academic writing in relation to the dialogical nature of human relationships. C/P believers reject any possibility of looking at the world from a moral distance. Within their meta-narrative there is no space for a position beyond good and evil. Due to this belief C/P believers maintained that the sociologist Coleman had arrived “at the ministry for divine purposes” which he himself did not understand.13 In this way the outsider is welcomed into the sacred sphere of the good which may be viewed by the cultural anthropologist as a na"ve ethical dualism. However, this dualism poses a challenge for the western scholar and deconstructs his seemingly privileged position as a critical observer. Once the metaphorical language of social science is traced back to its root ontology one finds historical power struggles which also lay bare strong value judgements which in fact guide the research of a seemingly detached observer.14 In their daily life outside of their academic habitus, academics also exhibit an unmediated, direct way of relating. Although the ethical stance toward life is different between the C/P believer and the anthropologist due to their differing socio-economic positions of power, both are ethically committed social agents.15 The contrast between most charismatic believers and the cultural anthropologists who study them is the imbalance of power and the resulting difference of speech, action and communal 13 Coleman, 2006b, p. 3. 14 Charles Taylor argues that fundamental, qualitative judgements are constitutive of human identity. See: Taylor, 1992, p. 9–52. 15 Nancy Scheper-Hughes advocates for the primacy of ethical commitments within cultural anthropology (Scheper-Hughes, 2005). Robbins (2006a) views anthropology in contrast to theology as a non-committed discipline due to the absence of a set canon and therefore as less effective in conveying its message of the other. It takes only a religious outsider to the discipline of cultural anthropology in order to disprove these seeming differences (See: Priest, 2001, p. 37–46). It seems that the only real difference is the social convention which defines the identity of its member.

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Introductory remarks

identity. When I sat down with one of my C/P interview partners, who I also became friends with over a period of time, he looked at me incredibly and asked: “So you get paid to talk to me?” His question revealed the imbalance of socioeconomic power and my position of being an outsider through connections to powerful western research institutions and finances. What appeared to him as a casual conversation over coffee, his free time, was work time for me. Thus, this realisation eliminated the impression of equality. Thus, ambiguity was introduced into our relationship as it was no longer clear whether this relationship could be viewed as mutual friendship or as a professional client relationship. This tension pervaded throughout my research. Due to my conviction that field research without the consent of the people being studied is ethically wrong, I asked the leadership if I could conduct research among them and write about their lives. Their reactions ranged from amusement to quiet resistance to curiosity. Their main question concerned how my field research fit into the plans of God for both my life and their lives. If a C/P believer would ask a group of western anthropologists or philosophers whether s/he could do research about their communal academic identity including their rituals, practices, in-group discourses and their basic beliefs there would probably also be an inquiry about the relation of the onlooker to their group. The question would arise whether the C/P researcher has the necessary qualifications and permission from scholarly authorities and whether the researcher had undergone the necessary academic rites of passage. Within the C/P leadership group one woman also referred to authority in order to ascertain whether my field research was legitimate by asking, “Did you really hear it from God or is it your own idea?”16 I felt tested by this question and struggled to mask my annoyance. I snapped back: “What do you mean by ‘hearing God’?” The person simply repeated the question and did not respond to my question. From the perspective of the C/P leader, God also intervenes in my academic affairs through prayer. Therefore, how God speaks to me was less relevant than giving testimony to God’s intervention into my academic affairs. Thus my answer had a practical implication upon whether I would get access or not to the specific C/P form of life. Moreover, the C/P believer inquired about deeper realities of my academic work. She wanted to know whether my academic work had any relation to God and the C/P life style. A denial of the validity of her question and failure to give evidence to a deeper spiritual meaning to my academic work would most likely evoke less willingness to help me as my academic work would 16 Of course there is a difference between the authority as defined through human discourse within scientific communities and the divine authority. However, human authority is often abstracted as an institution and thereby unquestioned. On the other hand, in the C/P metanarrative God is made human through the image of incarnation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Methodological procedure and field research in Beirut

21

be seen as an attempt to enthrone human autonomy over the relation between God and believers which C/P believers emphasize. Since religious confession in Lebanon is acquired through birth, my reference to Christianity did not guarantee the insider status. Moreover, there are various membership markers, such as participation and practice. Thus, when I interviewed a Roman Catholic C/P believer and inquired about a split and misunderstanding of two C/P groups, he asked me to stop the tape. After I turned off the recorder, he looked straight at me and turned the tables, asking me, “Now about you: Are you a believer?” I shared my biographical journey from an atheistic family background and upbringing towards Christian faith. However, my testimony seemed to be not sufficient and he inquired further : “Do you read the bible every day?” “No, not every day.” I replied. He paused and seemed a bit confused. “Do you pray regularly on your own?’ “Yes.” He proceeded then by avoiding my direct question and presented instead a very harmonious picture of what occurred between the two groups. I concluded that he could not neatly place me within the C/P in-group and therefore presented a more coherent picture intended for outsiders instead of the more detailed description of power relations and differing personalities which led to the split. The insider-outsider dichotomy does not adequately describe the fluid nature of social interactions. I conducted field research between Okt. 2008 and February 2011 with a short four month research break in Berlin in 2009. From among the 15 groups I visited, I focused my observation on four particular communities which represent various organizational forms. I usually visited three communities weekly and spent time with their members during the service and in a more informal setting after the worship service. I also conducted interviews with the leaders and members of the groups. Due to the sensitive nature of religion in Lebanon, I discovered that building trust is crucial in order for the informant to construct his or her narrative with a lesser representational intention. Furthermore, to encourage open narration, I employed a semi-structured interviewing format. I conducted 21 interviews in length between one and two hours. Moreover, I met weekly for about one hour throughout the course of one year with a founder of one particular group. This biographical research provided me with deeper insights into one particular case. I utilized quantitative methods, such as surveys and statistics only as complementary to the qualitative methods. Collaboration with the scholars from the Faculty for Religious Studies at Saint Joseph University, Beirut, and various colleagues from the German Orient Institute further

22

Introductory remarks

stimulated my thinking. Most of my field research interaction was conducted in the Lebanese Arabic dialect and to some extent English and French. For the purpose of transliteration I have used the Library of Congress system. I also consulted some of the C/P newsletters and their brochures/magazines. However, I quickly realized that the aim of this media is directed towards a different communication setting and creates a specific discourse, which must be looked at within its own terms. Therefore, I attempted to avoid analyzing the self representation of specific C/P groups towards others through their publications. My living situation in Furn el-Chebbak was ideal for this purpose, since it was less inhabited by Europeans and Americans and allowed me to practice Arabic and interact with C/P groups which are predominantly active in the Christian quarters of Beirut. All the names in the following thesis are either changed or abbreviated in order to protect the identity of the people I have been doing research among. There is relative religious freedom in Lebanon in comparison to the rest of Middle East and the change of religion is even legally permitted by the state. However such an act could bring about severe retribution from the religious community as well as the family and larger clan most families belong to. Moreover, as I finish writing my PhD thesis, Lebanon is grappling with around 2 million Syrian refugees as ISIS, a terrorist Islamic militia, brutally takes over large territory in Syria and Iraq. In particular, Lebanese Christians and other minorities fear severe retributions if ISIS should overrun Lebanon as well. However, the most vulnerable groups are the converts from Islam toward C/P movement.

1.3. Positioning and contribution The phenomenal rise of C/P Christianity since the 50’s has not gone unnoticed by the academia. Since the 60’s, research on C/P Christianity17 has been conducted mainly in the USA and England. There are numerous reasons for this regional gravity of research. Most immigrants from regions where the C/P movement has the largest impact have tended to immigrate to English speaking countries. A possible reason for the very limited attention to the C/P Christianity in Germany is the institutional domination of the state church and its influence within universities, which also plays a prominent role in setting the agenda for theological research focusing more on the traditional liberal Protestant per17 Hollenweger, 1986, p. 3–12; Main overview resources on C/P Christianity : Burgess, Stanley M., & van der Maas, Eduard, 2002; Anderson, 2004. On Theories and Methods in studying global Pentecostalism see: Anderson et. al., 2010.

Positioning and contribution

23

spective. The focus of Religious Studies scholars within Germany remains on the reformulation of the secularization thesis and less on the resurgent global religions. Moreover, anthropological research has been traditionally strong in England, a former colonial superpower and the USA, a country of significant immigration. The research on C/P Christianity has been mainly conducted along disciplinary and regional lines. While it is an impossible undertaking within the scope of my research to give a comprehensive overview of the entire research on C/P Christianity, I will attempt to give a rough framework for the disciplinary perspectives in the study of C/P Christianity, listing exemplary works within particular disciplines in order to position my work within past research.18 The rise of C/P Christianity is well documented from anthropological and sociological perspectives, in particular as the C/P movement is an expression of and itself triggers social change.19 Within sociology and anthropology, particular C/P ritualistic practices, such as healing, preaching and praying have been extensively studied from the cultural anthropological angle.20 As C/P Christianity constitutes a global phenomenon, sociologists have given special attention to its global spread in connection with economic, political and cultural issues.21 The global impact and rise of C/P Christianity, together with Islam also changed the prevailing theories on modernity, religion and secularity. Whereas until the 70’s the unanimous agreement was that progressive modernization would lead to the diminishing of religion, nowadays, many theorists advocate a more nuanced perspective in favor of plural modernities.22 Gender and feminist studies also began looking at the specific role of women in the C/P communities.23 Theology, as an academic reflection, could not ignore the impact of C/P Christianity as the gravity of Christianity shifted from the north/west to the

18 One of the most extensive collections on C/P research is currently in University of Birmingham, UK. There are also numerous journals which are solely devoted to the study of C/P Christianity : AJPS – Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies CPCR – Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research: http://www/pctii.org/cyberj/ HTC – Harold Turner Collection, University of Birmingham JEPTA – Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association JPT – Journal of Pentecostal Theology Pneuma: Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies SPS – Society of Pentecostal Studies Annual Meeting Papers 19 Martin, 1990; Gershon, 2006; Robbins, 2004a & 2007; Martin, 1998; Rodriguez, 1997; Miller & Tetsunao, 2007. 20 Coleman, 2006; Csordas, 2002; Robbins, 2001; Stringer, 1999. 21 Coleman, 2006; Martin, 2002; Robbins, 2004b; Poewe, 1994. 22 Martin, 2005; Wagner, 2000; Davie, 2002. 23 Benvenuti 1995; Drogus 1997.

24

Introductory remarks

south/east.24 Therefore, western theological reflection, mainly in the USA and England, began to incorporate this shift through reflection on the Holy Spirit and specific C/P practices into its traditional theological disciplines. I also believe that the growth of C/P Christianity indirectly contributed to the resurgent interest in the philosophy of religion. The diminishing of a strong form of positivism in the philosophy departments since the 50’s enabled a new interest in the meaningfulness of theological questions to emerge. Among them are specific C/P questions such as the religious experience and the rationality of Christian beliefs. Instead of revisionist theology, where theological doctrines and practices were apologetically made palpable to the current philosophical paradigm, now the assumption began with the realness and truth of Christian experience. The burden of proof had shifted to those who rejected the basic Christian assumptions.25 Regionally, most researchers focused on Africa, Latin America and Asia where C/P. Christianity has experienced the most prominent growth. To a lesser degree, the growth of C/P Christianity in Europe and North America has also been documented. However, with the exception of a few articles, I have not found any substantial research conducted on the C/P movement in the Middle East. The contrast of the bulging research of growing Muslim presence in the West to the almost absent research on Christian migrant workers into the Middle East and conversion from Islam to other religions is striking. One journalist, who did research in the Middle East on religious conversion from Islam to other religions conveyed to me that conversion from Islam to other religions in the heartland of Islam, constitutes a very delicate topic which has the potential to stir religious sensitivities and even pose a physical threat to the converts and those who make it public. Kaoues notices that conversion from Islam “receives a great deal of media attention and is treated in a sensationalist manner.”26 Since the media thrives on the attention of the audience, it needs to break taboos in order to make a good story. Thus, conversion from Islam still constitutes a taboo in the Middle East, as “an apostate calls into question the definition of the borders of social cohesion”.27 Contrary to journalism, research is more conservative and relies on substantial government funds which are often tied to particular political interests. At this point, the intricate relation between research and political implications must be further examined. The specific contribution of my research lies in its regional placement and in its interdisciplinary approach. Thus it is both practical and theoretical in nature. 24 25 26 27

Jenkins, 2002; Cox, 1996. Blond, 1998; Frei, 1992; Lindbeck, 1984; Milbank, 1993; Plantinga, 2000. Kaoues, 2013, p. 13. Ibid., p. 13.

Positioning and contribution

25

The growing presence of C/P Christianity in Africa and Asia inevitably leads to engagement with Islamic cultures. This engagement will increase in the future. I have observed growing C/P communities in the Middle East, who were made up of migrant workers from Asia and Africa. Also the underground, publicly invisible C/P communities of converts from Muslim background who are also present in the Middle East and growing have yet to be researched. However, my focus is on the Arabic speaking C/P communities, whose members mostly converted from other traditional Christian denominations, most of whom were only rudimentary practicing Christians. My work represents the beginning research of C/P Christianity in the Middle East. After completing the first draft of my PhD I came across an article written by Fatiha Kaoues on the current activities of the emerging evangelical Pentecostal churches in Lebanon.28 She mentions some of the same churches I have also conducted research among within the evangelical denomination. Her work seeks to answer the question as to why conversion happens and its role for citizenship and sectarian politics. In explaining the phenomena of religious conversion, Kaoues mainly follows the deprivation paradigm in describing how cultural and economic modernization creates pressures and needs, which then are addressed by the emergent evangelical Pentecostal churches. Among the cultural benefits she mentions is the culture of “compassion, ethics and authenticity.”29 Moreover, the Pentecostal church with its various networks offers new converts economic upward mobility and a socio-political identity beyond sectarian divides.30 Olivier Roy, summarizing various chapters on conversion in the Middle East, points out the discrepancy of sociological concepts used to describe religious conversion and the language used by the converts themselves. Whereas sociologists employ the change of identity, describing a horizontal transition from one culture to another, the converts employ a strong normative language of leaving something behind of no value. “So there is no symmetry between the point of departure and the point of arrival.”31 Further, Roy suspects that this incommensurability creates a misunderstanding. On the one hand, The convert puts forward something that could not be understood in sociological terms: faith as a primary mover, not as an element among others constituting a religious identity.32

On the other hand, the sociologist is prone, due to this exhaustive claim of the believer, to reduce this claim to more familiar paradigms such as “culture, social 28 29 30 31 32

Kaoues, 2013, pp. 13–28. Ibid., p. 26 Ibid., p. 23. Roy, 2013, p. 182. Ibid., p. 183.

26

Introductory remarks

movements, ethnicity, nationalism”.33 As a consequence, Roy sees limits in approaching religious conversion through sociological terms. He concludes: A sociological approach cannot exhaust the experiences and agency of the converts. There is autonomy of the religious sphere that social sciences have a problem grasping. Building a faith community is not just building a new kind of community : members’ agenda (including politics and economics, the impact on social bonds, the increased social mobility) is largely determined by a religious perspective and attitude.”34

During my field research I also came to a similar conclusion when I sorted through possible paradigms through which I could approach the emergence of C/P groups and churches, most of which happened through conversion. While I agree with Roy that not only sociological paradigms, but the academic nature of understanding per se is reductive, I also believe that the recognition of the limits of current sociological paradigms in grasping social reality is not a final conclusion, but poses a challenge to put forward a better paradigm. Thus, Roy’s conclusion has been my starting point as I sought to construct a paradigm of realness which could include both the secular sociologist’s criteria and the C/P believer’s perspective. Through this attempt, I have departed from one particular disciplinary angle in the conviction that scientific disciplines are merely pragmatically constructed lenses, which sometimes need to be fused in order to grasp a complex biological and social world. While I also consider the larger external macro structure in my study, I believe that a broader sociological theory must be complemented with the internal micro perspective of meaning employing ethnography and hermeneutics as deprivation theories in themselves are tautological and have no explanatory power. For this reason, the beginning of my research on the realness of a C/P life world stems from the particular practices of C/P believers. My approach lies at the intersection between Philosophy/Theology and Social/Cultural Anthropology/Sociology due to the nature of the research question. However, I bypass the extensive discourse on reality within philosophy, which primarily focuses on mental state or attitude. Since bodily action is a key to understand how C/P impression of realness is acquired, I focus mainly on theorists within the fields of philosophy and sociology who worked on the theory of action such as Austin, Berger/Luckman, Ricoeur and Taylor. I construct a theory through empirical observations and hope that other researchers will continue where I ended and help to fill in the gaps my own work will necessarily leave. Thus, I hope to sketch out a research paradigm which will serve as a unifying framework for religious as well as secular social phenomena and overcome the discrepancy mentioned by 33 Ibid., p. 181. 34 Roy, 2013, p. 184.

Positioning and contribution

27

Roy. This desire stems from the ethical observation of the common world, which fuses and shrinks temporally and spatially due to globalization and modern technology and where the need to envision a common conception of realness is more urgent than ever before.

2.

The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

2.1. Introductory remarks 2.1.1. Negotiation of the self-reference “Charismatic/Pentectostal” In the following thesis, I use the term “Charismatic/Pentecostal” (C/P) in order to classify a local movement. As a broad definition, the C/P movement emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity within Christian theology, through both their beliefs and practices. Since the Holy Spirit is perceived as active within their bodies and in the world, their practices follow this divine agency and therefore are in general, more expressive than that of Christians in the traditional churches. However, this definition of a communal identity is to some extent problematic. On the local level, the groups I have observed would not necessary classify themselves as C/P out of fear of possible connotations which may come along with these labels. The evangelical Pentecostals in Lebanon are wary of the term “Pentecostal” due to the tendency among Pentecostals particularly in the West and Africa to support Christian Zionism35 which could present them as traitors of their own country as Lebanon is formally still in a state of war with Israel. The Charismatic Roman Catholic, Maronite and various Orthodox Charismatic groups are also wary of particular various charismatic practices which could compromise their position within the official churches. One of the founders of a C/P group within the Roman Catholic Church reported to me about a Greek Orthodox priest who had begun to be more open towards the Catholic Charismatic movement. He then travelled to the USA and visited some C/P mega churches only to return and curtail any interaction with the local Lebanese Charismatic movement. The Charismatic leader believed the behaviour of the Greek Orthodox bishop was due to having “met some emotionally unstable people and took it as representative for the Charismatic movement.” Moreover, globally active C/P mission agencies send out mis35 On more detailed account of Christian Zionism see 2.3.3.

30

The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

sionaries who exercise C/P practices such as healings and exorcism in public, at times lacking the cultural sensitivity about what might be offensive and misunderstood by the local people. For example, the strong militant language, even if meant in spiritual terms battling invisible evil forces within and outside the human, may be quickly mistaken for the actual reference to militant struggles between Christians and Muslims, or Lebanon and Israel. Thus the local C/P movement is seen as in danger of quickly be branded a tool of the West in religious disguise attempting to gain socio-political power through religious means much in the same way that Hizb’allah embodies political and religious power as a proxy of Iran. Locally, the groups I have attended use names which express the essence of their identity within a particular context. By giving themselves a local name the groups disassociate from the worldwide C/P culture and the baggage which it carries while at the same time underscoring their local identity. While all C/P group leaders admitted to me as an outsider their connections to the worldwide C/P movement, they also critiqued some C/P extreme practices as not fitting the Lebanese context and being too overtly “western”. While all the leaders of the Lebanese C/P movement are highly mobile and well connected, they attempt to maintain the Lebanese outlook of their specific communities. All the services and special training sessions for leaders that I have attended, were conducted in the Lebanese dialect, often by lay leaders who weave Lebanese sayings and jokes throughout their speech. The relationship of the Lebanese C/P movement to the global C/P movement is also ambivalent due to the economic and cultural situation. On the one hand, the emergent C/P movement relies on financial support from Europe and USA to some extent. On the other hand, they are also wary of “western” practices, which they see as a corruption of the C/P message and lifestyle. The leaders of the house church “Meeting with God” flew to the US in order to receive training in worship and teaching through an American Pentecostal mega church. However, upon their return, they continuously made jokes about the American way of life, in particular their fast food and a desire for everything big, from churches to burgers. C/P leaders also critique the role of the Church in the west as ineffective. As one of the C/P leaders shared with me: We received financial support from France, but now we are growing faster than they do. In fact, Europe is the hardest ground for growth. We will soon send out our missionaries to them.

A Charismatic priest from a local Anglican church gave a teaching session about how to organize and lead an Alpha course. One essential part of the Alpha course is community formation through shared meals, which in western individualistic cultures is seen as distinctive. After the session, I asked one C/P leader about her opinion concerning this practice. She replied: “It is nothing exciting here in the

Introductory remarks

31

Middle East when we eat together. It is normal and something everyone does. We have to look and see what will grow here.” In her view this is not as crucial in a Middle Eastern society, where eating together is more of a cultural practice than in individualistic societies like England. The global C/P culture with its local specifics is a study of its own. Here, it suffices to say, that each C/P group, while to a large extent participating in the worldwide C/P culture through traveling preachers and ideas brought through modern media, is primarily concerned about being perceived as Lebanese. Interestingly, the names of each of the five main groups I have looked into express the core of their particular identity. “Chemin Neuf”, a mainly Roman-Catholic/ Maronite group took over the French name from its founding community in Lyon, France. While appealing to the French speaking Christian Maronite/Roman Catholic population, the name expresses well the desire for the post-war Lebanese population to enter a new way and leave the old ways behind, to make a new beginning within a society which they critique as repeating the old mistakes without learning from them. While staying within the old ecclesial structure, this C/P group offers its members new C/P practices thus lending them a new way of life within the perceived social stagnation. The French connection also makes this group appear as modern as European culture among many Lebanese is associated with progress and modernity which might also explain why disproportionally younger people attend the services of Chemin Neuf in comparison to that of traditional churches. Similarly, the name “Abundant Life”, a rapidly growing church of approx. 300–400 members in the poor neighbourhood of Borj Hammoud, stands as a promise for a fulfilled life to their socio-economically impoverished members. My most extensive involvement was with a group of approximately 40 members, which went by the name “Meeting with God.” The name suggests an unmediated encounter with God, who is the supreme authority. This group was started by a woman leader and initially formed as a group for women only. In a traditional society such as Lebanon most relationships where women participate, whether religious, economic, political and to a lesser extent economic, are mediated by males, a priest, a father or a brother. An unmediated encounter is subversive to the traditional authority and gender conception. “Tent of praise” is a non-denominational, worship focused church, which meets in the basement of a shopping mall. “Tent” refers to the transient nature of the Christian experience. Almost all Lebanese had to leave their homes and relocate within the country or immigrate all together at one time or another during the war. Lebanese are very mobile with their relatives often spread all over the world. Moreover, with the end of the civil war, huge shopping malls were built, with Lebanese flocking to them. The C/P believers view the human as a worshipping creature. Thus, it is believed that if humans do not adore, fall down

32

The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

before God, they will do so before other things, among them consumer goods. By positioning themselves within the shopping mall this group subversively points out to whom true worship is due and therefore critiques consumerism. One of the larger Charismatic movements within the traditional church calls itself “Sword of the Spirit”. “Sword” evokes confrontation which the Lebanese population is accustomed to throughout its history of sectarian strife. “The Spirit” clarifies the spiritual agenda of this group. This allows them to distinguish themselves from the militant Christian agenda and at the same time makes them relevant in the Lebanese context where struggle and sectarian power games are felt in the every day lives of members. While evoking the struggle, the name of the group also roots the struggle at a deeper spiritual level. While I intended to describe the particular nature of this local movement, I nevertheless observed a sense of family resemblance between the Lebanese groups and the worldwide C/P movement. Most connection for the Lebanese C/P movement to the global C/P movement works through travelling preachers and lay people. The pastor from Abundant Life welcomed an evangelism team from South Korea. Afterwards, a young Lebanese woman walked up and shared about her experience in South Korea: They took me to the mountain of prayer. It was amazing! I felt so encouraged. They are so humble. They love us more than we love ourselves. They really pray for our country. I was encouraged to pray for my country by them.

As C/P movement constitutes a minority within the Christian minority of Lebanon, the awareness and concrete experience of belonging to the global movement lends the Lebanese C/P movement the necessary global identification while remaining local. While I pragmatically subsume the Lebanese movement under the umbrella term C/P, I intend to show the local and specific nature of this movement. Within the Lebanese context, there are no clear demarcation lines between the Charismatic and the Pentecostal movement. Often, these two terms are used interchangeably. Pentecostal missionaries arrived earlier in Beirut and worked mainly within the narrow denominational lines of the Evangelicals. The Charismatic movement began in the 60’s and the earliest Charismatic movement in Beirut can be traced to the late 60’s within the Roman Catholic Church. While the Pentecostals contributed to change within the mainline Evangelical Church, the Charismatic movement has been interdenominational from its beginning, having the strongest impact among the Roman Catholics. Consequently, while the Evangelicals lean toward the term “Pentecostal” and other, non-evangelical groups prefer the term “Charismatic”, their similar practices justify the classification as C/P movement.

Introductory remarks

33

2.1.2. A comparative perspective The emergent C/P groups position themselves in relation to the wider culture. The closest reference points are the already existing churches as C/P practices are framed in terms of religious activity. Further reference points include other religious communities and political/social negotiations. I noted four possible institutional reference points which are contingent on the self positioning of C/P groups inside or outside the State recognized Christian denominations. The differences between various C/P groups hinge largely upon their negotiating process towards traditional Churches. The Evangelical C/P Churches (EC) are in the process of being fully recognized by the State as another Evangelical expression. At this point, Evangelical C/P groups, although recognized to some extent by the wider Evangelical constituency, do not receive recognition from the state and therefore do not possess the full rights of the common evangelical members, which would for example include the handling of the civil law. Many migrant C/P groups prefer Evangelical association as it is the most flexible in allowing the migrant C/P groups to practice their expression of C/P Christianity while at the same time acquiring a recognized institutional framework. Since the Evangelical Church in Lebanon is comprised of various Protestant denominations, it offers new C/P groups more flexibility than Roman Catholic, Maronite and various Orthodox Churches with a longer historical tradition and less plurality within their ecclesiological structure. The Charismatic Movement within Traditional Churches (CMTC) seeks to integrate various C/P practices within hierarchical clerical structures where a strong continuity of tradition is upheld through ritual and institutions. Although some C/P Migrant groups/Churches (MC) are under the Evangelical umbrella, many still meet in private homes and remain independent from any institutional framework. Like the Independent Lebanese C/P Churches (IC), their status outside traditional Churches (TC) allows them a high degree of flexibility within their practice and self-governance. Similarities and differences of various C/P groups depend on their socioeconomic status, their leadership personalities and their positioning within the Christian Lebanese landscape. Evangelical and migrant workers C/P groups have very loud services with shouting, dancing and spontaneous emotional expressions. Their worship services exemplify the most radical break to the traditional sober, quiet, collective and predictable church service orders. One of the leaders of such a group told me: “Our people are not heard in their ordinary life.” The C/P rituals offer these unheard members of society an avenue to express their anger, frustration and during this emotional expression to be heard and their experience recognized. As Walid, one of the members of such a group told me: “My daughter also came once. But this was just shocking to her and she

34

The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

never came again.” While Walid is a taxi driver, his daughter received a scholarship from a prestigious local college. The socio-economic standing might explain why what drew Walid to the loud expressive service, repelled his daughter at the same time. The complete otherness of evangelical C/P expression due to its physicality, individualism and level of noise seems to hold little appeal to the middle and upper class. However, for the lower social classes, who have nothing to lose, this extreme otherness serves as an avenue to express their protest and reclaim their voice, even if God is the only one who hears their shouting. During the war many middle class Lebanese lost their socio-economic privileges and either immigrated or found themselves on a lower social level. Due to the feeling of exclusion, a radical break and complete other position seems like a solution to gain a position outside the social norm and thus a privileged position for action. The C/P groups with the weakest links to (TC) can afford the strongest manifestation of otherness in order to create an alternative space for the disadvantaged in the society and those disillusioned with (TC). Similarly, the leaders in these C/P groups have less institutional restraint and are able to express fully their personal charisma without adjusting to institutional expectations. These C/P groups usually depend highly on the “charismatic authority” of their leaders and are therefore less stable than C/P groups within traditional churches. Ritual unpredictability is another mark of these groups. During my two years of study I have observed major changes and shifts within these C/P groups ranging from break ups and disappearance to fast growth. Moreover, the disadvantaged class seems to prefer a more direct and physical ritual over the less symbolic-contemplative ritual style as they feel their daily material needs, they also seek a felt and tangible way of embodying the C/P life style. On the contrary, the C/P groups which are positioned within the traditional Churches are less confrontational in their worship service towards the (TC). Even such “chaotic” gifts as speaking in tongues and physical expressions in worship such as dancing and clapping are harmonized and subdued in order to create an impression of a communal orderly body. Practices, which could disturb a first time visitor, such as prophetic, spontaneous exclamations and healings are preserved for more committed members, and therefore are not accessible to the general public. Whereas non-institutional C/P groups stress a break and otherness as they position themselves outside of “dead institutions”, the C/P groups within the traditional Church emphasize continuity and the work of the Holy Spirit within the traditional ecclesiastic structures. This continuity allows the more privileged social class to enter the C/P culture more easily as they do not feel estranged from their socio-economic context and allow them to seek spiritual experience which may deepen their subjective experience without

Introductory remarks

35

taking them out from their familiar culture. Whereas the C/P believers within non institutional groups described their conversion as an experience of interruption and break with the old patterns, the members of C/P groups within the traditional churches described their conversion more in terms of deepening their belonging and their lives becoming fuller and richer by finding their true spiritual roots, thus finding something they were already part of. One believer described it in the following way : “The Holy Spirit breathed life over the concrete Church body.” The institutional link and authority offers these groups stability as they are not as heavily dependant on a particular founder and charismatic leader. However, the challenge lies in maintaining the hallmarks of a C/P culture such as the emphasis on individual understanding and expression of the C/P ritual, egalitarian hierarchy36 and individual participation of all believers. These groups prefer a more contemplative-symbolic worship style addressing the feelings of believers. If the material needs of a group are met their needs become more psychological. Thus the difference of the socio-economic position also produces a different “taste” for the expression of faith which accounts for the difference in the choice of words and style of the ritual.37 C/P leaders themselves are aware of these vast differences. When I asked one of the Evangelical C/P leaders about studying his particular group as representing the C/P movement in Lebanon, he exclaimed: “How can you do it? If you talk to other groups you will find out that we are all completely different!” My intention is not to describe the C/P movement in its diversity. Such an endeavour would have a merit on its own. Instead, my intention is to discern common features of C/P groups, in particular ritual expression in ex-tension to every day practices, which make the C/P form of life appear as real in the urban context of Beirut. Since I spent differing amounts of time within various groups, I therefore am not capable of presenting each group to the same degree and depth of detail. Therefore I can not give an equal attention to all groups and will favour some examples and experiences over others. In my attempt to generalize, I will inevitably lose some important details which account for the differences between these C/P groups.

36 This paradox creates attraction to and at the same time tensions within C/P groups. Egalitarian culture is embodied as C/P members believe, that the Holy Spirit indwells each believer thus creating equality. Yet at the same time some are called to lead and take up higher responsibility. 37 This observation confirms Bourdieus’ analysis of the relation between socio-economic class and consumption taste. Bourdieu, 1979.

36

The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

2.1.3. Historic context Pentecostal Churches in Beirut have been established by Pentecostal USAmerican missionaries in the 50’s. The Charismatic movement within the mainline Roman-Catholic and Maronite Churches came a bit later in the 60’s but has grown steadily ever since. The civil war (1975–1990) hindered mobility to and from Beirut, which in turn slowed the growth of the C/P movement which has depended largely upon a high level of mobility. The city was also divided and the majority of people were restricted to the quarters of their religious communities. One of the leaders of “Antelias Movement”, a primary Roman-Catholic Charismatic movement, views this war time as providing the germination process of the movement. This time of limited mobility allowed the core group to develop close relationships built upon deep trust. With the end of the civil war in 1990 the Charismatic movement “mushroomed”38 and new C/P Churches/ groups have been established. Free mobility is one of the external reasons for this growth. As people and ideas travel, so too C/P practices spread and attract new followers. Work migration also contributed to this rise, as a significant number of Lebanese work in countries within Africa and Asia, where they are exposed to the C/P expression of Christianity. Asian and African domestic workers bring their C/P practices into Lebanon as well. In 1990 the Lebanese were looking for a new way how to live in a country shattered and traumatized by a 15 year long bloody civil strife. There were real emotional, material and socio-economic needs which the C/P rituals and life style could provide for. During the war, traditional solidarity such as family and religious affiliations had for many deteriorated or had lost its credibility. Families were torn apart due to relocation and immigration. C/P groups provided spiritual families which had resemblances to the traditional blood-ties, but differed as the membership had to be maintained through continuous voluntary association and active participation. During the war, close knit C/P communities were caring for each other and supported each other economically. If one member had lost his/her means of living and his house or apartment, other members would lend their help. Moreover, C/P communities established worldwide networks which could be accessed in a moment of need without a lot of bureaucratic structure in contrast to the international NGO’s and state relief organisations. With the collapse of the USSR, the socialist/communist ideology suffered a significant blow and due to the emergence of Hizb’allah, a Shi’ite religious-political party, Christians sought an alternative which could empower them and yet provide a non-militant way to live and envision their socio-political 38 One of the founders of the C/P movement within the Roman Catholic Church used this term to express the rapid growth of the post war C/P movement.

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engagement. The reputation of militant Christian causes were seriously damaged and had played a part in discrediting themselves as various Christian militias ended up fighting each other in the latter stage of the civil war. However, with the end of the civil war, C/P life style also encountered an increasing competition with rampant global hedonistic cultural values and consumerism. Already during the civil war beauty salons were booming as one Lebanese joke goes: “If we had to die anyway, than at least beautiful.” After the war many Lebanese wanted to make up for what they have missed out on during the war. However, the hopes for economic growth were soon dampened by new regional conflicts, internal corruption and neglected structural socio-economic and political reforms. The C/P way of life provided an alternative to this urge to a hedonistic, consumer culture which allowed C/P believers to engage with global modernity while remaining connected to their roots. The C/P worldview allowed people to reinterpret their culture, explain the past and enter a new stage of life without feeling disempowered and left behind by the global capitalist market. While the end of the civil war increased the mobility and accelerated the exchange of goods and ideas, it also allowed the global C/P culture to enter and impact the Lebanese C/P movement. Preachers, prophets, apostles and healers from Africa, America and Asia travelled to Lebanon importing a particular brand of C/P culture. At the same time, the Lebanese diaspora community which is estimated to be four times as high as the total Lebanese population and the Lebanese travelling abroad, encountered C/P expressions of faith and sought to root this import within the Lebanese culture. Lebanese political and cultural openness created an open market of competition between the C/P culture and other newly imported religions, lifestyles and worldviews. The success of the post-war C/P movement can be attributed to its ability to engage meaningfully with the past, while offering a vision for the future thus providing an alternative vision for life beyond the traditional religious, political and capitalist-consumerist views. Educated C/P believers acknowledged the external factors for the growth of the C/P movement. However, they emphasized at the heart of the growth the agency of the Holy Spirit who “makes Jesus real”. Deprivation theories attempting to explain the growth of a movement are tautological and fail as they reduce complex social phenomena to mono causal explanations. While recognizing the external socio-political and economic context, I will follow the C/P view focusing on the internal every day practices of C/P believers in order to understand change. While systemic theories explain the predictability of behaviour, cultures do change due to the creative responses of social agents to the systemic socio-economic conditions. While the C/P believer views the Holy Spirit as the primary reason and cause for the realness and plausibility of the C/P culture, to the outsider observer the Holy Spirit’s activity is manifested through

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the actions of the believer. Thus, by focusing on the actions of the believers I will offer various possible reasons and causes within divergent ontologies. A historic account in the third person, even if very nuanced, is less adequate to describe the motivations and values which underlie intentional agency.39 Narration in the third person creates distance between the narrator and his/her subject matter leading to objectification of the latter through causal explanations. It is only by moving from the cognitive aesthetic second order towards the practical life context that the social agent comes into focus. Impersonal forces within society are a result of individual agents and even structural, institutionalized powers are creatively used within the everyday practice.40 All histories as preserved in written accounts start with the first person witness account within a particular geo-political setting.

2.1.4. Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in the urban space of Beirut Although the civil war ended in 1990, Beirut continues to be a divided city. The army is employed along the sectarian divides during times of political or sectarian tensions. Checkpoints, roadblocks, and barbed wire interrupt the natural flow of connection in the city and cut it into religiously homogenous segments. Visibility of religious architecture expresses the power and control of particular religious communities. Thus mosques and churches are built at strategic intersections and vault lines. Pictures of saints and religious-political heroes are publicly displayed along major routes and inter-sectarian divides. Traditional church buildings and mosques are clustered within the city centre and around the parliament building expressing their pivotal position within the confessional democracy. C/P groups emphasize strongly the universal rule of God and the working of the Holy Spirit in unexpected places. As most C/P members come from traditional churches, the majority of the C/P movement is found in traditional Christian quarters such as Jounieh, Antelias, Ashrafiyeh and Ain-el-Ramanneh. However, most C/P groups refuse to fall into a simple victim narrative of being a besieged Christian minority surrounded by Muslims who want to destroy them. I have observed many traditional Christians lamenting their loss of political, military and demographic power. As a consequence, they see their living quarters as a fortress against the evil others. In Furn el Chebbak, when new 39 Using a broad definition, “agency refers to the socioculturally mediated capacity to act”. See: Ahearn, 2001, p. 112. For a fuller discussion on agency see: Ahearn, 2001, pp. 109–131. Kockelman, 2007, pp. 375–399. 40 De Certeau in particular showed how agents creatively respond to and subvert the imposed forces and structures through their every day actions. De Certeau, 1980.

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apartment buildings replaced dilapidated houses, the inhabitants worried as to whether Muslims or Druze would move in and undermine the stability of the overall Christian quarter. These fears are not completely unfounded. One of my Syrian friends shared with me his hopes that when he moved into this Christian neighbourhood to work as a tailor, there were only a few Muslims. Now, he smiled, “we (meaning Muslims moving into Furn el Chebbak) are becoming more and more and one day this will be our (meaning Muslim) quarter, Inshallah.” However, a lot of fears are also fuelled by memories of the sectarian violent past. In contrast, the C/P groups stress the universal rule of God over the entire city, including the Muslim quarters. This enables them to take some cautious and occasional movement into Muslim quarters and even share their beliefs with Muslims. Thus while the C/P groups are located within mainly Christian quarters of Beirut, they stress the crossing of boundaries and therefore move more freely and often intentionally into traditional Muslim quarters. This physical mobility allows them to trespass visible and invisible urban divides and establish vis / vis encounters. Due to the constant present political and sectarian struggle each group strives to be seen and heard in order to secure a privileged access to the national resources which in turn secures the survival and flourishing of a particular sectarian community. C/P groups lack the traditional socio-political and economic power. Their positioning can be best described as “the invisible within”. One of the leaders of “CN” told me that they do not own a building as they do not have the money to buy. Instead, they are guests in different churches. Whether intended or not, this “guest” status allows for more flexibility and mobility for such an emergent group as Chemin Neuf. Through this mobility of the group they are able to enter various neighbourhoods, recruit new followers and maintain a fluid network. I have visited a “CN” group which meets in the basement of a Maronite Church. After the meeting, one of the participants pointed to the top and said: “The church is up there. We are meeting here, underneath it.” While this remark can be simply understood as description of space or even as commenting about the institutional power which is enshrined through visible buildings, it can also be understood, within the C/P worldview, as a reversal of power. The Holy Spirit changes from within. Therefore, by placing itself “underneath” or as the “invisible within” the traditional institutions, the C/P movement conveys a powerful position in order to trigger change from inside out. C/P movement views static, institutional power critically as it can be maintained by mere bureaucratic means. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit extends itself by fundamentally altering the internal state of mind and deep seated emotions, which then affects the behaviour of individuals, groups and finally

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The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

institutions. Thus, both the TC and C/P movement promote visibility, but differ on how they intend to achieve it. I also visited two evangelical C/P churches which are in the basement parking building underneath major shopping malls. While the C/P movement employs and rides on the wave of the mass media and the globalised consumer market, it also undermines its appeal by branding consumerism as an idol. Beirut has been affected deeply by the rampant capitalist values of consumerism and hedonism after the end of the civil war. As a result, Beirut has some of the largest shopping malls in the Middle East with tourists from all over the Middle East flocking to the shopping experience. While some (EC) are successful in employing marketing strategies, they seek to change the direction of consumption. Instead of consuming the material goods and feeling empty, they offer people consumption of the Holy Spirit and his gifts with the result of feeling satisfied. C/P groups view the shopping experience as a religious activity in an attempt to satisfy the hunger of the soul. Thus the position within the shopping malls expresses a direct power encounter regarding the allegiance of an individual through his/her priorities. The C/P groups which were started by Asian and African domestic workers meet primarily in private houses or rented facilities such as for example in a protestant seminary’s lecturing rooms in Hamra, the central district of Beirut. I have also observed a C/P group meeting in a dance and art studio. What is common for all C/P groups is a desire to overcome the sacred-secular and politically imposed and historically cemented sectarian divides. Moreover, by inhabiting the traditionally non-religious space they seek to express the sacredness of every space and therefore God’s rule over the entire city. The C/P belief about the change from within converges with their suspicion of hollow religious institutions. The C/P belief about the working of the Holy Spirit from within does not merely affect their urban self positioning, but also their organizational structure.

2.1.5. Organisational structure and quantitative estimation Religious belonging dictates the delicate equilibrium of power within the confessional democracy of Lebanon. Therefore, any inner and intra religious conversion, even if in small numbers, touches the core of political balance within such a small country as Lebanon. For this reason, even a small movement such as C/P, which emphasizes conversion across religious boundaries, may potentially have a strong political impact over time. At an Orient Institute conference on Religion and Politics, a leader of the Lebanese Protestant Church reported on occasional conversions to the Muslim faith due to pragmatic reasons such as for example the restrictive divorce law within the Christian community. When I

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asked him about conversions from the Muslim faith into the Christian religion, he denied that such cases exist. However, each C/P group I visited had converts among them, including groups who consisted primarily of converts from nonChristian religions. After the conference the Protestant leader admitted to me that he is aware of a few cases, but that he did not want to touch this issue in the public space. A Lebanese census of religious membership has never been conducted after the civil war in order to maintain the appearance of the current political equilibrium of power. My quantitative estimation of C/P members is based on my rather speculative projections and the information I received from C/P believers. The question as to who can be classified as a C/P believer depends on the organisational structure of the C/P groups. I have discerned an organisational parallel within diverse groups which I call the “three concentric circles structure”. The outer circle is the public arena which is open to a general audience. Within this outer circle, the groups address the wider Lebanese culture through their once a week public events. In the case of “Antelias Movement”, a public meeting is held in a large church in Antelias, where 400–600 people gather weekly. Also, certain practical seminars are designed, such as for example, marriage seminars in the case of “Chemin Neuf”, in order to address the wider public. My neighbour in Furn el Chebbak, who attends a Greek Orthodox Church several times a year only, knew about the C/P movement due to hearing about their marriage seminars. Certain rites of passage, such as for example, testimonies about the working of the Holy Spirit within individual lives, stand as the threshold before crossing into the middle circle. Belonging to one of the circles is not static, but has to be re-enacted and depends upon a continuous voluntary commitment. Various social benefits and a general suspicion towards ritual and language41 support the motivation behind such continuous re-enactments of C/P belonging. The middle circle consists of more committed believers. Meetings are held during the week in houses in smaller gatherings addressing specific needs of the community and exhibiting particular C/P practices such as speaking in tongues. The inner circle consists of believers who form the normative circle of authority. Their commitment does not only involve time, but also money and material goods. This inner core circle of believers consists of those who embody visibly what it means to be and to act as a C/P believer. While the progression from the outside into the core of the circle is more common, the movement can also be reversed. When a young Armenian C/P leader transitioned from university into a high demand of work and could not afford the same level of time commitment to her C/P small group leadership role, other C/P leaders asked her if she would consider stepping down from her leadership role. Due to this inner fluctuation 41 I will espouse more on this statement further below.

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rather than a static position of belonging to the C/P groups an exact quantitative estimation is not possible. However, based on my participation within 15 C/P groups, I project the total number of committed Lebanese C/P believers between 5,000 and 8,000, not counting the C/P domestic worker churches. The middle circle encompasses another 6,000 till 8,000 and the number of those who came into some contact and are aware of C/P movement might exceed 100,000, which would comprise about one tenth of the Lebanese Christian population. Since the C/P brand of Christianity is relatively new to Lebanon and the Asian and African impact is just at its beginning, I believe that the growth of this movement has not yet peaked. Since the level of participation determines belonging to these groups, the C/P member’s level of involvement supersedes by far that of believers within traditional churches, where membership does not rest on active participation.

2.2. Ritual as bodily mediation 2.2.1. Representing Charismatic/Pentecostal rituals in four communities C/P rituals differ in relation to the self-positioning of the C/P groups, their aim and specific urban setting. However, there are certain elements which I have observed in all C/P public gatherings which are framed as C/P worship services. The elements include music, singing/movement of the body, prayer, preaching, testimonies and announcements. The purpose of the following representation is to sketch out how the context, self-positioning and aim of the group shape the ritual expression. A. “Meeting with God” The believers of the two groups I observed meet together every Friday evening in various houses of the members. Each group consists of approximately 20–30 members, both Arab Lebanese and Armenian Lebanese. The majority of members are young urban professionals between the ages of 20 and 40. Meetings begin at 7 pm and usually end around 10.30 pm. After the meetings, people linger around, eat and socialize. In addition to the Friday meetings, the group leaders meet together on Saturdays under the leadership of Mary, the founder of “MwG”. Each group is made up of three leaders and each of these leaders mentors one or two other co-leaders. There are approximately an equal number of male and female leaders. A special teaching meeting is held on Thursdays during which relevant topics concerning daily life are addressed. During this meeting, the worship and prayer time is shorter. I observed that the more committed believers show up at this Thursday meeting as well.

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On Fridays, the first hour is spent in informal socializing with refreshments. Shortly before 8 pm one of the leaders invites everyone to join in a prayer. This time remains informal as some people finish their drinks and snacks while others begin to pray. A few members may raise their hands; others choose to walk as they pray while others kneel down or prostrate themselves on the floor. However, most remain seated in comfortable positions on couches and chairs. Prayers tend to be short, addressing God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit directly. Prayers often incorporate thanks and adoration. Believers thank God for doing miracles in their lives, for giving them power to overcome evil, for giving them joy and meaning. God’s holiness, glory and power are repeatedly invoked. Normally, the prayer time is open and unstructured. However, on occasion, each member in the circle is asked to pray and if someone does not want to do so, he can pass by nodding his/her head to the next one in the circle. At times, a worship leader plays a melody on the guitar in the background, creating an emotive mood. Praying in tongues42 is neither encouraged nor discouraged. On several occasions, I observed Mary praying in tongues. One member was invited by a Korean missionary to a C/P conference in South Korea where she learned the “Korean way of praying” where everyone prays out loud at the same time. This prayer style is sometimes imitated by the groups. After the prayer a female worship leader plays guitar accompanied by another member drumming. The songs range from rhythmic which combine lyrics with battle imagery to slow rhythms resembling love songs. On one occasion, a person from a Muslim background exclaimed in surprise: “It is like a celebration!” Occasionally, one of the women will break out in a joyful trilling of the tongue which is trademark of weddings in all of the Middle East as well as other joyful occasions. The songs are chosen in advance by the worship leader. However, there is also room for spontaneous songs as the members expect the Holy Spirit to lead. There are songs which are translated from English and American charismatic movements. Songs which were written in Arabic come mainly from Egypt. During the songs I observed similar bodily expressions as those assumed during prayer. Some people break out in clapping and exclamations like: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord” or : “Come, Holy Spirit”. After worship the leaders ask if anyone received a word from the Lord. This direct revelation can consist of a picture or a specific Bible verse. A visual impression is usually explained by the same person and located within the wider Biblical meta-narrative in order for it to be relevant to the believer’s particular life context. 42 Praying in tongues is referring to one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which is mentioned in the Bible. There are different beliefs as to how these gifts are expressed. Mary practices prayer in tongues as an intimate spiritual language between her and God which is not understood by others and not always by the one praying in tongues.

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Following the prayer a sermon is preached. More mature members are allowed to preach. Usually the sermon begins with a game or some demonstration setting the stage for a proclamative style of preaching. I observed members imitating aspects of Mary’s style of preaching. She is animated in her speaking utilizing many gestures. Her face is very expressive and her voice ranges from almost a whisper to shouting, signaling a crescendo into dramatic silence. She has a very direct way of preaching and sometimes addresses individuals specifically, asking them to share their testimony or give their feedback. If the answer is too general, Mary challenges them to be more specific. Despite her small stature, her strong voice fills the room. On several occasions she even climbed up on a chair while speaking. I found the preaching entertaining, as every time Mary would find ways to surprise the audience and to keep their attention focused as no one knew what and how she would perform, and at any time a listener could be picked by Mary to become the center of attention. The preaching often ends with a call of rededication to the Lord. Mary likes to close her sermons with a challenge which she ritually extends to everyone, asking them to share how the Lord had spoken to him/her through the sermon. Through this challenge each member is pushed to express and thus to appropriate individually the message they have heard. The individual feedback confirms the power of the words creating a pluralistic web of meaning. The cause of this creating of new meaning is attributed to the action of the Spirit, who works through Mary and her preaching. Thus, the group feels bound together through this divine working among them. Sometimes members break up into small groups for confessional time and more intimate prayer. Occasionally, response to the sermon flows out into a very long prayer/worship session. The believers view this experience as being so filled with divine joy and power, that they lose a sense of time and just enjoy the divine presence among them. “MwG” aims to provide a sense of family, responding to the felt post war need for family bonds that have been loosened or even lost due to a number of factors. Samir Khalaf describes the Lebanese family attachments as “intense and allembracing”43, influencing every aspect of a person’s everyday life. According to the post 1990 sociological surveys, the primordial ties of family and community have grown stronger.44 Various explanations have been given for this post war reversal process of secularization with its accompanying effects of fragmentation and individualization. Khalaf attributes the main reason for this development to the diminishing of trust in the state and secular institutions due to their collapse and complete absence during the war. Moreover, as the war continued, each community witnessed internal power struggles. Many of the Lebanese Christians 43 Khalaf, 2002, p. 226. 44 Hanf, 2003, pp. 197–228; Khalaf, 2003, pp. 107–143; Beydoun, 2003, pp. 75–87.

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I interviewed recount losing their belief in the “Christian cause” during the fierce inner Christian fighting during the final stage of the war (1989–1990). As one interview partner put it: As long as we fought Muslims, we believed in a common cause. However, when Christians started to kill Christians, one neighbor against the other that’s when I lost hope for the Christians in Lebanon.

The disillusionment with the state and the sectarian community caused many to seek shelter in the private haven of family. I agree with this overall sociological analysis. However, a questionnaire is not designed to capture thicker descriptions of culture. While the ideal of a close family increased in the member’s perception, the actual family dynamics are caught in socio-economic cross pressures. The Lebanese youth often long for emotional bonding within their families and seek to know their family history in order to find their own historical and social orientation.45 The war affected virtually everyone in this tiny country, leaving many with emotional and psychosomatic post war disorders.46 At the same time, psychological help is shunned as something for people who are crazy (majnun). Psychology, even as an academic discipline, is widely stigmatized in society. Young adults do not have a clear picture of the involvement of their family in war and have therefore fragmented knowledge, mostly from conversations they overheard within their immediate family circle. The inability to articulate their war experiences47 leads to amnesia and emotional withdrawal. Paired with the emotional post war effects comes an increasing strain upon individuals as they lack the time to invest into their families. I lived in Furn el Chebbak, a Christian suburb of Beirut. Many of my neighbors recalled with nostalgia “the good old war times” when families had a lot of time on their hands to socialize and visit neighbors. On the other hand, after the war ended many Lebanese felt they had lost economic opportunities and expressed frustration at their socio-economic standing.48 Young educated Lebanese either immigrate or compete for scarce employment opportunities. With the death toll of war and the continuing steady immigration after the war, the traditional Lebanese extended family as the main support structure for the individual has diminished. The projected family ideals stand in tension with the common cross-pres45 As the state failed to implement a common historic account, the family and community took on the main role in the transmission of historic knowledge. Bashshur, 2003, pp. 163–168. 46 Khalaf, 2002, p. 219; Karam, 1999, pp. 272–282. 47 While many talk about the war in general terms there is a reluctance particularly on the part of those who actively engaged in the war to reflect upon their personal experiences and involvement. See: Dyck, 2010. 48 Labaki, 2003, pp. 181–197.

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The emergence of Charismatic/Pentecostal communities in Beirut

sured Lebanese family thus leading to increasing frustration of their individual members. A family must struggle to balance the high individual expectations of emotional closeness and traditional roles on the one side and the effects of the war, increasing modernization, and fragmentation of extended families on the other side. Additionally, the educated segment of the post war generation seeks a higher participation in society and is leery of traditional authority which is identified with the mistakes of the past. In particular, many young Lebanese are appalled that the old warring militia leaders now occupy the seats of Parliament. Most young adults at “MwG” I have observed either lost a large part of their family in the war or to immigration, or are caught between idealization of family tradition and the everyday cross pressures upon family life. By performing the C/P rituals in privacy of houses, the group locates itself at the core community where Lebanese identity is formed. The C/P rituals transform the families from within as they create new patterns of everyday living. I have observed the leader blessing the house and praying against the influence of demons within the apartment and the whole area. These prayers address specific issues related to the neighborhood and are therefore meaningful to the participants. Issues such as conflicting political loyalty, poverty and marriage problems are addressed as a result of deeper spiritual causes. Sometimes, curious family members either glance in or listen first from their own rooms as the sounds of C/P celebrations carry through the neighborhood. The rituals performed within the most private setting diminish the distance between the public religion and peoples’ held beliefs in private and family circles. Often, participation within public religious events serves as a sectarian bolstering of identity in relation to other religious communities and is not motivated by a specific personal interest or conviction. Many Lebanese youth I have encountered display very overt public Christian symbols in order to express their political and life style identity. However, they neither attend the Maronite Church nor are they consciously aware of the meaning of the very symbols they wear. By performing rituals at the heart of the private setting, “MwG” overcomes this divide and fills the emptiness hidden behind identity politics negotiation. Moreover, the leader of the group attempts to remain free from any official ties to the state accepted denomination. Placing themselves within a family setting allows this group to remain fluid and avoid institutionalism, which is perceived and critiqued through the rituals as external and hollow. Meeting in private houses allows the relatively small group to enter and introduce their rituals into several locations in the city. Houses in Beirut are not well insulated. The walls are thin and the concrete buildings are built chaotically beside each other. When a neighboring house was torn down beside our friend’s apartment building, the new apartment building window was only 30 cm. away from her balcony. So she served coffee for construction workers and her new neighbors from the close proximity of her balcony. Inevitably, the

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sounds carry and the neighbor becomes to a great degree a member of the family. Locating the C/P rituals within the family thus transcends the private space and imbues the public space around the individual apartment with sounds of C/P rituals. Further, “MwG” suggests an unmediated encounter between people and God, bypassing traditional, mostly male authority. Mary views her main task as the founder of the group to be a spiritual mother and restore and heal families. This newly defined role is not unproblematic, as she redefines traditional close knit relationships. For example, as a single woman in her 40’s, she traditionally would not be given the same level of recognition or prestige as that of a married woman. Yet, she draws her status from the divine calling. Throughout her sermons she often preaches on the significance of the person, in particular women, as not dependent on her marriage status and having children, but on her divine calling. Another problem which arose for the single women of the group was their returning home late in the evening. Traditionally, it is acceptable for a single woman to be away from the home in the evening if a family male relative such as a brother or father accompany her, thereby guaranteeing to other observers that the woman has not been involved in behaviour which would jeopardize her reputation within society. For example, one family raised objections to their daughter returning late from “MwG” meetings, not because they distrusted Mary, but because the neighbors might think that she was seeing a man and was engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage. The woman is a symbolic “honor” bearer for the family. Thus, if she loses her virginity, the entire family, as her immediate community, loses their reputation and honor in wider society. Thus the sexual relationship is not a matter of private decision, but a political matter which either enhances or diminishes the reputation of the family. Mary often critiqued this understanding of honor as external and hypocritical. For her, the honor of a person was not in social conventions, but in the personal accountability to God within his/her conscience. Through various negotiations Mary attempted to subvert this cultural tradition and male mediation of the women in the public space. After meeting in a particular apartment of one woman and getting to know and gaining the trust of neighbors, “MwG” became a trustworthy community independent from male authority. The neighbors no longer suspected the particular woman if she returned home alone as they assumed that she belonged to “MwG” where the traditional values are upheld, not outwardly by the family and in particular male figures, but rather through personal, individual responsibility to God and the “MwG” community norm. B. “Abundant Life” The contrast between the location of the Pentecostal church “Abundant Life” in Borj Hammoud and its name could not be more striking. The church building is

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only accessible from a very narrow street. The building resembles the surrounding grey house blocks and is not instantly recognizable as a church. Only from afar one can see the cross on the roof. Near the Church, only a few hundred meters away, runs the stinking river “nahr el mot” (river of death), the nearby animal skinning company and trash burning factory envelop the entire area in a horrible stench. The name of the church is a stark contrast to the awful smells and dreary, grey urban landscape surrounding it. The area of Borj Hammoud has been traditionally a refuge for the Armenian refugees, but is now also home to people from various sectarian affiliations. Also, many Arab and Kurdish Syrian workers live in Borj Hammoud due to the lower cost of rents in comparison to other surrounding neighborhoods. As I approach the church, I can hear heavy drums and music from hundreds of meters away pouring out from the windows. The event could be mistaken for a rock-concert. To reach the worship hall one has to take to the steps or wait for a dingy lift as the meeting takes place on the fourth floor. The interior appears very old and used. The light in the main hall is gloomy and a giant picture of a cross and sunset forms the backdrop of the stage. The picture is made in a na"ve realism style, with an attempted illusion of third dimension, but failing to create a sense of space. As I enter the hall, I am completely absorbed by the heavy, vibrating beats of the music. Before my eyes, I observe a mass of moving bodies of around 350–400 people, mostly young adults between 20 and 40. An attractive young woman and a man sing in front, while the music is militant in language and aggressive in style. I have difficulty in deciphering the words, but can read them as they are projected on the wall with a high tech projector. There are various cameras and people who film this event from various angles. People jump up and down, stretch out their arms, some clap rhythmically, others close their eyes and swing their bodies as if in a trance. Others stare at the ceiling with arms outstretched. Suddenly, the singer shouts, “Let’s sing a new song to the Lord” and the entire crowd switches into a melodious, harmonious music, the aggressive beat stops, abrupt movements are transformed into slowly swaying bodies. People start to sing and hum some kind of melody without distinguishable lyrics. The sounds are soft and harmonious. Everyone seems to follow a shared pattern. After a few minutes a new song is projected on the wall and the crowd is back to singing the rocky worship songs. After approximately 45 minutes the main pastor enters the stage and starts preaching about giving. With authoritative words he cites scriptures explaining the direct relation between giving and receiving the blessings of the Lord. After his short sermon he says somewhat jokingly, “Now we give you an opportunity to give and receive the blessings of the Lord. Now is your chance. Do not go to the bathroom.” The collection is accompanied by soft, emotive music. Afterwards, the main pastor thanks God for the collection and resumes preaching. He usually ignores the

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traditional pulpit and walks on stage. Sometimes, he descends to the people sitting in the pews. His style is very engaging as he interweaves stories, making jokes and drawing the people in by asking them, “Are you there?” “Amen?” People respond and the link between the speaker and audience is continually held. After the sermon, there is prayer by the pastor and again more songs and final announcements. By taking on the name “Abundant life” in the midst of a very impoverished neighborhood, this Pentecostal church stands in contrast to the lack which is perceived in daily life through the senses, by giving the promise of abundance. C/P rituals provide an abundance of sensual effects such as seeing, hearing, touching and tasting.49 In particular, sight and hearing are involved. “Abundant life” is loosely connected to the State recognized Evangelical umbrella. Its noninstitutional status allows the church to experiment with the ritual expressions and deviate far from the accepted traditional ritual form. This sense of departure from tradition emphasized by the hard beat music and the seeming chaotic movements attracts in particular young people. One member shared with me, “People usually know right away if they come again or not.” The vibrating beat, the sweating, dancing bodies and loud exclamations either draw the participant in or create an instant aversion of the first time visitor to the unaccustomed rituals. The intensity of the ritual is not conducive to mental free floating. This ritual intensity and the sharp cut with tradition which is demonstratively established through the ritual, correlates well with the self positioning of Abundant life, which seeks to address people who feel disempowered and not heard within the Lebanese culture. The name of the church describes its vision: Commit to an invisible God through participating within the visible church, which is viewed as the body of Christ, and gain a life of abundance. This abundance is not only understood in spiritual terms such as an inner state of peace and joy. After the civil war, the hopes and dreams of the masses who sought to move up the socio-economic ladder were not met. Despite education and diligence, the wastah50 system favors clans and families who are in power and presents only very limited opportunities for individuals from minority groups such as Armenians, to succeed. The rituals allow the young people to air those frustrations and seek emotional encouragement through the ritual community. Caught between cross pressures of traditional expectations and modern values these young people find an alternative space to express themselves. 49 Within the traditional churches the sense of smell is engaged through the use of incense. However, the C/P movement tends not to use incense in ritual. 50 Wastah can be described as a socio-political aspect of a Patron-Client relationship. “Patronclient ties involve the reciprocal exchange of extrinsic benefits and therefore both patron and client have a vested interest in maintaining this reciprocity.” See: Khalaf, 2003, p. 100.

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Money plays a prominent role in the services of “Abundant life”. The emotional peak directly after the worship time is reserved for the collection. By mediating its message through the capitalist means of the latest technology, expensive cars of those in leadership, global travel and connections, the leadership of the church needs the money of its members. The leadership of the church embodies the name and is therefore a visible example of abundant life. Often, a critique is raised by theologians and secular observers that “health and wealth”51 driven churches use their members as a means towards money. However, I have not heard this same critique coined at western psychologists/ psychotherapists without prior examining the exchange service. While “AL” members donate money to the church, they also receive emotional empowerment to change their lives. The narratives of changed lives and consequent “abundance” and restoration are often narrated through the C/P testimonies. Thus, the result of an abundant life does become a reality for some and a tangible hope for others to strive for continuously. Perhaps a sociologist would attribute this abundance to a changed habitus through the ritual manipulation while a C/P believer attributes it to the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, I refrain from evaluating this exchange process as the measurement is usually external to the phenomena itself. Sometimes, the preacher asks the listeners to symbolically act out the sermon. When the pastor preached on the Israelites circling the city of Jericho 7 times and shouting, he asked the congregation to shout. Another time, when preaching on reconciliation, he asked them to hug one another. People, who did not know each other prior to it, started hugging each other. Usually, hugs are reserved for family and for people from equal socio-economic standing. I have observed guest workers from Syria, Philippines and middle class Lebanese hugging each other expressing a divine reality of unity despite their otherwise segregated everyday lives. Thus, the name “Abundant life” is enacted and embodied through various rituals and C/P members feel the transformation, both emotional and material52 towards a fuller experience of life. C. Chemin Neuf “Chemin Neuf”’s main meeting takes place between Beirut and Jounieh, a coastal suburb of Beirut. As I approach the Maronite Church, there are no lights on in the main church hall and it would appear that nothing is taking place here. From the outside, the meeting is not detectable and only the parked cars outside betray that there must be people inside. However, as I approach the lower part of the 51 This is a label used by outside observers to describe churches where the leaders emphasize the positive rewards if people commit to their communities through giving money and time. 52 I will discuss the material aspect further below.

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building, I hear rhythmic music and clapping sounds coming from the basement. As Eli, a recent member of the group put it, “We are not the church, the church is up there.” The C/P group “Chemin Neuf” was started by a married woman who spent some time with her husband at the original “Chemin Neuf” community in France. “CN” positions itself within the official Roman Catholic and Maronite ecclesial structures. Thus, the location of its meeting underlines the fact of its submission to the formal church authority. The meeting is invisible as it does not seek through its rituals to shape the public space to the same degree as “AL”. By placing itself “within” the official ecclesial structures, it inhabits neither such a private realm as “MwG”, nor such a public position as “AL”. The leader conveyed to me that the goal of “CN” is not to establish a new denomination, but to fill the old with the new life of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the group seeks by incorporating tradition to reinterpret and fill the ritual with the new in light of the changed cultural and historic situation. At the beginning of the service, one of the female leaders gets up and shares how she kept hearing the word “rahme”, which means “mercy” but in a slightly different form can mean “womb”. She then points out the commonalities of the two concepts and makes a connection to her faith through them by saying that mercy needs to be birthed in the womb and we can not conceive of it alone, we need the Holy Spirit to birth mercy within us. Preaching within the Roman Catholic Church is reserved for ordained clergy. Therefore, the C/P group which is led by laity mainly communicates through the sharing of personal experience, impressions and testimonies while interweaving biblical scriptures. Through this accommodation, the “CN” reinvents a different style of preaching within “TC”, which is more decentralized, dialogical and very close to the lives of the listeners. Moreover, since the “CN” movement does not rely on a heavy infrastructure like “AL”, it does not need to focus as much on money. Instead, the communal meditation of the scripture takes central stage. Although some of the songs are the same as “AL”, the performance is more subdued, at least in the public services, as “CN” must walk a fine line between reformation and innovation from within in order to avoid unnecessary provocation. Thus, the intent of the ritual is to make the ecclesial body move, but still be recognizable as a traditional body. For this purpose, certain liturgical forms are retained: After the songs and communal praying in tongues, there is a time of communal thanksgiving. 10–15 people repeat the same phrase: “God, Lord, I thank you for […]” then everyone puts in an individual praise. The same is then repeated with: “God, Lord, Father, forgive me for […] my weakness, for anger, for worrying […]”. While a certain liturgical framework is retained, the individual refills this frame from their personal life experience. The traditional ritual framework gets re-appropriated through the group. Similarly, the scripture passage is projected on the wall and is read by three people. After the following

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silence everyone is welcomed to read aloud a word, phrase or sentence which had made a particular impression upon them. The “CN” members believe that the Holy Spirit works within the individual’s heart and impresses upon them the words which fit the individual situation of the believer. Testimonies play an important role in the “CN” worship service since official preaching by laity is forbidden. Testimonies are shared at the beginning, in the middle and the end of the service. For example, the leader asked her husband to tell about his involvement at the youth retreat. He then told how he volunteered working in the kitchen, something he had never done before. Having no previous experience he then prayed to the Lord that he would help him to do well. Someone made a joke about a dentist in the kitchen and everyone laughed. The traditional solemn atmosphere vanished and was replaced by a sense of familiarity and closeness. A joke about the person, who is a professional dentist, but struggled to work in the kitchen, brought to the fore the internal contradictions, thus creating closeness between listeners and the one telling the story, as the listeners felt and emphasized with his imperfection. The testimonies allow the “CN” members to create a communal sermon without confronting the official definition of preaching. Towards the end, new people have the chance to introduce themselves with a few words. Interestingly, the space of “AL” was in fact more traditional as people sat in rows facing the stage and the pulpit. However, this static form was undermined through the movement of both the preacher and the participants. People also left their places for example to greet their neighbors or give them a hug, as orchestrated by the preacher on the stage. Both “CN” and “MwG” believers sit in a U shape with various things in the middle, such as a table, Bible and a candle. This physical set up allowed the group to express their non-hierarchical belief in the leadership. Since both of these movements were started and lead by women, they preferred to stay and lead from a position of “invisibility”, subverting the male dominated public space from within. The name “Chemin Neuf” expresses the core vision as the new way forward does not start from the outside, but within the traditional Lebanese sacred identity, the roots lie within the accepted, which only need to be revived and individually embodied.

D. Tent of Praise “Tent of Praise” summarizes its vision as following: The TOP is a non denominational gathering place for the priests to enthrone Almighty God with the praises of His people, to lift God in our nation and intercede with God.53 53 TOP newsletter “Vision”. A newsletter is designed for supporters and is therefore a highly positive representation of TOP activities in order to draw supporters outside of Lebanon to join.

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The story of “TOP” began with the conversion of their founding pastor Elias, who was a drummer in a rock band and became a C/P believer in the beginning 90’s. Following his conversion, he interacted with various worship centered C/P Churches like the International House of Prayer in the US. While adopting their style and lyrics, he also developed his own, genuinely Lebanese worship style. As they recount through their “TOP” newsletters, “10 years ago, the Lord gave us a dream of a place where worship and praise would be the central focus and where people can come and meet Jesus glorified.”54 “TOP” leader Elias maintains relationships to different denominational leaders and like “CN”, “TOP” does not seek to change ecclesial and political affiliations, but to promote a certain experience via music and singing. Music as a medium is less divisive than propositions made through preaching as music addresses feelings which are common to all people. Moreover, “TOP” is located underneath a big shopping mall. In its vision newsletter, “TOP” gives a main reason for this location that although it is in the suburbs, it is central enough to various areas. Thus, “TOP” views itself as a network gathering space, a neutral space where people from diverse cultural, religious and political affiliations experience the realness of Jesus. After hopping out of the taxi outside the shopping mall, it takes time for me to find “TOP”. After asking a security guard, he points me in the direction of a ramp descending into the parking lot under the mall. As I walk down into the dimly lit parking area, I smell car exhaust. At the end of the parking lot, as I enter through the glass doors of “TOP”, the contrast could not be more striking: The bright colours overwhelm my senses, the smells of incense and perfume, colorful flags are waving and bodies are moving. The effect is achieved through the juxtaposition of dark, unmoving, inanimate concrete shapes to the bright lights and moving human bodies. Thus, positioning “TOP” in the parking garage impresses on new members every time a performative experience. The vision of “TOP” of experiencing the divine realness is achieved in part through the contrast of its location. Initially upon entering the room, I have the impression I am entering a store, as just inside the door on lit glass shelves, I find various accessories: From crosses, necklaces and rings with biblical sayings engraved in them to different forms of literature as well as CDs and DVDs on various C/P topics like healing, worship, spiritual warfare, family, etc. A specially crafted “TOP” priest breast plate, which is covered with gold, is offered for sale as a material reminder of the vision of the church. Within the Old Testament, the priests occupied a specially privileged position in approaching God through the performance of rituals. “TOP” offers this experience of closeness to God to anyone entering its space. As I look around, I can not discern a certain style or pattern of the interior design as 54 TOP newsletter “Vision”.

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the decoration seems to be eclectic. There are various stitched crosses hanging on the walls. A Lebanese flag and a larger cross stand just to the right of the stage. Above the stage, in big letters, is written in English: Tent of Praise. The right side wall is lined with worship flags which are waved during worship time as people walk down the aisles. The location with its small stage presents an ambience akin to something between small theater, shopping mall, dance floor and a pub. To the right is a room for children and to the left a special room for prayer and healing. “TOP” is laid out in the cross shape, like traditional cathedrals. Opposite the stage there are two DJ tables, where young people work on sound and lights. The whole space is lit in blue, yellow and red light. People are dressed very differently. In contrast to the traditional churches, where a certain dress code is expected, most people are dressed casually. In the beginning, people take drinks in a paper cup and sit down. Two young adults walk on the stage and start reading scripture in the street language with animated voices and strong intonations, as if taking on the speaking roles of the characters they are reading about. This creates a theatrical atmosphere. They are accompanied by a mouth harmonica and piano in the background. After approximately 30 minutes of reading, as the seats begin to fill with approximately 50 people, mostly in their 20’s and 30’s, Elias walks on the stage. He starts to play music and preach in between songs. This can take up to an hour and a half and is the most flexible time. Sometimes, spontaneous dances are performed. I have observed some young people walking up front and starting to dance “dabke”, a traditional Lebanese dance. People take up the flags which stand along the wall and wave them. One time, during a time of particular political strife, Elias knelt down on the stage and started to cry. This part could be compared to the improvised theater, as “TOP” leaders believe that the Holy Spirit leads them during this time. Following this main part, there are healings, testimonies and announcements intermingled for another half an hour. And at the very end, a formal preaching closes the service. This preaching takes up another 20–30 minutes and is also done at times by Elias’s wife, other leaders or visiting preachers. “TOP’s” worship service is very loud, interactive and unpredictable as there are a lot of variations within the fixed parts.

2.2.2. Approaching ritual from etic and emic perspectives The view of ritual depends on the ontological and methodological commitment of the researcher, as Bruce Kapferer rightly notices: Broadly, my point is that ritual and its particular dynamics is largely relative to the theoretical positions that are taken towards the phenomenon and in which terms the

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phenomenon, to a degree, is constructed for examination. None of this is to say that events that are recognized as rites do not exist […] but that their critical dynamics are often identified through the filter of pre existing theoretical commitments. The definitions of or conceptual orientations towards ritual contain implicit assertions concerning both how ritual organizes action and how ritual may relate to and affect its larger social and political contexts.55

Thus, what a ritual is and how it works depends on the theoretical commitments of the researcher and the concrete empirical angle s/he takes. Bruce Kapferer describes the theoretical approach from the rationalist/secularist point of view in the following way, Structural functionalism and many subsequent positions in anthropology adopt the modernist and rationalist/secularist position that conceives of ritual as a relatively empty phenomenon whose final potency is in the beliefs and practices within which it is embedded.56

The suspicion of rituals as an empty phenomenon stems from the competition between historic religious and secular authorities on the supremacy of meaning. Thus, explaining the function of ritual can serve as a first step to control and therefore replace the ritual as a cohesive social activity without the normative religious framework. Following the Marxist understanding of religion, a ritual is then also seen “as hiding a fundamental emptiness shrouding a potency that really derives from the world external to it.”57 Maurice Bloch exemplifies this approach through his elaborate and lucid ritual theory. He begins with the simple everyday observations about the everyday interactions of people. As people, we live in a historically and culturally constructed world. Due to our human limitations we must act in the everyday without always understanding the reasons for our actions. Thus, a substantial part of our everyday life depends upon trusting other people. Bloch calls this “deference”, defining it as a common aspect of human life. It occurs whenever we do something, or believe something to be true, and rely thereby on the authority of others – something we do constantly.58 While deference is a practice which allows humans to function in their everyday life reasonably without understanding, a problem arises when humans become conscious of this deference and attempt to reasonably trace the origins and reasons for this previously unquestioned trust. Bloch suggests three possible solutions to this practical dilemma. The first possibility is to turn off the 55 56 57 58

Kapferer, 2006, p. 509. Ibid., p. 510. Ibid., p. 508. Bloch, 2006, p. 505.

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“intentionality seeking device”.59 However, as he points out- the “refusal to look for intentionality […] presents the participant with a disappointing propositional thinness”.60 The second possibility consists of tracing back genealogically the origins of deferring. Although this option provides more understanding than the first, the problem of “regressum ad infinitum” arises. If the reflective thinker becomes aware of the difficulty of locating meaning in singular minds and getting lost in “regressum ad infinitum”, s/he then arrives at an innovation: The solution to the problem of wanting to locate meaning without having normal originators of that meaning is to merge all the shadowy transparent figures into one phantasmagoric quasi-person who may be called something like ‘tradition’, ‘the ancestors as a group’, ‘our way of doing things’, our ‘spirit’, our ‘religion’, perhaps even ‘God’. These are entities to which ‘minds’ may be attributed with some degree of plausibility, thus apparently restoring intentional meaning to the goings on of ritual.61

Consequently, Bloch defines rituals as “orgies of conscious deference.”62 The simplicity of Bloch’s theory and its scope of explanation lend it its strength. However, as noted above, his theory and approach to ritual is guided by his ontological commitments which view religion as mere illusion. In his perspective, although the third response to deference is understandable and has practical reasons, it still remains an illusion due to human limitations. Thus ritual, as a religious practice, remains an “opium of the people”63 and the task of the researcher consists in freeing the captivated people from their self made illusion and leading them into concrete socio-economic and political change upon their real life conditions. Stausberg’s summary on the approach of Luhmann applies to Bloch as well, Luhmann’s view of ritual is a typical example of theoretical discourse on ‘rituals’ that makes no attempt to look at them in their own right, in their own terms, from their own premises, but rather uses them to exemplify a point in a different discursive setting.64

While this kind of subsuming the other’s life world into one’s own seems to strengthen one’s ideology, over a long period of time, any worldview unable to understand the other within his/her own framework of reference and recognize the differences, will become self referential. Moreover, Bloch’s theory is self contradictory on his own terms. He seems to favour solution 2 due to his areligious commitment. Bloch is mostly writing within a particular culture with a consensus deferring to the tradition that assumes locating meaning and in59 60 61 62 63 64

Ibid., p. 503. Bloch, 2006, p. 503. Ibid., p. 504. Ibid., p. 506. Marx, 1982, p. 171. Stausberg, 2006, pp. 638–639.

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tentionality within a human rather than in a divine mind is more reasonable. Therefore, he does not give further reasons to this presupposition. On the other hand, a theist could conclude that every theoretical paradigm acquires its normativity within a ritualistic academic setting and therefore can also be defined as an orgy of conscious deference to tradition and communal consensus. For Bloch, God would be the most diffused object of this deference. This assumption is again based on his particular communal orgy of conscious deference. Therefore, it seems that both (tf) and (if) employ rituals which form the communal agreement on meaning and both seem to be reasonable according to their own particular frameworks. Bloch makes very useful and lucid observations on the everyday practical reasonableness of human beings and their response when becoming conscious of deference. However, the spin of his observations is governed by his normative meta-narrative. His lack of reflexivity does not allow him to see his own particularity. Neglecting the narrative plots, which undergird every theoretical approach, Bloch does not further theorise as to why people and theorists like himself use these three solutions in their theories and their everyday practices. Academic reflection works with the assumption of understanding human minds and tracing historical developments of knowledge. At the same time, any understanding must rely on communally presupposed reality such as language, conceptual frameworks etc, which are established through orgies of conscious deference. Within Bloch’s theory, solution 2 can only be sought after and pursued, if prior to it, solution 3 has been performed. Thus, Bloch finds himself in the hermeneutical dilemma of wanting to understand/explain ritual while himself presupposing and actually performing ritual in order to be able to reflexively grasp the very same practice he himself is involved in. While reasoning within the (if) tradition, he must put an end to other alternative sources of meaning such as (tf). How does he eliminate an alternative theoretical deference? He simply naturalises the objects of (tf) deference declaring them as human projections thereby hiding his own deferring practice, creating the illusion of his own reflexive transcendence upon the particular phenomenon he describes. While Bloch’s particular insights, when applied to him, are very useful in order to understand how prior commitments are used in a theoretical discourse in order to understand a new phenomena and subsume the other, his theory of ritual must be extended outside a particular Marxist/naturalist framework. I suggest a theoretical approach to ritual, which can be used by both (tf) and (if) theorists in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of a common world without subsuming the other under a particular theoretical framework. Unlike human minds or propositions, human bodies cannot be easily con-

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tested as human bodies can be perceived more immediately through the senses.65 Therefore, as Thomas pointed out, the acting human bodies must be at the center of ritual: As interaction-based communication, rituals involve bodies. When bodies are moved, cleaned, polluted, inscribed, decorated, etc., they become a medium of communication through which the participants communicate to themselves and to others. For the experiencing person, the utterances in the bodily medium is evident and undeniable; thus understanding and acceptance is in one way or another virtually unavoidable: To reject a self-embodied communication amounts to rejecting one’s own body. In this regard, the use of the body as medium of communication is a very effective functional equivalent to complicate discursive controls on understanding. Anyone who uses the body as a medium does not need to check whether the message is understood by checking the recipient’s ‘insights’. In using the body as medium, the influence on one’s mind takes place through ‘the body in the mind’. In such rituals, anyone who doubts can find physical evidence for casting doubt on one’s doubt.66

Christoph Wulf summarises this position poignantly : “[…] it is the human body, with its gestures and symbolic codes that constitutes the core of ritual settings.”67 While human bodies are in the world, they transcend the world at the same time through imagination of a larger given reality. Rituals are demarcated from the everyday spatio-temporal realms in order to engage in bodily mediation between the world and their meta-narratives. Thus, I define C/P rituals as (1) bodily mediation (2) between divine agency, the text and the Lebanese context within (3) demarcated spatio-temporal realms. Terence Turner, in his essay “Structure, Process, Form”, critiques the opposing views on ritual. On the one side, such theorists as Geertz, following Ricoeur, Heidegger and Nietzsche, focused on the microstructure and subjective meaning thus neglecting the wider structure. The implication of this approach is to elevate the importance of the creative interpreter over that of the author, culture, performer or social context of the ‘text’ as the determining source of its meaning.68

On the other hand, structuralists like Levi-Strauss tend to ignore the meaning of rituals.69 Turner points out the complementary view of meaning and structure:

65 However, the nature of the human body can also be contested from Philosophical and Sociological angles. See: Gugutzer, 2015, pp. 12–20. 66 Günther, 2006, p. 338. 67 Wulf, 2006, p. 397. 68 Turner, 2006, p. 231. 69 Ibid., p. 228.

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To bring together these social, structural and processual aspects in a non-reductionist approach to interpretative meaning requires reconsidering the distinctive features of ritual as a specific type of activity.70

I take Turner’s critique as a starting point in developing my definition of ritual. However, his critique lacks a concrete view on how structure, process and meaning of a ritual must be viewed in relation to one another. Within my definition above, the mediating body is embedded in the social structure. The socio-material world shapes the ritual. At the same time, the body also acts and reinvents the ritual; the process also contains potentialities for creative innovation of the ritual form. Thus, I arrive at the same conclusion as Turner, that “the structure is the form of the process and the process directly consists of the structure.”71 Catherine Bell advocates as well for an “interactive process” where “the ritual is created through the body, but the ritual as such is more then individual bodies and shapes the individual bodies in return.”72 Bell critiques the limitation imposed when priority is given to either the body or the ritual and advocates instead for “a more complex theory of social constructionism – one in which there is no unconstructed priority granted to either ritual or the body.”73 I agree with Bell, that the most fruitful approach is to look at the processes. The main focus of my study is to look at the processual actions of demarcation and mediation. However, the goal of avoiding “unconstructed priority” is a wishful academic ideal due to the bodily embeddedness of academic thinking. While strong, dogmatic essentialism must be avoided, a moderate, non-deterministic version of essentialism is unavoidable for any understanding and critical social science.74 Thus, acknowledging the reality which exists independently from a human mind leads to a more fruitful reflection as it honestly uncovers the bodily beginnings of reflection. The beginning point of reflection, whether micro or macro analysis, depends on the theoretical commitments of the researcher. I prefer beginning from the individual and communal bodies of ritual performers as I believe that this beginning allows for a higher degree of certainty as particular human bodies are more concrete than abstractions of social structures. Moreover, the advantages are obvious: Ritual is seen as a basic human activity, independent from either (tf) or (if). There is no primary supremacy between the researcher and the ritual performer as both engage in ritual behaviour. The only difference remains as to how the ritual is demarcated and performed, which is shaped by prior (tf) or (if) 70 71 72 73 74

Ibid., p. 234. Ibid., p. 246. Bell, 2006, p. 539. Ibid., p. 539. Andrew Sayer makes a convincing case for such a moderate form of essentialism in: Sayer, 2000, pp. 81–102.

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commitments. Therefore, while the ritual is recognizable, the ritual activity can only be meaningful within the larger embedding in the social reality relating to the everyday actions of the performers. My reflection on the ritual was triggered by a particular encounter with Elias, who was a drummer for an up-and-coming Lebanese rock band at the beginning of the 90’s. With the civil war officially over, it was a time of perceived new beginnings and new opportunities in Beirut. Around this time, Elias converted to a C/P expression. When I asked him for an in interview, he replied that we could meet in “City Mall”, which is one of the largest shopping malls in Beirut along the main coastal highways. Elias liked this place as it was a place he often came to with the youth to pray for people and experience miracles of healing and change of behaviour and attitudes. While sipping our coffee and overlooking the Mediterranean Sea with the silhouette of the Beirut skyline in view, I knew Elias had to leave soon for another church prayer meeting, so I asked him: “Could you summarize in a few sentences what worship is like for you?” He paused, a bit confused and replied: “I make weekend seminars on worship, how can I do it in a few sentences?” Then he smiled and said, “Worship is like making love to your wife, you know […] you set up the atmosphere, you are romantic and then you enjoy each other. Worship is like sex.” Ronald L. Grimes suggests beginning the study of ritual with surfaces and bodies, as embodied images guide our reasoning: Images, especially performed ones, are more effective than theories at actually challenging dominant, popular ideas of ritual. Hence, it is essential that we who think of ourselves as theorists attend to the images, both latent and manifest, that inhabit our theories.75

Elias’ embodied metaphor guided my theoretical definition of C/P rituals as demarcating and mediating bodily activity.

2.2.3. Demarcating ritual The C/P ritual is not always instantly recognizable as the C/P movement seeks to subvert the physical separation between the ritual and the everyday life. The C/P believers seek to overcome the confinement of the divine to specific buildings and ritualistic particular set forms. They critique the rituals of the established churches as “empty”. Emptiness refers both to the mental detachment of those who perform the rituals and the ineffectiveness of these rituals to change the everyday behaviour of the ritual participants. Since C/P rituals can be reenacted 75 Grimes, 2006, p. 392.

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everywhere and in any place, it presents a challenge to demarcate a ritual from and within everyday actions in order to be recognizable, as Laidlaw and Humphrey noticed: We emphasize the fact that rituals are composed of many actions that can and frequently are often done in non-ritualized ways in other contexts. Thus an adequate analysis of ritual must provide an answer to the question of what is the difference between an action performed so to speak ‘normally’ and the same action when it is ritualized.76

The difference is, as Turner rightly remarks, that the ritual is an “activity that frames itself as ritual”.77 With this distinction, the ritual action is rooted in the everyday while remaining recognizable as such in relation to the wider meaningful structure. At the same time, the process of demarcation and ritual enactment also sets this framed activity apart from the everyday. Thus, describing the demarcation process in relation to the wider social structure brings together the “social, structural and processual aspects in a non-reductionst approach”.78 The C/P believers emphasize the continuous relation to God through the relation with and mediation of the Holy Spirit. However, the ritual serves as an intensification of this divine presence in their everyday. The ritual space and time is, so to speak, beyond the immediate biological bodily functions. Through this transcending act of a particular body larger views from biblical metanarratives are evoked, which in turn shape the everyday. Thus ritual serves as an effective means to transcend the immediate physical realities in order to create a larger explanation and understanding of reality through bodily and mental activity. While all humans, in order to connect to the larger meaning structure, demarcate a specific space and time, how this happens depends on specific cultural conditions. The intensification of the divine experience is evoked through the vocal performance. In the traditional Churches, the ritual is marked through the sacred space, specific material objects like the clothing of the priest and sensual stimulation like for example the burning of incense. Since the C/P movement emphasizes the presence of the Holy Spirit everywhere, they also attempt to make every space a ritual site. However, the making sacred of the profane space requires continuity and creativity of the bodily performance. Since the ritual relies solely on the body of the C/P believer, the ritual is not perceived as something external to the body of the believer which must be entered. Instead, the dependence of the ritual on the bodily demarcation makes the believer aware 76 Laidlaw and Humphrey, 2006, p. 275. 77 Turner, 2006, p. 235. 78 Ibid., p. 234.

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of his body as the site of the ritual and as a mediating object between the divine realities and the socio-cultural and material conditions around him/her. The most common demarcation practices are prayer and music. The C/P leader addresses Jesus/the Holy Spirit in a direct way and declares his presence: “Jesus, thank you for being here”, “Holy Spirit, come and heal us” or “Holy Spirit, reveal yourself”. Some participants change their bodily posture by opening up their arms or swaying gently side to side. Although one does not visually perceive the divine agent, through the direct conversation and the changed bodily movement, the agency of the Holy Spirit is expressed through the changed body posture. Often, the prayers are accompanied by gentle meditative music, which relaxes the body and allows the participants to focus on the presence of the divine. Moreover, the music synchronizes the individual bodies into a communal whole evoking a sense of togetherness and transforming the mundane environment into the sacred space. Repetitive prayers and music break with the chronological, focused bodily movement of the everyday. Some have reported that during the “soaking in the Spirit” they lose a sense of time. There seems to be another dimension of timelessness, a divine reality, a transcendence of the temporal confinement for the believers. The similar movement of bodies and the constant repetitive prayers and music create a sense of oneness, as if the body is enveloped into a larger communal body. While participating in the C/P rituals, I lose the strong perception of my individual body and am able to comprehend better the accounts of feeling the Holy Spirit’s presence inside and outside at the same time, enveloping the entire community into his realness. In the everyday environment, the bodily movements are always in response to the external triggers and remain distinct from other bodies. In C/P rituals, while the individual movements are still recognizable, the entire community moves and choreographs a group movement similar to the one in political demonstrations or music concerts. The demarcation requires a continuous bodily activity. In the traditional churches, the body, while also involved in ritual activity, is not viewed as the central mediating point of ritual. The ritual happens, whether the believers participate or not. The setting and prescribed liturgy will happen as representation of God’s immovable will and his transcendence of particular human will and actions. The message of this ritual form conveys a transcendent reality, the individual believer feels himself within an unmoved universal structure as an observer. While the traditional ritual offers the individual body a sense of belonging, the side effect is the mental floating energy when the body habitually performs the prior outlined ritual actions. I have observed people playing with their phones while repeating liturgy. The individual will and intention is not involved and can therefore be directed towards other ends than the ones evoked through the ritual.

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The C/P focus on demarcation intends to absorb this free floating energy and engage the communal body and individual minds. The demarcation is not done by an expert alone such as a priest, but by participants as well. Every one is free to pray and there is an outlined space for individual bodily movement. A physical demarcation line, like in the traditional churches, provides stability to the ritual and habitual, non-reflexive bodily participation. When the believer enters the church s/he enters a reality distinct from his/her everyday space. Most Lebanese attend church during main holidays and learn habitually ritualistic behaviour. On the contrary, if the body becomes the main agent of demarcation the believer’s body undergoes an ambiguous experience of tension between the everyday and the sacred spheres. Although the believers seek to establish the sacredness of the everyday life they still maintain a demarcation line between the sacred and profane. Once, I observed Mary’s brother-in-law step into the room in the middle of prayer and ask for the car keys in a loud voice. Several members looked a bit perplexed and Mary quickly got up and waved to her brother-in-law to leave the room. The stark contrast between the perceived presence of the Holy Spirit and such a mundane task as looking for car keys seemed to confuse several members. This example underlines the ambiguity of C/P ritual demarcation. While the body is more active, as it becomes the site of the ritual, the side effect of this may be the “trivializing” of the ritual. With the gain of extending the ritual into the profane, the profane is also allowed into the ritual through the body and the everyday setting. While performing a C/P ritual at home brings the sacred into the heart of a Lebanese communal belonging, which is a family, the believers’ bodies must learn to experience the ritualistic form in a setting which is usually devoid of any sacred reference. Sometimes, the leader had to speak loudly in order to summon the attention of members who fall back into a socializing mood, chatting and laughing, ignoring the focused ritual transition. In the Lebanese setting, it is also not uncommon, that unexpected visitors drop in for a visit. I have observed that this situation created awkwardness for some C/P members as they could not focus on the visitors as the cultural expectation would require of them. Similarly, the visitors were a bit confused as they lacked a category for understanding what was taking place at home. However, as demarcation must be continuously performed, the body never falls into passivity and the energy and ongoing creativity are experienced not merely as internal to the individual body, but as the effect of the external agency of the Holy Spirit within the body.

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2.2.4. Internal cohesion through narrative performance Ritual becomes distinct from the everyday through the demarcation actions of the body within the material culture. I call this demarcation practice “external framing” as it involves framing from the everyday. However, a ritual is also framed “internally”, which brings unity to various ritualistic elements and creates an internal frame to otherwise differing actions. Don Handelman accurately observes that the “ritual frame is not an a priori-the frame does not exist until the frame comes into existence through the practice of framing.”79 Thus, the external and internal structuring creates a C/P ritual. Furthermore, Handelman recognizes that the rituals he observed are held together through a movement and relatedness of particular ritualistic pieces: However, closer to the existential realities of these rituals is that all of the ‘elements’ are braided together in different patterns, the braids changing, becoming thicker, thinner, denser, shallower, the elements moving into and through one another […] and for these braidings of what we think of as ‘elements’ discretely unlike one another we still lack a conceptual language. Accustomed to separating out elements, to distinguishing between modes of expression, in order to discuss them in discrete categories, we are at a loss when facing their intricate, fluid braidings.80

Handelman searches for a “conceptual language”, a paradigm in order to be able to represent this internal fluidity of rituals. While there is internal fluidity, the ritual parts also convey a unity, as Williams & Boyd notice: “The result is that the heterogeneous set of spaces, gestures, sounds, and objects strongly, redundantly, and uniquely convey a sense of integration […].”81 Gladigow evokes time as a structuring element of various single ritualistic elements. “As a rule rituals are not determined by an ‘open accumulation’ of ritual elements (rites), but have a ‘structure’ that possesses a beginning and an end that is recognizable to actors and spectators.”82 Further, Gladigow evokes the multiple possibilities of arranging the parts toward a complex and polyphonic whole: A special problem of a ‘unity’ of a complex ritual (in contrast to an open stringing together of elements) lies in the different ways of integrating diverse levels in the sequence of ritual events: the patterns of movement (the motor level), the staging of visual elements (the optical level), cultic sounds and music (the acoustic level), and the use of language or tituli (the declamatory level).83

79 80 81 82 83

Handelman, 2006, p. 581. Ibid., p. 581. Williams and Boyd, 2006, p. 293. Gladigow, 2006, p. 483. Ibid., p. 484.

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Handelman, Williams & Boyd and Gladigow acknowledge certain elements of the internal frame of rituals such as fluidity and yet relatedness and unity, time structure and complexity due to multiple possibilites of organising the single parts of a whole ritual. I share their observations and propose a narrative paradigm as a conceptual tool for describing internal framing of C/P ritual. Employing the metaphor used by Handelman, the narrative is the thread which holds the single braids together. An advantage to the narrative approach to ritual is the avoidance of sacred/secular dichotomies. Turner observes, that the new work on ritual: […] is less concerned with ritual as a religious phenomenon affording insights into the nature of the sacred than with ritual as a social process concerned with the production of social identities and powers.84

According to my definition, the distinction between the sacred and secular becomes a matter of a narrative plot and not of qualitative difference. Therefore, the view of ritual as outlined above can be applied both to (tf) and (if). With the narrative as the core structure of C/P rituals, the performance can be viewed as mediation between the cultural and biblical scripts. This mediation engages and transforms the emotions of participants. [E]motions are a motivating force because they not only order people’s subjective experiences, they also energize their response and give these responses direction. From a sociological perspective, Randall Collins (1990) uses the term emotional energy as a way of discussing how emotion drives behaviour.85

The emotional intensity of C/P rituals has often been noted. In order to understand the strong ritual C/P participation and the emotional energy, which persists well beyond a particular ritual experience and causes change in the everyday behaviour, the origin of these emotions must be further analyzed within a particular intersection between cultural and biblical performed scripts. The entire C/P worship is structured as a dramatic narrative which confronts current cultural narratives and picks up the individual in his present, often negative emotional state in order to transform him/her towards the experience of the divine, which is associated with a positive emotional state. “Dramatism apprehends the world as an event or action rather than as a thing, machine or text-free metaphors that suffuse Western cosmologies and theories.”86 This emotional narrative of transformation, although made up of various ritual parts, is then experienced as a unified experience, which carries and causes a sense of self-coherence. Often, the metaphor of “breaking free” from the old, static past is 84 Turner, 2006, p. 208. 85 Turner and Stets, 2005, pp. 10–11. 86 Grimes, 2006, p. 383.

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employed. The ritual participant experiences movement in contrast to the static everyday routinized experience. Within the sociology of emotions exists a general consensus that happiness, fear, anger and sadness are primary emotions.87 Thus, the internal unity of C/P ritual consists in the narrative transformation of fear, anger and sadness into happiness. C/P participants come from diverse socio-economic and political backgrounds and the goal is to pull everyone into participation and provide transformation of the previous emotional state. Most C/P groups I have visited use music in order to speak to the emotional state of participants. Usually, soft, harmonious music and individual prayers create a relaxing atmosphere. Each participant enters this atmosphere individually and yet there is a communal atmosphere which is created. At “AL” people stretch out their arms, a few even laugh uncontrollably. At the house meetings, people lie down or kneel on the floor. Through these gestures the believers feel surrender in their bodies. Moreover, the gentle tunes, melodic voices and the swaying movement of the body creates a sense of a united whole. The believer participates individually by using his/her own body. Yet individual bodies also create a communal framework of reference through the expectation caused by other bodies performing certain actions. The overall bodily form is created through the individual movements and the knowledge of the accepted bodily behaviour is transmitted not through direct words, but the sensual experience of the individual through the music and movements of the bodies around him. In their narratives, C/P members identify different emotional states which prevented them from initially entering the C/P ritual. One of the recurrent emotions was fear. People have experienced the collapse of the known world around them and subsequently their lives over a very short time. Some shared with me that fear lead them to be highly controlling over themselves and other people. Therefore it was very hard for them to let go of the control over their bodies. The fear is reinforced in the Christian community through the constant narrative of “power loss”. Christians feel besieged by the Muslim community, which, if the Shia’s and Sunni are counted in, are in a majority position. This fear is existential as they feel on the losing end economically, politically and socially. Theodor Hanf describes the fear of each sectarian community as a driving force for the enduring civil war.88 The tactics of the different militia during the civil war was often to instil fear into the civil population by destruction of property and the killing of civilians. The goal was to bully the opposing militia into giving up power.89 87 Turner and Stets, 2005, p. 11. 88 Hanf, 1990, pp. 15–21. 89 Ibid., p. 460.

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Another prevalent feeling towards the end of the civil war was helplessness and resignation paired with the fear of the future.90 In particular, many young people felt angry. Although educated, they were often disempowered due to the clientelist culture and high unemployment. Some young adults reported to me that they were depressed and first overwhelmed by the loud music and dancing around them within EC as they only saw their own anger and shut out the world around them. However, their anger was transformed into passionate commitment. Schieffelin views the emotion of anger as a driving force upon the individual to the physical commitment towards deep focus and a high degree of ritual participation: If deep focus is a matter of concentration of attention, deep commitment is its partner in the domain of directed motivational energy – which lends a tireless and determined direction to deep focus. Frequently found sources of motivational energy are aggression or anger […] hunger for ‘meaningfulness’91

Many young people are angry and frustrated about the current conditions and are searching for a way forward. C/P rituals offer them a particular expression of emotional release. At the same time, their emotional release is also a way of entering the C/P ritual. One example of this is shouting or the “laughter of the Lord.” During the “MwG”, I observed one of the leaders pulling out a horn and making a very loud sound. Some were a bit confused and smiled embarrassingly. On another occasion, during worship, the worship leader started to shout and burst into seemingly uncontrollable laughter. Again, some participants seemed to be embarrassed and looked up to the main leader who continued worship without interruption. One of the leaders emailed an article later on to all the participants providing a theological explanation, which included the following: Apparently there are times in our spiritual lives when extreme emotion and pumpedup volume are necessary. Shouting is an act of faith that can break the power of fear, doubt, heaviness and grief. When the devil has turned up the volume of his clamorous attacks, we must retaliate by lifting our voices in raucous praise.92

C/P believers view negative emotions as hindrances which need to be overcome by positive emotions. These negative emotions must be broken through physical action. By verbalising the inner state and shouting them out, the believer feels as if these negative emotions leave his body. I have observed that the lower the socio-economic and political status of the C/P group, such as for example migrant workers from the Phillipines, the louder the ritual is performed. In particular, in the beginning stage of the C/P service, the ritual offers the otherwise 90 Ibid., p. 585. 91 Schieffelin, 2006, p. 621. 92 Grady, 2009.

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voiceless and unseen minorities to be seen through the expression of their bodies and to be heard through their loud shouting. The loudest groups were the Armenian minorities in the “AL” church and the C/P migrant workers I visited. In particular, in the “AL” church the music seems almost aggressive as the young people jump with their fists pumping in the air. In the migrant C/P church with domestic workers, the women cried expressing their sadness and anger and even at times threw themselves on the floor. Several times, I heard the expression “empty yourself before the Lord”. Dancing, shouting and prostrating of the body offers the participants a stage to free themselves from oppressive emotions which hinder them in their self expressivity. There is also a macro-level relation between the emotional intensity and expressivity of C/P rituals and the larger socio-economic structure. Describing Arlie Hochschild’s theory, Turner & Stets point out, that “culture is composed of emotion ideologies about appropriate attitudes, feelings, and emotional response in basic spheres of activity […].”93 The tension arises when the actual feelings of the individual contradict these socially imposed emotion ideologies. The individual encounters this tension through “emotional labour”, which consists of body work, surface acting, deep acting and cognitive work.94 This emotion work is intensified within “[c]omplex social systems with hierarchies of authority, or market systems forcing sellers of goods and providers of services to act in certain ways to customers who have more latitude in expression of emotions, are likely to generate situations where individuals must engage in emotion work. Because these types of systems are more typical of industrial and postindustrial societies, Hochschild sees modernity as dramatically increasing the amount of emotion work that people must perform. Such work is always costly because people must, to some degree, repress their ‘true emotions’ as they try to present themselves in ways demanded by the cultural script.”95

The geographic location of Lebanon between Europe, Asia and Africa, made it traditionally a favourable trading centre. The rapid economic post war transformation catapulted the country into modernity with its cross pressures between traditional roles and modern global values. These cross pressures touch all aspects of Lebanese life. The repression of true feelings unloads itself on the roads as Lebanon is known for very aggressive traffic. Migrant workers are not only involved in very hard manual labour, they must also work very hard in emotional labour as the tension between the positive feelings they must outwardly display and the negative feelings resulting from daily abuses create bodily pressures which at times result in various mental illnesses and in some cases, even suicides. Similarly, Armenians as refugees to Lebanon often engage in 93 Turner and Stets, 2005, p. 36. 94 Ibid., p. 38. 95 Turner and Stets, 2005, p. 40.

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business with high emotional work as a result. Both for Lebanese and nonLebanese C/P participants, the rituals offer an avenue to release their emotions, to take a break from the emotional labour they must perform daily. As the negative feelings are bodily released, new positive feelings are evoked and enacted. At the “CN” meeting one of the leaders shared the following story : “There were two brothers who could not stand each other. One of them travelled away and asked a mason to build a wall between them. However, the mason wanted to reconcile them and built a bridge instead. The brother came back and saw the bridge between the two houses. He was so moved that he walked over to his brother, hugged him, confessed all his anger and mistrust and asked him for forgiveness.”

After the story, the leader concluded: Prayer is like a bridge between people. If you feel like you wronged someone or there is no peace between you, just come into the middle and allow your brother to lay his hand on your shoulder and pray for you.

As a response, almost all of the around 70 participants streamed to the centre, laid their hands on each others shoulders and prayed for each other. The story told was instantly enacted. As Michael Houseman observed, […] “rituals do not tell stories; they enact particular realities”.96 The physical touch and closeness in the group conveyed a physical experience of togetherness within the group. Any group develops internal personal disagreements. The physical ritual of touching each other creates a physical reality of interconnectedness and thus mutual trust. Hanf remarks that the researched level of mistrust between neighbours and in the realm of work is unusual within a society such as Lebanon, which is shaped more by personal contacts than anonym-functional relations.97 As seen in the account above, the embodied story of trust undermined the prevalent feeling of distrust. Christoph Wulf points out the closeness of bodily gestures and emotions: Often the content of a ritually expressed gesture is more closely connected to the speaker’s emotions than are his spoken words. Gestures are thus held to express more ‘reliably’ a human being’s inner life than words, which are to a greater extent subject to more conscious control.98

The bodily performance engages primarily emotional ideologies and transforms these into a new emotional reservoir of positive feelings. These function as emotional energy which pushes the body towards repeating behaviour inside and outside of the ritual framework. The participant is released with a positive emotion of happiness. 96 Houseman, 2006, p. 414. 97 Hanf, 1990, p. 584. 98 Wulf, 2006, p. 401.

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The C/P ritual is framed internally through the narrative performance, during which some fundamental human emotions are engaged and transformed through the narrative of drama. The resulting emotional energy triggers a high participation. However, in order to understand further C/P intensity of actions, the understanding of agency, as embodied within rituals, must be further looked at as it differs from the common philosophical presuppositions, questions and approaches in looking at human agency.

2.2.5. Agency, body and text 2.2.5.1. Approaching agency from etic and emic perspectives P. Ricoeur summarizes poignantly the predominant hermeneutical view of the text.99 Accordingly, the rich life experience is narrowed down to speech which is then codified into a written form. The written form in reducing the rich experience becomes passive and reductionist. However, the text then can be reactualized and brought back to life through particular speech acts and performances. By using the metaphor of “life”, Ricoeur implies that the written, codified speech is “dead” until it is reenacted and brought to life through the human body. Ricoeur mentions two mediatory acts in a typical Protestant manner : Reading the text and preaching it. This understanding of the text as a result of human life, which refers to past experience and can be decoded and brought back to its former potency in the present presupposes an acting human agent. At this point Ricoeur’s summary entails some unarticulated presuppositions in relation to human agency. I will attempt to shed light on the assumed background categories of agency beginning with philosophy of action and continue this analysis to include the C/P perspective. In explaining the communication process between a text and human actions, Ricoeur presupposes some key characteristics of human agency. Using a broad definition, “agency refers to the socio-culturally mediated capacity to act”.100 Within the philosophy of action, there are numerous attempts to define the nature of action. Wilson outlines certain features of human agency : “Hence, the basis of any discrimination between minimal agency and non-active within the extended causal chains will have to rest on some special feature of the person’s guidance: the supposed ‘directness’ of the motor control, the immediacy or relative 99 Ricoeur, 2005, p. 157. 100 Ahearn, 2001, p. 112. For fuller discussion on agency see: Ahearn, 2001, pp. 109–131. Kockelman, 2007, pp. 375–399.

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certainty of the agent’s expectations about actions vs. results, or facts concerning the special status the agent’s living body.”101

One of the key characteristics of human action is the intention or the purposefulness of an action. Intention presupposes a self conscious agent who is aware of himself and the consequences of his action. Thus, purposeful action presupposes a self conscious agent who directs his body. Due to empirical evidence, the action is traced from inside the body, starting with the mind/brain to the outside surface of the body. Although “there is plenty of disagreement about where basic agency starts and stops, whether within the agent’s body or somewhere on its surface”102, the overall research seems to emphasize the empirical evidence of an action beginning with neural brain activity, muscular contractions to the measurable effects which are caused by bodily movements. The commonality of such a view of agency suggests the beginning of reflection and observation from the empirically available human body. However, one of the key metaphysical questions which must then be asked is “how the contents of attitudes can be among the causal factors that produce behaviour.”103 The problem of dualism, on the relation between the immaterial (content propositions) and material (behaviour), resurfaces. Wilson attempts to avoid the reduction of the reason explanations of action merely to physical causes, and instead aims at establishing both “non-causal reason explanations” as co-existing with neural analyses of the “causes of behaviour.”104 Wilson does not expound further how this co-existence can be understood and whether Ockham’s razor would apply here. The puzzlements of intention, of what constitutes an action, where action begins and ends, and the problem of dualism in the philosophy of action arises from specific presuppositions. These unarticulated presuppositions maintain the priority of the material, which can be empirically verified and therefore the direction of agency as beginning from inside the human body. Within the C/P paradigm, the understanding of agency rests on different presuppositions all together. Consequently, since the background of understanding differs, the answers, which are given for agency, differ substantially as well. I will exemplify these basic assumptions of C/P agency based on a particular observation at one of the “AL” services. One of the Pentecostal female leaders from Madagaskar who also attended “AL”, invited some domestic workers to participate in the service. She told me prior to the service, that some of the “maids”, as she called them, were involved in witchcraft in order to control their abusive employers. The domestic workers in Lebanon are often abused as they 101 102 103 104

Wilson & Shpall, 2012. Wilson & Shpall, 2012. Ibid. Ibid.

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lack rights and lobbying groups. There are only a few NGO’s and churches which advocate for them and offer them practical help. Harris quotes the September 2010 Human Rights Watch in its reporting “detailed abuse and slave labor conditions.”105 During the service, one of the domestic workers did not get up and join others in the C/P worship. Instead, she remained seated on the bench. After a few minutes into the ritual, she bowed down, her body beginning to shake as she cried. The Lebanese pastor approached her and asked her to get up. Several people, including the leader from Madagaskar, gathered around as well and laid their hands on the woman. Then the pastor laid his hand on her forehead and prayed a deliverance prayer in the following manner : “In the name of Jesus, I command you, Spirit X (the name of the evil spirit is usually identified by name), to get out!” The domestic worker’s muscles got very tense, she sank backwards and the women around her laid her down on the floor. Her body began to shake seemingly uncontrollably and she clenched her fists. The group surrounding her continued to pray. After a few minutes the woman opened her eyes, smiled, her body relaxed and stood up. The group around her started to shout, dance and clap their hands expressing joy. The “delivered” woman joined them and then later shared a testimony how the abuse in her “madam’s house” caused her to look for magic in order to harm her in reverse and how she opened herself up for evil spirits who controlled her mind and body. Setting aside the problem of shared agency for the moment, the ritual understanding of C/P agency differs significantly from Wilson’s philosophical analysis, which presupposes (if) background of understanding. In the C/P view, the human actions, whether mind/brain or bodily actions, are viewed as coacting with the divine, non-human agents. The direction of actions is viewed not only from within the human body, but also as beginning from outside the body. The line can not be clearly drawn as to where the action starts and ends, if the acting human body is perceived as a medium between non-material causes. In Wilson’s analysis, an action is causally or non-causally related to reasons and teleological explanations. This is also the case within the C/P worldview as I have written extensively in the chapter on testimony. However, the reasons for actions in the C/P view lie deeper than the individual’s own ability to articulate consciously their intentions and reasons for action. At the deepest level, which is seen as spiritual and expresses the relation of humans to the triune God, humans are perceived as inherently fallen, which holds that humans are in a state of separation from God and therefore are naturally inclined to be and do evil. Evil is an internal attitude of resisting the loving triune God. Due to the state of deceptiveness at the deepest spiritual level, humans are not in total control of their 105 Harris, 2006, p. 275.

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intentions, motivations and consequently, actions. Moreover, often, humans rationalize their evil intentions and consciously believe their explanations even though they serve as a form of self deception. In the example above, the woman felt justified in casting a spell on her employer due to the injustices she experienced. However in the C/P view, the seemingly just action was a means towards a larger evil, which was opening herself up to the harming activity of the evil spirit on her life and her environment. According to the C/P view, the human being can not be conceptualized without his relation towards the triune God. Due to his relational dependency, any view of his self determination and assertion is viewed as evil. Therefore, to assign certain attributes like volition and intention solely to the human person alone is already evil and misleading within the C/P understanding of agency. Human intention can only truly be his/hers when in harmony with the action of the Holy Spirit and directed towards divine purposes. The self is always seen as co-acting: Either with the evil or with the good. Therefore, the ritual performance is aimed at transforming the deepest spiritual reality, which includes the will of the actor, towards the action of the Holy Spirit. Paradoxically, the person must therefore, consciously release control in order to gain full control over his/her life. In the example above, the person had to come to the ritual and allow the pastor to pray for her in order for her to experience the loss of control and thereby, regain control over her internal state and bodily functions. In the process, she was freed to join others in the ritual expression of joy. Visible external transformations like a relaxed happy facial expression, straight body posture in contrast to one cast down, a higher degree of emotional and bodily energy, are interpreted as results of inner transformation. Agency is not simply seen as a relation between the acting person and the goal of the action. The relation becomes more complex as action must be viewed in relation to the acting person, the goal of the action and the divine agent, who could be co-acting either with the human, or the non-human parts of the ritual, like the text. Within the C/P conception of agency, most of the puzzlements discussed in the philosophy of action disappear and instead new questions arise. Self-consciousness and therefore knowledge of one’s actions is always seen as partial to the backdrop of unconscious, subverted desires which must be illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The C/P agent always sees him/herself as acting in relation to the divine agent and other humans. This action in relation does not restrict action to certain directedness as in the inside-outside direction. Instead, the action of the mind/brain can also be a result of the exterior bodily experience of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can also trigger actions through the mind. Thus, the dualist problem within the philosophy of action disappears within the C/P view of action. The immaterial being such as the Holy Spirit can cause material action. Although the material is seen as causing action, the final cause of

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every action is viewed as immaterial despite the constant use of the body and the material culture composing the ritual. This C/P understanding of agency also influences how the text is used in the C/P rituals. Mainline churches in Europe would agree with Ricoeur’s view of the text. Thus, the bible is viewed as a historical record of God’s history with his people, which must be applied by the preacher through prior historical-critical exegesis in order to determine the original historical context and meaning of the text. Thus, the past experience of people with God becomes alive once again through the reading and preaching. Karl Barth, a noted German Protestant theologian, remarks, that the bible is not different from any other literary records. He even contends that in Goethe’s “Faust” or other texts from other religions, there is more uplifting (Erbauung) content.106 However, Barth does give room for divine agency. Due to God’s sovereignty and indeterminacy, the divine agency is completely outside of human availability (unverfuegbar). Due to his sovereign grace, God can reveal himself through the biblical scriptures. Thus, in these specific moments of revelatory events the human text becomes a means of divine revelation to the reader or preacher. Karl Barth attempts to give justice to the treatment of biblical scriptures within (if) methodology while at the same time introducing divine agency through the revelatory event. However, the divine agency is completely outside of the human realm. Karl Barth sees this interpretation of human-divine agency as a benefit, so the divine can not be manipulated through human illusions.107 His position in securing God’s “otherness” was largely motivated by the historical setting of Nazi Germany, where the majority of German protestant churches succumbed to the Nazi ideology. Within Barth’s understanding, the interpretation and application of the text can be completely understood within the (if), while God can still reveal himself and intervene within and through the text. Ironically, while Barth wants to preserve the independency of God’s agency from human manipulation, he limits divine agency to random interventions within the outlined space of his own theological system. Contrary to this understanding of agency and use of the biblical text in western mainline churches, Paul Gifford writes about the performative and proclamative use of biblical scriptures in the Pentecostal churches of Africa: It is not just a record of covenants and commitments to others in the past. It is not primarily a historical document at all – it is a contemporary document; it tells of God’s promises to me. It tells my story ; it explains who I am. […] The Bible is covenant and commitment to me, and to me now.108 106 Barth, 1970, KD. 1.2., p. 549 107 Barth, 1970, KD. 1.2., p. 589. 108 Gifford, 2008, p. 206.

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While Gifford rightly notices the different use of the scriptures, he does not touch upon the Pentecostal understanding of God’s agency. He merely describes the effect of such performative use of the scriptures without asking further questions as to why the text is seen as addressing the person seemingly unmediated through the historic gap. At the “AL” Church the speaker preached on the fall of Jericho, saying: If you say the words from the bible, you are not just saying any words. You are saying the words of God! You are using God’s weapon against the devil! God is with us not because I am good, but because he is good. If you blow the horn, the Lord will fight for you! On the wall of Jericho people laughed about them, but they were obedient to God! If you do the war, just blow the horn! And God will fight for us. In 1 Corinthians: who is a spiritual child, the one who can handle only milk? Children can not talk. And spiritual children can not talk about spiritual war. Prayer in tongues will not do. You can just say in any language, ‘evil spirit, in the name of Jesus get out!’ You do war with the words. You hit with words! You blow the horn so you can remember that God is with you. If you speak the words of God, the kingdom of the devil will be shaken!

The action of the Holy Spirit is viewed as not restricted by time and space. Viewing God as outside of time and space and yet acting within these parameters through his spirit, the historic dimension of the scriptures becomes less relevant as the word acquires a non historic potency. Moreover, God, as creator of the material world, is also able to move through the material world. Thus, C/P preachers do not make a clear distinction between the “human” and “divine” part of the world, which in the case of Karl Barth is related to each other through the postulated “revelation event”. Within the C/P perspective, the Holy Spirit is continuously acting within the human person and the effects of the words, in this case of the biblical text, do not solely depend on the human performance. Instead, the effect of the text is believed to come from the continuous agency of the Holy Spirit through the text. The line between a “dead letter”109 and the living, divine enacted word reality can not be drawn, but must be lived out in a relational performance. Just like the human body is viewed as dead without relational dependency upon God as the source of all of life, so the text is also dead without the Holy Spirit. Therefore, human beings can not control the line between human and divine through his/her own methodology and performance. Instead, God is seen as the continuous acting, powerful, into life transforming, agent. And as the human joins him, s/he begins to experience the life of the spirit both within his/her body and the text, both of which impacts his/her life. This event is not under the control of the preacher/participant who both experiences 109 Biblical use of the term “dead letter” implies a mere static word without the agency of the Holy Spirit. Ricoeur evokes this metaphor through his discussion of the text coming alive through performance.

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the divine agency through the text as well as outside the text. Once the human/ divine realm is clearly outlined, as is the case in the Protestant tradition, these spheres then must be related to each other, as Barth does through postulating an “Offenbarungsereignis”, which then outlines clear control mechanisms through propositional theological systems. Understanding is a desire to be in control, as understanding requires a disciplined self with a certain closure of concepts. Methodological reflection in approaching the text in order to be able to reproduce the original intention of the text highlights the desire of the self conscious interpreter for control by keeping distance through self reflective practice. The control is possible as the text does not change; only interpretations of the text do. On the contrary, the C/P believers view the text not as a dead material object, but as speech acts of a personal divine agent, namely the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in preaching, C/P preachers often do not speak about the text, but they repeat the text as a speech directed at them by God. That is why the narrative of the Old Testament is preached as if God commands the listeners in “AL” to shout in order to break the walls, just like he did thousands of years ago to the Israelites. And since the Holy Spirit speaks into every situation, with personal insight, each biblical text can acquire a multitude of possible contextual meanings which are all divine and inspired by the Holy Spirit as normative for specific people and situations. This understanding of agency influences as well the style of preaching and the ritual participation. Due to the indeterminacy and speech act nature of the text the desire to control the text is abandoned. It is much harder to control a conversation in comparison to a text, as one of the dialogue partners can not read the mind of the other. The speaking is then always a response and continuous relational reference. Similarly, the ritual actions of the C/P believers are performed as responses to the previous speech acts of the Holy Spirit, which can be mediated through scripture and preachers, or unmediated, as a direct experience with a loose link to some scriptural passage. Sometimes, the C/P believers report some bodily sensation and afterwards connect their experience to scriptural analogies. For example, a testimony may start with: “The Holy Spirit healed me, just as he healed X (some biblical character is mentioned).” The direction is traced from the present individual experience to the past and recorded history. This triangle of agency between the Holy Spirit, the text and the ritual participants shapes how the ritual is performed. Within (if), the understanding and explanation of the ritual stems from the priority of the empirically observable, such as the behaviour of the body. Concrete observations are then re-described into (if) meta-narratives which in turn shape the body of the researchers and the objects under study. The C/P experience of divine agency as an action from outside the body yet observable in the

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actions of the body has not gone unnoticed in ritual studies. Laidlaw and Humphrey see the reason for this experience in the form of the ritual itself: Ritualization involves a specific modification in the intentionality of human action. Ritual is action in which intentionality is in a certain way displaced so that, as we summarize the matter, human agents both are and are not the authors of their ritual actions.110

Since “the identity of her action is fixed by prior stipulation”, ritual actions are non-intentional as well.111 In a similar vein, the individual experience of being controlled and possessed by the evil spirit could be explained away in sociostructural terms. The individual feels trapped in the post war socio economic modernization of Lebanon which left masses in a desperate situation in which they were on the losing end of the promises espoused by the global consumerist culture. The structural social forces suffocate individual autonomy. As a response to these concrete socio-political entrapments, the individual creates an illusory escape through the performance of a ritual of being set free from the concrete material conditions in order to regain a sense of autonomy and self. Similarly, William Sax calls the researchers to respect the native view of divine agency. However, “[…] public ritual is precisely the point at which complex agency is articulated and confirmed”.112 Sax goes on to explain this complex ritual agency in Durkheimian paradigm as society deifying itself. Rituals are articulations of collective agency. Since people are uncertain about their collective decisions, they project their limited awareness onto God. The (if) researcher is seen as standing above these unreflective ritual participants when the researcher re-describes their performances into a meta-narrative which explains the larger, underlying and overarching reality, while respecting the ritual participants’ “self delusion”. David Martin denounces these academic theoretical re-descriptions as unethical: Social investigators are not decoders of jabber emitted by unwitting puppets. Rather, they stand face to face with other human beings in reciprocal exchanges and mutual conversation. […] redescribing is a precarious business, and above all not to be conducted as though what believers say is fantasy waiting for analytic solvents to transfer it to some more basic category.113

Moreover, he sees the danger of misrepresentation if the redescription is governed by reductive ontology employing “[…] metaphors based on mechanism

110 111 112 113

Laidlaw and Humphrey, 2006, p. 275. Laidlaw and Humphrey, 2006, p. 277. Sax, 2006, p. 481. Martin, 2006, p. 20.

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(e. g. hydraulics) or metaphors portraying people only as responding to stimuli rather than initiating purposeful action.”114 A determinist naturalist view of the human lends itself for such a mechanical analysis of human behaviour. Explanation can not be achieved without this redescription of the observable phenomena into some more basic category. However, the academic values of transparency and self reflexivity are weakened if this redescription is done within homogenous cultures with similar basic beliefs. Sax notes that “[…] ritual theory cannot go so far as to classify these gods as ‘actors’, thereby attributing volition or consciousness to them […]”.115 By assuming the unanimous agreement on the basic beliefs, Sax fails to see any further need to justify this assumption. While this unarticulated background of understanding reinforces the realness of academic communities, its unreflective repetition also shelters this particular community from different realness perceptions as further reflection about and understanding of divine agency is aborted due to its believed impossibility. A redescription of the C/P view of agency into some basic immanent categories constitutes a powerful subversion as the secular academic culture defends its basic paradigm through its socio-economic and political advantage. Identifying the divine agency as some immanent cause, the secular culture empties the C/P ritual of its potency and dynamics. Both, C/P and secular cultures have their own norms of what agency is and who is eligible in exercising normative practices. As one C/P leader complained to me, once the young people get their education and a good job, they get sucked up in pursuing their careers. A degree functions as an immanent confirmation of normative agency. Expertise allows one to participate in the global consumption arena. Thus, whether divine agency is accepted or rejected depends largely upon how each individual experiences him/herself as an acting agent within a particular cultural setting.

2.2.5.2. Divine agency within the Charismatic/Pentecostal body William S. Sax defines agency as “the ability to transform the world”.116 This human ability is culturally conditioned and is constrained by structural social forces. Therefore, the ability to transform the world is not equally distributed. The Lebanese post war context is marked by the prevailing sense of inability of people to change their own situation and the course of their personal and national history. Upward mobility does not necessary hinge on a person’s achievements, whether educational or professional, but on the belonging to a certain religious sect, family 114 Ibid., p. 23. 115 Sax, 2006, p. 480. 116 Ibid., p. 474.

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and wastah connections. University students from various religious affiliations shared with me that education alone does not guarantee anything if you do not belong to a powerful family and the resulting wastah. Personal agency is restricted through belonging, which lies outside of an individual’s capacities of will and achievement. The middle class in particular experienced a strong decline during the civil war. The warring militias and those associated with the war industry became the “nouveau riche”. Overall, the Christians emerged as the religious group with proportionally larger losses to other groups in its demographic presence, territory and overall social and political power. The prevailing feeling of impotency among Christians is even stronger among minorities such as the Armenians who do not have a strong demographic presence in Lebanese society. Moreover, migrant workers with no rights who experience daily discrimination, Lebanese women with education and limited opportunities – these groups, whose ability is under a strong constraint and whose agency is reduced to a minimum through structural forces, are looking for agency which is not culturally conditioned. Modernisation promises the potential of individual agency and self actualisation, however, (if) agency is experienced by many Lebanese people today as impotency. The restrictions upon agency are experienced differently by various socio-economic classes. While lower economic classes and minorities lack basic income and rights, the educated professionals, such as teachers, medical doctors and engineers experience the restrictive cultural forces imposed by the increasing modernisation. Although they benefit materially from the modernisation, they perceive a loss of social capital by the decentralisation of family and neighbourhood relations. One neighbour shared with me how in the past people in the neighbourhood would pay visits and socialise in the evening. However, now, she lamented, everyone sits at home after work watching TV or driving in theirs cars to the nearest shopping mall. The cost of post-war rapid modernisation triggers a desire for divine agency independent from what feels like the overpowering global advance of capitalism and the subsequent social changes it brings. One of the founders of the RomanCatholic C/P movement narrated to me how during the war their community felt very close as they had the time to grow together as a community and invest into meaningful relationships. After the war, the economic pressures and new opportunities demanded the energy of people to a degree which cost them their commitment to their spiritual community and family. Many C/P believers experienced themselves in a new post war situation not as agents but as acted and pressured upon with limited choice of action. One of these traditional-modern dilemmas affects women who want to fulfil the traditional motherhood role and raise children on the one hand. On the other hand, women also want to benefit from educational and professional opportunities. After the war, the number of

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women engaged in professional careers rose significantly. “For instance, the number of women enrolled in the union of engineers (in Beirut and the North) has increased from 24 before 1970 to 739 by the year 1995.”117 The tensions between traditional expectations and values and new opportunities can not be resolved through the individual’s choices. As a result of this tension, women welcome the opportunity to relinquish a certain level of control and allow divine agency to lead them into a newly constructed identity which overrides the traditional-modern dichotomies. Mary, the founder of the “MwG” continuously stressed the leading of the Holy Spirit which is independent from a particular social expectation or convention. Women who were mothers at home and single professionals could equally access and identify with the highly individualised divine leading and calling. The prospect of bypassing the dilemmas imposed upon them, by experiencing daily divine agency in their lives, becomes highly appealing. The experience of divine agency subverts the discriminatory immanent conception of agency as it enables the individual to transcend the sociostructural forces which hinder her potency to act. In particular, women who initiated C/P movements emphasize divine agency. Official religious leadership in Lebanon is reserved for men only within all religious communities. The two women I interviewed emphasized that they did not intend to start a C/P group, but through divine intervention they felt that the obedience to God must take priority over particular human conventions. In order to maintain female leadership, these women continuously feel the divine presence in them, which serves as a powerful trigger for their actions as well as confirmation of their position. In contrast to (if) conception of agency, the beginning of an action is not located within the agent but comes as a divine impulse from the outside upon the individual’s body, which then enables them to act on the world around them. This way, any gender discourse on power relations is bypassed as the impulse for leadership does not come from within the individual female desire or reasoning, but as a divine calling from outside the particular cultural spheres. The active individuality of female leadership and its potency hinges on a passively received calling. This paradox triggers female agency beyond cultural restrictions. Ricoeur’s view, which coheres well with both the liberal Protestant and secular traditions, that somehow the propositional content of a text affects the body is reversed in some C/P instances as the body first must be moved by God before comprehending the text. For western scholars, it is existentially and emotionally difficult to empathise with such a conception of agency as they lack the experience of complete powerlessness and inability to act due to their privileged educational and socio-economic background. However, during my field re117 Hussein, 2002, p. 106.

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search, I experienced a situation which brought to the fore my assumption on agency and the C/P view of the same phenomena. Before going to bed one night at my house, I left two wine glasses on a little table in my living room. When I stepped into the living room in the morning, I saw the shattered glass pieces all over the 25 square meter living room floor. Additionally, the pillows from the couches were scattered as well all over the floor. Instantly, two possible hypotheses emerged in my mind as I pondered this bizarre discovery : First, someone or some animal had entered our apartment, shattered the glass and spread the glass pieces over the floor and threw down the pillows. However, as there was no sign of forced entry with the doors locked, the windows closed and intact I was forced to abandon this hypothesis. Another possibility I considered was whether I or my wife could have had a case of sleep walking and caused all this chaos. My daughter was ruled out of that proposition as she had not yet learned how to climb out of her crib. The further I attempted to find a logical explanation (physical cause-effect) for what had occurred, the more impossible it seemed to find one. The immediate possibilities which came to mind expressed the assumed beliefs about agency, which excluded a priori divine agency. I shared this strange occurrence with Mary, the founder of “MwG”. She gave me the following explanation: The day before this happened in your house, the Lord spoke to me: “Go out bare feet, walk around the block and pray for this area, so that the spiritual strongholds will be broken.” It was a real strange command, but I obeyed the Lord. Then, as I was approaching your house, I saw a dead rotten cat full of worms. Then, on Sunday morning, the Lord spoke again to me: Go and remove the cat. As I was approaching the cat, the worms were gone. I felt like the Lord was showing to me that he was doing something. It is not us who are causing something. The Lord is using us as a sign, he takes us into his actions. I think that the broken glass is a sign that the evil spirit has left. I believe that a spiritual battle happened and just like when Jesus drove away the spirits, when they left, they wanted to perform a manifestation. It is a sign that the spirits have gone.

Then Mary asked us if she could pray for us and for our place. The usual approach to ritual describes the role of personal or communal bodies in shaping the ritual and also the reverse effect of the ritual on the bodies. However, this presupposition on agency locks the ritual participants into a circle of reference. The theorist usually assumes to know when a ritual begins and ends. Through this sequential closure and control, the ritual can be conceptualized, understood and explained. The reason why C/P rituals appear as dynamic and capture the energy of its participants, is the lack of predictability, thus the lack of control on the side of participants. A key feature of modernity is control over the self and nature. Wilson emphasizes self-knowledge of one’s motives and goals which will lead to the control of actions in coherence with a meaningful set of actions. This ideal stands in stark contrast to the daily experience of C/P believers who shared

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with me that since the war, they have the feeling as though the people around them are like puppets functioning in their prescribed roles. Even highly professional people like engineers, teachers and medics observed a certain mechanic like economic pressure on the people which diminishes meaningful friendships and communal life. Economic and educational opportunities bring with them ambiguous effects. On the one hand, the end of the civil war allowed more people to receive education and as a result of employment achieve higher mobility.118 On the other hand, this process of individualization left many people cut off from their families and communities around them. Although empowered through the individual’s capacities to achieve financial independence and mobility, they at the same time felt trapped as this life style forced them into a sphere of greater individual responsibility which left them burdened as the success or failure of their life was now solely attributed to their actions. Maintaining the pace of professional life with its fixed prescribed roles and emotional ideologies drains people of emotional energy and leaves little room for individuals to negotiate their role within and without it. Within C/P rituals, this notion of a self conscious individual is constantly brought into question. Through testimonies, songs and sermons, the C/P believers continuously emphasize the inability of the individual to be aware of the motives behind his/her actions as well as his/her impotency to act out of his will. The loss of control, which the individual already feels, is heightened by the ritual invitation to release control of the self in order to gain a new control through experiencing divine agency. The desire for human control is sometimes correlated with being possessed by an evil spirit. As in the case of the migrant worker mentioned above, her desire to control her unfortunate situation led her to magic, which promised her some formulas which would grant her control to improve her situation. According to the C/P understanding, her obsession with her own ability lead to physical tension as her focus was inward and the responsibility lay on her alone to improve her situation rather than trusting in the divine agency. Opening herself up to the working of the Holy Spirit required her to release control. The consequences were bodily manifestations such as the relaxing of her body and smiling as well as an emotional response of joy as she felt God, a more powerful being than herself and her circumstances, taking control. The C/P rituals aim at these physical and emotional therapeutic manifestations in releasing control and abandoning of the self into relationship with the loving, personal deity. As one of the leaders of the “MwG” put it:

118 Although, as previously mentioned, education and individual abilities are not a sole guarantee of upward mobility, as belonging and wastah do exercise a strong social control over his/her possibilities of agency.

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At our last meeting there was one person who just laughed the whole time. I asked him about it and he replied: ‘I laugh because I feel the Holy Spirit and he fills me with joy.’ Often we do not understand how the Holy Spirit wants to bless us. We have to give him room to move in unexpected ways.

Laughing outside of the ordinary communication context can be unsettling for the observer. Normally, the physical response of laughter is either caused through direct physical contact or by situations, where obvious contradictory expectations and actions create a comical situation. However, the sudden laughter without obvious external cause within the overall serious setting of C/P worship raises questions about the triggering causes. For the C/P believers, the sudden laughter expresses an inner joy which is caused by divine agency and does not depend on the external context. Thus, a visible bodily activity refers to the invisible internal working of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, laughing expresses the abandonment of the self controlled individual. The loud, shrieking, animated face and tearing eyes, the shaking of the body – all these bodily features express the self giving of the person into a certain emotion and the releasing of a controlled performance in relation to other actors. Neither is the goal of the C/P believer mere abandonment of the self for its own sake or merit, nor self control, but self giving of the individual into what I term a “shared agency”. Through the C/P rituals which employ the individualized expressions, the individual gifts and expressions of the Holy Spirit, the self is in fact, highlighted and brought to the fore of expression. However, the self is believed to be most actualized and at its peak of potency when abandoned into the most intimate relationship with the divine. The self is seen as relational at its core; towards God, other humans and the world. The tendency of the self to secure independency is seen as rejecting this relational core and is judged as sin.119 As one of the “AL” preachers put it during the service designed for expats: “Sorry that my speech is so bumpy, I prefer to speak in Arabic. I usually don’t think first and then speak. I speak and speak and speak. The Holy Spirit speaks through me.” While the speaker refers to himself and thus to his own agency, he seems not to demarcate his own agency from the acting of the Holy Spirit. The ideal goal is when personal agency becomes indistinguishable from that of the Holy Spirit. Most C/P preachers avoid props such as notes on paper as this would suggest their external reliance. From the (if) perspective, it would appear that they have mastered the art of improvising speech which appears as a confirmation of the indwelling powerful agent who enables them to articulate well without any external support. I have observed C/P preachers speaking for well over one hour, quoting scripture, weaving stories, anecdotes, addressing the 119 Similarly, Martin Luther described sin as incurvatus in se ipsum, as being bent into oneself; the inability of relationships towards God and people.

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audience and capturing the listeners’ attention. As a listener, I was impressed by the fluidity and energy emanating from the body of the speaker. It appeared that he had no need to pause to reorder his thoughts neither did he seem to follow a certain structure which he had prepared prior to his speech. The flow of his speech created an impression as if his personal abilities were being transcended. In particular, after meeting and conversing with some of these preachers afterwards, they did not seem to be as gifted in speaking when no longer preaching. They took time to collect their thoughts and present me with a more structured way of speaking. Mary’s bodily experience, her hearing God’s command and doing things which seem, from an outsider’s perspective, as meaningless, makes God’s agency appear as real. During her narration, she reflects about this experience as a dialogical encounter. Although she was not passive during the ritual, she was also not in full control as she could not foretell the direction and aim of God’s leading. In the course of her story the actions she performs and the objects she encounters do not appear as meaningful. She does not fully understand what she is doing. However, her acting out the command of God becomes a visible experience for others that as human agents we are not aware of the larger divine actions which precede us and form a story in which we become unaware participants. Walking bare foot in the streets of Beirut is a daring act as the streets are dirty and could even be dangerous should she come unknowingly across broken glass. Thus, Mary risked drawing negative attention in a community where conformity is strongly maintained and public shame is viewed as affecting the individual and communal sense of well being. She walks around and prays as she sees herself as a co-agent in a larger divine story which is unfolding before her. Her actions appear as random within the moment of her exercise as she would not be able to give a coherent account; reasons and aim of her action. However, Mary justifies her actions through a broader meta-narrative account, in which sometimes trusting God means not knowing how the actions relate and what the effect of her actions will be. In it, she quotes biblical figures like Abraham and others, whose obedience was rendered meaningful only retrospectively. Stausberg points out the reflexivity of rituals as the performer refers to prior performances: “[…] reflexivity is part of the very logic of performance of each and every ritual that is based on some sort of script and prototype. In these cases, the practitioners need to appropriate, in one way or the other, the respective models, scripts, roles, or ‘strips’ of prior or ideal performance for the upcoming or current performance that they are undertaking. There is a wide range of possible modes of appropriation, including attempts to copy prior or ideal performances as closely as possible, and quotations from or allusions to heterogeneous materials that are rearranged in new performances. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the performance (inter-ritually) ‘reflects’ other

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performances; the ritual and its practitioners reflectively refer thereby to something else.”120

Although I cannot rule out that Mary’s performance could have been triggered by her reading the biblical account of Abraham, it seems to be the case that Mary felt a divine calling to do so and only retrospectively put her behaviour within the larger biblical context. The fact remains that through inter-rituality, her particular actions take on a larger meta-narrative significance. Through her action she embodies Abraham’s character. Through acting out of trust, although not being able to ascertain the larger context for her seemingly meaningless actions, Mary embodies divine agency as her body represents a visible outcome of shared agency. Usually, the human performs a ritual in order to establish or express some kind of relationship to the divine. In the case of Mary, God is asking Mary to co-act with him. She is not just a passive medium, as in the case of possession. She is fully aware of herself while co-acting with God, as she reflects on her behaviour. Ritual theories, presupposing (if), assume the priority and centrality of the acting human. In Mary’s account, God stages a ritual in order to highlight his agency through everyday objects like glass, a dead cat and worms. The individual re-enacts and highlights through his actions what God is doing. Therefore, the relation between the text and the human body is reversed. Mary’s story resembles Old Testament prophets who also enacted unusual divine requests in order to draw the attention of people to God’s actions. The primacy of actions remains with God. It is not the human body which somehow brings to life past records of God’s actions with his people thus bridging the historic gap through its performance. Mary experienced the story with her own body. Now, when she reads the text, she can refer to her own story and say : “Just like God is acting in our neighbourhood, so he acted back then”. The analogy is drawn from the now back into history and the historic gap is overcome. Through this actualisation of God’s agency the text loses its historicity and becomes another confirmation of an individual’s actual experience with God. A C/P believer would say that God himself brings the text to life by acting in the same manner as in the past. And as the C/P believer co-acts in the divine story, s/he bridges the historic gap through his body. This reversal creates a powerful sense of God’s realness in the everyday experience. Divine actions do not need to be believed propositionally and then applied to the now in the hope that God will intervene again. Instead, the physical experience is immediate and can not be easily dismissed. The historic records serve as confirmation. Charismatic testimony about God’s intervention is rarely expressed as

120 Stausberg, 2006, p. 636.

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hearing an audible voice. Instead, the concept of God’s speech is saturated with various metaphors. Van Wolputte points out that, “[…] metaphors are […] ‘the imaginative elaboration around bodily functions.’ […] They belong to the realm of praxis (and not of cognition) and suggest instead of conceive, elicit instead of define, or provoke instead of prescribe. At the same time, they are rooted in bodily (sensuous) experience, especially in the sense of touch […].”

Moreover, metaphors link one domain of experience to another […] they produce effect, an efficacy that one can attribute to the fact that metaphors address both bodily and social experience.121 Although C/P believers speak about hearing God’s voice, they often describe this hearing not as an audible voice, but as a sense of internal feeling, voice or touch. Hearing becomes a metaphor which links the transcendent with the tangible senses of the spatio-temporal body. Thus, metaphors constitute a linguistic link between two non-contingent spheres. Metaphors are concrete enough leaving no doubt that God of the biblical meta-narrative is speaking, yet their vagueness also serves a purpose to preserve the freedom of God and not reduce him to specific propositional concepts. For, as Engelke rightly points out, “[…] ambiguity and clarity are mutually constitutive.”122 If God, who is not confined by a certain definition, speaks to the believer who is a free agent, as emphasized by believers, then their relationship can not be exhaustibly defined but only hinted at in its bodily concreteness and yet relational vagueness. However, this vagueness is not an open symbol free for individual creative interpretation as is found within the liberal Protestant tradition. Instead, the space which is created by metaphoric- relational language serves as a pull towards a more intense relationship with God, toward a desire to always hear his voice and to “be in his presence.” The individual hears God within the confines of the believing community which exercises control through shared participation in the ritual and expectations for a certain lifestyle. Thus, the individual experience within the shared ritual activity allows for communal normative rule and yet individual divine experience. At the “AL” service, a lay preacher preached a sermon entitled “Open our eyes”: God plants his promise in the eyes, then in the heart! There is a verse: People perish for the lack of vision! They do not see with their spiritual eyes! God spoke to different people: “What do you see?”

Then the preacher continued to read the account of how Jesus healed the blind man, from Mark 8,22–26. 121 Van Wolputte, 2004, p. 257. 122 Engelke, 2006, p. 79.

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Jesus told him not to go to his village but to go home. What does it mean? We must not go to our old life style. We must not just know things. I met a guy in Lebanon who knows all the spiritual leaders here in Beirut. He told me: I sometimes go to church. But I know them all. I know how they worship, how they do things. This guy has a box for everyone. He knows about Christians. But he misses the most important person: He does not know Jesus! […] Jesus asks you today : “Do you want my blessings or do you want me”? Jesus opened the blind man’s eyes and then he opened his spiritual eyes. He healed his heart. God told Abraham when he showed him the land: ‘Go, see and go’. God told Ezekiel: ‘Get up and prophecy!’ It is not enough just to believe. But stand up and prophesy! God is calling your name today. Jesus wants your heart. What are the dry bones in your life? Get up and prophesy (The preacher repeats this phrase seven times). You will not see life unless you sacrifice time and prophesy!

The visual sense is often employed as C/P believers claim to receive visions from God. This vision is often an internal picture or story and must be conveyed through language. The details in description and articulation of the prophet make the individually received picture come alive to the rest of the group. Sometimes during prayer, the one who receives the vision starts to describe what he sees during the actual time of receiving the vision. The feeling of God’s actuality is manifested as people around the narrator are witnesses to the unfolding vision. This alternative vision from the outside of the immanent framework pulls the believers to act towards this perceived reality as they invest this received vision with higher authority than the normative restrictions in their lives. Receiving the vision, being able to see a new alternative picture leads to action, as the “AL” preacher proclaimed for those who receive a new vision to get up and proclaim it. The bodily action expresses the reality of God’s action within the believer’s body and at the same time enacts the textual meaning. As Ronald L. Grimes remarks, […] texts […] are best understood not in the abstract but in the context of the performances they inspire. […] experience is deepest when social drama and stage drama, performance and text, illumine one another, rather than when one is treated as less real than, or the analogy of, the other.123

In order for an individual to understand what it means for the blind to receive sight, s/he must experience it with his/her whole body as well in order to grasp the meaning not just as content proposition. For this reason, when a C/P preacher proclaims the freedom from evil spirits, he touches the forehead of the woman. His touch mediates the divine action, which is experienced bodily by the woman falling over and not being able to control the powerful physical effects of the divine action. Everybody around the woman knows that the force of the 123 Grimes, 2006, p. 387.

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touch did not cause her to fall. Therefore, they attribute the force to the divine agency, which is manifested through the medium of a human physical touch. During the sermon, listeners at times break out in spontaneous exclamations such as: “amen” and “hallelujah”, at other times, some express the meaning of the words through their body. For example they may close their eyes, and move their body gently back and forth when the worship leader talks about the Holy Spirit gently touching them. As Thomas fittingly remarks, “Oaths, pledges, confessions, promises, or swearings are all instances of visible, public acts of the self-attribution of a verbal ritual utterance, which takes the form of a linguistic self-description that refers to present as well as future actions. What happens in these cases is something quite visible in ritual questioning or confessions: There is a public and bodily exclusion of the logically possible ‘no’ by the explicit or performed ‘yes’.”124

The listeners commit themselves through visible and audible acts to the textual realities evoked by the preacher. The C/P preacher does not aim at the intellectual understanding of the text alone but he seeks to initiate a bodily experience in the listeners, as their re-enactment and action is intended to bring about the textual reality. The sensual experience of divine agency leads to action. Therefore, the sermon is effective if people testify about the vision they have received and, as a response start to prophesy about situations which seem very hopeless. For example, I observed C/P believers proclaiming authoritatively God’s peace and presence over sectarian strife as well as the healing of emotional post war traumas by the Holy Sprit. The medium of divine agency is the C/P body. However, the C/P body does not randomly express certain actions. There are certain rules in place which outline which bodily expression can be seen as divine agency. The biblical texts serve as a guideline for such a discernment of mediated divine actions. At one of the “MwG” meetings in a private house, one of the co-leaders pulled out a horn and started making a very loud noise during worship time. The sound of the horn overpowered the guitar and singing. Additionally, he started shouting in dissonance with the music and clapping, which also undermined the rhythm of the melody. Some “MwG” members looked at him in surprise while others pretended not to notice and continued worshipping. However, this unexpected behaviour was clearly an interruption. A few days later, one of the leaders sent the following email to all participants: I wanted to share this article especially that “X” asked us to shout during the praise and worship time during the last meeting. This article contains a very good biblical

124 Günther, 2006, p. 338.

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teaching about this issue for those who did not know what this really means. “It’s important not to do things without knowing the purpose.”

The leader then copied an article from J. Lee Grady, editor of “Charisma”, a popular charismatic/theological magazine, explaining the purpose of shouting in worship. However, at the end of the article, he added his own point for shouting: We shout to imitate God. According to Isaiah 42:12–13, ‘Let them give glory unto Jehovah, and declare his praise in the islands. Jehovah will go forth as a mighty man; he will stir up his zeal like a man of war : he will cry, yea, he will shout aloud; he will do mightily against his enemies.’ When we praise, God goes out for war shouting as a man running in the battlefield. He does this as a response to our praises. And Jesus said that he always did what he saw his Father doing. Similarly, when the Lord puts it on our heart to shout, this means that He is leading us to do what he is already doing; that is, shouting in the enemy face […].

According to this explanation, the text does not serve primarily as a witness to the past, which somehow triggers a response within the believer’s body but rather the biblical text is simultaneously read as an event of the past which continues into present day reality. The text is just describing what God is doing. And as he is doing it now, the bodies of C/P believers join him in his action. Bodily expressions of God’s agency are not only captured through normative scriptural references, but sometimes, certain qualities of God’s presence such as for example joy, must find appropriate bodily expression, which stand in contrast with cultural norms of bodily behaviour. I observed that at the “AL” church the members jumped up and down during worship with their outstretched hands. When I asked one participant about this “dance” he explained to me, that in the beginning, some participants were dancing sensually and it was offensive to other participants as the sensual moves undermined the sacred presence of the Holy Spirit. In particular, the attention of males was diverted by the women dancing sensually. As a consequence, this “holy” dance was invented, which was non-gendered, less loaded with sexual imagery and still expressed God’s activity and joy. Another mark of God’s agency within the body of C/P believers is the superability of the believer, transcending the boundaries of the usual physical capacities. This stretching beyond is then attributed to the supernatural reality of the Holy Spirit, as the believer’s body overcomes the habitual agency. During the training for witnessing and preaching at the “MwG” group, some of the participants came from very patriarchal-restrictive homes. Although in their mid 20’s, their fathers still decided about many aspects of their lives, even setting the time when they had to be home. Some of these women were very shy and had a fear of speaking in public. One of the leaders would say repeatedly, “You are not

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speaking. The Holy Spirit speaks through you! You are just lending him your voice.” Then the leader went on to describe the qualities of the Holy Spirit, his boldness, courage, and power. During the course of the training, I observed the bodily transformation of these women. Their posture changed. Their quiet voices grew stronger. From the (if) view, these bodily transformations could be explained as the result of some psychological technique/manipulation of behaviour. While it does provide an alternative explanation for the physical change, for the C/P believer embedded in his/her cultural setting, physical change can only happen if s/he opens up his/her body toward the divine agency. These two conceptions of agency do overlap and compete with each other in the everyday experience of believers. One example is the claim on the body both by the divine agency and human (if) expertise. The civil-war has left a large percentage of the Lebanese population physically and emotionally disabled. While Lebanon has a highly developed health care system, its services are not available to everyone. In particular, many among the lower socio-economic classes do not have access to basic health insurance. Moreover, several practitioners and students in the field of psychology have shared with me that people tend to seek help within their family and religious community more often than by a professional psychiatrist or psychologist. The decision, for either (if) human expertise or (tf) divine agency, hinges on the radius of possibilities for personal agency. As bodies, we experience the effects and restrictions of agency with our senses. The story of Hovik exemplifies well the tension and competing claim of (if) and (tf) agencies. Hovik belongs to the Armenian minority, is 45 years old, divorced and works as a taxi driver. This was the account he gave to me of his experience in joining “AL”: I had big problems in my life. I had a lot of fear in my heart. The devil told me always: ‘There is no God!’ But my fear grew stronger and stronger. The doctor prescribed medicine for me against fear. I always had to take it. But my heart was pounding “boomboomboom”. When I was climbing the stairs to the first floor, I started sweating and shaking. My breath was gone. I was always in fear, always in fear. Then, in 2009, I went to the meeting. And there, God opened my eyes. I felt it: there is a God. And I felt his power. He changed everything. Suddenly the fear was gone. I felt so light, I stepped outside and told God: ‘What is happening to me?’ then I saw an Armenian woman. She asked me: ‘Why are you here?’ I told her : ‘I do not know what is happening to me.’ She said: ‘Don’t be afraid, Jesus is stronger and greater.’ And then she started praying for me. She prayed and prayed and I felt lighter and lighter […]. And from this time on I took less and less medicine. Every week I took less pills. Normally, you have to report to the doctor. But I didn’t. I knew that the Lord is freeing me from pills. I did not have a physical problem, I had a psychological (‘nafsani’: soul) problem. I used to go to Eli K. Just when you enter you have to pay 100 dollars. And do you know how you enter to him? You go through several doors first. Then you meet his secretary. She does not talk to you. She is just writing- all paper and no talk. And then you enter through the door to

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the doctor. He eats a sandwich, his foot is like this (Hovik puts his foot on another chair and leans back in his seat). He looks at me and tells me: ‘What do you want to tell me?’ I feel like I go in and go out. He gives me a pill and laughs about me. He laughs about me! I was so angry (Hovik repeats several times: ‘kharabni kharabni’ which translates as ‘he ruined me’). I threw everything in the trash and went to another doctor. But it was the same story. How do you know your name? You just know it! So it is with me: I know that Jesus is in me, for sure. I know it like 2 plus 2 is 4. And since I walk with Jesus, I feel peace. Even when I run, my heart is not pounding hard. All is gone, is gone. […] Since a year everyone at “AL” can see the change in my life, how I work in my life, for sure, not I, but the Lord works in my life. And the people here are around me. They do not let you fall. I don’t know how. They come around you. They tell you: “Do not be afraid.” They are around me. But not they, it is the Lord, like it is written: We are the body of Jesus.

The effectiveness and therefore degree of realness is measured through bodily experience. Hovik experienced the (if) agency as disabling to his self-esteem, as human agency is distributed through socio-economic and educational power relations. Hovik is on the lower socio-economic level, he belongs to the Armenian minority and does not have a formal education. He is a taxi driver attempting to make ends meet from month to month. The costs in order to see a doctor were immense for him and the social stigma to seek professional help created a big sacrifice for him and yet it resulted in him feeling disempowered and further devalued. His physical impotency was highlighted by the disabling power relations. The doctor seemed not to care about him, but had the power to charge him money for prescribing pills. Pills are material objects, which function with the biological cause-effect chain independent of particular human individual traits. The medium suggests the uniformity of all human bodies, robbing the individual of his personal impression of possessing particular biographical causes for his illness. Hovik felt this isolation through the spatial barriers of the office and the leisurely posture of the psychiatrist in contrast to his own personal distress. In the Middle East, it is highly offensive to turn one’s feet towards the other person and such an act would be interpreted as an insult. The power relation is even more highlighted through Hovik’s obligation to maintain a submissive posture and answer his questions. The bodily postures within this communication setting express the power imbalance. At the same time, even some positive effects were counteracted by negative physical side effects and the continuous dependency on the expert and his material means, such as pills, to cause change within the body. Hovik felt trapped in immanent causal relations. His temporary relief from fear was earned at the high cost of a humiliating experience and emotional labor he had to perform while encountering the professional. The socio-economic and educational conditions left his body in a state of dependency. The dependency shifted from his physical nervous system conditioning his behaviour to external professional control

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through impersonal means. Even the medium of conversation was replaced with a written account. This medium led to silence and fixed knowledge about the patient. The fixed meaning about Hovik’s physical/mental dysfunction clashed with his desire for change. Hovik experienced a completely different embodiment of agency within the C/P group. In Hovik’s account, Hovik contrasts divine agency to (if) agency and experiences it as empowering. Divine agency subverts the top-down power relations of human agency as the effect of the Holy Spirit is available to all who participate in the religious ritual independent of their socio-economic status and wastah. Within the ritual, the physical effects are experienced directly without some material medium. Commitment to the doctor and regular consumption of medicine is replaced with the relation to God and participation in the communal rituals. The cost in rehabilitating Hovik’s agency differs. In the case of (if), Hovik exchanged his labor against a medium, which aimed at affecting his body only in an impersonal manner. While he noticed some improvement, he increasingly became weary of not only paying with money, but also paying through emotional labor. While at the doctor’s office, Hovik needed to hide his true emotions. At the same time, the emotional labor affected his body negatively. So at the end, the cost seemed for Hovik higher than the limited benefits he received from the professional (if) attempt to rehabilitate his agency. Contrary to this scenario of double pay with little return, the C/P cost seemed minimal, as the only cost for Hovik was his time. The reward was immediate, as Hovik exchanged time spent with C/P believers in various rituals with direct physical and emotional benefits. While the fear disappears through the ritual experience of the divine, Hovik also experienced the relational commitment to the deity and the religious community as emotionally uplifting in contrast to the non-relational commitment to the professional psychiatrist and the pills. The woman who talked to him and prayed for him is contrasted with the professional secretary. Often, when a C/P believer prays for someone, they lay their hands on their shoulders or forehead. Hovik felt the care of the other through hearing the voice of the woman who prays for him and he felt her touch on his skin. The care of the C/P believer was experienced tangibly as the audible words were also transmitted through touch. On the contrary, the secretary reduced her interaction to the bare minimum. The professional distance was maintained and the paper as a medium served to undermine the non-bodily treatment. Hovik experienced divine agency as a bodily liberating experience from his restricted human agency. In particular, since Hovik belongs to the Armenian minority, has limited education, went through a divorce, experiences mental illness and earns a low wage as a taxi driver, his own ability to change his situation is very limited. While (if) means do offer some restoration of the individual’s capacity to act, the professional culture rests upon the difference of status. Formal education and degrees, as symbolic

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bestowment of authority, cement these social differences. So while Hovik experiences some restoration in his individual abilities, the embodied individualism isolates him and degrades him as he feels disempowered. While the biological effects work from inside the body towards Hovik’s personal agency, the structural social forces push from outside, restrict his agency and counteract the positive effects of medication. Hovik feels his body in tension between these contradictory forces and therefore chooses to withdraw his body from trusting the doctor, who represents these contradictory forces. Contrary to (if), divine agency restores his body and opens up opportunities of communal recognition which would not be available through his natural socio-economic status. At the end of the conversation, Hovik shared with me that he was given the opportunity to share his testimony in front of the whole church packed with 300 till 400 participants on the average Sunday morning. This illustrates very well how experiencing divine agency outside the (if) constraints allows the believers to experience communal benefits and solidarity outside of the specific socio-economic limits. The process of modernization with its emphasis on human agency and professionalism can be experienced by individuals as disempowering leaving their bodies in a state of inability dependant on knowledge of professionals and the distance which these maintain in order to safeguard their position of privilege. Divine agency as manifested in ritual is experienced as emotionally empowering due to the communal, shared actions. The C/P ritual is demarcated and acquires internal unity through performance and co-agency with the Holy Spirit. However, the ritual experience occurs within a particular cultural socio-economic context. The various modes of relating to this context render C/P ritual meaningful.

2.2.6. The ritual body within the Lebanese context Before the C/P believers enter the space where the ritual is performed they come from their everyday lives and after the performance they go back to their daily routines. Christoph Wulf rightly points out that if […] we understand rituals as particular forms of social praxis, it is obvious that rituals are strongly determined by hierarchies and power relationships. Rituals always contain a normative order that is guaranteed in and through the formalized and repetitive pragmatics of performance. The various social forms of the performative are shaped by the economic, political, and institutional conditions of the community and its environment, and are therefore embedded within the power structure of society.125 125 Wulf, 2006, pp. 402–403.

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The “power structure of society” can not be conceived of as a-personal force, but is concretely reproduced through the actions of human bodies. Thus, the communicating bodies mediate between the social norms and the desired ritual ideal. The complexity of the ritual grows with the proportion of various levels of reference. “One systematic property of complex rituals is their ability to connect and thus network with other rituals, but also with other cultural institutions.”126 However, as Günther Thomas rightly points out, “[…] the polycontextual nature of ritual communication does not imply that all contexts are brought into harmonious relation.”127 As the mode of relation to the various contexts can not be reduced to simple resistance or harmony, the C/P ritual acquires its complexity and attraction through the simultaneous engagement and transformation of the world within which it is embedded. 2.2.6.1. The ritual body and material culture The ritual is mediated through a particular material culture. When visiting C/P groups after attending traditional churches, I noticed on one hand an almost complete absence of traditional sacred objects while on the other hand the employment of the latest communication technology. Within the traditional churches, the body is disciplined into ritualistic behaviour through material culture, which serves as tangible and experiential reminders for certain expected behaviour. For example, at intersections and crossroads in Christian neighbourhoods, I observed statues of Mary or other saints. I also noticed that many Christians upon passing these statues would kiss the statue or cross themselves. The clearly visible material culture serves therefore as a trigger for memory and ritual behaviour. Many people perform these rituals habitually. Laidlaw and Humphrey […] also describe how some worshippers apprehend their ritual actions without recourse to explicit, propositional, or symbolic meanings but through a direct engagement with the physicality of certain ritual acts, and in this way achieve emotional or dissociated states.128

Although habitual in nature, this does not preclude the possibility for emotion. For example, I observed on a number of occasions, individuals who kissed the statue or bowed before it showing a lot of emotion and in the case of some older people, even crying in front of the statue. I believe that these statues serve as physical storages of the past and function as a constant reminder of the sacred presence. The sight of these sacred figures may trigger some memory of past 126 Gladigow, 2006, p. 491. 127 Günther, 2006, p. 340. 128 Laidlaw and Humphrey, 2006, p. 279.

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experiences which the person may not be aware of during his/her daily routine. Such a sacred material culture can serve as storage of the past experience and memory, foster habitual ritual behaviour and trigger certain emotional responses. However it is also viewed by the younger post war generation as a symbol of the past, which must be overcome as sacred identities have contributed to the ongoing volatile Lebanese history. The contrast between the sacred material objects of the church and the objects which flooded Lebanon in the wake of the end of the civil war due to the spread of global capitalism is striking and reinforces a certain duality of experience. The statues of the saints and icons in the churches are fixed. The colours are bright red, blue and gold. Some statues are in disrepair with chipping paint and weathered surfaces. In contrast to it, the new technological gadgets suggest timelessness, as the images produced through the social media are constantly flickering and are updated. The gadgets are not designed to last for a long time, but to be continuously replaced with the newer versions. The colours of the media objects are more neutral, such as silver and white. The mediating objects retreat into the background. However, while the sacred objects are physically present and trigger a subject-object relation, the new technology almost disappears due to its small size and neutral color. What appears as the weaker physical presence of the smart phone is in fact only an illusion as the smart phone is more effective in establishing an emotional relationship with the person and thus exercises influence via the impression of individual control. The sacred objects require a clerical culture and community in order to acquire a normative meaning for the person. Moreover, sacred objects like statues require space and a majority of population that identifies with them, as is the case in areas of Beirut with a Christian majority. With the civil war dislocation of Christian communities and the overall decrease of the Christian population, the meaning of sacred material culture is more difficult to display. With the post war flooding of new communication objects, it becomes increasingly difficult for younger people to grasp the meaning of the sacred material objects as personal taste is shaped by the internet media. While the overlaid gold, bright blue and red, large crucifixes and icons are used to embody God’s glory, the glory of a technological gadget lies in its ability not to pull the individual towards the contemplation of the larger cosmos, but rather to connect his own individual desires to other people around the world. Most C/P groups I have observed use the latest technology either for their worship, screens for displaying the songs, or recording their services and maintaining websites. Immovable objects represent well the static divine order. However, the latest communication technology with its continuously shifting content, personal accessibility and small size enabling it to remain in close proximity to the individual bodies, is more akin to how the Holy Spirit is perceived and expe-

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rienced by C/P believers. The subdued design of an apple smart phone transcends particular boundaries as it suggests neutrality. Moreover, the individual has a sense of control and ownership of a smart phone. In contrast, the sacred figures present themselves as part of a larger sacred sphere. It is easier for a Lebanese youth to develop regular interaction with his smart phone than with a sacred statue which requires the ecclesiastic community. The use of the latest communication technology finds its parallels within C/P culture. The egalitarian belief that each believer can be filled with the Holy Spirit favors a technology, which gives the impression that every person can express himself equally. The use of sacred objects within C/P worship services seems to decrease with the proportional growth of bodily significance. While in the traditional churches, the objects mediate between the bodies and the divine reality, the C/P believers stress the body itself as a site of divine mediation. With this shift, the material objects become secondary and are weakened in their symbolic meaning. The de-sacralization of previously sacred objects is accompanied by the sacralization of the body. If objects are used in the C/P meetings, they are not loaded with sacred imagery, but are seen as pragmatic means in order to communicate a particular message. For example, when C/P believers wave flags, the flag itself holds no sacred meaning of its own, but rather is endowed with sacred and symbolic meaning in its connection to the bodily action of the believer. The de-sacralization of objects in emphasizing instead their pragmatic use is performed with the intention of shifting the sacredness and mediation towards the body.

2.2.6.2. The ritual body and socio-economic conditions The body expresses economic status. During the civil war, the traditional economic status positions eroded quickly. With the indeterminacy of socio-economic structures the weight of symbolic power shifted onto the individual body. In other words, if the external cannot be influenced, at least I can exercise control over my own body. I was surprised to discover that some of my friends, both men and women alike, who were economically strapped and lived in poor conditions, had spent a lot of money on brand name clothes and even plastic surgery. With the collapse of the social and economic institutions, the individual body serves as the last symbolic display of global capitalist influence through recognizable brand names and bodily features as propagated by the global entertainment culture. Within a tribal society the survival and status of the individual depends on his/her connections to other members. This relational interdependency is called

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wastah.129 The body becomes an economic and socio-political capital. The rule of law does not apply to those with strong connections to influential players in society. Upward mobility is guaranteed only for the person with connections. The body, which can demonstrate apparent material wealth, is granted more power and freedom to express itself in society. Due to my blond hair and Caucasian look, I was often immediately assumed by the Lebanese to hold a higher economic-social position. The legacy of French colonialism continues in the Christian community as a European look is associated with being beautiful and rich. Many women dye their hair blonde and a French life style is associated with beauty and good taste. The body, as the last realm of individual control, acquires a strong representational status. However, with this shift the pressure of performance increases as well. While the Lebanese experienced the demise and restructuring of socioeconomic institutions, the traditional churches seemed to maintain their economic presence in the society. After the civil war, damaged churches were restored and even new churches were built in places where only a minority of Christians were left in order to demarcate physically the Christian presence. A neighbour in Furn el Chebbak shared with me how priests would tap their resources internationally in order to preserve ecclesial structures. The economic stability of the church, while comforting to some, is seen with suspicion by many others as this represents a stark contrast to the insecure economic situation of the average Lebanese. Some Lebanese interpret the economic advantage of the church in the pattern of the overall social wastah paradigm: The few privileged priests have the connections and maintain their privilege through the segregation from the laity. Thus, the benefits of wastah are reserved for the privileged few. Moreover, the traditional church setting also imposes on the body a feeling of insignificance as the grand architecture with its interior design stands in stark contrast to the individual believer and his often low economic position. As one Syrian construction worker relayed to me: “I was going to enter this church. But then I saw all the cars and the rich people and I felt shy.” In particular, the educated, upwardly mobile young adults who come from economically disadvantaged families seem to notice the difference between the ecclesial economic power and the economic disempowerment of its members. Many expressed this to me as a perceived injustice. One young adult responded in the following manner, “I am not attending the Maronite Church anymore. My family is poor. I 129 Although wastah serves as a cohesive social force, within modern society wastah becomes a hindrance for individual upward mobility. As a result, the development of society is stifled. The individual’s status is measured by his belonging to the clan and family, and in relation to other influential players rather than according to his actual ability within his field of expertise.

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find it unjust how the priests take so much money for every service they offer.” Through these experiences, the individuals perceive the ecclesial economic structures as removed and outside of their own individual sphere of influence. They liken the ecclesial body to other wastah economic oriented spheres like family businesses and politically supported economic institutions. Thus, the economic gulf creates a separation between the institutional elite and its members. The C/P movement avoids this economic dichotomy through its space and ritual engagement of the economic sphere. Most C/P groups were initiated by lay people who did not have access to the resources of the institutional church. Their places of meetings reflected this position of economic disadvantage as they were literally on the fringes and the unseen in places like shopping mall underground parking lots, private houses and church basements. The self positioning on the fringes attracts those who feel themselves on the fringes of society. The threshold is therefore lower for those who did not want or could not perform to the economic pressures. This correlates well with the strong emphasis of the C/P movement on the incarnation of Christ as descending into the reality of people. By “incarnating” themselves economically into the proximity of people, the C/P attract the economically disadvantaged and the young urban educated who view the church critically due to the perceived economic injustice. By not having institutional connections and economic resources, the C/P movement seeks to draw in every member into the economic process of community formation. This takes the form of both monetary donations, but also the sharing of resources. Through their announcements, the leaders openly talk about money, cost of rent, media, missions initiatives, neighbourhood outreaches and social ministries, as they invite the members to pray with them for God to intervene and the members to give generously. The call to give is placed straight after the highly emotional worship experience. For example, the pastor of “AL” read from Luke 6:38: Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

He then goes on to explain: You decide about God’s blessings in your life! […] If you hold a cup under the Niagara Falls it will overflow in a second and the cup will not contain more! It is not the fault of Niagara Falls. You have to bring a bigger cup!

During his sermon, the pastor continues to urge the congregation to give by stating various concrete blessings with which Jesus will reward a generous person who will give to the ministry of the church and therefore the spread of God’s sphere of influence. It seems obvious to an outsider that such rituals of

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economic automatism might be quickly falsified due to unfulfilled promises as most of the believers I observed during my field research did not escape quickly their economically disadvantaged state. Paul Gifford also raises the question of efficacy based on his field research on the performative biblical use among Pentecostal Churches in Africa: The question of the efficacy of this performative biblical use cannot be avoided. It seems that many of the promises made so indiscriminately cannot be fulfilled. […] This in turn raises the question of the way in which these promises are understood. The significant thing is probably the hope engendered. An exclusive and relentless message of hope, assurance, uplift, aspiration, perseverance, with all the accompanying histrionics, rhetorical flourishes, participation, the whole performance supported by superb soloists and choirs, is the distinguishing feature of these churches. Obviously to be told that you matter, you belong at the top, God wants to bring you there, must provide incentives in conditions where it is all too easy to give up. That is the function of this preaching – which, it must be said, it is not very different from the function of the original Hebrew prophet at the times of the exile.130

Gifford rightly recognizes the psychological functions of these performative uses of the bible. However, Gifford does not point out the broader socio-economic context within which the performative use makes sense. While Lebanon has a liberal market economy with huge shopping malls spread all over Beirut, excellent hospitals and education, the tribal concept of wastah and sect regulates the consumption of these global capitalist goods. The upward mobility is very restricted if one is not born into the currently powerful sectarian group, a wealthy political clan or lacks certain social networks. From my German researcher’s perspective I felt puzzled as to why there is so much talk about money in the C/P Churches. However, in Germany, the welfare state takes care of the individual citizen irrespective of his/her religious identity and secures his/her basic needs such as shelter, health, food and basic goods. However, in the Lebanese confessional democracy, the state delegates welfare to religious welfare organizations (RWO), which in turn offer aid to its members. While providing for their own religious members, this system also contributes to the overall social divisions.131 The support of the individual lies therefore within the immediate circle of family and the sectarian clan. However, with the effects of the civil war and progressing global capitalist values, the family is under cross pressures and often can not deliver its traditional promise of security. The increasing modernization loosens traditional family ties as the individual feels responsible only for himself and his immediate family such as spouse and children. If the individual lacks these advantageous ties, s/he is not going to have 130 Gifford, 2008, pp. 218–219. 131 Jawad, 2009.

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the economic resources in order to get health care, education and the basic needs of life. People feel as if they are not in control of their everyday lives. Instead, the pressure to survive and meet the traditional family expectations puts a high pressure on performance and functioning within seemingly contradicting values of tradition and modernity. The economic disempowerment correlates with the lack of basic means of living and is paired with a deep sense of loss of human dignity and value. As Khalaf rightly points out- people in developing countries do want modernization but with dignity and without the loss of their identity and history.132 The C/P rituals offer a means to subvert the economic inequality by providing an egalitarian place of expression. During worship, the musicians evoke the agency of the individuals with short commands like: “Give yourself to the Lord and he will act on your behalf!” In this way, the worshippers are made to feel outside of the economic pressures and norms of their everyday lives. Within the ritual space, the constraints of the everyday life do not apply. Their actions can also be viewed as an emotional release. People shout, jump and raise their fists and arms into the air. Some lay down on the floor, others weep. The intensity of the physical and emotional expression stands in stark contrast to their physical invisibility and vocal muteness within their often routine jobs within the service economy where emotions must be suppressed. The C/P rituals provide an avenue for the believers to feel again in control of their own bodies, and therefore their own lives. However, their ritual bodily actions are not merely meant as therapy for its own sake. Moreover, the actions are triggered by the motivation to change their current disempowering social system as they believe that God intervenes concretely into the immanent spatio-temporal realm. The C/P rituals can also be seen as an economic exchange: While the believers give their bodies to divine agency, it is God himself who will take care of their economic needs. Thus the C/P ritual provides the individual with another means to exercise ability outside of the traditional wastah concept. What seems as an economic automatism “If you […] then God […]” provides the person with a direct link to the divine without the intermediary ecclesial or other wastah mediations. The directness of relation undermines the traditional communitarian values and enables the individual to bypass wastah ties. The individualism is not rooted within the autonomy of the person, but within his personal relationship with God. Through evocation of God’s and human co-agency the individual body is reclaimed and an alternative space is created where the economically disadvantaged are able to act and impose change through their bodies. Thus a new space of recognition is created which only depends on the individual’s performance. The intensity of performance is interpreted as the person’s infilling 132 Khalaf, 2003, pp. 107–143.

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with the Holy Spirit, which gives her/him recognition within the community. The ritual performance restores the emotional wellbeing of the participants and places them within a community of recognition. To an outside observer the C/P values of individualism and visionary activism mirror the entrepreneur culture of innovation, which drives capitalist systems. Thus, over a longer period, the promises of the preachers do materialize through the transformed self of the C/P believers. God does bestow material blessings upon them, but it happens as the believers allow the C/P rituals to change their inner attitudes towards themselves, their own abilities and the culture around them. 2.2.6.3. The ritual body and politics Lebanon constitutes a unique mix of religious groups. Sunnis, Shia’s and Christians each make up roughly one third of the population. This lack of clear majority creates a delicate balance of power. One of the reasons for the civil war (1975–1990) was the disruption of the power balance which occurred through the influx of Palestinian refugees beginning in 1948. Another factor was the demographic growth of the socially disadvantaged Shia community which moved to Beirut from the poorer rural regions. As each group lacks majority, worldwide kin groups are sought in order to promote national interests. The result is the intertwining of local socio-political power and global networks. Geographically, Beirut is divided into the eastern part which is Christian, the western downtown area which is majority Sunni and southern suburbs which are Shia.133 On the surface, there appears to be no demarcation between these differing religious communities. However, on closer notice, it becomes apparent that more bombed out buildings remain along boundary lines between differing religious communities. Due to the memories along with the fear of a return to inter communal conflict, these fault lines remain less inhabited. Although no official delineation exists between these communities, the areas are marked symbolically through the public display of images of saints and religious leaders.134 Maronite quarters are distinguished by statues of St. Elijah with sword in hand and political figures portrayed together with the image of a crucified Christ. The association of martyrdom and victory is clearly evoked. Hizb’allah areas also portray their martyrs, killed in wars with Israel. At the mosques, large images of the martyrdom of Hussein can be seen during Ashura which commemorates his death. After the death of Hariri, a Sunni politician who was killed 133 Although some cultural anthropologists studied the role of religion within urban context, there are so far no attempts to inquire into the role of religion in a divided city. See: Low, 1999, pp. 1–23. 134 It is worth noting that in 2008, the government issued a requirement for certain posters to be taken down in an effort to de-escalate some of the sectarian tensions. Dyck, 2009, p. 7.

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in a car bomb in 2005, a martyr ritual on his behalf was established. The religious markers seem to intensify at the intersection of differing religious communities. The geographical make up of Beirut is charged with intertwined religious and political symbols. The commonly asked question: “Where do you live in Beirut?” reveals the deeply rooted sense of belonging and loyalty as the living area immediately exposes a belonging to a specific religious sect, which also suggests political, religious, and life style preferences. During political tensions, the army positions its tanks and soldiers along the religious fault lines in order to prevent inter-sectarian clashing. Religious messages are proclaimed through loudspeakers mixed with political connotations in this way claiming geographical territory. Due to the confessional democracy, religion and politics are intertwined. Every politician represents the interest of a certain religious group. From economic resources, access to higher education and health care, down to city management like electricity and water, every aspect of the individual’s life depends on the religious-political equilibrium of power. As one of the C/P leaders put it: “Look, for us, it is everything we have here! It is very difficult not to focus on politics if people talk around you. It concerns our homes and work, families and children!” In order to understand the politicization of every aspect of life of the Lebanese, one has to grasp the existential nature which religious-political communal belonging plays in the life of an individual Lebanese citizen. The primary loyalty of the individual is towards his/her family, clan and religious community, which then extends further to political allegiance within the confessional democracy. The national identity is more abstract as the primary reference of each Lebanese is family and religious community. Therefore, the primary tendency even of a state employer is towards his/her own religiouspolitical community. The Lebanese army for example, is very careful in intervening in any conflict as it wants to represent all Lebanese and is afraid of fragmentation due to the differing sectarian allegiances of its members. These systemic divisions produce social unrest and deep seated emotions of threat in the face of demographic change. The Christian community decreased significantly during and after the end of the civil war in 1990. Many attribute the cause for the brutal in-fighting between Christians to personal power agendas of the individual Christian political leaders. Yet after the war, these same leaders remained in power. Many Christians perceive this as creating a kind of dead end to Lebanese history and therefore feel resigned to what they see as political stagnation due to their personal inability to change this perceived injustice. Yet at the same time, they are dependent on these same leaders they do not trust for representation within the larger Lebanese society. I have noticed wide spread among Christians, in particular among Maronites and Roman Catholics, a mix of resignation and fear due to the perceived social power of Hizb’allah. Christians

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view themselves as victims who have been abandoned by the international community, while other communities have global supporters, for example Iran backs the interests of Shi’as and Saudi Arabia and other countries where there is a Sunni majority back the interests of Sunnis. I have often heard the expression: “Europe is catering to the Muslims and has left us to fend for ourselves.” Thus, the feeling of national isolation is paired with international isolation. Some Christians respond to these deep seated emotions with hybris. Shortly after the Shia-Sunni clashed in Hamra in 2007 I met a new C/P believer. As the conversation turned to politics, he explained to me that violence is not an option for a true believer. But then he enthusiastically added: “Each Christian is like five Muslims. That is why Hizb’allah did not attack us, because they did not want to take it up with us Christians.” His response betrayed a deep seated mistrust towards the Muslim community and his own continued association with the political Christian militia, of which he used to be a part. Despite the fact that his new C/P convictions stand squarely in opposition to his old political loyalties by promoting a peaceful response, in the face of concrete physical threat, his old fears still resurface. The C/P ritual takes up the political habitus, engages it and transforms it in the process. In TC, the believer participates within the larger order of being. The liturgy is given and there is little room to express individual feelings. The C/P rituals, although providing a certain framework, give a lot of space for personal expression. Some C/P songs could be mistaken for political battle songs. The aggressive beat, paired with deep tones and monotonous repetitions resemble an army marching song. The believers stretch out their arms, clench their feasts, jump and shout during the performance. As political activists protest against the establishing ruling party and its socio-political agenda, so the C/P believers direct their emotional anger against the scheming of the devil as they view the political Lebanese situation as a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. Their anger and protest is not directed then against particular people who are using the Lebanese political system for their own gain, but against demonic agents who manipulate people into such behaviour as for example greed, which destroys society. Some C/P youth shared with me that their deep mistrust in political parties and fear that any investment would bring no change but only bolster sectarian divisions led them to discontinue any involvement. Thus, through addressing the socio-political evil and calling down divine intervention, the C/P believers bypass the particular Lebanese leaders and touch the perceived underlying causes of the surface political outcomes. In a similar vein, C/P believers often pray for political leaders. This act rearranges the allegiance of C/P members and overcomes political divisions. The prayers are directed at an all-powerful God whose power transcends the particular abilities of political leaders. The Lebanese pastor/musician of one C/P group often played during the worship

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service, the song entitled “Glorious” by Paul Baloche, a Western Christian musician, which included the following lyrics, Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Lord/ Glorious/He stands above the rulers of the earth/Look beyond the tombstone/See the living God/See the resurrected Ruler of my heart/No one else above Him/None to match His worth/The hope of His returning/fills the universe.

By speaking together the C/P participants feel a common spiritual bond with people of divergent political leanings or belonging. Their communal primary belonging as followers of Jesus and therefore part of a new spiritual allegiance relegates political allegiances to a peripheral role. They express verbally a common allegiance and acknowledge the human weakness of leaders whose potency without God is seen as an illusion. In celebrating God’s power and agency of the Holy Spirit, the C/P believers substitute their physical reliance on political leaders with a feeling of being in control by investing themselves in a deeper realm of significance. With the increasing bodily participation and experience of God’s everyday power in their lives, the C/P believers participate less in political activities and expect less from particular political parties. Political expression also depends on the communal and demographic belonging. Many C/P members, in particular outside of TC, have no wastah within Lebanese society. The right of expression depends on the socio-political-economic status of the person. Armenians are a minority within Lebanese society and often the object of jokes. At first, Armenian members felt insecure worshipping with the Lebanese Arabs in Arabic. Age also lends authority for a person to speak. An older brother of one leader and his father became believers and joined the group. I asked him how it feels to be in a role of spiritual authority over his father and his older brother. He replied that it feels strange at times. However, spiritual maturity can not be equated with biological maturity. At the moment of ritual expression the person is filled with the Holy Spirit who is the creator of the universe thus overcoming the restrictions imposed upon him by cultural- socio-political norms. “Speaking is the act by which the speaker overcomes the closure of the universe.”135 C/P rituals offer the participants the opportunity to be filled with the spiritual power, which refers to the superhuman ability of the Holy Spirit. Many songs and prayers are directed at the Holy Spirit to come down and fill the participants. The narrative of Pentecost serves as a backdrop which is re-enacted in the present. People open up their arms in the posture of reception, lift their heads and close their eyes. The preacher declares and shouts promises from the front stage in the first person singular : “I am the Lord your God and I want to give you the land! I want to give you riches and 135 Ricoeur, 1974, p. 82.

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possessions! I want to give you victory!” In this instance, the preacher assumes the voice of God. The participants understand that he is being used as a tool of the divine and not the divine voice himself. The fullness of the spirit manifests itself in the physical transformation of the participants. Domestic workers’ bodily posture reflects their discriminatory situation: insecurity expressed through the avoidance of direct eye contact, as well as a quiet, bent over posture. The spiritual power transforms the body posture. During the ritual, I observed the body of the C/P member straightening up, the head being lifted up, and some of the C/P members even walking up to the front and declaring authoritative divine statements: “The Lord says…” “Jesus says…” Often, these statements concern the lives of those involved. However, they also utter political statements like: “The Lord brought us here to bring blessing to the people.” Or : “The Lord hates injustice.” The politically invisible and the powerless act during the ritual as if they, through the agency of the divine, are in control of the political realm of the city. By being filled with the Holy Spirit, the migrant worker who is at the bottom of society begins to exercise control over the socio-political situation. During his/her daily life, it is this socio-political structure, which controls his/ her life down to the most mundane detail. The situation is however, reversed for a short ritual moment and it is this reversal which enables the powerless to continue and hope for God to change their situation of oppression. By offering the C/P believers an opportunity to express their deep seated emotions and exercise change through the divine agency, the ritual substitutes the political realm. God becomes the primary political leader who is experienced as the primary agent of change. The human political leaders are seen as mere puppets of evil forces, if they refuse to co-act with God. The political participation of C/P believers does not cease but rather is transformed. However, this transformation has implications upon the everyday behaviour of believers as they wrestle with the dichotomy of ongoing injustice and their own inner change. 2.2.6.4. The ritual body and official religion Religious rituals play a significant role in the lives of the average Lebanese. During holidays, churches and mosques are well attended. Even if people do not attend church regularly, certain religious holidays like Easter or Christmas, are attended collectively by entire families as being a Christian is still a strong identity marker in a religiously diverse society. C/P groups challenge the established rituals by bringing about a ritual innovation and a re-disciplining of the body. Robbins points out a clear link between linguistic and ritual ideologies. Where general scepticism about language prevails, a ritual becomes crucial in establishing the social order. Although a ritual has no inherent meaning in itself,

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its strength lies in its function of bringing “into being the worlds they [rituals] are about”136 by rendering the inner states of the individual socially irrelevant. In contrast, if deeper individual interpretation is valued, rituals become suspicious due to their role in establishing a shallow social coherence lacking the inner truthful consent of the participants. Robbins explains the strong commitment of Pentecostals and Charismatics to rituals with the demise of the Protestant “sincerity culture”. Globalization and new technology have undermined the trust of people in the veracity of language leading once again to “ritual as a way of being together and communicating shared commitments to one another.”137 Although I agree with the basic thesis, the relation between linguistic and ritual ideologies is more ambivalent than Robbins’ projection allows for, as it relates to C/P believers. C/P believers in Beirut are caught between suspicion of traditional church rituals and language. They seek sincerity and the capacity to communicate their experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Throughout this search, they are faced with a constant tension between ritual and language. On the one side they distrust public religious rituals, viewing them as merely promoting the religious-political identity and covering up the emptiness of those observing the rituals. Repetitive religious acts are seen as potentially harmful to the spiritual life of a believer as the repetition may cause the believer to cease searching for personal interpretation and the expression of the work of the Holy Spirit in his/ her own life. Often, the worship leader or preacher would remind the believers: If you come here just to sing some songs, meet people, listen to a sermon and have a good time, do not come. It is not about what we do together. It is about meeting the Lord. This should be first and everything else comes after it. We should not get complacent. God wants to meet us anew.

C/P believers are suspicious not only of ritual but language as well, as sincerity and authenticity is not broadly valued in the Lebanese culture where every religious group and family has to vie for its own physical survival by various means. This leads to value being placed upon the end result regardless of the means to that end. Therefore language which otherwise may be viewed as untruthful if used to secure something necessary may be deemed appropriate. At the same time, the name of the group, “MwG”, expresses a desire for an unmediated and sincere encounter with God. However, in order to meet God, certain rituals are required. Naturally, this presents C/P believers with a dilemma which leads to a fruitful tension. It is exactly this tension to “fill” and to authenticate the rituals in place which generates a constant creative revision of the 136 Robbins, 2001, p. 595. 137 Robbins, 2001, p. 599.

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ritual form. The degree of ritualistic and linguistic commitment distinguishes a member from a non-member. Members who attend the group on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are seen as more committed to the core group. Committed members are expected to also be creative in their ongoing interpretations of the charismatic claim about the Holy Spirit indwelling the bodies of believers. C/P rituals can be fittingly described as “rituals of antiritualism […] whereby elements of the traditional ritualism are in fact negated but ultimately not eliminated.”138 While the rituals are still recognizable to the Lebanese, they are nevertheless transformed and awaken curiosity as new members are not able to define C/P rituals according to traditional social and religious forms. As one C/P member who converted from a Muslim background shared with me: “First, I thought: Is this a party? And then I realized that it is true. If we talk about the joy of the Lord, we should live it and not just sit there.” C/P rituals mostly resemble TC in the overall structure of people sitting in rows and facing some professional clergy. However, when a Muslim or Christian enters the C/P ritual for the first time, while recognizing the overall ritual order, the first impression which usually overwhelms the visitor is a sense of life or chaos through the movement of bodies and the expressions of emotions. The continuous emphasis on the agency of the individual draws every member in as s/he must continuously choose to be open to the divine action. While in “TC”, the congregation responds to the liturgical readings through a communal chorus and movements, the C/P rituals can appear as a chaotic collage of individual movements. Non “CMTC” groups have a wider range of individual bodily expression as they are not restricted through ecclesial expectations. C/P believers address God as individuals, by speaking in the first person singular, they share publicly about their personal difficulties and personalize the worship style through their own bodily interpretations. At “AL” service, some men jump up and down more intensely than others, their eyes wide open and their fists stretched out. One might have the impression of a political rally or a rock music concert. Others swing their bodies more sideways and close their eyes as if in a trance. Their bodies suggest a more peaceful, meditative approach. The range of physical expressions employed is wide enough for the personal interpretation of each participant. In particular, younger people embrace the C/P ritual as a stage for personal emotional and physical expression. Emerging post war countries like Lebanon on the one hand do not have the affluence of various youth sub-cultural niches which constitute a place of belonging. The prominence of family expectations in Lebanon also plays a role in shaping the location and the degree of involvement of a young person’s social activity. C/P culture with its rituals provides such a 138 Gladigow, 2006, p. 490.

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place, which allows the youth to participate and to some degree shape it, whereas “TC” services offer a set structure. The individual body is participating habitually within the set order of being. While the set rituals offer the individual an impression of a larger, stable structure which transcends the daily experience of chaos, the disadvantage is the free floating bodily energy. As Thomas remarks, if “the free attention of participants can not be bound, the communication process of ritual is experienced as boring, and ritual becomes the victim of its own success. Sooner or later, the participants ‘drop out’ […].”139

The stable ritual form of “TC” stands in stark contrast to the everyday lives of people who experience change around them and struggle to negotiate between traditional expectations and modern challenges like education. C/P rituals express the agency of the Holy Spirit as every person is drawn into a changing and innovative ritual event. The role of a spirit filled leader is to break the established ritual paradigm and present an experiential challenge. Günther’s remark could be a fitting description of the C/P ritual: With the beat of twenty drums vibrating in the pit of one’s stomach, there is no free attention left to get entangled in second-order observations or to think about the meaning of the event.140

The predictability of the “TC” ritual allows the individual to relax. The C/P ritual requires a continuous attention to unexpected performances which expresses the agency of the Holy Spirit. During the ritual of “MwG”, Mary often points to some participant, asking them to share what the Lord is speaking to them. Or she invites the person to come into the middle of the living room as she introduces some game or tells a story in which she needs performers. Through these actions, every person remains a potential centre of attention, which restrains everyone in attendance from becoming a mere observer. C/P groups which are less constrained by institutional expectations are more creative in ritual innovations. During one of the songs, Mary started to clap off beat. Although a gifted musician, she offset the tone of the song purposefully. Later on she announced that Jesus wants our hearts and not our heads. Another time, Mary started to sing a meditative song, which strongly resembled the liturgical singing within “TC”. However, at the same time she started to clap off beat breaking her own singing. The reference to a liturgical order was broken through the off beat clapping. Mary at once established a reference and broke it. C/P rituals can be recognized as religious rituals, yet there are enough effects of estrangement, which bring about ritual innovation and transformation of the “TC” rituals. During another session, Mary broke out spontaneously into a traditional 139 Günther, 2006, p. 339. 140 Ibid., p. 339.

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dabke dance usually performed at weddings and parties and pulled other participants into the circle to join in the dance. Michael Houseman rightly observes, that In order for ritual performances to be effective, that is, for the participants to acquire a measure of commitment to the realities they enact, it is necessary that they be personally involved in the actions they undertake. In other words, it is important that they experience emotional and intentional states in connection with these actions.141

C/P rituals allow for a deeply individual expression as they also involve each person at a very deep emotional level. The C/P rituals must maintain the ongoing creativity and fluidity in order not to fall back into the fixed “TC” forms which they initially surpassed. Stausberg points out, that ritual boredom emerges when participants are “[…] turned back upon their own participation, performance and commitment. That generates a space for ritual criticism and critique.”142 When new C/P believers narrated their conversion experience, they also often mentioned the sense of disconnect from “TC” rituals. One distinct difference between C/P and “TC” rituals, which has also stirred controversy, is gender. Within C/P rituals women often play key roles, either as worship leaders or even as preachers.

2.2.6.5. The ritual body and gender The distinction between male and female orders the private-public sphere in the Middle East. Thus, any change of how gender is understood and performed influences as well the public sphere. Lebanese women, both Christian and Muslim, often pride themselves on having the greatest freedom in the Middle East, by pointing out that they are present in the public sector, in economic and political institutions. However, upon closer examination, this supposed gender equality is merely a thin veneer over a strongly patriarchal society. After this initial assertion, almost all women I talked to agreed that a woman’s participation in the Lebanese society is only allowed if placed under the authority of a man. As long as the patriarchal authority is not questioned, women’s participation in the public sphere remains unproblematic. Within “TC”, some female lay volunteers take responsibility in the church. However, the patriarchal authority structure remains unchallenged. Contrary to this overall cultural gender norm, I have observed women initiating and leading C/P groups. Female spiritual authority over men clearly contradicts the culturally agreed gender norm. This practice however finds its authorization within C/P rituals. 141 Houseman, 2006, p. 423. 142 Stausberg, 2006, p. 636.

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C/P believers break through the cultural gender divides by viewing gender as insignificant in one’s relationship with Jesus. Thus, within the strong gendered cultural perspective, there is a non-gendered sphere within the C/P rituals. Within “MwG” group’s worship, preaching and exercising of gifts, there is no preference given to men over women. On occasion, women in leadership have openly criticized men for failing to walk according to the guidance of the spirit. Normally, in an honour and shame orientated society such as is the case in Lebanon, any open confrontation of a man by a woman would be considered taboo. Yet, I observed within C/P circles, not only women openly confronting men of lower, but even men of a higher socio-economic status. However, at the same time these same women followed their cultural normative gendered practices in preparing food and cleaning up after the meetings while men remained sitting, drinking coffee. The apparent freedom of a Christian woman is limited by the clear social expectation to get married and have children. However, since the male population was reduced through war fatalities and immigration there are inevitably a significant number of women who remain single. People often show pity towards the unmarried woman through the often used expression ‘ya haram.’ Also, when ˙ a young unmarried woman congratulates someone on getting engaged or married, the typical response given back to her is, “may it be the same for you.”143 Throughout her sermons, Mary encouraged other female members, emphasizing that they are loved by Jesus and the only behaviour which is haram ˙ is not to respond to the love of Jesus. Mary was never married and without children, yet she is highly independent and educated, self employed and she holds a leadership role in a church and other NGO’s. However, Mary does not view her countercultural gender position in terms of a protest nor does it lead her to question the imbalance of equality between the genders. She sees her gendered life in terms of embodying and living out the call of Jesus. She does not attempt to reinterpret Jesus into female linguistic terminology as his human identity is the source of her resistance and subversion of social pressures. She finds comfort in his “maleness” and often employs the picture of being married to Jesus transcending earthly marriage. This attitude prevents her from developing a victim mentality as she does not view herself as lacking a male protector. While Mary takes up the traditional gender roles in her idea of being married to Jesus, she at the same time subverts the cultural expectations for women. Throughout her sermons, she often uses language loaded with romantic imagery, and when addressing Jesus directly, as if speaking to her lover. One time she exclaimed 143 Haram is a religious term which is traditionally understood as what is forbidden by God in ˙ Islam. However, haram in this case, when combined with ‘ya’ as used in the spoken dialect, carries more the connotation “what a pity” or “what a shame”.

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jokingly when preaching about the church as the bride of Jesus: “I wonder what it is like for you guys to relate to Jesus. You don’t know what it is like to be a bride.” Through this comment, she suggested, that males are lacking the intensity of a love relationship to Jesus due to their gender. As the relationship to Jesus takes the highest priority in life, the cultural values, which place the value of a woman on her marital status and progeny, get subverted. C/P women use various strategies in order to live out the ritual non-gendered identity within a society where gender strongly determines the roles of an individual. Mary describes her leadership role in terms of “leading a spiritual family”. By meeting in the private realm and branding “MwG” as a spiritual family, Mary seemingly takes on the culturally expected role of a woman as a family leader, namely as a mother, occupying the private space. However, Mary also transcends the confinement of a private sphere as she leads “MwG” into the public realm on various occasions, whether to evangelistic events or public retreats. On the other hand, women from “CMTC” who are more constrained by the ongoing tie to “TC”, install male leadership who function in the public, while the woman continues to lead from behind the stage. Within “CN”, I have observed the husband of the founding woman functioning as a public leader. However, everyone in the group knows who the primary leader is. This arrangement allows for the founding woman to maintain the ecclesial structure while influencing and changing the perception of gender from within. Ronald L. Grimes fittingly remarks: As constitutive as gender may seem, there are alternative ways of performing it. Thus, the idea of performativity is currently being used as a tool for attacking a dominant social system that construes gender, race, and other social categories in terms of binary opposites.144

While binary gender opposites are strongly reinforced during the everyday interactions in the public, these opposites are subverted during C/P rituals. The strong distinction between public and private, male and female is blurred. Mary described her style of preaching in the following way : “You know, it is different, when there is organized church, if there is a priest standing up front and speaks […]. I do not know him, how am I supposed to share what is inside of me? How am I supposed to grow? In our culture, people do not share in a formal setting but people do share about themselves in a family setting! People grow in a family setting, in a house people can get to know me. Our skin hungers for community. Come and get to know me […]. I am not just talking from the pulpit. I am there with the people.” (Mary touches her chest and stretches her arms out with her palms outstretched as if in an inviting gesture.). 144 Grimes, 2006, p. 391.

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Mary’s style of preaching is relational and therefore more effective in the context of Lebanon where a message is believed more quickly if the source of knowledge can be verified by a personal encounter. Great emphasis is laid upon the family structure. With the erosion of traditional family structures, Mary takes on the role of a traditional family authority. Within the newly formed family setting, preaching is likened to family instructions. The intimacy of the setting allows for greater honesty and transparency. Thus, a ritual acquires emotional depth as it is performed in an intimate setting. Mary authenticates the use of this innovative setting with the reference to “our Lebanese culture” thus branding the institutional Lebanese preaching as in fact, a foreign import. The ritual is projected into tradition. C/P practices do not systematically condemn local culture, but in an ad hoc manner. Within this selective refusal and appropriation lies its contextual transformative power. The ritualized testimonies after the sermon connect Mary’s expressive and embodied presentation with the lives of the believers, creating a sense of communal belonging. Plüss, referring to Rahner, sees the testimony as a process of “collective finding of truth.”145 Through several testimonies as to how the sermon had affected the lives of individuals, a unity within plurality was established. The meta-narrative is communicated through preaching which in turn elicits testimonies. Thus the meta-narrative is rooted in real life experience. After one of Mary’s sermons, one member exclaimed: I always thought that denying the Lord is only when it comes to death, for example, if someone puts a gun to my head. But now I realize that I also deny the Lord when I complain if someone cuts me off in traffic. Complaining is denying that our Lord is at work. He tells us not to complain.

Beirut is known for its dense and chaotic traffic and grounding the meta-narrative in this new, unexpected way within the daily struggle of car driving brings another area of the daily life into the interpretative scope of the meta-narrative, thus transforming both. Being faithful to the Lord is not seen solely as isolated heroic acts achieved by commemorated saints but rather involves daily, seemingly mundane activities. By locating the C/P ritual in private spaces and creating analogical relations to biological families, Mary roots her leadership in the traditional female role. Within the female space, people feel more comfortable to disclose themselves and enter into the transformative C/P rituals. However, at the same time Mary transcends this role as C/P rituals aim towards the public and as spiritual families bring together anyone, even former enemies like male Syrian guest workers who are free to join the C/P worship. This innovation also allows males 145 Plüss, 2003, p. 8.

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to rework traditional gender roles. Displays of deep emotion by males are typically reserved for certain accepted public events such as funerals, political rallies and weddings. The C/P rituals offer a platform to express emotions of joy and sadness outside of the commonly agreed upon settings and roles. A few times, I have observed a worship leader of TOP cry on the stage. Outside of a C/P ritual there are no occasions apart from the death of a relative or a political/ religious leader, where the emotion of sadness is allowed to be expressed. The worship leader cried over the spiritual state of the Lebanese nation. While he expressed deep grief over what he termed the ‘spiritual’ state, this state was understood in the context of socio-political-economic realities. Gender identities are embodied through everyday practices. When talking to the Lebanese who had travelled to Europe, they shared with me how it was strange for them to observe so many men who walked like women and women who did not shave their body hair and assumed a male posture. In Lebanon, the bodily gender prescriptions and expectations are strongly reinforced within society. The social status of a woman, whether Christian or Muslim, is measured by her bodily femininity, her marriage status to a successful husband of a respected larger family and the bearing of children. A successful professional career is also desired. However, a woman with a professional career without husband and children is often pitied and is looked upon with suspicion. At “MwG”, more than half of the members are women in their late 20’s, who like Mary, are unmarried and without children. They experience the social stigma daily as they are not able to develop a life independent from male authority. As long as they are not under the protection of a man, they remain under the protection of their parents. Thus, even Mary prefers to stay at home with her mother. Otherwise, should she choose to live on her own, she would be perceived as a sexually available immoral woman. Thus, being a female requires her to be subordinate to the traditional authority. This social position creates a certain submissive attitude which I observed among women who upon entering the C/P groups seemed completely withdrawn. Mary often employs the “name giving” ritual to subvert these engraved gender identities. As Rosalind C. Morris remarks, anthropologists have focused attention on the ways in which ritual acts of naming and name-calling produce different kinds of subjects, not simply because the institutionally authorized naming has identified them as of the ‘female sex’, as ‘daughters of so-andso’, as ‘brides’or as ‘widows’, for example, but because all performances fall short of the ideal. Hence, people must repeat, rehearse and enact their identities with some reference to a more perfect performance. They are, in short, required to constantly become what they are and to live with the knowledge of an existential inadequacy.146 146 Morris, 2006, p. 370.

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Often, after her sermon, Mary would go from person to person, lay her hand upon the forehead and exclaim loud prayers. Then she would make a festive like pronouncement as in the following: “X, I declare in the name of Jesus, that you are his princess! Y, I declare that you are Jesus’ fighter!” “Z, you are the bride of Jesus! You are filled with Jesus love and you lack nothing!”

While the naming ritual mostly affirms the women in their identity, transcending the cultural gender construction, I have also heard the naming ritual used to negatively confront men. “You are a stubborn horse. Allow the spirit to take control and you will perform miracles for the Glory of God!” An unmarried woman standing over the kneeling married man and calling him a horse would, outside of C/P the ritual, no doubt, constitute a big public scandal. However, as both participants accept the rule of divine authorization the cultural gender dynamic is temporarily ignored. The touch confirms her words as the kneeling participants feel the hands and experience the mediatory power of the Holy Spirit upon their skin. With this newly founded gender transcending identity the participants enter their everyday reality to “become what they are” by wrestling with the socially assigned gender references.

2.2.7. The failure of ritual Rituals fail when (1) bodily mediation (2) between divine agency, the text and the Lebanese context within (3) demarcated spatio-temporal realms does not occur.147 The human body is the central medium of the ritual. Thus, the failure can occur if the bodily performance fails at achieving the intended results. The intended result of a C/P ritual is the realness of the triune God within the world and within human bodies. At one of the worship services, the C/P pastor introduced a guest speaker, giving him the title an “Egyptian prophet”, who had led a powerful ministry in Egypt. He then had moved to Canada where he started several churches, moving on then to Los Angeles, USA, where he did the same. Afterward, he was a missionary in Taiwan. The pastor concluded his introduction: “Let’s give him a warm welcome!” Everyone got up and clapped, some whistled and even shouted. I had the impression as if a pop star was about to walk onto the stage. However, this expectation for his physical appearance clearly was not met by his physique. He appeared on stage, overweight and bald. He spoke in a high pitched voice and 147 In the following chapter, I refrain from mentioning a specific C/P group as some cases contain information which could be perceived as sensitive to a particular C/P group.

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every few minutes had to pull up his pants which appeared to slide down, creating a bit of a comical scenario. His bodily fitness and awkward behaviour on stage did not seem to reflect the magnitude of his proclaimed achievements. His sermon was about the church worldwide and how after encountering a difficult spiritual warfare the church will enjoy glory and rest with Jesus in heaven. He spoke out many warnings about whether the church was ready for the spiritual battle. He compared many believers to spiritual infants who can not take solid foods but only drink milk.148 Finally, he challenged the church as the body of Christ to be built up and get stronger in expectation of the spiritual battle that lay ahead. The prophet underlined his challenging message to the church with shouts and asked for the response of the church through various “Amen” exclamations. However, the initial welcoming excitement of the crowd diminished as the sermon continued. It appeared to me that people began to feel the apparent contradiction between the prophet’s urge to the church body to be built up while apparently letting his own body go. The image of muscles and energy that the prophet evoked stood in stark contrast to his overweight body and expensive clothing, which are associated with a comfortable life and a lack of energy. Additionally, while preaching, the prophet breathed heavily and seemed to be sweating profusely merely from the effort of his speaking. In contrast to “TC”, the body of the speaker was not covered by traditional clerical garments, but was on display in expressing the message. What serves as a strength in the case of a fit “CN” female leader, fires back as a deterrent if the body contradicts the ritual intention. The two senses, hearing and seeing, contradicted each other. Even if the C/P believers do not verbally reflect on this, they seem to sense a contradiction between the prophet’s words and his own body. As a consequence, this clash of senses, between words and body, produced an almost comical effect with the result being participants disconnecting and distancing themselves as there was less verbal response and affirmation as in clapping than usual as his sermon stretched on. The ritual also fails if divine agency is not experienced within the ritual setting. At one C/P meeting, the preacher walked up after the communal worship. Everyone expected a sermon. However, the preacher gave the following speech: “When we have a preacher from outside, he speaks a few words and it has a big impact on us. When Peter preached in the bible, 3000 men became believers! You got used to me and to others here preaching. You got used that I walk through the bible and the other brother is preaching more systematically. I feel as if we are all bored and tired. Every Friday, we come here, worship, listen to the sermons and go home and nothing changes. When I preach, I think: ‘Now, after this word, there will be a great revival. I saw 148 This imagery was taken from the Bible, 1. Corinthians 3:2.

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on TV, an Egyptian preacher was taken to heaven several times’. And the Lord told him: ‘You will be taught by the spirit, you don’t need preaching anymore!’ I should just shut up, I have just one point for you: The bible says that in the end times, there will be wrong teaching and false prophets. But we should focus our eyes on Jesus!”

In this sermon, the C/P preacher addressed several issues which seemed to fail in order for the ritual to succeed. Firstly, the words spoken seemed to produce no effect on the bodies of believers. The word is experienced as dead and devoid of divine potency. The preacher pointed out some reasons for the failure. The first is routinization. Although C/P rituals rely heavily on a certain agreed upon form, the focus of C/P rituals is not on external material culture such as the body of the priest. Instead, the C/P ritual is continuously recreated and evolving through the bodily performance of pastors, lay preachers, worship musicians and C/P believers. The sense of dynamism and energy of the Holy Spirit is recreated through the body which is not settled into a certain ritual form. Thus, routinization is then perceived as something, which could transform the C/P ritual into an easily predicted event. This in turn would portray mere human agency at the core of the ritual, voiding it of any divine agency. The preacher worried that human agency may substitute divine agency, as mere cognitive understanding of what is written in the bible would lead to rituals lacking experiential understanding. For example, the preacher often evokes the picture of the Holy Spirit’s bodily effects upon the believer, which occur independent from human mediation. Human agency and words are seen as surface phenomena which can obscure the real ritual event, which is seen from the transformative influence of the divine agent upon the individual’s body. This critique also denounces the (if) view of ritual as stemming from mere human ability. Without divine agency, C/P believers would perceive any ritual behaviour as human manipulation. Thus, (if) explanations of C/P rituals re-describe the phenomena into some seemingly more basic narrative which C/P believers themselves attempt to avoid. Therefore, the solution lies not in a more elaborate technique, but distance from any human agency and retreat into receptive passivity in order to reorient the self into shared agency with the Holy Spirit. As in the case above, the preacher decided to stop speaking in the hope that the Holy Spirit would interact with the believers directly without the mediating human actor. However, a complete withdrawal from written words can also lead to ritual failure as written words establish a lasting normativity. Divine agency, human bodies and settings do change. The letters on pages are fixed as a medium even though their appropriation through living bodies is not. At one particular group, I have observed a lot of divine revelations which would be spoken out frequently by leaders without any reference to the scripture. Sometimes the proclamations would take on the form of Old Testament prophets: “The Lord says […]”;

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evoking direct divine speech through a passive medium. Sometimes, the biblical words would be cited in order to proclaim a contemporary prophecy. However, over the course of time, in establishing deeper relationships with leaders within this particular group, I observed tensions and disagreements among the leaders. The disagreement was rooted in a mixture of personality and theological convictions, as one male in disagreement to the other female leader put it: I realized that God also works through our minds. And I had a problem when people just got up and were sharing some weird impressions that supposedly God gave them but it was not rooted in the scriptures.

In response to these internal critiques, the female leader preached a sermon where she differentiated between ‘logos’ and ‘raema’. She described logos as the word understood through human knowledge and ‘raema’ as transformative divine word. She concluded: “We can have all the knowledge, but if the word does not transform us, if we do not speak the right word at the right time, it is nothing, but mere head knowledge.” Her sermon was a direct response to the male co-leader who was critiquing her for using her divine revelations in order to manipulate people. He also suggested that without any reference to the scripture the use of the divine reference by this female leader was tied to her personal will to dominate. In response, the female leader backed up her presentation by sharing about her evangelistic travel to Syria and how she and her team had ministered to a Syrian Muslim couple, who were then willing to receive the Holy Spirit. The failure of ritual took place on various levels. On the surface, the male co-leader critiqued the ritual authority of the female leader as she seemed to bypass the scriptures, which root the individual within a wider community. However, the critique of her private revelations had deeper roots in anchoring ritual authority. The effectiveness of ritual performance is also sanctioned communally. Within the “TC”, the priest takes on a role both constrained by and protected by the ecclesial institution. However, while the effectiveness of a C/P authority rests on the closeness of such a leader to people and his/her experience and performance, these qualities also make him/her vulnerable to those same people s/he is interacting with. As in the example above, the male leader had a professional background in engineering and through his critique sought to make the authority of the leader transparent. This intervention was also reinforced by his gender as males are responsible for safeguarding the public and the visible aspect of the Lebanese culture. On the contrary, the female leader interpreted these requests as a human attempt to control, which goes against the C/P belief in giving oneself to the divine agency. Thus, this conflict over human-divine agency and the nature of written words within the performed ritual may in fact stem in part also from the conflict over power and gender within Lebanese society. The release of ritual authority from

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charismatic personality to the public bureaucratic authority means also releasing the possibility of a female authority to the institution dominated by males. However, this example clarifies that rituals can only work if the key participants give not only their mental assent, but relational consent as well concerning the basic rules of such a performance and its unacknowledged power hierarchies. Thus, C/P rituals are entangled within the wider relational politics and negotiation which push from the outside of a particular ritual. This wider context can intrude upon the C/P ritual performance and cause disagreement and critique over seemingly internal issues. C/P rituals also fail if the performers do not succeed in demarcating the ritual from the everyday in a meaningful way retaining tension. Meaningful constitutes being different from and yet still recognizable in relation to the Lebanese context within which the rituals make sense to the C/P participants. During one of the C/P worship services, the leader knelt down and started to pray aloud inviting the Holy Spirit to change Lebanon. Later, after performing worship, he announced that sometimes he wished people would be active in business, in arts, in politics and not just come everyday to his church and occupy the chairs. He critiqued the tendency of some C/P members to retreat completely into the safe realm of C/P communal ritual. However, as shown above, C/P rituals acquire their realness by engaging various socio-political spheres. Without this engagement, the C/P rituals become an interior-psychological therapeutic means which lose their transformative power upon the everyday culture of people as the individual bodies do not experience bodily tensions. These tensions confirm the realness and presence of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Most C/P leaders I have observed invent a continuous outward orientation, which feeds their rituals with new engagement. Ritual as bodily mediation requires being in between various frames and acting out of this experience of tension. This tension then pressures the body towards action in order to establish a certain level of coherence between the opposing frames. As long as this tension is present, the body will be continuously pushed to perform. Since C/P rituals’ dynamic appeal lies in the continuous creative performance, the disappearance of tension leads towards a temporary stability of ritual which may begin to resemble “TC” rituals in its sharp demarcation, making a specific C/P ritual innovation obsolete. One native C/P leader critiqued the C/P missionaries who come to Beirut and perform C/P rituals in public without further considering the Lebanese context. In particular, he critiqued the militant talk used in public, which although understood in spiritual terms by the C/P insiders could easily be misunderstood by other Lebanese in concrete military terms similar to that employed by Hizb’allah who easily transition from spiritual visions to concrete socio-political and military actions. Thus, a public C/P ritual of waving worship flags and shouting about establishing the reign of Jesus could easily backfire as understood in terms

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of Christians intending to take over the country through political and military means. The memories of the crusader and French political and military protection of the Maronites remain in the collective memory of the Muslim and Druze population. Sometimes, C/P leaders fail to establish unity within C/P worship. Thus, I have observed people dropping out due to the free floating energy. In particular, within private apartments, the demarcation of the ritual from the everyday environment must continuously be established in order for the internal ritual unity to be maintained. During some meetings, I have observed the leaders being engaged in intense prayer, while some other members retreated into the kitchen and were socializing. The contrast between the intense C/P ritual in one room and an everyday scene in the other was striking. On several occasions, the leader had to reassemble C/P participants in order to continue with the C/P ritual. Within “TC” service the bodies are held together within a sacred space. In contrast an apartment offers an easy escape if the C/P leader fails to engage the free floating energy of participants. Rituals also fail if the ritual does not refer in any meaningful way to the cultural context within which it is performed. For most young people who join the C/P groups the reasons for engagement are not dogmatic or intellectual, but mostly bodily-experiential. For example, they do not feel able to connect in any meaningful way to the material culture of “TC” and are looking for an alternative Christian experience which fits more to their everyday life. The incense, festive atmosphere, icons and interior painted in bright red, blue and gold failed to evoke the feelings which perhaps it did in the past when these ritual spaces were initially designed. In contrast, C/P’s employment of latest technology, from sound systems to digital projections on the wall, speaks to a generation which is used to design and interaction with technology. One person in particular compared the rituals in “TC” to a theater which one observes and yet does not understand. The material culture, which symbolically communicated a religious message in the past, ceased to move the body for many young adults. Instead of the immovable interior of “TC”, the C/P believers transform any interior into a sacred space through wall projections and sounds which they design for the moment. The material is just as temporal as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit which can not be molded into a sculpture which would be available for future generations. Once the C/P rituals are mediated through the latest technology, they remain tied to the continuous evolving process of innovation. To fail to engage and adapt to the cultural change around it means falling back into the fixed “TC” ritual mediation and thus repeating the same ritual failures. The ritual also fails if economic logic replaces ritual bodily mediation. Divine agency is then substituted by human ability. As one member shared with me as to why he is skeptical about some streams within the C/P movement, where

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rituals become a means to get rich. Thus, the ritual loses its central experiential value in engaging the socio-economic sphere. Instead, it becomes subsumed into the desire to maximize gain by using and controlling the divine agent. As over a long period if the ritual assumes a cause and effect efficacy, that exact criteria for verification may be its undoing or its failure. This kind of betrayed expectation falls back on the credibility of those performing the ritual. The C/P believers also struggle to engage the political sphere through their rituals. In particular, I have observed how some C/P groups avoided altogether the mention of politics in order not to be drawn into political divisions on one hand and on the other to maintain the spiritual unity of all believers. If these political conflicts are mentioned at all, then in general terms, by praying and speaking out against the underlying spiritual battle going on beneath the surface of political strife. While the rituals succeed in subsuming the political sphere, I have observed C/P believers still retaining the political positions of their particular religious and socio-economic communities. Thus, if family and friends do not share the C/P view of divine agency and politics, they must communicate a political view which can be understood by the outsiders while remaining true to their C/P beliefs. If rituals do not engage the political sphere by enabling their adherents to invent a language to speak about politics from a C/P perspective, then rituals shrink to the private experience alone, and fail to engage the wider public sphere. Some leaders of the C/P movement within “TC” noted the failure of C/P rituals if they are not meaningfully related to the existing Lebanese religious communities. For example, by creating a complete rupture, rejecting the material culture of “TC”, the saints and its history through the ritual also means that the individual is cut off from deeper communal and historic roots. Perhaps this is the reason why the C/P movement outside of “TC”, which imports the rituals mostly from the US and England, speaks mostly to minorities like Armenians and migrant workers who lack roots in the wider Lebanese culture. For the uprooted, this imported C/P ritual culture presents an opportunity to become rooted within the global C/P movement. Rituals also fail if the evoked genderless reality is not practiced equally. One C/P church allowed women to preach during various classes and internal events, but not on Sunday morning public gatherings. Perhaps it was an attempt to avoid unnecessary conflict with the Lebanese norm of restricting female leadership. However, on one occasion, upon the arrival of an English white woman, who was known within C/P circles, she was offered a pulpit on Sunday morning to preach to the entire church. Although I did not hear any voiced complaints, the obvious contradiction surfaced and lent a colonial interpretation to the ritual thus contradicting the belief in the divine egalitarian working of the Holy Spirit.

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In this event, the natural attributes of the woman such as her birth origin and skin color, lent her a religious position of power. Due to the emphasis on the bodily performance of C/P rituals and its critique of routinization, the ritual failures occur frequently. However, I also observed ways the C/P believers deal with these failures. The believers do experience moments where they do not “hear” the voice of God and therefore experience an intense feeling of meaninglessness. This experience is linked correspondingly to the idea of the common sense everyday reality lacking the structure of a metanarrative. One leader started his sermon with the following words: “I prayed and wept in preparing the sermon today. But the Lord did not speak to me. I asked him to show me what he wanted me to speak. There was no response. I do not know as to why the Lord did not respond, but I do know that he listens to us.”

The leader then read a few verses, closed the Bible, and after finishing a prayer, sat in silence. Several people seemed uncomfortable with the silence. Others knelt on the floor and prayed. Meaninglessness was enacted and served as intensification for the relationship of the group to God and to each other. The testimony of the leader served as a vehicle for other members to release their experiences of meaninglessness into the meta-narrative of meaning. Meaninglessness is confined to a fraction of the larger meaningful meta-narrative. Meaninglessness is expected to lead to a deeper experience of meaning. However, the believers experience these gaps in meaning as real and can only move beyond them through an act of trust in appropriating the whole meta-narrative. The believers do not take up a cynical stance towards the perceived absurdity. Instead, they seek to overcome it. Failure becomes an opportunity for reinvention of the ritual and intensification of ritual behaviour. The failure does not contradict the basic C/P conviction that individuals need the power of the Holy Spirit in their bodies due to the antagonistic character of the Christian life. Therefore, failures are interpreted within this framework as an opportunity for the divine agent to manifest his power where the human agency experiences its limitations. Following the disclosure of meaninglessness by the preacher, an internal conversation followed, which replaced the cancelled sermon: P1: We should not feel the spirit of condemnation.

The “spirit of condemnation” is viewed by C/P believers as an attack by evil spirits, and not as coming from the Holy Spirit, who uplifts and encourages the believers. Thus, this participant expressed his concern over the effect which this acknowledgement of ritual failure might produce. P2: I have a picture from the Lord: I see Nahr el Mot (river of death). And the church is having a picnic beside this river. And all the people pass by the church and go and drown in this stinky river and we do not care. We let them die. We become like Nahr el

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Mot, because we receive so much and we do not let it out. We do not pass it on to the people!

This person’s interpretation, which she attributed to the divine origin by stating that she had received this picture from God, explains the apparent breakdown of efficacy. Accordingly, the divine agency only impacts the body of the participants if they give the impulse to others. Thus, speaking within the framework of the ritual theory, if the ritual is cut off from meaningful interaction within its context, the ritual itself becomes self-referential. This self-referentiality is then evaluated as a “stinking river”. This picture evokes absence of movement. Bodily movement however, during the ritual and as an extension into the everyday sphere, is a precondition for experiencing realness. Thus, P2 was attributing the failure of the ritual to the failure of ritual participants in extending their ritual experience into their everyday interactions. P3: I work at the hotel and at the beginning it has been a challenge. But then I got used to it. It is not as exciting as in the beginning, but good. I like my work even more.

P3 gives an indirect critique of the sermon through his life experience. He questions whether efficacy of C/P rituals must be necessarily contrasted to routinization. Being used to something can also mean that a certain task has been embodied to a degree where one does not need to further invest conscious bodily energy into it. Thus, the reason for the ritual failure does not lie necessarily in routinization. P4: Some churches pray for years for revival and nothing happens. That does not mean that something is wrong!

P4 refers to a historic and contemporary observation. She critiques the preacher’s impatience and perhaps his human desire behind his observation of the lack of divine agency. Instead, she suggests, that he is not able to experience the Holy Spirit due to his desire to influence the bodies and outcomes through the preaching. Through the reframing of the temporal category, she critiques the preacher as wanting to experience quick results. This impatience might contradict God’s intentions, which transcend human particular short sighted goals. P5: If the enemy manages to cut off the church from the world and from each other, then it is the end of the church.

P5 summarizes in her statement the possible negative outcomes of the sermon as a diminishing of trust among members and therefore an inward focus which then does not engage its surrounding context in a meaningful way leading to stagnation and eventually, decline. This statement poignantly expresses the theory I am proposing: The realness diminishes due to a declining bodily mediation. Then P1 speaks up again:

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P1: “The Lord gave me a word: “If the heart of the church ceases to beat for the people outside, it is going to die!””

P1 confirms P2 and partially P5. This situation exemplifies how the dialogical setting of C/P rituals allows several perspectives on the perception of ritual failure to be voiced. There is no consensus voiced as a ritual is not an academic discourse which allows for some experts to take on a position in order to draw conclusions binding for others. However, the ritual failure created a polyphonic discourse which lent various, even mutually contradictory statements to be voiced. Even though no single solution was found, every participant felt included in the communal process of ritual reinvention. Therefore, a unified mental acknowledgement of a particular proposition is not central in order to address the failure. By engaging as a group, the listeners performed a solution to the problem of passive bodies. Therefore, by stating the ineffectiveness of the word and provoking a response, the preacher was successful. By addressing the failure, this failure was overcome through bodily engagement. C/P rituals require personal utterances by participants as the degree of bodily expressiveness in worship appears linked to the depth of the believer’s commitment and the level of intimacy in his/her relationship with Jesus. Kneeling or prostrating oneself on the floor expresses a state of surrender. Inner feelings are expressed in short utterances and spontaneous prayers. However, people often seem to struggle for words. As Davis points out in reference to Needham, […] expressions of belief and states of experience or emotion simply cannot be positively correlated, so that language itself ultimately produces a conceptual disease or instability. When theology follows suit, wedded to propositional data and literal texts, it too becomes progressively useless outside academic circles […].149

However, even this instability of language is interpreted within the C/P metanarrative. The lack of words is viewed by the believer as a reminder to rely on the Holy Spirit to speak through them.150 In place of the communal clarity found in declaring a written creed, the C/P group must search individually yet as a community for expression. By ritualizing this search, chaos is kept at bay. Language in its phatic function constitutes a social event in its very act of speaking independent from its propositional content.151 Various spontaneous exclamations during worship, even if not understood by other members, seem to have this function of establishing the relation between the one exclaiming and the Holy Spirit thus inviting others to join into this relationship. Silence and repetition of the same phrases as a search for expression have also 149 Davis, 2002, p. 95. 150 This is a common remark about the gift of speaking in tongues. 151 Joseph, 2004, p. 17.

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their ritual niches.152 This became obvious when in one instance; silence fell at the wrong moment. As Robbins notes, “[…] failures of meaning are always surprises”153 After one of Mary’s sermons an Armenian man began to pray and suddenly stopped. The contrast between Mary’s chiseled rhetoric and the overflow of her words stood in stark contrast to the young man’s failure to continue and his lack of words. He appeared uncomfortable. The contrast between power and powerlessness, fullness and emptiness was acted out. The Armenian believer closed his prayer after this silence by stuttering several words about being broken before God. Yet it is this unexpected silence which authenticates the C/P embodiment of their meta-narrative about the relation to God. A relationship cannot be choreographed in advance and must therefore contain moments of surprise and insecurity. The possibility of the ritual instability allows for the excitement of unpredictability. Rituals can also fail due to the external material conditions. During one of the ritual emotional peaks in one of the apartments, the electricity went out as frequently happens in Beirut. The preacher kept speaking as if nothing happened. However, when the generator failed to kick in, the darkness remained and people began to grow restless, the preacher switched into a prayer: “Jesus, you want to shake us up. Thank you Lord for everything, even for darkness, when we do not see. Thank you Lord that you are sovereign, thank you Lord for darkness and for light.”

The preacher was able to transform an apparent failure into a new ritual stage. She became invisible to the public. Her switching to prayer was a move to reorient the listeners towards the divine agent. And the lack of visual sense was helpful as individuals are also not able to see the Holy Spirit with their eyes. An external failure which threatens the performance of the ritual became instead a confirmation and part of an exciting divine interruption as it was framed and became the material setting of the ritual. The ritual failure does occur. However, whether this failure diminished the realness of C/P rituals or even heightens its realness, depends on the creative bodily response of the C/P leaders and participants.

152 Stringer is right to a certain extent, when he contends that a “rite or phrase can have significance without ever carrying meaning. Such an event can also give significance to a person’s life without that person ever needing to ask what it might actually mean.” See: Stringer, 1999, p. 212. Within C/P ritual practices the question is constantly evoked concerning the relationship between the form and the content. Even the absence of meaning is choreographed within the meaningful larger narrative. 153 Robbins, 2006b, p. 218.

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2.2.8. Conclusion Through the observation of C/P rituals, I have arrived at a definition of C/P ritual as (1) bodily mediation (2) between narrative plot and the world (3) within demarcated spatio-temporal realms. The advantage of this definition is that it encompasses as a research paradigm both (if) and (tf) approaches. “Divine agency” as a specific C/P belief can be substituted with “meta-narrative plot”. This basic narrative structure of human experience applies both to religious and secular rituals alike without the need to re-describe divine agency into some more basic category outside of the narrative plot. Rituals emerge through communal performance, which then shapes a shared embodied framework for normative values. Shared beliefs and language form a background for any understanding and reflection. Therefore rituals are basic in creating a culture which enables people to act and communicate together. Moreover, as Lebanon has been rapidly modernized after the end of the war in 1990, the individual felt fragmented and torn between traditional and modern expectations. C/P rituals offer an experience of unity with the self and the world through divine agency permeating all spheres and holding the disjointed everyday reality together. Within the demarcated space of the ritual, the everyday cause-effect mechanisms do not apply as believers transcend the everyday through shared agency and free themselves from oppressing dynamics of market economy, cross-pressured family dynamics, political tribalism and social wastah mechanisms. The C/P ritual forms a space outside of the spatio-temporal categories, while relating to and engaging these categories. The core experience of divine agency within the rituals and through the body of believers creates an impression of coherence between the texts which witness to the working of God through the history and the current socio-cultural context of C/P believers. The ritual enlarges the spatio-temporal perception of the individual as s/he feels part of a larger divine reality. Bodily mediation between various spheres produces bodily tension. The ritual must refer meaningfully to the context and yet remain distinct from it. I will explore further this tension between the ritual and the everyday experience in the following chapter.

2.3. Bodily mediation in the everyday life 2.3.1. The everyday reality from an etic perspective Berger and Luckmann attempt a phenomenological analysis of the reality of every day life without assertions about the ontological status of the phenomena. This connects well as a starting point for my description, as their account describes well

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the agreed upon point of departure within the western secular academic context. I am not concerned here with the development of Berger/Luckmann’s thoughts on religion and everyday life. Instead, I find the phenomenological approach as outlined within this particular work helpful as a working starting point due to similar assumptions made by my colleagues within the research institution. I find it a generally fitting description of a western liberal assumption on the nature of everyday reality in relation to religion. Berger/Luckmann use various metaphors in order to describe the primacy and self-evident nature of the everyday reality. Accordingly, the everyday reality presents itself as a “coherent world”, which encompasses all other peripheral realities such as religious and aesthetic realities. They interpret the coherence as inter-subjective meaning, which emerges through common sense agreement arrived through continuous correspondence between people. Thus, the everyday reality is something everyone takes for granted. The natural attitude is the attitude of commonsense consciousness precisely because it refers to a world that is common to many men. Commonsense knowledge is the knowledge I share with others in the normal, self-evident routines of everyday life.154

The habitual function of the body within the everyday life constitutes such a self evident nature of what is and must be the case, that the resulting impression of realness suspends doubt. “This suspension of doubt is so firm that to abandon it, as I might want to do, say, in theoretical or religious contemplation, I have to make an extreme transition.”155 Further, Berger/Luckmann describe the everyday reality as ordered and “prearranged in patterns that seem to be independent of my apprehension of them”.156 This everyday reality imposes itself upon my senses through the spatial and temporal bodily closeness. “The reality of everyday life is organized around the ‘here’ of my body and the ‘now’ of my present.”157 Any definition of a term must include a distinction from another term in order to be meaningful. The definition of the everyday reality is shaped in relation to other realities. Berger and Luckmann draw the distinction towards other spheres: Compared to the reality of everyday life, other realities appear as finite provinces of meaning, enclaves within the paramount reality marked by circumscribed meanings and modes of experience. The paramount reality envelops them on all sides, as it were, and consciousness always returns to the paramount reality as from an excursion.158 154 155 156 157 158

Berger/Luckmann, 1966, p. 23. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., p. 25.

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Berger defines the everyday reality as larger than other realities, such as religion and theoretical contemplation. The metaphor of quantity arises from the temporal and spatial analysis. If the body is situated most of the time in the concrete here and now, then speculations, which are primarily mental, cannot occupy as much time and space. Moreover, if the everyday reality is solidly grounded within the sensual experience, then the shift to other realities requires a conscious transgressing of a presupposed boundary towards smaller realms of meaning. All finite provinces of meaning are characterized by a turning away of attention from the reality of everyday life. While there are, of course, shifts in attention within everyday life, the shift to a finite province of meaning is of a much more radical kind.159

Berger/Luckmann employ here the analogy of theater. Every spectator, even if drawn into a vivid presentation on stage for the limited duration of a play, must eventually return to the concrete everyday reality. As an example, Berger/ Luckmann use language in order to make their point about the problematic coexistence of the everyday reality and the religious experience. The common language available to me for the objectification of my experiences is grounded in everyday life and keeps pointing back to it even as I employ it to interpret experiences in finite provinces of meaning.160

Thus, the primary use of language within the everyday reality ‘distorts’ the attempt to use it to describe religious experience, as these other realms of reality are secondary and distinct from the primary realm. Berger/Luckmann do not clarify further what they mean by this distortion. However, based on their assumption about a clear cut boundary between realities, distortion could refer to a pull of other realities towards the everyday reality through the use of language which is rooted in the latter. The religious sphere can not maintain its otherness and is therefore dissolved into the everyday reality. Distortion means gravitation towards the primary and concrete realm of everyday reality as described by Berger/Luckmann. In a similar vein, Geertz views the everyday reality as a solid feature of human life available to everyone. He defines the religious sphere in relation to the common-sensical, the scientific and the aesthetic. The common-sensical is “[…] a simple acceptance of the world, its objects, and its processes as being just what they seem to be […]”161 Geertz then emphasizes the difference between them. [The] religious perspective differs from the common-sensical in that, as already pointed out, it moves beyond the realities of everyday life to wider ones which correct 159 Ibid., pp. 25–26. 160 Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 26. 161 Geertz, 2000, p. 111.

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and complete them, and its defining concern is not action upon those wider realities but acceptance of them, faith in them.162

However, Geertz stresses the ontological primacy of the everyday world. [The] everyday world of common-sense objects and practical acts is […] the paramount reality in human experience – paramount in the sense that it is the world in which we are most solidly rooted, whose inherent actuality we can hardly question […] and from whose pressures and requirements we can least escape.163

Even though Geertz acknowledges the interrelation between the religious and the common-sensical spheres of life, he describes the function of religion metaphorically as casting “a derivative, lunar light over the solid features of a people’s secular life.”164 Berger/Luckmann and Geertz construct their account of the reality of everyday life in relation to other spheres, in particular religion. Thus, the underlying paradigm is a system of meaning, which is defined through boundaries between various spheres. The existence of these boundaries makes it possible to differentiate between and use bodily metaphors which then create a paradigm of understanding. Whereas such qualities as big, concrete and close are ascribed to the everyday reality, the adjectives of small, fuzzy and far refer to religion and other, less real spheres. This theoretical account arises from a specific life world within the concrete western academic socio-economic setting, which Berger and Luckmann presuppose as a background without further reflection. Thus, by theorizing on the particular concrete bodily everyday reality, they at the same time bracket their own concrete everyday material setting. I will reverse the process of thought by beginning with empirical observations on relation between C/P rituals and their everyday experience and then bring my observations into conversation with the phenomenological account of Berger/Luckmann.

2.3.2. Ex-tension between the ritual and the everyday Laidlaw and Humphrey, similar to Berger/Luckmann and Geertz, presuppose a reality of a shared everyday experience which is set apart from ritual. However, they assume that ritual participants are aware of the difference, “People generally know and indeed intend that, in ritual, they are acting differently from normal.”165 While this distinction may seem obvious, under closer scrutiny it mostly 162 163 164 165

Ibid., p. 112. Ibid., p. 119. Geertz, p. 124. Laidlaw and Humphrey, 2006, p. 279.

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makes sense for an outside observer, who experiences his academic culture as distinct from the ritual which he observes. Thus, he presupposes, that the people who perform the ritual, return to the “normal” everyday experience, similar to the one of the western academic. As most readers of the account of Laidlaw and Humphrey share a similar life world and therefore the basic agreement of what constitutes the norm, the statement seems not to need further clarification. However, this dualistic projection of the researcher disguises the underlying question of how ritual relates to and shapes the normative experience if the assumption of what is “normal” and how ritual deviates, is not assumed a priori. The researcher must assume a certain normative framework which enables reflection as humans are only able to perceive and reflect in relation to a previously embodied social world. However, in the process of reflecting on the social phenomena as the other, the pre-reflexive normative frameworks of academics must also be brought to light in order to move beyond the initial “Vor-urteil”. For the C/P believers, the norm is set through the ritual. While there is a difference between the ritual and their everyday life experience, the C/P believers embrace the ritual as the “norm” which informs the rest of their lives. Thus, what appears as normal and common-sensical within one particular life world needs further clarification and explanation within another. The inconsistencies and tensions between the ritual experience and the life outside are viewed by C/P believers as something to be overcome and not maintained through theories which sanction boundaries between these two realms. Throughout sermons, the preachers use military imagery for the extension of the ritual over the rest of life. For example, one of the sermon series at “AL” focused on discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit from the devil in the everyday life: When there is a voice of condemnation, it is not from God! The voice of the devil is loud, and God’s voice is soft and not intrusive! The devil condemns you, Jesus lifts you up!

The preacher then goes on to describe how God and the devil speak in the everyday lives of believers. He concludes his sermon with the following admonition: What is the difference between deception and a lie? Deception hides itself as truth. Satan also appears as light, not just as a snake dragon. Jesus’ love only helps us to know the truth and helps us distinguish between good and evil. For this reason, stay in the church with believers, listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and don’t be deceived.

The ritual becomes a central point of discerning the divine action in the everyday life. Therefore, as Terence Turner rightly points out,

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[…] ritual performance intends to produce effects beyond its own frame, in space, time, or both. […] Ritual action thus intrinsically involves a transformative relation between frames.166

Turner also addresses the main question which must be asked in order to arrive at how the ritual produces the normativity within the everyday life. “How, in other words, is the power and control exercised in the performance of ritual converted into a power capable of controlling or affecting ritual-external phenomena?”167 Through the individual body, the embodied ritual norm extends itself to other everyday spheres thus shaping what is taken for granted as “normal”. One of the central features of C/P rituals is the lowering of the traditional boundary between the ritual and the everyday life which results in an easier extension of the ritual. By celebrating C/P rituals in the everyday spaces of individual homes, the clear demarcation between sacred and profane gets blurred. In a country as small as Lebanon where every religious community is trying to claim more space for itself, this retreat into the private realm constitutes a strong identity marker. A Sunni student shared with me that in his village where only a few hundred Christians remain the Christians are building a church costing over two million dollars with money funded by Maronites abroad. Thus C/P desacralization of space could be interpreted as a retreat into the private sphere, leaving the public space to the Muslim community. Andreas Feldtkeller draws parallels between this socio-political conviviality and Islamic gender roles.168 Christianity in the Middle East as confined to the private sphere is assigned a feminine role, while Islam is associated with a masculine role and takes up the public space. However, for C/P believers, sacred rituals in private spaces are intended not as an end in themselves but as a beginning in order to mobilize C/P believers to extend the sacred into the public sphere as well. Church buildings and traditional structures hold no significance in themselves. In accordance with Feldtkeller’s interpretation of power and gender in Islam, C/P’s movement from within the private and from below, by not claiming any political power, could indeed be associated with femininity. Beyond the extension, this redefinition of space has further impact on the relation between private and public. In the Lebanese society, the individual defines himself in relation to his closest community, which is the family. Traditionally, religious rituals take place in the public space such as highly visible church buildings. However, as Mary shared with me the one Lebanese saying, ‘I show you a lot but not what is in my stomach.’ This differentiating between public and private plays an existential function in Leb166 Turner, 2006, p. 236. 167 Turner, 2006, p. 236. 168 Feldtkeller, 1998.

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anon. Peaceful coexistence between different religious groups is often maintained through certain public appearances which may differ radically from the true opinion of individuals, which is only voiced in the context of a safe and closed environment such as the immediate family. A public church ritual does not address the most intimate and truest convictions of the individual. Traditional church rituals are often perceived by the C/P believers as just like any other public duty to perform, comparable to a role at work and the expected answers vis / vis a particular person with vested interests. By placing the C/P ritual in the private setting, the ritual is able to engage directly the most intimate concerns of the individual. A brother and sister invited “MwG” into their home. Their younger brother was sceptical of the group. However, as the “MwG” socialized, he joined out of courtesy as it is expected to at least greet any visitors to your home and at least drink a coffee with them. By coming into the family setting “MwG” adapted to the differing rules governing behaviour in the home, rather than that of public religion. Within the house, “MwG” functioned and was seen as part of the family. Upon stepping into the private family sphere, “MwG” is forced to release some of the power to define the rules of conduct. For example, a tiny apartment shapes the arrangement of the group. Members had to figure out how to sit and perform rituals. Some stood in the hallway while others just sat on the floor. The public church building with its ample space presupposes the posture of the body. In contrast to it, within the private house, the believers must reinvent their body postures and the rituals anew as the space does not allow for a uniform ritual performance. In Beirut, even the electricity cuts are different depending on the specific neighbourhood. While some homes, closer to the downtown area, experience electricity cuts less frequently, outer lying areas and suburbs must rely more on their own generators in order to produce electricity. During the heat of summer, such external factors as the functioning air conditioning may play a role in how and when a ritual is performed. The ability to shape the body posture is felt as power exerted either by space or unanimously accepted ritual rules. Through adjusting their bodies and rituals to various spaces, such as small two bed room apartments, the C/P group is not in control of shaping the unanimous bodily behaviour. As they gain entrance into the most familiar space of individuals they must then negotiate between C/P rituals and the family setting rules. The rituals are not sealed off from noise coming from the streets, the vendors and children screaming, the arguing neighbours next door, loud music, the smells which come in through the open windows of people cooking mixed with sweet perfume and stinking garbage outside and the ever present dust, which is blown in from the streets. Moreover, the regular electricity cuts also structure the flow of life. Families who can afford it have their own private generators which automatically turn on as soon as the

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government electricity cuts out. However, some members of “MwG” do not have a generator. In this case, the rituals are continued by candlelight as humidity and heat overwhelm the apartment setting. Family dynamics come to the fore as well, the sounds of C/P worship carry to the surrounding houses and apartments as the houses are built chaotically and in close proximity to one another. I have met family members who joined the group just by experiencing the C/P rituals from another room. By entering the most private space the ritual is placed at the centre of a person’s communal identity formation. The fragmentation between the private self and the public religious ritual disappears. One time Mary preached on spiritual victory in the lives of C/P believers. She was in the middle of talking about how the Lebanese live in darkness. Suddenly, the electricity went out, Mary stopped talking. The entire group sat in darkness for a moment. It seemed that the electricity cut had occurred just in time to underline Mary’s words through the real experience of physical darkness. After a minute of silence, Mary fell to the floor and shouted: “Pray against the darkness around you and in you!” Some members knelt on the floor while others prostrated themselves face down. I heard some members sobbing quietly. Almost everyone began praying a loud prayer interceding for their families, their culture and politics and also for their own lives and a desire to completely surrender to the victorious guidance of the Holy Spirit. The everyday experience of the electricity cuts became an experiential evidence of deeper spiritual darkness. For most people, the daily electricity cuts are just part of a daily annoyance as a result of a corrupt government and their failure to provide for the people. However, this electricity cut was incorporated into the C/P ritual and acquired a deeper meaning. Further electricity cuts would trigger the memory of this intense ritual experience and perhaps cause ritual behaviour such as praying for the social realms which are seen as void of light. Darkness is a metaphor for all kind of behaviours and attitudes, from inter-sectarian violence and family strife to general negative individual attitudes like hopelessness or depression. Within the setting of a private home, the C/P believers share more easily and ask for prayer concerning intimate matters such as family dynamics, children, illnesses, neighbourhood issues and relationships with the relatives. Since these relational concerns are primary in shaping the life of the individual, the ritual placement at the heart of the private apartment allows the ritual to transform these everyday attitudes thus extending itself into the primary community of the individual. An example of this became evident, when the father of one of the “MwG” leaders was dying. Although he had been very critical of the group, the group stood by the family during the entire process of his dying and provided practical help. They cleaned, cooked, arranged the funeral and organized the entire funeral ceremony. During this process, the dying father became more

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accepting of the group and allowed them to meet and perform their worship in his house. After the death of the father, his widow joined “MwG” as the group had became part of the family fabric through the process of suffering and grief. Sometimes, the distinction between the ritual and the everyday is blurred completely as the everyday life becomes part of a larger ritual. As in Mary’s interpretation of the broken glass, God staged a ritual which included Mary’s performance and everyday objects. Thus, the everyday function of objects is transformed. The dead cat full of worms becomes a sign of a higher truth pointing to the reality behind the mere appearances of the everyday. The habitual everyday actions such as eating, walking to work, shopping, spending time with friends, working, etc. are invested with deeper significance. Just like Mary’s walk is not a mere stroll through the neighbourhood, but an exciting, unexpected discovery of God’s agency in the neighbourhood, so potentially every known and most mundane activity can turn into and be staged as ritual. During one of the “CN” meetings, one of the leaders shared the following story : There was a fisherman who caught a fish with a very expensive jewel inside of it. He went to a jewellery shop and the guy told him: ‘I can not buy it from you. It is too expensive’! He then went to the next shop and asked the same question. And so he kept going until he came to the king. The king told him: For this pearl you are allowed to carry gold from my palace for six hours, as much as you want. All that you carry is yours! The fishermen went in and saw a lot of gold. Then he saw another room full of the best food. He thought: I will eat first and then work for six hours. So he ate. Then he saw a great bed of the king. He lay down and thought: ‘I will sleep a bit. I still have time.’ Then the soldiers woke him and said: Your time is over.

The leader then explained the moral of the story : Our main goal in life is God and the internal life, what the Holy Spirit is doing in us and around us. We should not waste our life on eating and sleeping only. The story rearranged the relation between the everyday and religion, as outlined by Berger/Luckmann. The seemingly solid feature of the everyday becomes a peripheral surface, while the religious meta-narrative makes up the core of what really shapes the body and reality. An attempt to reverse this relationship, as is done in secular theory, is branded by C/P believers as deception about the primary, solid features of life. Robbins’ remark that C/P believers tend to emphasize a break with the social world creating a strong dualist system of values is insightful.169 However, the break is just an initial technique in order to gain distance from the acquired habitus. The end goal is to incorporate this world back into the C/P body. This process of inviting the world into the C/P ritual affects believers as they experience tension within their bodies between the C/P rituals and the every day 169 Robbins, 2006b, p. 214.

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socio-political context. Therefore, they interpret this engagement as a constant struggle and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit who they believe overcomes the meaningless, material world. This struggle requires an intensification of their beliefs through spiritual retreats, all night prayer meetings, several meetings during the week and C/P ritualization of the everyday life. This prevents them from slipping back into the world which they set out to transform and incorporate into the body of Christ. With the concrete expectation of Jesus’ coming, the secular concept of time for the C/P believer becomes wedged in between the sacred meta-narrative as “comprehensive ritualization […] eventually leaves no room for distinction between sacred and secular action even in everyday life.”170 Csordas rightly observes the aim of C/P believers. However, in the real life, they live between the tension of ritual experiencing, the unity of self and all reality under the divine agency and the fragmentation which permeates their daily lives. During one spiritual retreat I observed the following conversation taking place in a group setting on how to be in the “presence of God” during the day : Leader : We need to find a place outside the daily routine, outside the noise of this world, like on the roof or at the deep parking spot garage. We need to be alone with God, where the world can not intrude and disturb us. Participant 1: I often read a passage and then pray and reflect on it throughout the day. And then I come back to it and read it again, and many new things come up to me. Leader : Yes, but do not get stuck on your questions, but continue living with the Lord! Continue moving in your faith, some answers do not come rights away, later on the Lord gives you answers! Oh, sorry, I am talking the entire time! Please feel free to share! [Silence for maybe ten seconds] Leader : It is also good to read the scriptures and meditate on it in the morning like David did in Psalms. There is something powerful about it as the night passes, and moves from darkness to light. So we are moving also with the Holy Spirit. Participant 2: Sometimes I have difficulty reading alone, so I read and discuss and pray with my wife Participant 3: No, you should read alone, be before God. Participant 4: But the bible says that a man and his wife are one, so he is one before the Lord.

These participants wrestled with how their ritual practice and experience relates to their everyday lives and can be performed during their everyday activities. Sometimes, they experience the world as seemingly void of God’s agency. In the 170 Csordas, 2001, p. 108.

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working place their professional knowledge is required, thus obscuring divine agency. The various segments of society function according to specific professional abilities. In contrast, the C/P believers desire to hear God’s voice in the middle of the “noise of the world”. The overabundance of information overloads the senses of the individual. The C/P believer seeks to distinguish from the sea of information, specific divine information which gives the guiding paradigm for all other information. In order to achieve this, the C/P believers seek to re-enact their communal rituals in their everyday setting at work, in shopping malls, and in their private houses. The C/P ritual can be fittingly described as “deep participation”, which Edward L. Schieffelin describes as “[…] the image of being submerged in or carried along by or being part of ‘something’, a larger process, that seems more powerful and compelling than oneself […].”171 This ritual experience is placed under constraint in the daily lives of C/P believers as they experience social structures seemingly void of divine agency. Therefore, the ritual must be individualized and reconstructed in order to enter and engage their daily lives. The sense of God’s agency must be experienced in the daily lives as well in order for the ritual to acquire its normativity. Bruce Kapferer describes well the double function of ritual in acquiring dynamic extension: “The framing of such ritual action is created by the action itself and can operate as an invisible membrane surrounding the action, momentarily setting it off from the ongoing flow of life yet simultaneously pragmatically engaged with it.”172

By performing the ritual during the everyday life, the engagement is very real due to the intertwining in time and space of the two. A ritual which opens up the immanent rules to the intervention of a divine agent transforms the immanent sphere. The prior common- sensical nature of the everyday action is broken up and the behavioural flow is interrupted through the possibility of divine intervention. However, a membrane, using the metaphor of Kapferer, also allows the ongoing flow of life to enter the ritual. In Lebanon, guests are allowed to come without prior notification. During one intense C/P ritual, some relatives of the apartment owner came for a spontaneous visit. I could clearly see confusion on the faces of the participants as they looked to Mary as to how she would resolve the tension between the cultural expectation of welcoming the guests and entering into conversation with them and serving food on the one hand and not interrupting the “move of the Spirit”. The tension was resolved by welcoming the guests into the kitchen and then inviting them into the living room after the most engaged part of C/P ritual ended. However, extending the ritual into the everyday life also allows the everyday to 171 Schieffelin, 2006, p. 624. 172 Kapferer, 2006, p. 516.

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enter the ritual. This tension requires of the believers a continuous performative reinvention in order to draw the world into the ritual reality. The tension triggers action, which is not routinized and involves the entire body and senses of the believer into the process of what is termed “walking in the Spirit”. This continuous openness to the divine intrusion and transformation of the everyday life guards against routinization. The believer feels and is aware of his/her continuous non-habitual actions. The feeling of tension between the seemingly common- sensical nature of the everyday life and the deeper underlying divine reality is interpreted as evidence of the realness of the Holy Spirit. The transformed perspective on the everyday life is a mark of a different reality not perceived by other humans who view merely the surface of reality. This tension affects various socio-cultural spheres. 2.3.2.1. Ritual and socio-economic context The relation between C/P rituals and its socio-economic context can be described as equally reinforcing and subverting. The actualisation of personal agency fosters personal initiative. The ritual experience of divine co-agency pushes the individual to both envision and attempt to pursue larger dreams of entrepreneurship. The ritual reclaiming of the body within the ritual space continues within the economic sphere. The message of hope about the openness of their lives and the unlimited possibilities implant in C/P believers an intrinsic motivation to pursue the divine goals for their lives. The ritual message which states that God desires them on the top and not beaten down and in despair, once it is embodied, causes the believers to critically evaluate their current working situation and to seek to move towards a potential future directed by the divine. The C/P believers then exercise the ritually embodied values of transparency before God, honesty and authenticity, such as not adjusting behaviour based on the context and the person in authority. For example, I observed in the library of American University of Beirut, that the uniformed guard continuously shouted at students to lower the volume of their conversations. However, once the guard disappeared the students would begin to speak just as loudly again. In this example, one can see that the value of being quiet in the setting of the library had not been internally rooted and therefore the guard’s attempt to reinforce this value was not successful. By internalizing the authority by and through the person of the Holy Spirit, the C/P believers display a consistency of ethical behaviour. As one member of “CN” shared with me about his initial curiosity concerning the C/P movement:

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I used to have one colleague when I was an agricultural manager. He would not even take gifts from the farmers. He was a very rare case. He was very strict. He would not walk like this. [He makes a zig-zag movement with his hand]. He walked straight.

The ritual becomes the site of embodiment of the Holy Spirit through feeling and perceiving his reality within individual bodies. The former external authorities become less real in comparison to the Holy Spirit, who dwells within the body of believers. This internalisation makes them more independent from external expectations and at the same time, more strictly observant of an internally rooted ethical code of behaviour. The testimony of divine grandeur in the everyday life depends on individuals attempting to accomplish acts which are clearly beyond themselves in order to point to the working of the Holy Spirit. The same divine agent who actualises the believer’s body during the ritual is also believed to be at work in the economic sphere. Thus the believer seeks to carry over the bodily experience of positive feelings like excitement and joy into his job situation. However, the C/P ritual habitus can not be easily incorporated into a highly rationalized and routinized working context. After one of the “MwG” meetings there was a time for sharing and prayer. One of the members shared about his office situation: Pray for my office environment. It is evil. People are gossiping about each other. But I pray and read the bible during breaks. And my boss asked me, whether he should marry a girl he is not sure about. I told him that he could also pray and ask Jesus. After I shared Jesus with him, he prayed right there. I thank God that I feel so close to him, during the day.

The C/P believer, in this case, perceives the spiritual reality beneath the surface of the office culture. The interpersonal environment and the ethics within which work is conducted becomes the ground for introducing the C/P vision of divine agency. C/P believers intend to perceive a spiritual reality everywhere and this includes then discerning opportunities to introduce C/P practices into the work context. The bodily indwelling divine power is viewed as enabling the individual to succeed in the working sphere. As one “MwG” leader put it: “No one believed that I could excel in university. With Jesus I did it and everyone is amazed.” At “AL”, I have heard many sermons on how God gives dreams and powers to the believers which enable them to live an abundant life. The believer does not feel at the mercy of random economic and political forces. Instead, as s/he gives his/her body in the ritual to God and in obedience to the guiding of the Holy Spirit, s/he believes that the all powerful God, who is in control of all the immanent socio-economic forces, is going to bless him/her. Blessings are mentioned in sermons and displayed as very concrete material objects, in particular within EC and IC which both attract people from lower socio-economic levels. The pastor of “AL” owned a brand new SUV

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and another co-pastor narrated to me the reaction of his family concerning his choice to be a pastor : “I finished my BA at Lebanese University in Business. When I became a pastor my parents did not like it at all. They are not believers. But now they are happy for me. I have money, I have a car and I travel to countries like USA and Europe. Not many people here in Beirut travel. It is very expensive to travel. Of course the people do not know that we do not always pay. Sometimes others pay for our travels. And also God provides for us in expected ways. I even help my family with money.”

The pastor embodies through his life the subversion of the Lebanese understanding of economic success. Initially, it would appear that he had downgraded his career possibilities by becoming a pastor of a community which is often perceived by the wider society as a sect. Yet with this act of obedience to the divine will comes economic success and those who looked down on him now began to look up to him. The biblical stories of ‘underdogs’ who were vindicated by God become real in the person of this pastor. Mobility, apartment and a car are visible economic signs of success everyone can perceive. In particular, the younger people seek financial independence in order to buy an apartment as often these material securities are expected preconditions for males before marrying and starting a family. The inadvertent reinforcement of the consumer culture by the C/P rituals also lies in its resemblance to the uprooted bodies and the emphasis on individual desires prevalent within capitalism. Although tribal-religious communities still exercise a strong influence upon their individual members, their control has been weakened through several socio-political-economic factors. The Maronite community of Lebanon has traditionally struggled between their Middle Eastern heritage and their loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church and French culture. With the rise of European modernization, the Maronites also benefitted from trade due to their intercultural flexibility. As the urban Maronite and Sunni bourgeois sought modernization, their economic dependency upon their respective tribes was reduced. Lebanon has always been a juncture of sorts between Europe, Middle East and Africa. It is estimated that at least three times as many people with Lebanese roots live outside Lebanon as inside. This fact alone creates a unique cultural plurality and exchange of cultures. Traditional values such as rootedness in community and the sacred past as an anchor for identity have declined in importance, while the capitalist value of the creation of self has grown in importance, as Lebanese worked hard to succeed abroad. The body became the central focus of this development. Mike Featherstone summarizes well the impact of the consumer culture on the body : Consumer culture “admits

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no settled convictions, favouring flexibility, mobility and the new”173. Thus the body becomes the central focus for change and innovation. Similarly, the C/P rituals express the agency of the Holy Spirit as a continuously changing and transformative event. Instead of arguing for one phenomenon as a cause for the other, I prefer to view these as interchangeable and mutually reinforcing phenomena. The post-war rapid social economic change is mediated by C/P rituals which mirror the economic changes and ground them in the dynamic divine reality. Featherstone further remarks on the body within consumer culture: “Within consumer culture the body is proclaimed as a vehicle of pleasure: it’s desirable and desiring and the closer the actual body approximates to the idealized images of youth, health, fitness and beauty the higher its exchange value.”174

Several overweight members of “MwG” took upon themselves a strict diet. However, they emphasized the Spirit’s initiative in convicting them about the sinfulness of being overweight if their bodies are understood to be a temple for the Holy Spirit. The result of the diet may appear to be the same as that initiated by the pressure of the consumer culture. However, the motivation behind this action is fundamentally different. The positive status gained within society is perceived as a side effect and the true gain is seen in terms of pleasing the Lord, which is an act of authentification of the meta-narrative. [A] religious utterance, one might say, acquires the propositional truth of ontological correspondence only insofar as it is performance, an act or deed, which helps create that correspondence.175

It is this specific act which constitutes the embodied truth since the truthfulness of the proposition “the Holy Spirit lives in the body” becomes visible through the life of the believer as one member recounted to me: “It was the Holy Spirit who helped me to lose weight”. A large portion of the quarterly “AL” newsletter covered health and life style advice in order to “display the glory of the Lord” through the body. However, even if the reasons and goals for improving the body through diet, exercise and education are different, the result in achieving a higher exchange value remains the same. Thus, the C/P promise concerning the economic blessings of God do come true through the disciplined and transformed body. However, the C/P rituals also undermine the underlying paradigm of economics as the ritual practices reorder the economic exchange relations. I observed at times, the consumption of the Holy Spirit is seen to replace the consumption of material goods. Money is loaded with symbolic value and can be 173 Featherstone, 1991, p. 170. 174 Ibid., p. 177. 175 Lindbeck refers here to J. L. Austin. See in: Lindbeck, 1984, p. 65.

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earned in exchange for physical and/or mental labour. Thus the ability to earn money and secure a means of living is located within the individual’s bodily and cognitive competence. Within the C/P narrative, the individual is only able to live and work due to God’s ability to lend humans life and bodily abilities. The personhood is grounded in his/her ontological relationality towards God. However, within the modern economic system, this belief can not be perceived by those outside the C/P framework as this dependence on God seems to be unnecessary. The immanent forces, which depend solely on human abilities, do not require a superhuman support structure. There is a fundamental difference in understanding the origin and nature of human agency with that of C/P belief which stresses a human-divine agency. Mary, the founder of “MwG”, works as a free lance Arabic language tutor. When my wife asked Mary if she could help her prepare for the defence of her MA thesis in Arabic, Mary refused to set a fee for payment. She did however in the end, after our insisting, accept payment as donation. She added as an explanation, I do not take money from any of the students. The Lord told me to trust him completely even if I do not understand. And if I obey, the Lord told me that I am going to always live like a princess.

On another occasion, she gave away her closet full of clothes as a demonstration of her allegiance to God and not material possessions. In order to re-establish the primary dependence on God and subvert the notion of economic self reliance, Mary did something completely counter logical, which placed her in a basic position of trust and dependence on God for her living situation. This kind of utter dependence on God with the basic needs of life stands in contrast to the romantic definition of religion as a mere feeling of utter dependence (German: Das Gefühl schlechthinniger Abhängigkeit) proposed by Schleiermacher. It is obvious that the degree of realness demanded for physical dependence is much higher than that required by some cultivated feelings. Through her action, Mary negated the notion of human ability and allowed God to demonstrate his potency practically as she refused to enter the circle of labor-money exchange. In order to experience God’s agency, Mary put herself in a position of complete dependency. Through this action she subverted the modern narrative of a self-reliant and actualising individual. By breaking the economic cycle, Mary physically demonstrated for other C/P members the divine potency in providing for her concrete material needs. I observed several members of “MwG” choosing to downgrade their economic status in order to pursue careers which they perceived as more congruent with their spiritual values. One member who worked in a western NGO gave up his job and accepted a lesser paying job in a Christian evangelical school. He

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viewed his new job as an opportunity to share his faith with the children and not just improve the physical needs of people. For him, a real change could only begin from the actions of a human person through the agency of the Holy Spirit, who then would enable people to act themselves. Within his meta-narrative, the core spiritual needs of people should be addressed first. This change was met by disapproval from his father, who is not a C/P believer. However, this member was confident that he had heard from God to quit his job even before he had secured this job in the school. He explained: “It was very hard for me, since I like consistency in my life and do not like change.” This act of stepping out into an unknown area, which he could not control, was a demonstration of embodied belief, as […] all Christian language is self-involving, existential; that whether it is directed toward God or the neighbour, it is the learning and exercising of concepts in a performative manner.176

This act becomes an ontological link for those being initiated into the new metanarrative as to what it means to trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The credibility of the meta-narrative is linked directly to the lives of believers. The person releases security and makes him/herself economically vulnerable. Yet within this strategic powerlessness, s/he gives room for divine agency to demonstrate its ability beyond the logic of economic security and upward mobility, which is strongly present in the post-war Lebanese culture. Another C/P believer, who had formerly belonged to a Christian militia, and who worked as a bodyguard, shared with me: I have a job where I have to wear a gun. If something happens I have to use it. But since Jesus is in my heart I do not want to kill. I pray that God will give me a different work.

Several months later, he got a job as an office boy in a company of lawyers. He then shared with me how now he feels an inner peace as he walks in obedience to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, even though it feels humiliating to perform the lowest job in the office and be commanded around by others. Positive results such as inner peace and satisfaction which stem from a sudden change in life for the good are interpreted as confirmations of their obedience to God. To a certain degree, the spiritual body may be seen as fostering the economic body as C/P values encourage honesty, reliability and internal discipline independent from human oversight. This stands in contrast to the general Lebanese practice of upholding such values only in the presence of an external authority. However, a rigid internal commitment to these values also makes it difficult for C/P believers to function and succeed within the Lebanese society in 176 Frei, 1992, p. 42.

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which disregarding these values and the rule of law is standard practice in order to advance in one’s professional career. One member of the group, who is a lawyer in a prestigious company, put it this way : There is wastah and bribes everywhere in our society. And if you want the respect of your employers you have to raise your voice and command them around. It is very hard to be a believer at work.

Another person, who joined the C/P group two years ago from Maronite background, was puzzled as to where to draw the boundary line of obedience. He works in the office of a lawyer and felt increasingly used by other lawyers in the same office. Therefore, the C/P value of obedience and maintaining peace, clashed with the cultural value of self-assertiveness and corruption. The simultaneous reinforcement of the economic culture and its subversion creates an uneasy tension for C/P believers. They feel as if their newly found faith promotes and helps them to succeed, yet at the same time creates barriers as it requires them to act counter intuitive within culturally accepted norms. Another member of “MwG”, who worked in the finance department of a larger company, brought up his working situation at almost every prayer meeting. He would identify spiritual causes which he believed to underlie the bad work climate, dishonesty and untrustworthiness of his partners. He strongly believed that God had placed him there in the company for a purpose to bring about change. This change consisted of many different actions. Sometimes he asked for wisdom as he felt caught between two partners who mistrusted each other. He also asked for prayer before important meetings that “the Holy Spirit would speak through him”. The C/P believer intended to create an atmosphere of trust and transparency. Each day he asked the Holy Spirit to guide him in his behaviour and words. At one point, due to the intense stress in the office, the C/P believer was diagnosed with high blood pressure as the tension between the interpersonal conflicts and his ideal convictions imposed physically felt stress upon his body. However, as the tension in his body increased, he experienced all the more the reality of the C/P narrative of struggle. Resistance and bodily felt pressure pushed him further into ritual engagement as this is the place where he could release his emotional energy and recharge in order to reengage in the emotional labour required at work. By viewing himself as a divine means of reconciliation and change at work, he transformed the economic narrative of making profit into a larger sacred narrative. Work becomes then just another battle stage between the transformative work of the Holy Spirit and the evil forces, which attempt to destroy the original divine purpose for God’s creation. Thus, the ritual logic is extended and experienced as real within the office. The tensions which are attributed by colleagues to mere interpersonal differences are viewed as a mere surface phenomenon by C/P believers.

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The tension of the C/P body in the midst of contradicting norms does require at times a concrete cost from C/P believers. Mary, the founder and leader of the two groups received a full scholarship to do her MA in the USA and upon finishing her MA, the possibility of staying in the USA.177 Such an offer is viewed as highly desirable in Lebanon. However, Mary struggled to make a decision and explained to me: “It is not obvious that the Lord wants me to do this even if it looks great from the perspective of the flesh. I will pray about it and seek counsel.” Months later she decided to turn down this offer and gave me the following explanation: “God showed me that he wants me here in Lebanon. God started to do great things and he is going to do more. I can not leave.” In light of the statistics which indicate the highest post-war percentage of immigration among Christians, Mary’s choice appears to contradict this trend due to the influence of a different meta-narrative. Mary’s action, which challenged common cultural values, encouraged the shared communal sense of identity as being distinctive from the rest of Lebanese society due to a special call. Thus, the body for the charismatic is only meaningful, as it is filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the source of meaning. Otherwise, in itself the body is merely mediated through of socio-economic and political forces. 2.3.2.2. Ritual and politics The political habitus is taken up by the C/P ritual. The ritual is transformed in the process and extends itself into the realms outside of the ritually demarcated space and time. This ex-tension, which works in both directions, is wrestled through various modes of engaging the socio-political sphere. It is a continuous tedious process which requires a continuous ritual “refilling” and political extending. The “MwG” group resists the political discourse which permeates all aspects of Lebanese society. Within the group, political discussions are discouraged. The refusal to talk about politics could be interpreted either as a posture of protest or as a statement of indifference. If the political is mentioned at all it is usually as a request to pray for politicians. Politics are therefore submerged beneath the meta-narrative and the ritual practices of believers. Politicians are seen as mere agents, influenced by spiritual forces operating on the fundamental level of reality. Therefore, “spiritual warfare” becomes the ultimate battle. Power is not seen in physical terms but rather is understood in terms of spiritual values. Believers claim that they do not seek political change but rather the “change of hearts” which is evident in changed attitudes and transformed ways of living. 177 Mary did not apply in person for this scholarship but received it through her relatives who offered Mary this opportunity.

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C/P practices re-evaluate the political sphere and view it critically as a potentially divisive force, as one of the “MwG” leaders shared with me: Politics can become a big problem. I have heard two believers yell at each other because of politics! It is immaturity in Christ. We as leaders do not talk about it. [He paused and added]: I do not want to make the distinction between leaders and non leaders, I just wanted to say that those who are mature put their priority on Jesus. In general the church is being influenced by the culture, so these divisions creep into the church. At the core, I believe that all the problems in the nation come because the church is corrupt! The politicians reflect their people! People know that the politicians have bad agendas and they follow them anyway, because they love them as personalities and are not critical towards them, they even excuse them to others. At the core, this is all a spiritual problem!

The status of each C/P member within a group hinges on his perception by others as a “mature” believer. Maturity is an ability to discern and articulate the spiritual reality underlying the surface socio-political events. Therefore, every new member quickly acquires a critical attitude towards the usual Lebanese political sectarianism. On another occasion the same person conveyed to me: Other nations worked through their wounds once the war ended. But here in Lebanon the war never really ended. It is still continuing. So we do not talk about our wounds. In our leadership we leave politics out. There are people who worship these political leaders. If someone says: I want to leave my life for this person. Is that not worship?

For the “MwG” leaders, arguments based on political allegiance are a mere distraction from dealing with deeper issues, such as the psychological effects of war. Therefore, any engagement with a surface political practice reinforces the illusion that the social problems of sectarian mistrust and a potential resurge in violence can be solved by a particular political party. Moreover, the bodily engagement signifies the ultimate commitment of the person. For the C/P believers, political activism is interpreted as a form of idolatry where the individual places his hope in the powers of a certain person, and in this case a politician, to resolve the issues for which God alone is sufficient. The ritual, which emphasizes the reality of God’s agency, is therefore stretched over the political in order to give the individual a wider lens of interpretation. A person of Maronite background who showed interest in the C/P group told me that he grows tired of all the political conversation in the Maronite church. Although this person was interested in politics, he was looking for a perspective beyond that which he received in his local Maronite church. It is this perspective “beyond” the constant present political power struggles which the C/P spirituality seems to offer to its members. As the religious sphere is wrestled out from the political, the political sphere loses its all encompassing claim. As the political realm is disentangled from the religious and submerged under

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the spiritual meta-narrative, the group is able to open up to and even invite individuals of rivalling political and religious groups to join. Mary uses her authority to keep the political submerged. During one of the retreats while on a hike through nature, she encouraged everyone to meditate and pray. While conversing on the trail, several people began discussing politics. Mary openly confronted them and requested that they get to the real issues concerning their relationship with Jesus. As old socio-political boundaries disappear, new ones emerge. Cohen points out that […] symbols are effective because they are imprecise. Though obviously not contentless, part of their meaning is ‘subjective’. They are, therefore, ideal media through which people can speak a ‘common’ language, […] without subordinating themselves to a tyranny of orthodoxy. Individuality and commonality are thus reconcilable.178

The reference mu¯’min (believer) is a symbol which on one side allows the drawing of a particular communal boundary, while remaining itself open to subjective interpretation. One does not become a believer once and for all, like one becomes a Christian through birth. Instead, mu¯’min is understood not as static but as under continuous reinterpretation through the relationship with God as expressed in ritual, with other believers and the wider society. It requires a continuous decision to live a “godly lifestyle”. Political affiliations become less important hence widening the space of belonging. This redrawing is also in constant flux as the religious based political concept is not merely replaced by value centred mu¯’min understanding. Every member of these C/P groups is rooted in their particular Christian community with their shared war memories and their cohesive in-group behaviour. In times of crisis, it is common for the believers to take up their Christian political perspective. C/P boundaries are formed through ritual and embodiment of beliefs. As new markers of identity are being accepted old ones disappear. Language is not excluded from this sociopolitical struggle, as Joseph remarks: “[…] [T]he ‘politics of language’ is not simply a matter of what people do with language, but that language itself is political from the bottom up. The linguistic sign embodies the social relationship of its users. In this sense, their social identity is present in the language itself.”179

Maronite Christians have preserved Syriac as the language of their liturgy, thereby establishing a demarcation line with Arabic, which they associate with the Qur’an of Islam. Lebanese Christians throughout history have spoken foreign languages and often viewed French and English as a sign of their independence from Islamic culture. In order to establish their identity as distinct 178 Cohen, 2003, p. 21. 179 Joseph, 2004, p. 51.

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from Arab Islamic culture and history, the Maronites employ the myth of a Phoenician ancestry. In contrast to this typical Christian behaviour, the C/P groups I observed recognize Arabic unapologetically as their primary language. Mary encourages the Armenian members to improve their Arabic language and incorporates traditional folkloric styles of singing into their worship. Mary also rejects the Phoenician myth and embraces her Arabic origin. She does not feel the need to reject Arabic culture as she believes that every culture is ultimately transformed by the Holy Spirit. It seems that her confidence in the strength of the embodied C/P realness diminishes other identity markers, whether linguistic or material. Most Christians have a deep seated mistrust towards Syrians which goes back to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. A new believer recounted to me with a smile how as a young boy, when asked for directions from Syrian soldiers, he sent them in the direction of where he knew the road bombs were. He enjoyed the story, but then he stopped abruptly and exclaimed: “But I am a believer now. It is different.” On another occasion, an Armenian member of “MwG” recalled when travelling to Turkey how he felt a “spiritual battle inside” when asked to pray for Turkey. “I could not pray. And then I asked the Lord to give me his power. Suddenly, I felt a release in my body. I felt lightness and joy which came over me. I started to speak and felt so much love for Turkey.”

The otherness and enmity towards other sectarian groups is engraved into present day identities by both shared memories and concrete urban segregations.180 When C/P believers proclaim the reign and lordship of Jesus over all of Beirut, they commit their bodies to the same spatial extension. I have met many Christians in Furn el Chebbak, who, due to the war experience and memories do not travel beyond Christian quarters. The self imposed immobility is embodied and sustained through post-memories and the continuous branding of the other as an enemy. Mary, the leader of “MwG”, organised an evangelistic outreach into a Sunni dominated area. The members were supposed to talk to people about Jesus on the street, ask to pray for them and give them a bible if anyone showed interest. Some members did not show up and Mary explained to me that some had traumatic memories from the war, for example their relatives being killed by Muslim militia groups. “But”, she added, “it is an opportunity of healing, of experiencing the power of Jesus in a new way.” The ritual proclamation of Jesus’ reign within the safe confines of the invisible C/P space must be made visible through the bodies of believers moving into unsafe, hostile territories. The 180 Jan Calame and Esther Charlesworth offer a brief history of the growing division of Beirut during the civil war (1975–1990) See: Calame and Charlesworth, 2009, pp. 37–61.

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extension and bodily overcoming of sectarian divides constitutes a continuous struggle. One member of CMTC invited me for lunch. Afterwards, we stepped out on his balcony and he pointed to the house which was built in a little valley next to his house: You see there? That belongs to the Shi’a. They came here during the war181 and just started building illegally. It created a lot of problems, unrest in our neighbourhood. People are concerned.

He then went on to explain how Christians feel increasingly threatened. Then, after a short pause, he added: “I believe God brought them here, so we can be a witness to them.” The C/P movement has a strong emphasis on transmission of faith across ethnic and socio-political boundaries. This emphasis enables a C/P believer to see any opponent as a potential receiver of the Holy Spirit and therefore potential member of the in-group. This potentiality prevents the C/P believers from branding the other ontologically. As a result, the openness toward the other allows an ongoing discourse between various groups to emerge. As in the example above, the C/P believer felt tension between his particular sociopolitical fears and the possibility of a larger divine plan, which may contradict human limited foresight. Human fear of possible tension and a return to intersectarian strife may stand in the way of God bringing the Shia’s closer to the C/P believers so that they might experience the Holy Spirit as well, with the end result being social harmony and peace. The subversion of the political within the larger ritual extension is also worked out through the reinterpreting of both political symbols and practices. As C/P believers lack institutional power, they choose “invisible” spaces by positioning themselves either in the basements of “TC” (CMTC), in private houses (IC), in shopping malls (EC) or small rented facilities (MC). Due to this lack of public urban visibility, the C/P movement can be easily overlooked. However, this spatial self positioning also reflects the C/P belief in spiritual empowerment from within and outside the human categories of power. Political power relies on external factors such as money, public visibility, socio-economic and tribal networks. In contrast to this, Mary’s story about the broken glass exemplifies well that the ability to exercise power does not depend on the external factors, but solely on the individual willingness to co-act with the divine agent. Mary’s co-acting with God in her neighborhood transcends and rearranges the usual cultural perception of power. During the world cup of 2010, Beirut was plastered with various flags as Lebanese are big fans of soccer. Mostly German and Brazilian flags were waving from houses and stores. C/P believers at “MwG” enjoyed the exuberant atmosphere, which resembles a lot their own 181 The Israeli bombing of Hizb’allah areas in 2007 is termed ‘war’ in Lebanon.

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worship style. However, some C/P believers found the reasons for the emotional high as superficial, as one of the co-leaders, announced after one of the meetings an idea she had for the women in the group who had begun meeting to do prayer walks around the city : We will be all girls driving 6 times around my neighborhood and seventh time we will honk, like Joshua. We will do it as a spiritual warfare and pray for my neighborhood. There are different flags hanging. But we will wave the Jesus flag: Red, blue, golden- Red for Jesus’ death on the cross, blue for resurrection and gold for God’s glory.

In this instance, the leader engages the feeling of excitement and takes up the same material objects. However, by slightly changing them, she creates curiosity as the colors of her worship flag stands out amidst the known national colors. Moreover, as women displaying a religious message in the public, she transgresses the socio-political rule twice. Through low-level public actions within the neighborhoods, this C/P leader creatively engaged and subverted the preconceived cultural and political notion of power and authority. The C/P ritual behaviour re-disciplines the body and aims at changing the political behaviour of C/P believers. The strength of the C/P movement lies in its ability to disentangle religion from politics. During political and inter communal strife between Sunnis and Shia’s in 2009, all C/P groups prayed against the evil spiritual forces which they believe underlie human agency. Thus, the real battle takes place underneath the socio-material conflict as people act out the underlying spiritual reality. This C/P belief distinguishes between the political, pragmatic sphere of action and the religious realm of spirits and values. On occasion, I heard the C/P believers debating which Muslim party represents the Christian values better. Thus, if values become the primary focus, then the tribal and religious ties weaken in the process as each party focuses on the issue of the common good and move away from ad hominem arguments. The disentanglement of politics, tribal allegiances and religion could lead the Lebanese toward a more pragmatic, immanent outlook upon the political sphere. Almost all C/P believers I interviewed conveyed, to a greater or lesser degree, a decrease in political and sectarian loyalty inherited through traditional family allegiances in corresponding measure to their increasing commitment to C/P practices. As one member put it, “I used to follow this political leader because my father did so, but now I am judging all political leaders according to their spiritual fruits.” The C/P worldview leads the believers to distinguish between the person’s communal identity and visible actions. Whereas traditionally, Christians assumed that these two are inseparable, the C/P believers make the distinction. This detribalization of Lebanese politics is achieved through the C/P individualism, which reflects upon and critiques human authority. With the emphasis upon the divine authority of the Holy Spirit, human authority is seen

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critically and is constantly questioned. Once the shift, from personal loyalty to person independent values is made, a more nuanced and democratic political process may be installed as traditional tribal-religious authority loses its charisma. This translation from a particular religious value to the public good is more easily achieved if a particular religious community, as in the case of C/P movement, has a fluid communal boundary and the awareness of a universal humanity bound by God’s love. Currently, the Christian community is divided over political issues and therefore, allegiance to either the Sunni opposition or the Hizb’allah led government. The strength of the C/P movement lies in discovering and articulating through practice the essentials of the Christian faith which brings together Christians from various denominations. In particular, the mobilizing of grass roots movements toward common actions is able to impact the society in a way that some theological elitist declarations are not capable of. In a society which is torn by political-sectarian allegiances, and increasing animosity between Sunni’s and Shia’s, a C/P disentanglement between human pragmatic actions and deeper underlying divine agency could become a powerful social symbol that unity is achievable beyond political power games. A symbolic challenge would be laid out for the Muslim communities if unity among Christians is sustained despite political disagreements. Political differences would cease to be seen as ontological otherness, but would be relegated to the level of pragmatic negotiation. However, this unity is not in sight yet, as C/P growth presents new challenges to traditional churches. 2.3.2.3. Ritual and official religion The everyday body also expresses religious belonging. Religious rather than national identity provides a deeper sense of rootedness. While political regimes in Lebanon have changed over the centuries, religion has remained constant. Clothing is often used to express a person’s religious worldview and political association. More western style dress among Muslims generally signifies a weaker tie to traditional interpretations of Islam. Christians often display large crosses around their necks or visible tattoos of a cross on their lower or upper arms. Crosses which form into the point of a sword, a symbol of the Lebanese Forces, a powerful militia during the civil war, also mark cars, houses and shops in certain homogeneous Christian neighbourhoods. Within Christian quarters, women often wear tight skin revealing clothing. Some families expect their daughters to be scantily clad in order to make a clear statement that they are not Muslims. Among less religious Muslim families, women may also wear just as tight clothing, although generally do not reveal as much skin as do some Christian young women. In some cases, religious women will wear skin hugging

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clothing and yet also wear a headscarf. Many Muslim men wear an amulet with a page of the Quran inside around their necks. Shia’s and Alawi’s sometimes wear a chain with their tribal symbol of the double edged sword. More committed religious Muslim men often grow beards and wear dress pants with long sleeve shirts. Clothing in Beirut serves as a particular code not merely of a particular gendered body, but also of a socio-political and religious identity. C/P members believe that if they are filled with the Holy Spirit, their body becomes a temple for God and not a symbol of socio-political-economic-religious identity as is defined by the Lebanese culture. Instead, the body becomes the expression of a new reality. Mary refers to Jesus who “showed them how to live appropriate to their age and what to wear.” The clothing of women in the group tends to be less tight fitting and more modest than that of the Maronite community in general. Their shirts often cover their thighs and in this aspect may be mistakenly associated with Muslims. Men in the group tend not to wear large crosses or tattoos, as they do not want to be associated with the Christian militias. In this way, they want to become a “neutral” body in order to invite the other to the “inner” self where the Holy Spirit dwells. The outward symbols should not be a hindrance to the sociopolitical-religious other. The presence of the Holy Spirit within a believer creates a sense of strengthened identity since it is the Spirit which created the universe and is present everywhere. This belief helps them to view their body as loved by their creator who is sovereign over all cultures. The orientation toward eternity enables them to escape the social pressure of viewing the body as a status symbol. While a comparative look at C/P bodies in relation to the majority Muslim culture could prove insightful, I focus here more closely on innerChristian relations as the closest reference point of the C/P movement is still the large Christian minority. Although a comparative approach between the official inner Christian statements and the real contextual relations of people would be a fruitful and intriguing enterprise, I have purposefully refrained from consulting official documents written by clerical leaders within this study. Such a text based research would offer insight into the elitist clerical discourse. However, it could also obscure the dynamic and multifaceted relations between people which occur throughout everyday interactions. As one of the leaders of the Catholic C/P movement in Lebanon put it: “We do not have a difference of doctrine, but of practice.” The study of practices sheds light on the real relations carried out by social agents in a life setting. Ecclesial institutions rise and fall with the everyday agency of their members. Textual declarations are preceded by various interactions between clergy and laity and also inner and inter institutional dynamics. Therefore, in order to understand dogmatic statements one has to understand the complex history of actions which preceded such statements. Consequently, if

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the written documents lack any meaningful reference to the believers and their actions within their everyday realities, these written statements do not represent the real cultural context. In order to describe the practices which shape the relation between two actors, I highlight external and internal factors which influence both the “TC” and the C/P movement. Internal factors, such as doctrinal change for example, can be seen as responses to external change such as socio-political, economic pressures and globalization. However, doctrinal reinterpretations can also trigger socio-political change. In the real world, external and internal factors converge in a complex relation. A primary direction of influence hinges upon a world view preference. Sociologists who attempt to bracket religious truth claims tend to emphasize the macro framework as primary cause for change while theologians tend to emphasize their particular doctrinal and ecclesial behaviour as leading to social change.182 I describe certain modes of relation and attempt to converge internal and external factors. I observed three modes of relation as ideal types between the C/P communities and “TC”: Invisibility/indifference, competition/antagonism and attraction/mutual influence/cooperation. These modes of relation also apply to the inner C/P dynamics, among groups outside and inside “TC”. These modes of relation are mainly shaped through C/P ritual practices and everyday interactions. The sectarian self-identification in Lebanon has been reinforced through its violent history and inter communal strife (Khalaf, 2003). Religious affiliation and socio-material wellbeing of Lebanese are intertwined. From birth, religious affiliation roots each Lebanese individual within a particular community. The entire life of an average Lebanese, from daily needs such as electricity and water, to education and healthcare, depends on his/her belonging to a particular religious / socio-political community. Religious belonging is therefore not primarily a matter of spiritual taste, but of an involuntary belonging. Most Lebanese are formed through their socialisation within this particular religious / sociopolitical habitus and feel a certain rootedness and belonging within the tribal society. An individual choice to change his/her religion and therefore, religious community questions and destabilizes the tribal society which is maintained through strong links between communal religious, political and the socio-economic spheres. “CMTC” and “EC” avoid coming under suspicion for weakening the power of established “TC” by positioning themselves within “TC” which necessarily means accepting its ecclesial authority. “MC” and “IC” are often perceived as 182 The prime example for the latter is John Milbank who traced genealogically social change to the change of ecclesial doctrine and practice. See: Milbank, 1993.

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foreign and are thus branded as non-Lebanese, lacking roots within the Lebanese culture. Limited material and geographic resources in the country reinforce inter and inner religious competition. This leads to strong cohesion within religious groups but results in high boundaries in respect to other groups. A possible strategy in resisting the religious other is to simply ignore the other. A more active way to defend one’s own social status is to label the other, in this case “MC” and “IC” as a foreign intrusion through religious avenues. Some “TC” clergy voiced to me their concern that individualism and western hedonism, in the disguise of C/P rituals, may intrude and undermine century long ecclesial traditions. The dominance and power of “TC” is embodied through church buildings which are erected at the centers of political power. Roman Catholic, Maronite, mainline Evangelical and various Orthodox Churches, cluster around the parliament building and downtown financial area. Churches are built as identity markers at main intersections and mountain tops along the main coastline route north of Beirut as well. C/P belief in the working of the Holy Spirit from within correlates with the lack of socio-political power of C/P groups and the critique of “empty structures” of other “TC”. During traditional holidays or communal rites of passage “TC” still enjoy high attendance. Therefore, this qualification is less a statement about low participation of believers in “TC” than it is a critique of the deeper motivation of attendees. The term “empty” for the C/P individual describes a habitual-religious action which is devoid of the personal experience of the Holy Spirit. C/P believers describe the Holy Spirit as an agent of change thus questioning the established institutions. The emphasis is laid upon the individual believer to reinterpret the rituals through performance and self conscious witness. The Holy Spirit is viewed as an agent who enables the individual to transcend the ecclesial communal habitus and empowers the individual to lend tradition a particular individualist interpretation. Many C/P believers within “EC”, “MC” and “IC” view the material and ritual structure of “TC” as working against change brought about by the Holy Spirit. “TC” faces the extreme post war socio-political change by anchoring their identity in the sacred past. In contrast, C/P groups accept the cultural change and seek to respond to the global capitalist consumer culture through the specific C/P practices. The emphasis on the agency of the Holy Spirit is a theological attempt to accept, interpret and provide strategies of living within the post war constantly shifting culture. The Holy Spirit touches the will and decision of the individual. Just like the individual makes personal choices about his individual preference of consumer goods, so the individual also experiences and expresses the Holy Spirit through his body. The most obvious case of the power difference remains between “TC” and “MC”. Migrant household workers from Asia and Africa are discriminated

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against and have limited avenues to defend their rights in the face of often daily abuse. Historically, “TC” has established itself at the centers of socio-economic power. The migrant issue brings the “TC” members into a dilemma of being on the profiting side of cheap labor while also being criticized from foreign secular and Christian NGO’s for not doing enough to advocate for the rights of foreign workers.183 Wastah further encourages Christian elites to overlook the plight of many foreign workers, many of whom belong to “MC”. Involvement with the poor migrant workers does not foster social upward mobility. Therefore the Christian elites tend to neglect them. One evangelical C/P leader shared his disappointment over the failure to reach Lebanese when I asked him how the Sri Lanki ministry of his church started: “I organized an evangelism event for the Lebanese and the Sri Lankis came.” Now there are more domestic workers who attend his church than the Lebanese whom he hoped initially to attract. Consequently, he had to reorganize his church culture in order to encompass these new converts mainly from Sri Lanka with their own religious culture and traditions. This posed a challenge to his urban individualist C/P culture. Due to this competitive C/P culture, many leaders are concerned with attendance as the blessing of God is measured in terms of the number of people who fill the church. Although this correlation was not openly acknowledged by leaders in interviews, a connection between numerical attendance and divine confirmation of ministry was often made in the context of sermons and informal conversations. In “EC” services, the worship leader often waits until enough people have filled the seats, which seems connected to the anticipation of a specific aura. This focus on individualist success reinforces indifference towards other C/P groups as well. The C/P groups I encountered showed more of a pragmatic interest in relating to other C/P groups, emphasizing a win/win situation. For example, some C/P groups cooperate in order to create a public event such as a Christian rock concert in order to attract attention. However, more extensive cooperation is often limited. Moreover, the non “CMTC” churches struggle with their minority status within the Lebanese Christian minority. Some non “CMTC” turn more introspective, focusing on their particular groups and drawing hard boundaries toward outsiders. However, while the first post war years were marked by indifference between “TC” and the C/P movement, increasingly, this stage was surpassed by competition and antagonism. One of the possible reasons for this change was the increasing visibility of the C/P movement due to its growth in postwar Lebanon. Since the overall percentage of Christians decreased, even a slight growth of C/P movement brings about an overall large increase within the Christian population. An encounter 183 There are foreign secular and Christian NGO’s advocating the rights of migrant workers. However, most of them are initiated and sponsored either from Europe or North America.

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between “TC” and the emergent C/P movement is also inevitable as the C/P movement intends to embody the internal reality of the Holy Spirit within the culture. The kingdom of God is believed to have already broken in and the C/P believers are expected to embody through their actions this new reality. Thus, their faith can not be confined to the private realm, but follows the lead of the Spirit who is seen to be at work in all spheres of society. In Beirut, space is charged with political meaning and urban quarters are marked with statues of saints, politico-religious symbols and pictures of martyrs in order to communicate a common identity and draw boundaries in relation to other communities. Sometimes C/P groups perform their worship and proclamation rituals in public. A prayer march organized by “TOP” through their neighborhood in which songs were shouted and flags were waved attracted public curiosity as this event differed significantly from the known ritualistic church processions. While traditional church processions are predictable in timing and form, C/P rituals are unpredictable, dynamic, loud, and appear as “chaotic” to the average Lebanese. Moreover, C/P groups partner in organizing large revival meetings and Christian rock band concerts which attract large crowds, mostly young uncommitted “TC” members. “TC” leaders view this as an intrusion into their realm of authority and therefore, warn “TC” members about what is perceived as morally degrading, western events. These reactions intend to stigmatize the C/P movement as foreign to the Lebanese culture. “TC” leaders also use passive resistance such as turning down requests for marriage and renting space if their members are known to be active participants within non “CMTC” C/P groups. I also heard reports of “TC” clergy instructing members to avoid contact with persons identified as a C/P member. Within a highly communal culture, isolation from the community leads to felt psychological punishment. In contrast, “CMTC” tries to avoid this confrontation by contextualizing their C/P practices within the ecclesial and liturgical order. Some “CMTC” intentionally invite a priest who agrees to bless the group and to speak a prayer at the end of a meeting, thus representing the official church and establishing a clerical authority for the C/P movement which is mostly led by laity. They also borrow certain external objects from TC worship, but reinterpret their meaning. For example, after interviewing one “CMTC” member, he gave me a rosary and explained: I give this to you. Do you know what it is? I: “Rosary?” C/P believer: Yes, I give this to you. Normally you pray the Mary prayer and once you get to the cross you pray the “Lords prayer”. But for us, each pearl is one saint: You and me, Saint Mary and Saint Charbel. And Jesus is in the middle.

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Practices, which could be offensive to “TC” members, are reserved for committed members only who are gradually introduced and shaped into the C/P habitus. The Lebanese C/P movement is immersed in global networks. However, the Lebanese C/P movement attempts to contextualize the global C/P culture to the Lebanese context. There remains nevertheless a cultural difference which creates a rift between “TC” and the C/P movement. C/P voluntarism stands in stark contrast to the “TC” notion of a Christian identity which convenes at birth and which is linked to ethnicity. The individual who is born into the Maronite Church participates in this rich heritage of the church independent from his particular views and practices. Thus, belonging is given through birth biologically and is not chosen individually. I observed on several occasions, Lebanese Maronite self proclaimed agnostics or atheists, who upon their return to Lebanon joined their parents to the pilgrimage sites of Lebanese saints such as Saint Charbel.184 I assumed that their participation was performed out of obligation towards their parents. However, they replied, that visiting the shrine to Charbel had more to do with being Lebanese. This link between the Christian saint and a Lebanese identity expresses well the fact that religious belonging continues to exist independent from personal convictions. A large majority of youth in the neighborhood of Furn el Chebbak did not attend the Maronite Church on a regular basis. However, many had tattooed the names of saints on their arms and wore large crosses. The belonging to the church therefore, is a matter of “blood and country”. One is born a Lebanese Christian and the national identity is intrinsically woven together with the religious belonging. Within the shared memory of the Maronite Christians, the church is a pillar of their national belonging which dates back to the 3rd century. This notion of a sacred belonging through birth is challenged by the global spread of capitalism with its values of individual choice, the authentic self and consumerism. The C/P dynamic worship style with its emphasis on the unexpected mirrors the global capitalist trend. The spontaneity of the Holy Spirit emphasized in charismatic services stands in contrast to the traditional service which appears as static, embodying the unchanging past. The C/P rituals involve the individual and lend each person a platform to express his/her emotions independent from the traditional body. Some “TC” leaders view these ritual innovations with concern as they worry that its core is nothing but a shallow adaptation to the capitalist/western/individualist agenda which might attract the youth for a while but is not able to sustain the Christian community in the Middle East in a highly antagonistic environment. The C/P movement is seen

184 Heyberger, 2002.

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therefore, by many as a western attempt to undermine the sacred stability of the church through religious means. Another sensitive issue which has placed a strain upon inner Christian relations is conversion to the C/P groups. As already mentioned, confessional identity has a direct impact on the political equilibrium of power. Therefore, personal conversion, if the number is sufficient enough in such a small country as Lebanon, carries with it a probable political implication. “CMTC” groups are the least problematic here, since they encourage their members to participate every Sunday in the traditional services and seek a reformation of the church from within. However, once the highly individualist and egalitarian C/P culture grows within “TC”, it remains to be seen whether “TC” is able to contain a C/P culture with its differing rituals and everyday practices. The number of C/P converts to the non “CMTC” groups is significantly smaller. However, as the overall number of Christians steadily decreases the competition for the remaining Christians increases. From my observations, the non “CMTC” groups attract more converts from the non-Christian religions than “CMTC” groups, and thus are more likely to provoke, if the conversions continue, inter religious tension. Moreover, non “CMTC” groups are seen as agents of the west by other Christians and Muslims alike. Non “CMTC” groups are linked to the global C/P networks in all continents. Christian Zionism185 plays an influential role within the global C/P movement. The Lebanese C/P movement finds itself therefore, in a dilemma between their global partners and their fellow Lebanese who suspect them of collaboration with the enemy. Several “EC” leaders explained to me the hindrance of the Zionist view to the evangelism campaigns in the Middle East. Due to the fact that some Christian militia collaborated during the civil war with the Israeli army, many Christians are afraid of the Muslim majority growing suspicious and doubtful of their loyalty as Christians to Lebanon. When I interviewed a Protestant mainline church leader about the rise of the C/P movement he summarized his position well by saying: “We do not have a problem with them theologically, but politically.” In general, the C/P movement does not contest the teachings of “TC”. In fact, if asked about dogmatic issues, almost all C/P leaders reaffirmed traditional teachings. However, the everyday public actions of C/P believers create a culture which sometimes stands in opposition to the culture embodied by “TC”. The institutional “TC” is concerned with political stability. The C/P insistence on the dynamic agency of the Holy Spirit within other religious groups leads to the crossing of 185 Christian Zionism can be described as a view, which interprets the State of Israel and all political actions through a particular religious framework of God’s history with the Jewish people. For example, many Old Testament passages are linked to current socio-political events thus imbuing the immanent politics with sacred meta-narratives.

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religious boundaries through conversion, which is not primarily concerned with the political equilibrium of power. The overall intentions of “TC” and the C/P movement differ. “TC” is concerned with maintaining its historic presence through hardened identity markers. C/P continuously questions and transcends religious identity markers and seeks to extend itself by incorporating very diverse ethnic, religious and cultural groups into its rituals. Despite this general trend, the steady post 1975 decrease of Christians in Lebanon and the corresponding perceived sense of threat from the demographic rise of the Shi’a community did in fact lead some “TC” clergy to move towards cooperation and a greater level of acceptance of C/P Christians. The “CMTC” movement also greatly contributed to the acceptance of C/P practices within the “TC” structure by way of personal contact to the “TC” leaders as well as ecumenical events such as spiritual retreats in monasteries. Moreover, “TC” leadership noticed the success of the C/P movement in attracting and mobilizing the youth. Some “TC” clergy visit “CMTC” meetings regularly and adopt C/P practices for their “TC” services. Preaching is performed mostly in the Lebanese dialect and not in classical Arabic, which allows people from lower socio-economic class to follow the ritual without difficulty. The Lebanese modern education system which stresses personal understanding and application and not just mere reproduction of knowledge may also play a role in influencing “TC” believers to seek individual understanding and interpretation of the rituals. In particular, for the youth, mere participation is seen as a practice of the past and is sometimes associated with backwardness. As a result of C/P influence, the words of the liturgy within “TC” worship services are projected on the screen and the music is more upbeat and energetic. These influences of the C/P culture weaken traditional authority. The priest descends to the people through his language and body posture just like the C/P preachers often step down from the pulpit or the stage and mingle with the audience. They become accessible to the touch and smell of the people. Some professional laity, such as musicians, assumes equally important roles within some “TC” liturgy to those of the professional clergy. Moreover, “TC” has introduced church programs for the youth in an attempt to address contemporary issues such as sexuality and marriage through discursive-participatory events. Within the service, there is an attempt by “TC” to include the laity in order to foster higher participation. Due to the self positioning of “CMTC” within “TC”, the exchange crosses boundaries without resistance as “CMTC” is viewed as part of “TC”. A priest of the local Anglican Church translated the Alpha Course186 into Arabic and introduced this main-

186 Alpha Course, an introductory course to the Christian faith with C/P elements, was drawn

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line charismatic course to “TC”. The big surprise for “TC” members who were introduced to this Alpha course came when they learned that the two coleaders of the Anglican priest were from Sunni and Shi’a backgrounds. Since C/P movement has lower doctrinal and historic-cultural boundaries than “TC”, it is easier for converts from Muslim background to join and take leadership positions. The emphasis on God’s agency through the Holy Spirit across sectarian boundaries lowers the boundary for Muslims to practice C/P rituals, without needing to take on the traditional Christian identity with its political and ethnic identity markers. The C/P movement helped “TC” in some cases to become aware of its own cultural limits and pushed the “TC” leaders to adopt strategies in order to absorb the modernization process and communicate the Christian message more effectively. Elias, a former Rock band drummer, became a C/P believer and started a Christian Rock music worship band in the basement of a shopping mall which became “TOP”, a C/P group which I have previously described. Despite leaving “TC”, he managed to maintain friendly relations to the Maronite and Roman Catholic priests. From an outsider’s observation, to witness Elias at an evangelism event is to witness a comical cultural clash. While Elias performed on the stage Christian folk and rock songs in Arabic and English, hundreds of mostly young people jumped, danced and shouted with their hands raised in the air while the front rows were filled with “TC” dignitaries dressed in their clerical robes, with long hair, beards and sober expressions. However, what seems to be an unlikely partnership between Elias and “TC” clerics is in reality a pragmatic tradeoff. Elias attracts the audience and has the opportunity to “bless” the people and call them to receive the Holy Spirit while “TC” receives the opportunity to present itself as trendy and youthful. However, values of voluntarism, individualism and a contemporary style undermine the tendency of “TC” to seek control. I have observed a natural progression of “CMTC” believers to non “CMTC” groups once they grew confident in reading the Bible and believing that they could hear the Holy Spirit individually, apart from the clerical authority. In particular, many younger people perceive the contextualization balance “CMTC” must walk, as in fact, a compromise and in the end seek “a more radical obedience to the Holy Spirit”. One of the recurring issues of contention remains the veneration of Mary and the saints despite the renewed focus of “CMTC” on Jesus and the Holy Spirit. On the other side, I did meet as well some long term believers who grew disillusioned by the perceived overemphasis on the realized eschatology of C/P theology. Therefore, the growing sense of alienation from the non “CMTC” culture led them to seek deeper roots in the ecclesial tradition and intellectual theology. After what they up within a mainline Anglican-Charismatic Church in England and has since been introduced worldwide.

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viewed as riding the global charismatic wave of glory and victory they returned to the safe and deep harbor of tradition which was then invested with new meaning. These spiritual nomads are in many ways the most potentially influential agents of change as they are able to translate between the “TC” and C/P practices, thus enriching both in the process, without experiencing complete dissonance between the two. The pastor of “AL”, a fast growing Pentecostal church in Borj Hammoud, a predominantly Armenian quarter of Beirut, reported several negative campaigns initiated by Armenian Orthodox priests. However, as he put it, “they (the Armenian Orthodox clerics) realized after a while that the “AL” church is here to stay.” The clergy made a pragmatic adjustment and out of this, a few individuals have sought cooperation between the two. The flow of influence goes both ways as non “CMTC’s” attention shifts from inside C/P practices with its emphasis on the ‘spiritual’ as opposed to ‘material’ to the broader cultural agendas. I have heard several “IC” sermons which address the issue of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit from a Lebanese cultural perspective. In one of his sermons, Elias went as far as calling the believers to become engaged in media, culture, politics and other spheres of influence and see it as their spiritual vocation. According to him, it is better to serve the Lord in the public sphere than just come every day to a church meeting and remain enclosed in a tight C/P culture. These mutual influences are not strategically instituted top-down. Instead, as “TC” and C/P leaders and laity open up towards one other and enter interpersonal relations, as in the case of Elias’ Christian rock concerts, an intriguing exchange of practices occurs and both groups are changed in the process. The three ideal type stages I observed can also be seen as a general chronological progression which moves through stage 1 to stage 3. However, there were exceptions to this general trend. For example, a Greek Orthodox priest, who had an amicable relationship with “CMTC” and was initially open to cooperation, traveled to the USA and visited some C/P gatherings. Upon his return to Lebanon, he cut all ties with “CMTC” due to his fear that the Lebanese “CMTC” would also adopt similar practices which he had witnessed in the USA. It seems that some minority “TC”, for example some Eastern Orthodox Churches, experience greater obstacles to embracing the C/P movement due to the fear of being absorbed and losing their distinctly ‘Eastern’ identity. Each stage of relating leads to certain shifts in inner Christian dynamics which further shape the Christian community in Lebanon and which hold wider implications for the Lebanese society. The C/P movement seems to maintain its growth in a culture where mechanical solidarity is decreasing and global modernization fosters a culture of free choice. Thus the pragmatic difference between the “TC” and C/P movements stems from their differing responses to the global modernization process. “TC” responds to change by referring,

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through its rituals and habitus, to the static, sacred past. The C/P movement accepts the change and instability, emphasizing the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit, thus anchoring these modernist values ontologically within the divine reality. This response tends to attract younger people, such as students, who have accepted the change and seek a religious way of life which can mediate their dynamic and consumerist life styles. Invariably, “TC” is also embedded in social change and in particular post civil war shifts. This social change shapes the cultural conditions for belief, even if dogmatic theology remains unchanged. The Lebanese people in general pride themselves on their openness to innovation and new ideas. The tendency to mistrust change and therefore to cling to tradition prevents the “TC” from attracting cultural innovators who would enable “TC” to position itself at the center of social change. Instead, many young people associate “TC” with the status quo and suspect the institution of maintaining the unjust tribal social divisions by managing identity differences. On the other side of the spectrum, the non “CMTC” C/P movement runs the risk of becoming a utopian, disembodied ideology which attracts only the disadvantaged Lebanese preventing them from engaging the concrete socio-political sphere. C/P believers inadvertently conflate the consumer lifestyle, which remains fluid and without traditional ties to the dynamic, unpredictable working of the Holy Spirit. One “EC” leader complained about the difficulty of reaching the traditional Lebanese in the villages due to the disconnect they felt to the C/P urban and individualistic life styles. The failure to root spiritual and social innovations in the past may lead to the perception of it being a foreign element, leading to only a very shallow impact. However, as the C/P movement has grown, many believers have begun reflecting on the concrete cultural and socio-political significance of their newly acquired life style. As one female C/P leader put it: “If the Holy Spirit is universal, then he must also be Lebanese”. The engagement between some “TC” and C/P members has lead to unexpected discoveries and change for both communities. The C/P movement also serves as a Christian mirror for the “TC” thus challenging “TC” to examine itself. For example, C/P believers often narrate with deep conviction their conversion story and experience the Christian tradition as full of life and power through the Holy Spirit. Thus, “TC” is indirectly faced with the question of the role of tradition, transmission of faith and institution in order to bring up committed, participating members. C/P ritual and everyday practices which “bring the flesh to the bones”, as one of the “CMTC” leaders put it, are more effective as a challenge to “TC” than any verbal critique of “TC”. This metaphor used by the “CMTC” leader could be understood in terms of active members who fill and revive the already established institutions through their

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participation. My neighbor, who regularly attended “CMTC” meetings, summarized the difference to “TC” as following: We have house groups and conferences, we read the bible and talk about it. Also, we have attendance list. Every time you attend, you get a mark. And everyone knows who is a committed member and who is not.

Commitment is then viewed as an external sign of the inward reality of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the inward reality of the Spirit must become visible through the body. The individualism between “TC” and C/P is reversed: “TC” does not allow individualist bodily interpretation of the rituals and the adherence is not maintained through attendance but by mere birth. The institution remains in tact even if the members do not show up as it is held together through external means like the presence of professional clergy, buildings and an ecclesial infrastructure. Contrary to this, while C/P groups allow a lot of personal bodily and vocal interpretation and participation within their rituals, the level of participation by the individual determines the level of belonging. Thus, since nonparticipation draws communal consequences, the pressure is felt by the individual to commit in order to benefit from the communal benefits. This results in a higher cohesion and greater level of participation within C/P groups. The C/P leader used this metaphor of adding flesh to the bones in the context of comparing the C/P movement to the flesh which covers the bare bones of dogmatic statements of the Second Vatican Council. Thus, the C/P movement seemingly embodies what has been written already on paper. However, if our bodies and actions communicate, then C/P actions are in fact prior to the dogmatic statements. An outsider to the C/P movement reads the bodily actions prior to forming an opinion about the content. For most, the sense of seeing constitutes the first impression before hearing, touching and smelling. Thus, if “the medium is the message”187 then C/P believers are involved in laying down the bones and not merely covering them with flesh. Intellectual theology follows practice. Perhaps some “TC” clergy sense the groundbreaking theologizing of the C/P movement and are rightfully concerned as to how C/P practices will shape doctrine. One “CMTC” member shared with me his conversion story : I lived a sinful life. I was a Christian just on the passport and also had an affair. I was an adulterer. I felt so miserable and one day I cried out to God in my room. Then, a few days later a couple from Egypt came for a visit and I took them around to Mar Charbel’s grave. And there the Holy Spirit descended on me from the top of my head to my toes. I felt the Holy Spirit. You know that Mar Charbel is a Charismatic?

This narrative exemplifies how the tradition is revived through the personal bodily experience. The man realized fully the identity of the saint after experi187 This phrase has been coined by the media theorist Marshall MacLuhan.

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encing in his body divine agency, which changed his ethical behaviour. This story suggests that being a C/P Christian begins with the bodily experience thus substituting the primacy of the external ecclesial authority and propositional content of dogmatic statements with the primacy of subjective bodily experience. This affirming experience is then made objective through testimony and invites others to share in a similar experience. Mary referred to people who kiss the statues of Christian saints publicly in Christian quarters but whose lives are not in any way affected by such veneration. “It is just an empty tradition” she exclaimed.188 Although C/P believers acknowledge the emotional attachment some people have to these rituals, believers view them as empty of meaning. The constant expectation of God’s speaking, unmediated by human symbols or authority provides the believers with energy to re-discipline the body into a set of counter-cultural actions. Mary’s friend who also became a C/P believer but remained within “CMTC”, started a prayer chain189 during the war with Israel in 2006 asking to pray to a Lebanese saint to intercede for the spiritual forces of evil to be banished. Mary reprimanded him: “Why do you pray to the saint if you can pray directly to God in the name of Jesus through the Holy Spirit who lives in us?” The saints, who are often viewed within the popular “TC” culture as mediators, are believed by C/P believers to be mere people and unable to lift them above their circumstances. Thus, while there remains a difference between “CMTC” and non-“CMTC” believers about the role of saints, both would agree, that without the actual physical experience of the Holy Spirit, traditions remain just an empty, outward socio-political and religious sign. The ecclesial authority is not able to authenticate tradition without the individual body and its experience of divine agency. Tradition is experienced as real only insofar as the individual body feels its impact in temporal and spatial closeness. Between the differing poles of “TC” and non “CMTC” C/P, “CMTC” seems to offer the most effective means of mediation as it seeks to incorporate C/P practices which engage individualism and voluntarism, while remaining connected to the past by drawing upon the rich heritage of Lebanese Christianity to address contemporary social challenges. For example, one “CMTC” community discovered communal living as a countercultural tool to resist the increasing individualism, which undermines traditional family cohesion. At the same time, these spiritual communities are not defined by blood relationships and kinship, as is the case in traditional societies. Instead, these newly formed C/P com188 Mary agrees with Bloch, who defines rituals as empty and disconnected from the everyday life. However, she does not make a statement about the nature of rituals per se as she does recognize the presence of rituals in the charismatic worship. She only pronounces an ethical judgment about how these rituals are used. 189 A prayer chain is the practice of relaying concerns through a set order of contacting individuals. Within a short time many people can be informed and mobilized to pray.

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munities are built upon the individual choices of its members to join a C/P way of life and to commit to sharing of time and resources. Moreover, these C/P communities have chosen to remain in the city and not separate themselves by retreating to monasteries. By consciously remaining in the city, the C/P communities are able to address more effectively the urban culture than the secluded clergy of “TC”. Furthermore, by remaining in their professions, the C/P believers are able to infuse the secular culture with sacred meaning as they apply the ritual C/P experience to their professional working space. On the other hand, I also encountered some “EC” leaders who had grown increasingly disillusioned with what they perceived as “rootless” spirituality within C/P and sought to embody C/P passion and vision with the rich resources of “TC”. “CMTC” walks a fine line between the often contrasting and at times clashing C/P and “TC” ways of life at the risk of being accused on the one hand by “TC” as not being faithful enough to the tradition and on the other by the C/P as having “sold out” to the “TC” and having lost its radical allegiance to the Holy Spirit. The discomfort of this middle ground enables the best mediation between the worldwide C/P movement and the distinct Lebanese Christian tradition. As “CMTC” is able to maintain relationships and open trust towards both sides, a fruitful process of learning and transformation is able to emerge. The Lebanese understanding of how the individual interacts within the sacred communal sphere gets reinterpreted. A believer must constantly renew his/her own commitment to God through a personal confession which is then validated by actions. At the same time, the C/P holds strong expectations for the lifestyle of the believer. In contrast, within the traditional Christian churches, belonging to the church is not attained through individual choice but rather inherited through birth. Individuality and independence are promulgated through lifestyle. The individualistic “hearing God” within charismatic circles tends to question ecclesial traditions and authorities. Engelke emphasizes this connection between meaning and power : “Wrestling authority from an institutionalized Church is often justified as a strategy to make Christianity more meaningful, but it is also a method of decentring the political influence of the clergy.”190 Within the groups I observed, the undermining of clerical influence is just a by-product of the constant appropriation of meaning found in the C/P metanarrative. Through the process of a mutual exchange both the C/P movement and the “TC” may be changed. The C/P movement may acquire deeper theological roots and retain a more distinctive Lebanese posture which appreciates the specificity of their social engagement. The C/P movement has just begun to translate its 190 Engelke and Tomlinson, 2006, p. 22.

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spiritual vision into socio-political engagement. On the other hand, if “TC” learns to incorporate the C/P vision, activism and voluntary mobilization, the “TC” may experience a wider radius of influence and attract more youth who otherwise would join political and other ideological motivated movements. By embracing the C/P movement, “TC” could gain a fresh perspective on its own particular cultural practices. “CMTC”, as being within and yet outside of “TC”, experiences stronger tensions than do other C/P groups. However, it is exactly this bodily tension which is perceived as realness of the indwelling Holy Spirit and which enables cultural change within “TC” and beyond. 2.3.2.4. Ritual and gender The Lebanese socio-political and economic culture as well as the public-private sphere is defined through gender categories. Thus, negotiation of gender stands at the centre of C/P mediatory practices. Therefore, I relate the gendered body to these cultural contexts. Like the everyday body, the mere biological gendered body can not be grasped without cultural meaning ascribed to it. Rosalind C. Morris remarks, that the ritual subversion of social structure may be carried over to the daily life through “new forms of bodily self-knowledge.”191 She then points out researchers who “[…] have turned their attention to the question of what propels individuals to attempt to enact ideals, and what possibilities lie in the gap between practice and ideal in the daily dramas by which people try and fail, and try again, to achieve them.”192

The ritual non-gendered experience takes up a very limited time during the everyday life of a C/P believer. The overall thesis of this chapter on the double effect of ritual also applies here: The ritual experience is extended through bodily tensions and inconsistencies. It is not uncommon for women in Christian quarters of Beirut to refer to themselves as free from male dominance.193 In contrast, they often assume the opposite to be true of Muslim women. This freedom is defined as their ability to work outside the house and to wear the clothing of their choice. However, as Makdisi shows, this assumed freedom is only an outward appearance and turns out to be merely imposed social expectations supporting traditional gender roles.194 191 Morris, 2006, p. 370. 192 Ibid., p. 370. 193 In my treatment of gender and women, I benefited from the insights of my wife Lisa Fahnestock Dyck who has done field research among Sunni Syrian and Maronite Lebanese women. 194 Makdisi, 1996, p. 235.

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Throughout the Lebanese C/P movement I met 3 female founders195 of C/P communities. They shared with me about their ongoing struggle to justify their position as women in religious leadership within a male dominated religious culture. Religion provides the deepest identification for various Lebanese communities. Therefore, female religious leadership touches the core sensibility within the male dominance of religious institutions. There are no religious communities in Lebanon which would allow female public leaders. The C/P female leaders view their counter cultural position within the framework of God’s particular intervention and call in their lives. All of the three female founders I interviewed reported how they perceived directly God’s call for them to leave behind the Lebanese cultural understanding of male leadership. All of them struggled to be obedient to this call and continue to feel tension during the everyday public leadership. The female authority is based on God’s direct agency which suspends any particular historic and cultural justification for the supremacy of males. Mary represents the overcoming of the traditional ecclesial gender divide. She emphasizes, that she did not take up the leadership position but was called to it by God through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Initially a women’s group, when the group began to include male members and grew in numbers, Mary’s pastor refused to be her mentor due to the fact that she had assumed the role of leadership over men as a woman. However, Mary did not allow this to deter her from the commitment to leadership. At the same time, she sought to be sensitive to Lebanese cultural expectations for leadership in specific scenarios. For example, when several members expressed their desire for baptism, Mary asked a male pastor to conduct the baptism. I agree with Toulis who observed in her ethnography on Caribbean charismatics in England that “[…] identity as a ‘Christian’ is non-gendered. At a practical level, however, distinctions are made between men and women.”196 Despite the suspension of cultural expectations pertaining to spiritual leadership, cultural expectations for gender roles are maintained. On one occasion, Mary asked my wife if she cooks for me and on another occasion several women of the group inquired about how often my wife is in the university while I stay at home with our little daughter. However, these particular gender roles in the C/P way of life tend to be more fluid than those found in the rest of Lebanese society. For example, although men seemed to still expect women to perform household duties at home, I observed men serving coffee and helping with clean up after the meetings. Perhaps Mary’s status as single and without children enables her to fit within the non-gendered category of a saint. Although she has no biological 195 I also heard of another two female founders/leaders, but did not meet them personally. 196 Toulis, 1997, p. 272.

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children, she draws significance from her role as ‘spiritual mother’ to new believers. In this way, Mary reinvents the gender role as being gendered and nongendered at the same time, by subverting the typical expectations for a woman in certain ways yet conforming to the recognized role of a woman in others. For example, Mary does not view marriage as the centre of a woman’s life and would prefer to live on her own. However, recognizing that living on her own, which is associated with promiscuity and would therefore taint her reputation in the community, Mary chooses to continue to live at home with her mother. The founder and leader of “CN” also must negotiate her female leadership within the Maronite Church which is completely under male authority. In contrast to Mary, who leads a non “CMTC” group, “CN” must function within ecclesial structures and attempt to fit in C/P practices without compromising its belonging to the state recognized institution. The following event occurred during one of the “CN” retreats which took place, overlooking Beirut, in a beautiful retreat centre called “mother of God” (umm’ Allah). Around 120 participants, both from the “CN” group and many guests as well attended the first session. The theme of the opening session was “The Holy Spirit”. Before the speaker got up, three worship leaders came forward and began to play C/P worship songs. Some guests appeared unsettled in the beginning and observed C/P members as they rose from sitting and began to move their bodies to the rhythmic beats. However, after a few songs, most people were standing and joining in clapping, raising hands and moving their bodies to the rhythm. However, when the worship time ended and the invited speaker came forward, the contrast between the worship dynamism and his static posture could not have been more starkly evident through the body. The “CN” leadership had requested an elderly bishop to give the sermon on the Holy Spirit. During the worship he was one of the very few who remained seated. His face did not show any emotional response and in his introduction he seemed to want to distance himself from the “CN” group by referring to his ecclesial authority as a bishop. His slightly overweight body appeared stiff. As he spoke his face did not show much emotion and his voice did not change tone, while he continued to stare straight in front of him seemingly ignoring everyone present in the room, almost detached, as if in a different realm all together. His sermon came across like a dry university lecture. His body was covered with the traditional clerical robe which hid his form behind a sacred cloth. C/P leaders within “CMTC” are not allowed to preach since they are not ordained by the Church. The priest functioned as a public allegiance to the “TC”. He embodied through his sober, monotonous speaking style and a straight, still body posture the stable institution. His body stood in clear contrast to the content of his speech on the Holy Spirit whose activity is understood by C/P believers as pushing the established institutional boundaries. After the speech of the priest, the “CN” leader did not position

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herself at the central pulpit. Instead, she just got up from her place in the corner of the room and began speaking. Physically, she did not claim the centre role. Her role was just to transition the group to the next event. During her announcement, she added, “In the Old Testament, the law was written on the stone, in the New Testament, it is written on the flesh.” She then went on to make announcements and made a few jokes in the course of her speech. While “CN” publicly acknowledged the institutional authority by offering its representative a central stage, the C/P body subverted the ecclesial habitus while formally maintaining the doctrinal agreement. Contrary to the bishop, the female leader was dressed in a tight fitting, stylish blouse and a knee long skirt suggesting a slim, healthy body. Her voice rose and fell, allowing her whole body to express the message of the dynamism of the Holy Spirit. She gestured with her hands, her face engaged the audience and she looked in turn at different people, acknowledging their presence in the room. While the priest appeared as an asexual being in his robe, the female leader had sex appeal and a natural, quiet charisma which attracted her listeners without excessive rhetorical effort. The female body evoked an obvious difference between the C/P and the institutional church’s appearance: The dynamic, youthful, attractive body of a woman represented the Holy Spirit of the New Testament, who expresses himself through the flesh. The difference of the woman’s body was accentuated by the contrast it posed to the seemingly static, old and unattractive body of the bishop, hidden behind the loose garments of the clergy, which represented the law of the Old Testament written in stone. The images of stone versus flesh seemed to be enacted through these two bodiesone, hard, cold, unchanging and inanimate surface versus soft, warm and changing, living and breathing organism. The picture of God’s speech codified in a written form on stone requires an external uniformity of the body. Once the speech is codified, it becomes “objective” as it can not be changed. This “objectivity” of the content is also maintained through the bodily medium of the bishop. The clerical robe erases his human specific bodily traits and transforms a particular body into an atemporal, asexual being who like the message he is proclaiming, stands beyond the spatio-temporal random details. This surface transformation seems also to erase gender difference. However, in contrast to the ritual C/P subversion of gender differences, this transformation by “TC” clergy could be seen as an embodiment of a male habitus. Even though the clerical robe seems to suggest a dress, the entire physical movement refers to the authoritarian posture, from slow movements of hands, central positioning of the body and avoidance of emotions – all these physical traits suggest a male habitus which goes back to the culture of a sovereign king who rules over his subordinates. Thus, the institutional state appropriates the male habitus as God’s way of being and speaking. The male habitus is seen as representing God through specific bodily features

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which refer to God as an authoritarian, impassionate, transcendent non-gendered being, thus at the same time contradicting the gender specific male allusions. Contrary to this surface non-gendered body, the C/P believers accentuate the particularity of the gendered body. The body is not covered up, but becomes in its specific shape and expression a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The “CN” leader’s body triggers memories of a mother, who for all participants is able to evoke a closer emotional bond than that of a father figure within the Lebanese culture. Some C/P members shared with me that the veneration of Mary in “TC” finds its roots in the role of the mother. Thus, “TC” members are able to establish a more intimate link to a mother figure like Mary than to Jesus, who appears as distant. The female leadership of C/P groups engage these sensitivities it would seem by taking on the role of a spiritual mother. Bonding memories and emotional associations are triggered and allow the C/P members to relate to the side of God, which is associated with traditionally understood feminine roles such as caring, faithful and tender. These “feminine” divine attributes disappear within “TC” due to the attachment of the church to the powerful political institutions which are expressions of a male habitus. Since the C/P believers emphasize the direct agency of the Holy Spirit, they express the divine action through their gendered bodies and not in spite of them, as is the case in “TC”. If a leader appears as attractive and likable, the divine agent, who speaks through her body, can be more easily trusted than a removed institutional non-gendered body which can not relate to the experiences of C/P believers outside of C/P rituals. The C/P women in leadership negotiate the category of gender between traditional expectations and their spiritual identity transcending gender. Gender remains a fluid category within this practice in tension between the cultural reality and the spiritual present reality, which is seen as not yet fully embodied. This tension energizes women to strive towards an ideal, that transcends gender, as “in Christ, there is no man or woman”.197 After the presentation of the bishop, the female leader of “CN” asked people to sit down in groups of four to five people and discuss the sermon of the bishop. Each group was lead by one C/P leader and was given two questions to present: “What spoke to me from the teaching? How does the Holy Spirit work in my life and how does the Holy Spirit speak to me?” One woman in particular was very negative towards the institutional church. She accused the church of being judgemental of people who are sexually active outside of traditionally defined boundaries. She concluded her charged monologue by stating, “I did not understand anything that this guy was speaking about”, without referring directly to the content of the speech. I assume that her reaction, even if expressed in 197 The Bible, Gal. 3:28.

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propositional terms, represented deeper seated emotions. Her negative memories were triggered by the body of the bishop, which represented an institution she perceived as hostile towards a particular conception of what it means to be human: to be a gendered body which experiences pleasure. The C/P movement also holds to traditional values on sexuality and family, however as the C/P movement is lead by people with expressed bodies and emotions, they do not seem to provoke such a strong reaction. Moreover, the C/P movement empowers the particular body by inviting everyone into a guided dialogue. The sterile monologue is subverted through a polyphonic discourse and the lay C/P leaders are able to communicate their message more effectively with the institution serving merely as a negative backdrop. The old clerical habitus serves as a reference point for breaking with the past. The new form of embodying the divine realness is de-centred through each individual experience. This communal search enables them to arrive at a fuller understanding in which every participant feels like an integral part of the ecclesial body. Other participants listened patiently to the woman’s verbal attack of the traditional church. As a response some of the participants shared their testimonies about how they also felt offended by the ecclesial form and how they experienced the Holy Spirit in their lives which allowed them to embrace the fullness of life intended for them by God and move beyond the institutional surface. The response was not given as an a-temporal authoritarian teaching, but flowed out from a particular life context and was directed at a particular life experience. This particularity coming from working middle class people like herself allowed the woman to open up to the reality of the Holy Spirit. In the course of the conference she joined the worship experience and appeared then to be open to the teachings as well. The bodily medium impacts the not yet C/P member more strongly than that of particular propositional content, as the reality of the Holy Spirit is grasped through the body of the one who testifies about the divine agent.198 This dialectic discourse on gender differs significantly from the temporalcultural perspective within Lebanon as well as Western academia. Bornstein points out quoting Foucault that, “meaningful statements depend on discursive formations – fields of use in which a statement must be placed to acquire its meaning (Faucault 1973).”199 Western gender discourse can not be understood if 198 A comparison to the liberating perception of Islam for women would be fruitful at this stage. I suggest that the main difference lies in the equalizing role of the Holy Spirit within the public sphere. While the Muslim women preach to women only, C/P women preach publicly to men as well. So while the Muslim women cement the gendered and religious private/ public divide, the C/P women overcome these segregations through C/P rituals while taking up the culturally expected roles in private. 199 Bornstein, 2006, p. 99.

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it is imposed upon other cultures without consideration of local context and religious meta-narratives which shape worldviews. A European Christian presented a seminar on the subject of “gender-mainstreaming” at one of the “MwG” meetings held on Thursdays. When he mentioned that the agenda of “gender-mainstreaming” is the elimination of main differences between genders, Mary exclaimed indignantly : “My Jesus!” The speaker continued by laying out a clear definition of what he viewed to be correct gender roles in a Christian perspective, describing the female as ‘on the receiving side’ and the male ‘on the giving side’. An Armenian Lebanese member was translating the message simultaneously into the Armenian dialect. Those listening to his translation seemed to be annoyed due to the fact that they could not grasp the meaning of the speaker’s message despite the fact that they understood the particular words being translated. The translator finally gave up and exclaimed: “There are no words in the Armenian language to translate this talk!” During the session some people smiled in what appeared embarrassment. Other members seemed to try to offset the embarrassment by making jokes. At the end of the presentation, a young woman shared the following joke: A Lebanese guy worked in a jewellery shop in Saudi Arabia and was approached by a female customer. Wanting to help her with her selection, he offered that she try the ring on and proceeded to slip a ring onto her right hand using his left hand. At the same time someone observing snapped a photo of the two. As the photo taken had been taken of them in a reflection from the mirror beside them, it looked as if the ring was on her left hand. Everyone in the group laughed. Later on, a Lebanese friend explained the point to me: This guy made two mistakes: He touched a woman, then he got caught with the mirrored image which suggested he had placed the ring on her left hand which in Saudi Arabia is the wedding ring finger. Unlike in the West where gender debates are staged publicly, in many Middle Eastern countries gender is not a topic for public discussion. The act of publicly breaking gender taboos provokes a strong release of emotions. Telling a joke about this topic allowed members to laugh off their embarrassment. Mary expressed her indignation about the negation of traditional gender roles and thereby seemed to join the European Christian in his cause against gender mainstreaming. However, this agreement occurred only on a thin propositional level. Within Mary’s C/P worldview, the argument for or against gender mainstreaming is simply irrelevant as the charismatic meta-narrative incorporates both, the non-gendered and the gendered view. The European Christian showed his acceptance of the western gender mainstreaming discourse rules by taking a stance against it and defining clear cut views as to how gender should be perceived. In contrast, the Lebanese C/P believer’s life world does not lend the same background as does the western experience for such a gender discourse. The physical reactions of several members reflected this lack of comprehension as

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the C/P believers understood the single words but not their relationship within this contextual setting. The joke underlined how absurd the very concept of gender mainstreaming with its goal of creating equality between men and women in a place like Saudi Arabia where traditional gender roles remain deeply entrenched. The same could be said of Lebanon, where women still struggle for their basic rights, such as the ability to pass their citizenship on to their children. At the same time, Lebanese C/P believers do not attempt to define gender. Believers view themselves as gendered humans and non-gendered saints simultaneously and therefore transcend the western gender discourse creating a more complex one. Thus, gender is not a defined term, but a continuously performed and recreated human body. This ambiguity and subversion of gender can not be achieved through a descriptive presentation, the medium used by the Western Christian and which is also employed by the academic culture. A language which aims at capturing tight definitions of how gender is socially constructed and attempting at arriving at a gender perspective fails to address the gendered body in practice. The joke brought to the surface the cultural misconceptions about gender. Laughter enables the individual to take up a position beyond the propositional discourse on gender. Thus, a good joke about gendered misconceptions allows the individual to step outside. On the contrary, a lecture aims at describing the facts in hopes of garnering mental assent and change of attitude. However, understanding of words also requires a certain usage of words, necessitating thus a thicker cultural background behind the propositional content. Establishing a culture requires a deeper involvement than merely giving an educational talk. Thus, the contextual rootedness of gender construction can not be easily overcome through a lecture where one person attempts to transmit information and others sit immobile. Although gendered bodies are formed prior to reflection, the reflexive practice attempts to single out gender as an analytical concept. However, singling out gender, through rational reflection by way of the praxis of conversation, reinforces a reductionist concept which is then re-imposed upon the body. Thus, the praxis of academic discourse creates and imposes gender as a new invented category under the illusion of discovering something which exists independently from the particular discourse. On the contrary, a ritual involves the entire body, addressing gender without attempting to single out gender as a concept. Thus the transformation is, although not as reflexive, more thorough, as the body performs and feels what it is like to be non-gendered. Without a larger feminist theory of justification behind it, the C/P women preach to men standing above them on the stage. However, the obvious reversal of power is not conceived of in these categories. Within the C/P ritual reality, the reversal of gender power is a mere glimpse of a new gender transcending reality, thus a certain egalitarian vision of what it means to be a man and a woman.

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That being said, women in the group do care about gender justice. Weeks later, the same member jokingly teased me: “I know why you came to Lebanon. You fled from gender mainstreaming and came here where men are allowed to beat their wives!” Through the course of the following conversation, Mary advocated strongly the implementation of women’s rights in Lebanon so that domestic abuse of women could be eradicated. However, C/P believers see danger in making any issue such as gender discourse the centre of their metanarrative as they believe this would lead to idolatry. Idolatry is defined as anything which assumes greater importance than God in a believer’s life. Instead, the C/P meta-narrative transforms the understanding of gender through the embodiment of believers’ gendered and non gendered identities and these identities are by far more complex and subtle than the rationalized western discourse allows for. The irony is striking as Mary achieves, through differing ritual means, many aspects of what western gender mainstreaming advocates for. The new identity which emerges through commitment to the C/P metanarrative challenges specific cultural understandings of gender. Toulis rightly emphasizes the internal nature of Christian identity which undermines social divisions. What ‘Christian identity’ asserts is an ideal view of society and social interaction where people are valued and respected as individuals who can be differentiated upon the basis of what they are inside – what they feel and believe themselves to be – and not in terms of the group to which they belong. Thus valued, the individual is free to interact with others in a society and world that is free from the hindrances of particularistic group membership and group differentiation.200

However, her conclusion is too idealistic. On the one hand, the C/P sense of identity is vitally linked to the internal presence or absence of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, this internal identity is shaped by external influences as well, namely other members and the larger context. The emergence of C/P identity reshapes old social boundaries and creates new ones. However, the new boundaries tend to be more fluid and inclusive. C/P identity locates its source of power within the biblical meta-narrative which is then employed to reshape sociopolitical, religious and gender boundaries. Although the C/P believers view the meta-narrative as given, this meta-narrative also acquires relevance and formative power through new embodied interpretations of believers. Although it would appear as if many Lebanese individuals possess the freedom to choose their own individual life styles, the freedom of identity creation stands in constant negotiation with the traditional tribal religious order. Clothing is not always an indicator of the presence or absence of western or 200 Toulis, 1997, p. 275.

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traditional values. One of my Arabic teachers in her mid 20’s who comes from a Shi’a community appeared to be a very independent woman. Although she wore western style clothing, as we talked about her fianc8e she disclosed to me that if they engaged in sexual relations before marriage, her family would most certainly kill her. Such “honour killings” are not isolated to the Shi’a community but occur within the Sunni and even on rare occasion within the Christian community. The sexuality of the woman is guarded by a communal code of honour. One of the leaders of “MwG” shared with me that most of the young women from the group were not allowed to go out on their own without their brothers or come home late alone. The reason is that each family is keen on preserving a moral reputation within the neighbourhood by avoiding rumours concerning the possibility of the transgression of a sexual code. The sexual taboos are however, not generally discussed or reflected upon. The most important feature is a shared consensus and a communal guarding of these rules which uphold certain behaviours, hence the limited mobility of women. Female sexuality is seen as a potentially destructive force which could compromise the moral purity of a given community. However, with time, as the leader of “MwG” won the trust of the neighbours through various personal interactions, the parents of “MwG” members began to view “MwG” as safe in so far that they upheld the communal boundary for the protection of their daughters’ honour. Thus, “MwG” was then viewed as a moral community where individuality and men-women relationships could develop outside of biological family ties without the transgression of taboos. Moreover, Mary encouraged the sense of family by turning men-women relationships into brother-sister ones instead of possible sexual partners. While C/P groups seemingly upheld traditional values on sexual boundaries, they at the same time placed the responsibility of relations upon the individual as each believer is inhabited by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the communal authoritarian control is weakened due to the individual responsibility outside of the immediate family. By placing the responsibility for sexual behaviour onto the individual, the view on how sex is perceived changes not only for women but for men as well. The double standard in terms of lax expectation for male sexual abstinence and very restrictive on women is equalized. C/P groups stress that both men and women must not engage in sexual relations outside of marriage. During a “CN” retreat, I met a young man who shared with me during one of the breaks how he struggled to find the right girl and how he has been disappointed in girls as they only seemed to look for financial security. He pointed out one girl at the other table whispering to me, “I like this girl.” I asked him to go over and just talk to her. He replied, “No, I have to listen to the Lord first.” Later on he discovered a wedding ring on her finger and told me, “See, I told you that I

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should wait upon the Lord! I would have embarrassed myself. This way the Lord closed the door for me.” The preconceived traditional conception of man as the active one and female as the passive one, which was also propagated by the talk given by the western Christian, gets reinterpreted if both, male and female are seen in relation to the divine agent who is able to subvert traditional gender roles. The male gender also needs to be mediated through the divine agency which could entail that the male habitus takes on female traits and the female takes on the traditional male habitus. For example, within the Lebanese culture, a man is expected to be the primary provider in order to offer his future spouse a secure life. He is measured according to his active socio-economic success, while the woman is judged more upon a passive possession of beauty and attraction. In particular, educated Lebanese men who do not have wastah find this association of maleness with surface quantitative achievement degrading and embrace the C/P emphasis on internal male qualities. Similarly, women enjoy stepping out of their prescribed passive role, as public witness in C/P applies as much to them as to men, when the new reality of the Holy Spirit is experienced within a particular body. For my friend, “CN” appeared to be a promising place to meet his future partner due to communally reinforced values he also held. These values concerned the inner qualities and less the external socio-economic status. Moreover, C/P groups offer a man communal recognition based upon his character. Emphasizing the internal allows men from lower middle class, who do not have external socio-economic and political status, to feel valued within an alternative community. While the C/P habitus lies within the capacities of the person, wastah relations and social standing depends on the family status one is born into. Thus, a C/P group reinforces the value of the individual’s capacity to achieve recognition independent from traditional authority. This value drives individual agency which in turn affects other cultural spheres, such as economics and political activism. The success of the ritual ex-tension depends on the bodily tension and the resulting performative energy. However, tension implies the possibility of a tensionless state. The body without tension fails to mediate between the ritual and the everyday spheres and thus fails to achieve C/P realness.

2.3.3. The failure of the mediating body in the everyday life C/P realness is felt through the ex-tension of the C/P ritual body into other everyday realms. A failure occurs when the bodily tension disappears and clear boundaries are presupposed and enacted, as in the reflection of Berger/Luckmann. Once the believer embodies different separate normative orders and acts

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habitually, the C/P realness fades and becomes, as Berger/Luckmann rightly described, just one among various realities with the solid feature of the immediate everyday spatial and temporal experience. With the diversification of immanent spheres, the agency of the Holy Spirit becomes obsolete as each sphere maintains objective norms which require human agency only. The mediation can also fail, at least from the perspective of those who are not initiated into C/P culture, when C/P rituals are extended over other spheres without any meaningful relation. On a number of occasions, I have observed preachers warning the participants not to overwhelm the people in their everyday encounters with ritual behaviour and language others do not understand. The problem occurs when the believers resolve the tension they feel simply by transmitting the ritual one to one into the everyday without considering the specific setting and person encountering the ritual. On one occasion, I invited one of my C/P friends to join me in watching a world cup 2010 soccer game at the German research institute. The screen was installed in the garden and almost the entire crowd cheered for Germany, except my Lebanese friend who cheered for Spain. When Spain scored he jumped up from his seat and started to shout: “God is good! God is good all the time!” He did not proclaim it in Arabic, which most likely would have been received by the mostly European crowd with understanding to the religious culture and tradition of Lebanon, but rather he exclaimed it in English, which garnered some blank looks in our direction. I personally felt very embarrassed and tried to distract him, which only reinforced his almost ritual like excitement as he explained to me in English: “God is with Spain, he gives them power to win.” My friend attempted to relate his ritual experience to soccer, which obviously failed as no one in this group could understand or share his religious exclamation nor understand his explanation as it seemed ludicrous that God cared more about one team than another as it placed God on a human level similar to the spectators of the game and their random preference of teams. I have heard some C/P sermons in which the preachers encouraged the participants to go out into the world and transform it and not “hide within the church walls”. Mediation happens when the body is wedged between two or more competing spheres. Any withdrawal into one sphere diminishes the balance and lessens the activism, which is a result of felt imbalance. I have also met young adults in particular those who work for foreign NGO’s in social justice and economic development, who as a result of viewing the Holy Spirit as equally present in all the spheres, chose to place their commitment within the socio-economic work context. This conviction led them to abandon participation in the C/P group altogether as their work in improving and transforming the socio-economic conditions took on the role of the C/P ritual. The C/P ritual lost its distinctive feature and dissolved into other spheres. Thus

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the challenge for C/P groups remains in how to foster strong participation in C/P rituals and outside of ritual space within the everyday lives of believers. Only then do C/P rituals appear as real and can impact the wider culture if the believer’s body mediates continuously between demarcated ritual space and various social spheres. However, the difficulty stems from the C/P belief in an initial radical break with “the world”, which is stressed strongly for each new believer in the initial phase. During the “CN” conference, I met a young man who sat bowed down during the entire presentation, not looking up. Later on, I started a conversation with him and asked him whether he had come to such spiritual retreats before. He answered: “These retreats are good for you. If you walk with Jesus, you have to go the whole way. Like Eli [his friend], who entered a monastery. We have to break with everything. Like it is written somewhere in the bible: If you want to walk with me, don’t hang out with your old friends. You know, I do not walk with Jesus, I sin, I walk the wrong way. I do not want just to come when I have problems. There are only two ways and I know I have to make a decision which way I want to go. I have to make the whole thing with Jesus and not just halfway.”

The answer exemplifies the initial dilemma for young converts: The C/P lifestyle requires commitment through bodily participation and action towards a certain ethical code. A break with former habits and associations is required. Yet, in the process of becoming a mature C/P believer, a continuous engagement with and transformation of the culture and people the C/P believer has left behind, is expected. The new believers must break with the past while developing a mediatory practice between the C/P rituals and the everyday life at the same time. The emergence or decline of C/P realness lies within the bodily resolution of this posed dilemma. Those who creatively resolve this paradox become leaders and authorities on what it means to live as C/P believers. However, the failure to resolve this dilemma for some leads to a decline of mediation and ultimately decreased C/P realness which results in decreased participation within C/P rituals. The practices of ritual extension and reinterpretation of the political sphere require a continuous action and a position outside of the typical hard boundaries drawn by the sectarian political discourse. Christian Zionism offers a lens through which any political activity could be interpreted with certainty. Eric Nelson Newberg writes, based on the Pew Forum on Religion and Life, that “Pentecostals and charismatics, are the most likely to espouse pro-Israel attitudes.”201 Christian Zionism, latent in most non-Arab and even a few Arab 201 Newberg, 2012, p. 13. Newberg sketches the history of the Pentecostal mission in Palestine, highlighting the role and the legacy of Pentecostal Zionism.

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Christian C/P communities, minimizes this tension by aligning with a certain political agenda, sacralizing it in the process. Zionism as a view which is extrapolated from a particular reading of the Old Testament of the Bible creates a clear distinction and a lens on how the political situation in Lebanon must be viewed. Every political event is seen in relation to the Old Testament prophecies as direct references to the current political state of Israel. Many Lebanese C/P leaders view this interpretation, which is imposed from C/P movements predominantly in the US and Africa, with suspicion as it encloses God on the side of the Jews in Israel and excludes the ongoing shared agency of God’s actions within the volatile Lebanese relations to Israel and other neighbors. After traveling to a big C/P evangelism event in the US, the leaders of “MwG” felt very distraught as they encountered there open support for Israel’s politics. For example, Mary saw a prayer room, which was dedicated for praying for Israel as a political state. Other C/P leaders also shared with me various reasons, both theological and cultural, as to why Christian Zionism was wrong. For example, some leaders felt that this particular view motivated US Christians to give more money and resources towards mission done in Israel than in the surrounding Arab countries. They perceived this attitude as unjust based on their conviction that the Holy Spirit is equally active all over the world without favoring any one people group. One particular leader openly denounced Christian Zionism as evil in supporting humanly evil desires, which are reflected through the political policies. Christian Zionism creates a clear demarcation in the realms of politics, which results in establishing a sense of certainty and the diminishing of tension. Some C/P believers critiqued the established Protestant Church as it has become just like any other established sect. For example, a person is perceived as Protestant if he is born into a Protestant family. On the contrary, the appeal of C/P identity and its realness stems from a voluntary choice and the transcending of the Lebanese sectarian discourse. Some C/P believers from Christian families prefer not to be associated as Christians, but choose a more fluid, neutral term like “mu’min”, which literally means believer in Arabic. Similarly, C/P believers from Muslim background do not refer to C/P beliefs and practices as Christian religion, but through concrete references such as love or peace, or the way of Jesus. An uncritical association with particular western culture diminishes the tension of being a Lebanese and at the same time a worldwide C/P believer and limits the possibility of mediation between this global and local identity. In relation to gender, a failure of the mediating body occurred when a western Christian attempted to establish a closed concept of biblically defined gender. Contrary to the propositionally defended meaning, the C/P understanding of gender is performed ritually and embodied within various contexts. Thus, a mental approach in setting a norm fails as it gives the believers a clear cut definition which again substitutes the openness and tension of the actual ex-

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perience of the divine agency. What it means to be a man or a woman is not grasped once and then possessed through the human ability to explain certain concepts. Instead, the meaning of gender must be performed continuously as it can also shift and change depending on the leading of the Holy Spirit. If the ambivalent C/P bodily practice is reduced to reflection and closure through propositional theology, then the C/P realness will decrease as the definition of gender will be sought within written discourse, which leads eventually to decreased bodily ritual participation.

2.3.4. Conclusion Berger/Luckmann do not expound further on how their particular life world gives rise to their phenomenological description of the everyday life. After sketching out the concrete C/P everyday experience, Berger/Luckmann’s account of the everyday in relation to religion must be grounded in the concrete comparative observations. Once the assumptions and the cultural background shifts, the seemingly primary, solid and common-sensical feature of Berger/ Luckmann’s description of everyday reality within (if) becomes less obvious and more dependant on a particular cultural background. Berger/Luckmann presuppose a life world which is routinized, stable and predictable. Moreover, they assume a homogenous culture of people who easily agree on the common-sensical features of the everyday life. In his later revision of the secularization thesis, Berger notices that the academic culture reproduces itself worldwide through similar features, which, while securing an understanding within this cultural milieu, creates a break from the majority of religious people. Experienced coherence of a life world requires concrete socio-political, value and linguistic conditions which are in flux within rapidly changing societies. The 15 year on and off Lebanese war disrupted not only the physical, but also the mental reality of people. Certain embodied traditions ended abruptly, close communities were scattered and displaced and the future seemed to promise only unpredictability. Chaos replaced coherence. The seemingly random occurrences of violence dictated the everyday schedule of people, as they needed to cross neighborhoods to shop and visit relatives. In the sudden lack of predictability in the everyday reality, the sacred markers became the only stable reference point for Lebanese Christians. The sacred is physically present in the everyday space of Beirut. In contrast to other urban spaces like New York, where a few cathedrals are dwarfed by skyscrapers representing secular spheres of finances, culture, media and politics, the sacred buildings in Beirut mark both the core of confessional identities and sensibilities and are geographical markers

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for this dominance over other spheres, whether political or cultural. While studying at the Saint Joseph University, the sound of both muezzin calls to prayer and church bells enveloped the class rooms where secular social theories on religion were being taught, reminding us that religion within the Lebanese society is not a peripheral realm neatly separated from other realms of life. Instead, religious sounds, buildings and practices form the physical orienting features within the everyday lives of the Lebanese. Religion structures the everyday experience and provides continuity within the rapidly changing culture. The C/P believers reverse the description of Berger/Luckmann. God’s agency becomes the all enveloping reality which remains solid in contrast to the shifting everyday experience which is dependent on unstable human factors. Coherence is established through agreement. However, the 15 year long violence during the civil war and the ongoing mistrust and “cold war” between sectarian groups which followed it, placed any agreement in question. For the Lebanese, the seemingly common-sensical everyday experience within various social spheres is read and experienced through the particular communal religious association. A public discourse understood and agreed upon by all Lebanese does not exist, apart from that formed by a few secular elites. Here, the question emerges as to whether such an assumption of a public secular language overlooks its historic background set within a particular genealogical, JudeoChristian European tradition. As J. Milbank and Ch. Taylor have shown, secularization can not be understood as a mere subtraction story, but rather a complex interaction between religious beliefs and practices and other cultural spheres. This process also entails a change within religion as believing and acting in a plural frame can not remain the same as was the case when Christian doctrines and beliefs formed the normative paradigm. The western religious background becomes more apparent upon encountering other cultures which do not assume the same founding myth. Based on Taylor’s account on the genealogical becoming of modernity, one could raise the hypothesis that the western public coherence of language and institutions can not be understood without a particular embodied religious myth. Based on my observation, I would maintain that any reasoning and thus intention to define the everyday requires prior ritualization of shared values and language. Thus, a clear outline of a seemingly common-sensical everyday sphere within (if) is just an attempt to break free from prior self transcending practices. However, in order to bolster (if) perception of reality, the boundaries and immanent spheres must be reinforced through bodily actions which maintain these distinct boundaries. The academic culture and corresponding rituals foster actions which reinforce a segmented (if) experience of the world. From the angle of C/P realness this would be interpreted as a failure to perceive and experience God as the actor both within and outside the (if).

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The C/P extension of the ritual practice into the everyday life is reinforced by the rapid post 1990 process of modernization with its subsequent effect of undermining traditional institutional authority. Ironically, the socio-political, religious or gender spheres within everyday interactions get reinterpreted to resemble more the modern social values of human personhood and society, signalling a move away from the traditional clan oriented society. However, this shift happens only due to the transformative effects of C/P rituals and the everyday C/P body which stands in tension to the everyday traditional norms.202 This tension allows the individual to experience him/herself as an acting body between competing norms. Thus, it is the non-habitual action which heightens the specific realness perception of a life world. While the C/P practices seem to reinforce modernization, they also question the (if) assumption on individual agency and human abilities. Thus, the paradoxical outcome of modernization through religious rituals supports C/P as an alternative third cultural space, emerging beyond the dichotomy of tradition and modernity. C/P culture mediates between this seeming dichotomy by rooting individuality, authenticity and personal freedom within the third person of the Trinitarian understanding of God. Due to the ability of C/P rituals to extend beyond ritual demarcation lines through the bodies of believers and engage various everyday spheres meaningfully, both the C/P rituals and the everyday spheres are continuously negotiated and transformed in the process. This dynamic relation contradicts any attempt to define distinct social spheres. A body in tension is aware of agency and process and desires integration which triggers action. Through this tension, the C/P believers experience the C/P life world as real due to the changes within their everyday life which are then attributed to divine agency. Berger/Luckmann’s distinction of differing spheres collapses in light of the spatial and temporal urban presence of religion in the everyday experience of the Lebanese. Moreover, from the C/P perspective, the ritual and the everyday stand in various relational modes towards each other. The relation might be more fittingly described as interpenetration as God’s agency is seen as being embodied within the everyday while at the same time surrounding and standing above various cultural realms. Using the metaphor of a theatre, many C/P believers view life as a comedy and drama and the ritual experience as the only solid and life grounding event which reorders and gives structure and meaning to the otherwise ever shifting everyday experiences. The autonomy of any everyday experience is viewed by C/P believers as a mere human illusion as the Holy Spirit is seen as pervading temporally and spatially every aspect of human life. C/P realness emerges by overcoming the illusory autonomy of various social 202 Whether C/P movement functions as catalyst of secular modernity, similarly to Protestantism in Europe, hinges on many socio-historical factors and remains to be seen.

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spheres. From the C/P perspective, the description of Berger/Luckmann would be unacceptable as this would contradict the idea of a God who intervenes in the everyday of the believer and provides bodily experiences of his agency. Although a certain transition and shift from the everyday is created through the ritual demarcation, it is not a transition between spheres. Instead, the demarcation can be understood as an intensification of an already experienced divine presence. The everyday is not qualitatively distinct from the ritual, but becomes a ground for the ex-tension of the ritual experience. The C/P believer is not performing different actions all together within different spheres, but rather the activation of his body within the C/P ritual carries over into his everyday life. Thus, the desire for bodily coherence, that is to feel just as alive and uplifted in the everyday as the believers feel during the C/P worship time, leads to a weaving together of various spatial and temporal sequences. Eventually, the everyday experience with its temporary and spatial independence from God are sought to be immersed into the presence of God. Saeculum, as understood in the Middle Ages, and adopted in C/P imagery becomes a mere reference for a time between God’s tangible intervention in Jesus and his final universal institution of his presence with the people at the end of times. This understanding differs significantly from Berger/ Luckmann’s presupposition of a distinct religious and everyday sphere. The testimony is another crucial C/P practice, which weaves together the ritual and the every day life.

2.4. Testimony as bodily mediation 2.4.1. Approaching testimony from etic and emic perspectives In the discipline of philosophy, which I consult in my study, testimony is treated as a field within epistemology. Thus the main question addresses the concern as to “how precisely do we successfully acquire justified belief from either the spoken or written word of others?”203 A philosophical inquiry into testimony often focuses on individual mental states thus neglecting relational processes of the embodied mind within a social setting. This particular emphasis has a strong tradition within the Platonic favoring of ideas and analytical understanding over the art of rhetoric.204 While the disciplinary view requires necessarily methodological reduction, a failure to see this as a particular methodological approach may lead to the misleading representation of the particular for the whole. Thus, I attempt to complement the strong mentalist view of testimony by fo203 Lackey, 2006, p. 160. 204 Fisher, 1987, p. 19.

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cusing on the body and social interactions. Therefore, I intend to focus on what a testimony does. Most of what we know about the world around us we acquire through our growing up in particular communities and cultures. Rick Kennedy has pointed out “the need for humans to believe, trust, assent, and sometimes submit to testimony and authority” in order to lead a reasonable life.205 Before asking the question as to whether testimonies contribute to justified true beliefs, we are already enmeshed in a culture which was partly created through testimonies. Therefore, instead of focusing on the epistemological functions of testimonies, a prior question must be asked, as to what the performance of testimony does and how this act achieves the perception of shared “reality”, which in turn allows us to reason and question the very same conditions which enabled us to be reasonable human beings in the first place. Thus, testimony produces our perception of the real world as […] the critical attitude is itself founded upon a general stance of trust, just as the adult awareness of the way memory plays us false rests upon a broader confidence in recollective powers.206

Recognizing the “social operation of the mind”207, testimony can be viewed as a bodily communication within a particular community. Thus, testimonies can also be described as a communal discourse in establishing evidence. C. A. J. Coady raises three definition clauses for the testimony as a speech act: A speaker S testifies by making some statements p if and only if: (1) His stating that p is evidence that p and is offered as evidence that p. (2) S has the relevant competence, authority, or credentials to state truly that p. (3) S’s statement that p is relevant to some disputed or unresolved question (which may, or may not be, p?) and is directed to those who are in need of evidence on the matter.208

I will employ the definition of Coady for testimony as (1) evidence offered by a (2) speaker who has the necessary competence within (3) a group of people.209 This definition can be described as the social or external definition of testimony (s/e.t), as Coady does not further reflect on what he means by a speech act, borrowing this concept from Austin.210 John R. Searle works out the ground205 206 207 208 209

Kennedy, 2004, p. 249. Coady, 1992, p. 46. Kennedy, 2004, pp. 182–186. Coady, 1992, p. 42. Faulkner views Coady’s definition as “sufficient for a statement to be testimony, but (…) not necessary.” See: Faulkner, 2011, p. 16. I do not intend to go further into a theoretical definition of testimony, as I believe the definition will be clarified through further analysis of the testimonial practice. 210 Coady, 1992, p. 25. Coady develops his definition through borrowing from J. L. Austin’s work, in particular consulting Austin’s work “How to Do Things with Words”.

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breaking study of Austin and assigns to every speech act three possible kinds of acts:211 a) Uttering words (morphemes, sentences) = performing utterance acts. b) Referring and predicating = performing propositional acts. c) Stating, questioning, commanding, promising, etc. = performing illocutionary acts.

I term this further clarification as individualist internal definition of testimony (i/i.t). Merging (s/e.t) and (i/i.t) I arrive at the following broad definition of testimony : Testimony is (1) a speech act, which is offered (2) as evidence by a (3) speaker who has the necessary competence within (4) a group of people. However, this general definition, although necessary, is not sufficient for the following study, as I am looking at a particular kind of religious testimony, namely C/P testimony. Coady briefly touches on the use of testimony in religious practices. I think it is plain that people who speak of the witness or the testimony of martyrs or the lives of men dedicated to certain ideals intend to convey by that language the idea that the words and deeds of the men (or women) in question stand to the ‘realities’ they believe in, rather as reports stand to the realities they are about.212

I believe Coady’s treatment of religious testimonies does apply to the general definition of testimonies as well as performing illocutionary acts of testimony and promising is binding to people who commit them. Describing the testimony as standing to the realities religious people believe in, Coady does not further elaborate what exactly he means by this. Testimony, as I have observed during my field research, mediates between the given natural and cultural world people find themselves in and the projected normative order, which I believe to take on the primary form of a meta-narrative due to the human embeddedness in time. Thus, the speech act can be specified as mediation between the world and the normative framework. The C/P believers view the written account in the bible as the overarching past, present and future account of reality. In particular, this reality is shaped through God’s interaction with the world and people. C/P believers view the Holy Spirit as the mediator between the text as an overarching meta-narrative and an experienced reality in their concrete lives. Thus, testimony expresses the actions of the Holy Spirit. This act mediates, just as the Holy Spirit does, between the world and the meta-narrative. However, the Holy Spirit acts as a Person of the Divine Trinity in the present,

211 Searle, 1969, p. 23. 212 Coady, 1992, p. 52.

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in relation to the written account.213 Thus, a C/P testimony intends to mediate between the current lives of believers within a particular socio-political context and the wider biblical meta-narrative. While rituals are recognisable through their framing actions, testimonies are employed both within and outside rituals. Testimonies serve as a mediating practice of the ex-tension between the ritual and the everyday experience. Testimonies within rituals proclaim God’s agency outside of rituals. The definition of testimony can not be settled through analytical discourse a priori. The weakness of such an approach lies in its choosing randomly real life setting testimonies in order to fit a prior structure. Instead, the definition of testimony acquires its explanatory scope through observing the cultural practice of a testimony within a particular community. Consequently, a more general definition of testimony can be achieved through a comparative perspective. I will not attempt a further theoretical definition of testimony, as a deeper understanding of the C/P testimony will be established by further eliciting the context214 within which these promises are made and how these acts are performed.

2.4.2. Aim, setting and audience of testimony The aim of the C/P testimony depends on the setting where the testimony is performed and the audience which is interacting with the one who testifies. Testimonies are performed inside and outside worship services. During a C/P service, a testimony is performed within a particular ritualistic setting. Testimonies occur at the opening of the worship service, after the worship and in the middle, usually after the sermon. The following part of a testimony was given by a woman in her 50’s at the beginning of the service at a weekly public gathering of the Antelias Charismatic Movement: I grew up in the church, but I did not experience God, I grew up in the South. Then I met a group of people from our church who were praying and you felt as if they were talking to God face to face! It felt like an intimate relationship. I also started praying like them and I experienced God through the Holy Spirit as being very close to me. Then one time, it was during the war I woke up and God spoke to me that I should pray. I prayed without knowing for what and then I got a call that my 15 year old brother had been 213 I encountered various views on how the written letter and the Bible relate to each other. I will touch on this relation later. 214 Austin stresses the importance of context: “True, we are now getting out of this; for some years we have been realizing more and more clearly that the occasion of an utterance matters seriously, and that the words used are to some extent to be ‘explained’ by the ‘context’ in which they are designed to be or have actually been spoken in a linguistic interchange.” Austin, 1976, p. 100.

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kidnapped! He was released 40 days later. Then, one time under a heavy shelling I lost a two month old embryo. I started bleeding and I could not go to the doctor. I started praying and God asked me to open my Bible, I opened and read the story about the women who was bleeding and came to Jesus and then I was suddenly healed […] When I was about to give birth to our third child my husband was suddenly diagnosed with a serious illness. Doctors gave him only weeks to live. I prayed that Jesus would heal him. I said: Jesus, I know like Lazarus you can raise him in the last minute. My husband died anyway. Ten days later I gave birth. By God’s grace I did not fall into depression, I felt carried by the community of believers around me. In Isaiah 55 it is written: “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”

At the Antelias movement public meetings, up to 500 people gather weekly with many new people who come for the first time. The C/P rituals differ from the traditional church service. In order to limit the strangeness of the upcoming rituals, the testimony establishes a link to the everyday life and experience of the visitors. The C/P believers are also encouraged in the efficacy of the upcoming ritual by hearing about the relevance of their ritual performance within the everyday life. The testimony exercises a commissive illocutionary force.215 In this case, the speaker commits herself to the transformative power of the following ritual by performing it in relation to her life. However, a mechanic efficacy is avoided by also sharing how her prayer did not bring about what she had hoped for and yet how she still felt strengthened by the community of believers. During a “MwG” session, a young woman spoke publicly about intercession.216 Suddenly, the speaker chuckled in the midst of her speech. She then was quiet for a little while and asked for intercession. Two leaders approached her, laid their hands on her shoulders and spoke an intercessory prayer for her. The young woman then went on to share how prayer changes things and that God will not intervene unless we pray. Testimony used in the middle of the C/P services often defies the usual performance of the testimony, which is uttered in the first person singular to an audience who were originally absent from the historic event. However, the young woman in this instance brings about a communal experience when she asks for others to pray for her. The efficacy of prayer is demonstrated on the spot and the testimony is given as an individual validation and interpretation of the communal experience. Biblical writings refer to the past history of God with his people. However, the preacher collapses the time between a communal historic event and the speech act reference. Testimonies employed in the middle of C/P services often use this technique in order to overcome the historical time gap and highlight the realness of God’s involvement with the people. Often, people respond to a sermon either through 215 Austin, 1976, p. 157. 216 Intercession refers to the kind of prayer which is performed with the focus of effecting change. This change can be either conceived of as material or immaterial.

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vocal expressions like “amen” or through movements of their body. The pastor of “AL” church preached about physical healing. He stopped abruptly and requested that anyone who needed healing come forward. A woman came forward. The pastor and several others laid their hands on her and began to pray loudly. After some time the woman fell to the floor in a peaceful trancelike state. The pastor explained that through the power of Jesus, the evil spirit who had tortured her body and mind had been driven out. Later on the woman got up and shared a testimony about her past, and the physical suffering, feelings of anxiety and panic attacks she had experienced. These kinds of testimonies stage the historic event and validate it through an individual account. 2,000 year old stories come to life and the C/P believers acquire a sense of immediacy as God is experienced in the same manner as that of 2,000 years ago. When the stories of healing are read, the only sense involved is hearing and imagination. However, the performed healing involves multiple senses. Therefore, the mental picture of healing is stronger as it involves touch, sight and hearing. The mind acquires a fuller bodily impression of the realness of healing through divine intervention. Testimonies employed at the end of C/P services are often employed in order to create a transition from the intense C/P rituals into the everyday reality. A particular time is given for people to share how the Holy Spirit worked in their lives and how their ritualistic experience was carried over into the mundane reality. For example, one participant at the “CN” shared: “During the worship service, God gave me a strong impression, a picture of X, I felt in my chest then that I am deeply loved by Jesus. Now, when my husband and my relatives treat me badly, I am reminded and I feel God’s love again. And the people around me see the change in me and they start to change too.”

The testimonies at the end of the worship service often take on the following form: A) Cause: Experience of the Divine during the ritual. B) Action: Acting out the ritual experience in the everyday life. C) Result: Improved life/ experienced fullness of life/stronger perception of the realness of the Holy Spirit

Testimony serves to connect the ritual with the everyday life of believers and thus establish consistency between the religious and other spheres of life. Inconsistency is often experienced when individuals experience different set of rules and roles within different life settings. Often, testimonies of healing are told in order to express the limitations of science and portray the efficacy of God as above the domain of human possibilities. Mary often asked each participant within “MwG” to share what the Holy Spirit spoke to him/her during the worship service. Through this practice, the performance of Mary’s gifted authority gets

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embodied communally. The original message is now repeated in the first person singular and the multiplicity of individual meanings establish a polyphonic discourse which offers some identification points of reference for everyone in the group. Independent from content, the mere performance of an utterance by its sound and repetitive nature serves to establish Mary’s speech. Thus, the practice of communal testimony giving extends Mary’s original testimony and sermon spatially, communally and temporally. C/P believers narrate their testimonies also outside the C/P worship. One of the female leaders encouraged the C/P believers to just speak the words of God in their everyday lives, as the words have a power in themselves to change the hearts of people. During the “school for apostles”, a training school for “AL” believers, the preacher also underlined the power of words taken from the Bible: “If you say the words from the bible, you are not just saying any other words you are saying the words of God! You are doing war with words.” Thus, the most basic speech act consists in uttering words independent from propositional and illocutionary acts. Although this kind of basic testimony can be easily misunderstood, it can still achieve the purpose of establishing a physical and audio presence in the city. A group of women from “MwG” decided to drive around their neighborhood in their cars, to wave flags and after the seventh circle, to shout sounds of victory. They took this testimonial approach from the biblical account of the conquest of Jericho. In the story, the Israelites were advised by God to shout loudly after the seventh circling of the wall. As a result, the wall crumbled and was reduced to rubble. Basic sounds can become testimony and assume meaning and power. Testimony is not confined to propositional and illocutionary acts. Sounds and symbolic actions bring a world into being through manifestations, despite the fact that sometimes the observers are not able to discern the meaning of the actions. Non-propositional aspects of a testimony are just as powerful as they address the emotional-intuitive aspects of the body, which function as a filter for the rational process afterwards. Many converts to the C/P group said that as a result of enjoying the worshipping atmosphere they were willing to listen to the content. However, the most common way of testimony is in using all three speech act functions. On one occasion, some young people from the Christian quarters ventured out into the Muslim quarters with the intention of giving a testimony about the intervention of the Holy Spirit in their life and offering to pray for Muslim youth. Most often, the C/P youth narrated how God healed them or intervened in other ways and then followed this up by offering to pray for the Muslim youth who had listened to their testimony. This kind of intercessory prayer establishes the presence of the Holy Spirit through vocal proclamation of God’s presence in the Muslim quarters. Religio-political divisions of the city are subverted as the youth not only assume mentally that the Holy Spirit is at work in

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the Muslim quarters, but establish his presence by committing their bodies and lives to his reality in the venturing out into unknown territory and by putting forth their bodies as a proof of efficacy of the Holy Spirit. One Muslim youth reported that he perceived the unusual practice as a demonstration of courage, which contradicts the usual segregation. As a result, some of them become curious about the propositional reference and what had enabled the C/P youth to overcome the prevailing fear of the other present in Lebanon. Thus, propositional acts are secondary to the utterance and illocutionary acts as most Muslim youth listened to what the C/P youth had to say as a result of their aroused curiosity concerning the C/P youth’s commitment to come into their territory to establish a presence of the Holy Spirit. C/P believers also perform testimonies directed towards one another during their every day lives. One of the leaders of the Antelias movement invited me home and once everybody had sat down at the dinner table began to narrate his conversion and his experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit. He then asked me to narrate my conversion experience. These foundational stories are retold on different occasions when C/P believers gather together in order to create a common identity marker. Although the circumstances and particularities are different, almost all of these narratives refer to an intervention of the Holy Spirit which brought about a rupture to their previous lives and resulted in a new found experienced fullness. Another characteristic aim of testimony is to establish a common historiography and thereby give the C/P movement a plausibility structure within otherwise competing stories in a shattered post war socio-political urban landscape. Before looking in detail at this function, we must look more closely at the bodily function of the performance of testimony in establishing the realness of a life world. Before the speaker gets up to give his/her testimony, s/he must have acquired a position of trustworthiness. These character values of trustworthiness and authenticity, which lend the speaker authority to perform a testimony, must first be demonstrated in the post war context of Beirut.

2.4.3. The bodily efficacy of testimony The body, due to its perception through the five senses, cannot be as easily doubted as words, which can only be comprehended through hearing. The philosophical treatment of testimony implies the bodily action by defining testimony as a speech act. However, while Searle’s 3 clauses presuppose a body, he does not explicitly describe the performative role of the body in establishing testimonial evidence. The role of the body is under-theorized. Rational introspection and memory as sources of knowledge are contingent on physical

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aspects such as our senses working properly. Testimonial realness is established through the interactions of external human bodies. Thus, testimony differs from other ways of knowing and experiencing realness by way of its reliance on involvement of at least two people. Every part of the human body speaks as well when the person testifies and the body establishes the credibility of a testimony. Many C/P testimonies retell the transformation of their bodies. As described above, the C/P leader felt the presence of the Holy Spirit from the top of his head down to his toes. His aging body appeared as agile and he seemed to be very energetic. His description of the body before the infilling of the Holy Spirit on the other hand, evoked the image of a body in decline. Another leader from “MwG” group told me how he used to sit at home in front of his TV, eating chips. He was unmotivated to relate to anyone and did not have any friends. As a consequence of this life style he had grown overweight. Listening to him to recount this, it was hard for me to imagine him in this former state of the body. As a co-leader of the group and a role model for the younger members he had lost weight and had an attractive and friendly way of relating which attracted people to him. Moreover, he had studied, travelled widely and learned a new language. His bodily posture expressed confidence. Even before giving a testimony about the Holy Spirit, his listeners liked what they saw expressed through his body. Thus the body often precedes testimony by establishing a new reality to which the testimony refers. A female leader of “MwG” explained to me that the clothing style of the female believers also changes with time. Some young adults attending this meeting had lost their parents and siblings during the war or shortly afterwards. As a sign of their mourning, they preferred to wear grey drab colored clothing. However, as the C/P leader narrated to me, upon experiencing the joy of the Holy Spirit they began to dress differently, wearing colorful clothing which expressed a change in their inner state. The new body of C/P believers can be interpreted as an act of authentification of the propositional speech (Searle’s definition, clause b). [A] religious utterance, one might say, acquires the propositional truth of ontological correspondence only insofar as it is performance, an act or deed, which helps create that correspondence.217

It is this specific act which constitutes the embodied truth as the truthfulness of the proposition “the Holy Spirit lives in the body” becomes visible through the life of the believer, as one member told me: “It was the Holy Spirit who helped me to lose weight”. An overweight body evokes the impression of heaviness and of a lack of control. The transformation of these physical realities towards a healthy looking body gives the impression of a changed attitude. While the body forms the ground for words to refer to the visible and ex217 Lindbeck refers here to J. L. Austin. See in: Lindbeck, 1984, p. 65.

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periential reality, the body also serves as a vehicle of testimony. The C/P believers are convinced that in the act of testifying, the Holy Spirit indwells the body of believers. One of the marks of this indwelling is boldness, as exemplified by the unwavering stand apostle Peter took when reproached by the state authority as recorded in the book of Acts 4. Thus the testifying believer expresses the reality of the Holy Spirit through his body. A practical test for boldness among C/P Lebanese is made in crossing over the sectarian geographical divides in Beirut. The C/P leaders encourage the C/P believers to tell their testimonies in Sunni and Shi’a areas. For some believers, this political and religious transgression touches their existential fears as they have vivid memories of their relatives being killed or have heard first hand accounts of relatives being killed in certain areas of Lebanon. Thus, testifying in areas which they usually avoid due to traumatic memories or the post-memory constitutes a revisiting of the trauma and being confronted anew with the past of the civil war. By putting their bodies in the former enemy’s territory, the C/P believers increase their mobility and enlarge their mental imagination of space. I met some youth who had never ventured beyond either Christian or some mixed downtown areas. Their imagination of Lebanon therefore remains restricted. Through moving their bodies into areas which are not Christian, the pronouncement of the reign of the Holy Spirit in the Sunni or Shi’a territories becomes real. While the reality of boldness is expressed through the spatial transgression of political-religious-sectarian boundaries, the body is also transformed through the ritual embodiment of the Holy Spirit. A testifying leader proclaims his experience as binding and authoritative to his listeners. At a “MwG” meeting, I witnessed a training session on how to give a testimony. Most members in attendance were slightly overweight young women who belonged to the lower middle class and had great inhibitions to speak publicly. The leader pointed at them individually and declared: “You are not speaking! The Holy Spirit speaks through you!” By performing this speech act, she proclaimed the reality of the Holy Spirit upon the believers’ bodies. I witnessed the transformation in the way they employed their bodies previously and afterwards. While giving their testimonies, their bodies straightened up and their voices became self assured, they no longer stared down at the floor while talking, but looked directly in the eyes of their listeners. Previously, these women were not able to speak in public. Afterwards, they not only spoke in public, but exercised authority over men and people from higher socio-economic classes. Before, they felt invisible due to the lack of socio-political and economic power. Afterwards, they felt empowered by the Holy Spirit and thereby carried this new reality in their bodies thus subverting the socio-political and economic factors in shaping their bodies. These kinds of testimonies, when performed in the immediate setting are very effective, as some family members of C/P believers began to listen to the testimonies

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after observing change in the behaviour of their children or siblings. In general, it is easier to change propositional content than it is to change a habitual ingrained body. Thus, the body, which is a medium of the testimony, represents a more effective, while subtle, means of testimony. Terence Turner theorizes the body as […] essentially in processes of self-productive activity, at once subjective and objective, meaningful and material, personal and social, an agent that produces discourses as well as receives them.218

Turner’s definition attempts to avoid dualistic opposites through viewing the body through the lens of dialectic embodiment. His understanding stands in contrast to the post-structualist view which evokes a sense of an abstract a-social body which is passively determined by disembodied authoritative discourses of power. Turner emphasizes the personal agency in shaping the body as a result of freedom from traditional forces. As the expansion of social and cultural freedom to create one’s own identity has pushed against the rigidities of traditional patriarchal, sexual, political and economic forms of domination and control, a new politics of personal empowerment and emancipation has been born to challenge these persisting limitations of personal freedom, starting with the basic power to appropriate one’s own body, including its sexuality and reproductive powers, to produce the identity, the social persona or in the newly pervasive phrase, “life-style” one chooses. The inevitable consequence of this has been that bodily qualities such as youth, slimness, fitness, etc. have acquired new importance as tokens of class and status distinctions […].219

Turner’s conclusion on the increasing prominence of the body as a result of decreased traditional structures and an increase in individual agency also applies to Beirut. However, Turner’s equation of tradition with restriction and modernity with freedom is too simplistic, in particular within regions outside of Europe and North America. In Lebanon, the body expresses the religious-political and socio-economic identity the person is born into. The life world of a person and his/her belonging to a normative order are expressed through his/her body, which symbolizes a particular community. One member of the Lebanese Forces responded to my question as to why he would not want to venture into a Hizb’allah area with the following, “They would kill me.” “How would they know that you are Christian?” I wondered. He responded with the exclamation, “I look different from them. I smell different. Everything about me is different from them.” In Europe the body also serves as an expression of identity. However, this embodied identity is not as 218 Turner, 1994, p. 46. Although structural forces will be considered later, I assume the primacy of the concrete body which is defined in relation to other concrete bodies. 219 Turner, 1994, pp. 27–28.

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existential and does not provide as deep of an anchor since it can more easily be influenced by capitalist trends and personal choices. In Lebanon, it is a known fact that during the civil war, civilians were killed by warring militias based on their religious identities. Dress and appearance was a socio-political statement which could cost a person his/her life. Almost all Lebanese can name family members who were killed during the civil war due to their religious affiliation. Changing the body means therefore changing the core of one’s belonging within a community and a larger normative order. Testimony is one of the most effective means in merging propositional reference with the referent and therefore establishing immediate evidence, as the one who testifies “puts his body to where his mouth is”.220 Within the Lebanese communitarian society, where family and religious community exercises a strong cohesion which in turn influences the socioeconomic and political range of possibilities, the body is experienced from the one spectrum as described by Turner : “objective, material, social and receptive”. However, the post war consumer culture offers the individual a limited degree of freedom to act upon his/her body. Plastic surgeries in Lebanon rank among the highest in the world. Different parts of the body are replaced and changed, from noses to breasts. Even if the individual can incur a limited influence upon his/her body in order to improve its market value, the body must still be recognisable and therefore objective to the larger community. The atheists who I met still identify themselves as Christians, as such an individualist conviction for identity is not recognisable within the Lebanese society in contrast to the concrete material Christian community, which structures urban time, space and even the daily needs of people. Within confessional democracy, the community is upheld through the fears of individuals. If one community would dissolve, they would lose the cohesion required within a communitarian society. I have often heard the remark of Christians that the weakness of their community is due to the westernisation of Christians. By “westernisation”, they mean individualisation, consumerism and a lack of communal sacrifice which in turn reinforces solidarity. The C/P practice of testimony takes up this post war development and subverts the consumerist body into the sacred body filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. C/P believers brand the expression of the social, political, economic and religious status upon the body as deceptive and as such, meaningless. They view their entire body as established through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thus the cultural expression of the body is declared deceptive as the body is used 220 Lambek uses this expression in relation to social identity. However, this expression fittingly describes as well the act of testimony which converges sound, proposition and body. See Lambek, 1998, p. 113.

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only to mask the absence of the Holy Spirit and is therefore an empty shell. The C/P testimony often emphasizes the subjective, meaningful, personal and active part of the body. The traditional and modern processes are evaluated as restricting forces, which objectify the body and turn it into a passive, receptive material surface. On the contrary, the testimonies often emphasize how the reception of the Holy Spirit led the believer towards activating their will and actions. Thus, both the liberation of the body and the assertion of freedom to change the body come from the reinterpreted religious practices. The authority of the testimony comes not merely through a changed body, but also through certain actions, which establish the credibility of character of the one who testifies. Coady underlines the character credibility of the witness within the communal discourse: What happens characteristically in the reception of testimony is that the audience operates a sort of learning mechanism which has certain critical capacities built into it. The mechanism may be thought of as partly innate, though modified by experience, especially in the matter of critical capacities. It is useful to invoke the model of a mechanism here since the reception of testimony is normally unreflective but is not thereby uncritical. We may have ‘no reason to doubt’ another’s communication even where there is no question of our being gullible; we may simply recognize that the standard warning signs of deceit, confusion, or mistake are not present. This recognition incorporates our knowledge of the witness’s competence, of the circumstances surrounding his utterance, of his honesty, of the consistency of the parts of his testimony, and its relation to what others have said, or not said, on the matter.221

Coady’s view of testimonial reception, as unreflective but not uncritical, describes well the working mechanism of C/P testimony. Testimony is not primarily about information and facts, which stand somehow independent from the individual. Coady rightly describes the relational embedding of the audience, which continuously weighs and negotiates what the witness says with other sensual experiences such as his non verbal communication, the relation with this person, the reaction of other people, etc. I call this relational process negotiation of trust. Once trust is established the audience switches into falsification mode. Thus, once the speaker has been accepted as trustworthy, his testimony is believed and the critical mechanisms function subconsciously until the moment of trust is broken, at which point the critical mechanisms of verification resurface. C/P pastors encourage their members to extend personal invitations to first time visitors. Someone hearing a C/P testimony will more readily accept it if he identifies the speaker as his friend whom he also trusts. With the growth of trust a consciously critical attitude diminishes and the audience moves towards a 221 Coady, 1992, p. 46.

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passive recognition of “standard warning signs.”222 With the collapse of communally accepted norms, the overall social trust in traditional authority deteriorates. However, C/P communities produce trust through their rituals and predictable ethical behaviour. In particular, C/P leaders take up and transform the longing for a family into a sense of belonging within a “spiritual family”. Moreover, authenticity is established through the reinforced belief in the Holy Spirit as indwelling and therefore guiding the person throughout his various daily roles. Authenticity refers to the character quality of remaining true to oneself within different settings, at various times, through speech and actions. When the relationship to the leader resembles that of family and friendship, and the leader’s words within a particular C/P event match his/her actions outside of this event, his/her trustworthiness and the impact of his/her testimony increases. Faulkner rightly recognizes the personal character of the transmission of testimony : In not recognizing that our warrant for the uptake of testimony can come from trust, the reductive theory over-intellectualizes our relationship to testimony. We do not always base uptake on the belief that what is told is true, sometimes we merely trust a speaker for the truth. It is a characteristic of testimony that a speaker can tell an audience what she knows and the audience can believe her and not merely what she says.223

Through observing C/P testimonies, I would even go further than Faulkner and concur that the efficacy of testimony is primarily based on the body of the one who testifies and the social dynamics during the moment of the testimony. The competence of the testimony is achieved through both the bodily performance and the trust which the witness acquires within a group of people. Thus, the definition clauses (3) and (4) are primary for the efficacy of the testimony and which leads to the propositional content (2) usually being accepted without further reflective check. The propositional content only becomes primary when (3) and (4) fail. Since philosophers deal with the problematic nature of testimony, they tend to elevate (2) and undervalue (3) and (4) in their views on testimony. This creates misrepresentation which is due to their practice, in which reflection begins when habitual action is interrupted. Thus Faulkner is right in asserting that the witness does not merely give evidence, but assurance.224 Assurance hinges on the trustworthiness of the testifying person. Faulkner describes the normative nature of affective trust in the following way : “Let me say that a trusted party S is trustworthy in a circum222 Coady’s term as quoted further above. 223 Faulkner, 2011, p. 76. 224 Faulkner, 2011, p. 137. Here, I tend to side with Faulkner against Coady’s clause (1).

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stance where A trusts S to Ø if and only if S fulfils the expectation that A had in trust.”225 Testimony establishes the normativity of a world by being uttered through a prior culture of trust and authenticity. Each believer is encouraged by the leaders to tell their testimonies not only for the sake of others but also for the sake of the self-binding nature of testimony. Once a testimony is uttered, the once internal reality becomes an external normative communal expectation. Thus, testimonies establish communal normative frameworks which become binding to its members. Upon first sight C/P testimony appears as a spontaneous action. However, upon closer observation, the C/P testimony is in most cases a highly ritualized behaviour. This ongoing ritual hinges on and reproduces values of trust and authenticity. Thus, the position from within which the C/P believer speaks has been earned and gained prior affirmation by the audience. Sometimes, a performed testimony triggers a response which is instantly presented as an answer. Through this inner-communal testimony discourse, an internal consistency is created. The “charismatic authority” in contrast to “institutional authority” levels emotional and rational barriers for the listeners to trust the propositional content of the speaker. While “institutional authority” in Lebanese religious institutions hinges upon certain fixed criteria like gender and education, “charismatic authority” is fluid and can potentially be earned by anyone. This explains why unmarried women without theological training can be received as testimonial authority while institutional authority, if lacking the charismatic authority, would not be received by the C/P community, even if the content may be the same. The post war situation challenged for many Lebanese the prior unquestioned realness of their world and meta-narratives. Thus the cracks of the old served as an opening for new life interpretations. This particular post-war condition corresponds with the third clause of Coady’s definition of testimony. A testimony only works within a group of people in need of evidence. Thus a testimony must address a socially perceived need. While the institutional frameworks for traditional authority decreased, the competence and authority226 of C/P leaders increased. The experienced post civil war chaos triggered a multitude of possible alternative narrative explanations. The C/P testimony offers a coherent account between a particular life and a multitude of possible narratives. Thus, a testimony, as narrated in the first person singular is the first step in creating a larger history.

225 Ibid., p. 147. 226 This refers to Coady’s second clause.

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2.4.4. Testimony as mediation between lived and written stories 2.4.4.1 Testimonies of three Charismatic/Pentecostal leaders In the following chapter, I describe the testimonies of three C/P leaders, who represent three different groups. Mary is a leader of a group within IC, Paul is a leader within CMTC and Samir is a leader of an evangelical Pentecostal church. I seek to discern common features in how these three C/P leaders dealt with the interruption of history caused by the war and their reconstruction of a coherent life and larger history through their commitment to C/P narratives and practices. It is debatable whether testimonies of a certain genre are suitable for reconstructing history, as testimony is vested with a particular interest. Without going further into the debate on the objectivity of historical narration and events, I merely maintain that C/P believers hold to the belief that God and his actions constitute a part of the historic plot. Accordingly, when God is removed, the plot is changed. When C/P believers narrate their story of conversion and transition into the C/P lifestyle, they also interpret the larger events around them through this experiential lens. Therefore, my attempt is to sketch out the C/P construction of a meaningful history as close as possible to their perspective. I presented questions which were as open as possible in order to allow the witnesses to choose the direction their answers would take. The danger of rigidly formulated questions is that the informants predict the expected answer and “play along”. Within the Lebanese educational system exams often consist of giving the right answer reflecting the particular view of the professor without individual reflection. Despite Lebanon’s exposure to western styles of education, the emphasis remains on the oral transmission of information. In an oral culture, knowledge is not stored in some abstract concepts but in stories which are easier to remember and to reproduce.227 In accordance with Ong, I view story as a fundamental form for all knowledge, even in literate societies. As literate societies are less dependent on narrative knowledge their fundamental stories recede from the communal memory. However, the stories continue to exercise their ordering function as foundational myths. The C/P leaders’ stories are paradigmatic as key elements of their testimonies sketch out the plot and direction of the C/P larger historical perspective. The believers do not tell the meta-narrative in the third person. Instead, they retell the meta-narrative as their own personal autobiography. The C/P meta-narrative is merged with their own lived narratives and so becomes their story. At the same time the meta-narrative retains its overarching source of meaning independent from the individual life.

227 See: Ong, 2001, p. 203.

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A. Mary’s account (IC) It happened after the war ended. I had dreams to finally start living my life. But doors were closing in front of me. […] When I started living, all [suppressed] things started to come up. The war ended and people had to face life. I realized that there were things I missed out on: Studies, work and other things. I was sad; I was depressed without knowing it. When you are in the middle of it you do not understand. Two of my younger sisters studied in Europe. One of them had a very hard time when she came back to Lebanon and all the doors were slamming in her face. I had a lot of anger at everyone, at God, at America, at Syria, at Israel. They took our rights to live. My time at XXX228 helped me to reconcile with God and with myself. God loves me. How? I do not completely understand. Anger disappeared. You know, if there is coffee left at the bottom of the cup and you let it sit, the coffee becomes stone. But if you put water into it again and again, the coffee is washed out. God heals us like that, his healing is like water. It washed away the questions I did not have answers for. I did not hear new things at XXX about God, but I met God and it changed my life. It was like a mirror to me. Before, I always saw myself in the mirror, but then I saw Jesus. It was not about Mary anymore, it became all about Jesus. When I asked Mary about the beginnings of the group, this is the story she recounted: It was strange – the beginning. Mom went to a conference in Syria. I took my mom to the bus station. Lea was in the car and I dropped her off at Sonja’s house. Lea invited me in to join them. She told me that there were several women who get together to pray. At this time I felt very sad. I did not want anything from life. My father had just died of cancer two years ago. I was very close to my father. My engagement was broken. I almost died in a car accident. I broke three of my ribs. The death of my father was horrible. He got weaker and weaker every day. He took morphine and suffered a lot. I heard him in the room groaning. He was dying slowly. You know, my father was the pillar of our family. He was a very strong man and now I had to care for him and wash him. He was so helpless. I stopped living life. I was broken inside. My fianc8e asked me to marry him and leave with him for England. I told him that I can not leave my dad alone dying. My fianc8e told me that I have attachment issues and then he left for England. A few months later he called me and told me that he got engaged and was about to get married. Also my mom was depressed during this time. I felt like an empty bag on the street. So I wanted to turn down the invitation, but then somehow I joined Lea and the three other women for prayer. After the meeting Sonja asked me if I 228 XXX refers to a worldwide charismatic mission organisation. Since they prefer not to operate publicly in every country due to the possibility of physical harm to their members, I follow their policy of remaining anonymous.

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would share with them what I learned at the school of intercession about spiritual warfare. I thought: ‘I am not the right person to do it.’ But Sonja persisted and asked me to go home, pray about it and ask the Lord. At home God spoke to me: ‘There are people who are hungry and you do not want to give them food.’ I replied: ‘I do not have strength to do it. I am not the right person.’ And the Lord told me: ‘I will give you strength.’ I told Sonja that I would only do four sessions. I thought first merely to present the material that I had learned and stop then. But the second time I spoke I felt something I was not prepared for. The words were like medicine for me. I felt God speaking through me. There were only five girls attending the meeting. At first, we were only praying together and then we decided to eat the word of God and to grow in discipleship. For two years we were only 7 girls (bint229). Rania also joined us. She became a believer through a Catholic group “Addicted to Jesus”. Then Ray230 asked me if he could join us. I told him: ‘Ray, there are only women!’ But you know Ray, he is a very gentle guy, he did not mind. And Ray brought his friend along, a very fanatic Catholic who asked questions about everything! ‘What do you mean by grace? How is it possible? What does it mean?’ Literally, he asked questions about everything. Our meeting was no longer one color anymore. The Lord showed us through all his questions, even though he was a fanatic, that we should open our doors to all people. The Lord was healing us and giving us joy. You know, Jesus does not make mistakes. My relationship with my fianc8e fell apart. My dad died. But there was peace and healing in my heart. We all experienced healing. Rania had worries about her brother. He was into drugs. And the Lord brought him to himself. Norma’s mother had leukaemia. We prayed and she is still alive. Sonja always wore dark clothes in mourning for both of her parents who died during the war. And all her siblings left for the US except one sister who became very depressed. Sonja shared how the Lord spoke to her to take off the clothes of mourning. Now she wears colourful clothes. Rania never prayed aloud and then the Lord gave her a voice. We also prayed how to grow in numbers and holiness. And the Lord changed us! We asked the Lord about everything, even about appropriate clothes to wear.231 We said to the Lord: ‘You are doing your will with us. We do not want a club; we do not want to decline or to stay inward among ourselves.’ God used the Catholic fanatic and showed us early on how to open up to others. We never 229 The term “girl” (bint) applies within the Lebanese society to an unmarried woman of any age. 230 Ray was an Irish missionary. 231 In Beirut’s Christian quarters women wear tight revealing clothing. As one of the women remarked, it is a symbol of their non-Islamic identity. In fact, several women remarked that the wearing of these clothes is a sign of their freedom which distinguishes them from Muslim women.

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thought about starting a meeting. God did it. When guys started coming I thought to split the group among guys and girls. And I asked several guys if they would lead a group just for guys, but they refused. One of my relatives came from Australia and told me: ‘Mary, I challenge you: You must pray for guys.’ So we prayed a bit, maybe for a month or so and then stopped. But then the Lord showed me that he is doing something new. And the Lord told me: ‘Do not fear, I am holding your hand.’ Sometimes I understand and sometimes I do not, but the Lord leads me […]. B. Paul’s account (CMTC) Paul’s experience with the C/P movement began while in the US. […] As a matter of renewal. My relationship with Jesus was renewed. I have lost that. [Paul laughs]. It all became sort of intellectual and political. I became open to all kinds of theologies and all kinds of philosophies, thoroughly ecumenical in that sense. I was open to all religions of the world, except Islam of course. I believed in a God of your own understanding. That was the notion before the Charismatic renewal. Each one should explore the God of his own understanding. What is the deepest of your own experience? That is how we used to phrase it: What is the deepest experience you have had in your own life? Nothing specific, just a general idea of God. Then what has happened to me through the Charismatic renewal, what happened to me is that Jesus became real! I was surprised because I was supposed to be meeting the Holy Spirit when they prayed over me, you know. And what happened to me, I went to my student housing in Ann Harbor and that whole night Christ was right there and I was [exclaiming]: ‘Jesus, Jesus.’ I was far away from traditional theology, so I did not realize that the Holy Spirit was introducing me to Jesus. So this is what was happening to me. So the next day my friend came who tossed me in like a guinea pig to see what would happen. They had respect for me, for my philosophical and political views. After the prayer meeting I introduced my friend to the leaders. And they prayed with us. You know things were fast in those days. Now we kind of prepare people. I mean I had a basic idea what this was all about and I was impressed enough by attending the meeting. But when they prayed with me I did not expect [what would happen]. First of all they prayed with me for the release in tongues. So they prayed for a while and nothing happened. And then they told me: You’ve got to start to worship God but don’t use the language you know. They told me to do the exercise: Balablabulaschaba [Paul makes a nonsensical sound with his mouth] and just look to the Lord and give him whatever words come. I started and suddenly there was a release. I lost the sense of time, you know. And for a moment I just had an experience of eternity. So I asked them: How much time has gone by? And what do I do now? And they said: Don’t worry, the Holy Spirit will lead you. I went home and all that night I had problems with

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insomnia. I could not sleep and the whole night I was just awake, happy and joyful. And the next day, I felt Jesus with me as I slept. So the next day my friend comes and asks me: ‘Have you become a Charismatic?’ And I said: ‘I don’t know what you mean by Charismatic, but for me Jesus is real again.’ I had lost him for a while. That is what it meant. And then they told me: ‘Go home to Lebanon and the Holy Spirit will lead you.’ And that is what I have done. I came home to Lebanon and found people who were hungry for the experience of the Holy Spirit in the Protestant Church and the Maronite Church. So we came together and shared with each other. I don’t know how I came to tell you about all this. What did you ask me about prior to all this? At this point, I responded that I was not sure but that I found his story interesting. I then asked Paul about what was new that he introduced to the churches. He responded: Basically, it was an enlightening of faith, because many people here had faith. But their faith was limited to their own personal experience. There was no sharing of what God is doing with each other. In many churches it was a no-no. Like in the Orthodox Church you don’t speak about your religious experience. And just the popular aspect of it, you know, just the popular type of prayer, praying in the prayer group, simple prayers in your own language. Lay leadership. This is something uncommon that the meetings are led by lay people and not by clergy. Priests and bishops joined us and many in their humility joined us as simple members. They are saying that what we are doing is perfectly fine. We were interacting with them and getting their feedback. This is a lay movement. This is something completely new for all of Eastern Churches which are very clergy oriented, because the clergy serve not just as religious leaders but also as ethnic leaders. So focus on the clergy was not just a religious thing. So that opened up to what they had been saying theologically. Because of the second Vatican there was a great opening of the Church towards the lay people and the question has been: How do we activate them [the lay people]? And here comes the Holy Spirit and activates them. [Paul chuckles]. That is why they were so appreciative of this. See the whole renewal within the Catholic Church was very much spirit oriented, and partially through the people who came from the East because people in the East were always Holy Spirit oriented in their theology. There was not much happening on the ground. So the Vatican emphasized the Holy Spirit again and the role of laity. And here suddenly all of this was happening. So this is the main contribution that the Holy Spirit and the gifts can be experienced in that way among the laity, ordinary people and not just for saints and not just at the holy places like Lourdes or the monasteries for the Orthodox churches. Because both in the Catholic and Orthodox churches these gifts are there but they were always saints- oriented and in special monasteries. When we visited, and I mean, we as leaders of the charismatic renewal leaders, a wonderful

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patriarch of the Orthodox church in Constantinople, we were telling him about what has been happening and he told us: ‘This has never stopped in the Orthodox Church. In our monasteries we always had this.’ But now, it is spreading to the whole world. So both Catholics and Orthodox were saying that Jesus is alive, but the work of the Holy Spirit was forgotten. And this is something that has been present in the Orthodox theology all along: It is discernment: We don’t just do something. We discern: What is God doing? And then you cooperate with God, synergeion. It is not God or man. God initiates, but man cooperates. It’s not like in the Catholic Church in the West. As a priest you get your own vocation from God. That way it never happens. The community recognizes that God is giving you certain gifts which you are already practicing. They recognize the work of the Holy Spirit and the whole community calls you to serve them as their priest. So the Holy Spirit is always there in all of these churches, but he takes a back seat sometimes. So the rules come to the forefront. So renewal of the Holy Spirit, this is our name here by the way. We try not to use the name “charismatic”, because all over the world it has become a synonym for all sorts of things going on. C. Samuel’s account (EC) I come from a Maronite family. I was involved in the war with the Christian militia. We had the goal to defend the Christian area of Achrafiyeh. This is how I knew Christianity and Islam as two fighting religions. It was before I loved Jesus. It was about your basic existence, I lost three houses, Druze fighters killed my relatives. During the Christian wars, I came to Mansouriyeh and I lost hundreds of friends. I had a company worth 2 million. Everything was burned down, half of my clients died. So I lost everything at nahr el mot, this is where my company was located. Aoun took over. Then I started thinking about suicide and everyone came to fight against the Christians. All the Arab world was there: the Syrians, the Palestinians. I did not see my father as he was fighting here in Beirut. My mother dressed as a Muslim and we went all through Muslim areas, through sniping areas to see my father. My father had a beard, he was screaming at us because he was so afraid. He screamed at my mother, ‘Why did you bring them here? to die?’ Every day we lost people. 1990 was the most horrible year. This is all I have about my childhood. When Christians fought among themselves I became biased and I withdrew. I did not want to fight. Thousands were killed. Their bodies were on the street. My house became the green line. I just worked in delivery at the restaurant to support my family. Aoun took the army and now my father was sending rockets at us. When there was one day break, the Maronite bishop negotiated a break between the two warring parties, we again fled to Mansourieh. And again I am back to zero and that is when I became an alcoholic. I lost control over myself. I built up a universe which collapsed before my eyes. I

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invested everything into this. I worked day and night. And the Lebanese forces shot at my company, I saw it [the company building] 7 months later. I just received a call. I left the place and fights broke out suddenly, during the last year of war. And now they are back, Aoun and Geagea, as if nothing has happened. I am nothing. There are worse cases. Very rich became poor and poor militia men became rich, uneducated came to power. Everything was upside down. It was a depression for the Christians. When we were fighting the Muslims we were happy, we had a common goal. But now we were fighting each other. Many people lost hope. The war was over and the first thing my father got was a heart attack. Many people died after the war because of heart attack. We always were waiting for the rocket to come it is like you are standing at the wall and 10 people are shooting at you. We did not know which bullet will kill us. This generation of war needs treatment. They hide it. They need psychological help. I ask myself, ‘Why did my friends die?’ We used to be majority and now we are the minority. And this is the feeling that people have. Muslims are buying our property. And Christians do not care. Halas, [an Arabic conversational term meaning: ‘enough is enough’] they want to leave. Hizb’allah is cutting our blessing. Hizb’allah is not dependant on our economy. This is the war of economics now. At that time in 1990, I was invited by a friend to the Eastwood College. Many Lebanese forces gave up while others were still fighting in this area. We killed thousands of them [the Syrians]. Syrians were happy with Aoun. Antoine was playing rock music, Christian rock and I was invited. I thought they were playing like Pink Floyd. And there I saw a joy, something different I have never seen in my life, youth worshipping Jesus. And the pastor was giving a message and I felt he was talking to me. At that time I was suicidal. I had so many questions about the meaning of life. I liked the guys, their hair and their style, I said they are cool guys and after the church I asked the pastor : How do you know about my life? And the pastor explained to me the forgiveness of Jesus. And finally I gave my life to Jesus. For one hour I could not say the name of Jesus. I was demon possessed, I used to be at the beach and cry : ‘The spirit of Solomon come to me, the spirit of Abraham, enter me!’ People were afraid of me. The pastor bound the devil and the demon left and I could finally pray. I closed my eyes and saw a light point approaching me. First as a little light and then he became a man. And then I recognized Jesus. I said: Really? I made God happy? If he has a party so that I become a Christian! I went to the car and it was full of bullets. And I did not know that there were Syrian tents with soldiers. I parked my car I could not see anything in the dark. And it was curfew and I am next to them trying to find the car. And then I felt a knife in my back and I said: ‘Jesus I come to join the party. That is it’. The soldier took me into the tent and I see the officers. And I told them every word I heard from the pastor. I was giving them a salvation message. Since that time a believing woman from Druze background started to mentor me and

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follow up with me. God knew how to get me. Since that time I did not feel the urge to drink and my heart changed. Within a few months our company took off and I came to financial power but this time with Jesus. George mentored me and finally I got to know the Church here in Mansourieh. In 1992, I did a discipleship training program. Afterwards I did door to door evangelism in the south Muslim villages. I liked to go with American guys and preach to the Muslims. But in the bus I was shaking! I used to kill them and hate them and now I was going to preach them the love of Jesus! And I started to see miracles! They started to receive Jesus and people were crying and giving their lives to Jesus. Around Kanaa, I was not alone. There was an American guy praying for me while I was preaching. We were crazy and I think that is how we need to be! Today the young people are so comfortable! They have their ipod-phones and their cars and they do not want anything else. It was very dangerous for Americans to go to the south. I saw their courage. God was blessing us and I saw him working miracles. 2.4.4.2. Charismatic/Pentecostal testimony as historiography Walter R. Fisher views humans as narrative beings and the narrative as the most basic form for human understanding of self and the world. He outlines the narrative paradigm as following: (1) Humans are […] storytellers. (2) The paradigmatic mode of human decision making and communicating is “good reasons,” which vary in form among situations, genres, and media of communication. (3) The production and practice of good reasons are ruled by matters of history, biography, culture, and characters […]. (4) Rationality is determined by the nature of persons as narrative beings – their inherent awareness of narrative probability, what constitutes a coherent story, and their constant habit of testing narrative fidelity, whether or not the stories they experience ring true with the stories they know to be true in their lives […].(5) The world as we know it is a set of stories that must be chosen among in order for us to live in a process of continual recreation.232

I apply this insight to the interpretation of the three testimonies. Autobiographical stories are embedded in a larger post war socio-political context. The main question hereby is the relation between told and lived stories. Why did C/P leaders chose a certain narrative plot over others and how did this decision affect their bodies? Although Lebanon has a modern infrastructure, underneath the surface clan and family play an important identity marker for the individual and provide a sense of orientation in the face of a multi-religious society and the current political instability. During the war this sense of belonging was radically shaken 232 Fischer, 1987, p. 5.

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as families disintegrated due to dislocation, immigration and death. Many young adults within the C/P groups lost their siblings and parents during the war. The fighting between different militias carried out within the city lead to a high number of civilian casualties. Even intact family structures could no longer provide safety. Mary recalls how her father would advise her to stay always a length behind him while walking outside, so that if one of them was shot the other could make it home. Children perceived their caretakers as absent, consumed by coping with daily issues of survival. Almost all of Mary’s relatives immigrated to the USA and asked her father to join them. However, her father sensed “a call from God” to stay in Lebanon. The most basic stories about communal identity and life in general are shared within small units of family. However, for many, as in the case of Mary and Samuel, this primary context of narrative transmission was absent due to death, separation or absence of family members. Their search for and openness for an alternative orientation in life might be explained by the absence of other authoritative figures in their lives. When fighting between Druze and Christians broke out in the Chouf Mountains, almost all of the Christians fled from their villages and arrived in Beirut as refugees. Some young adults from one particular family saw six of their family members either being slaughtered or decapitated by militia during these clashes. After the settlement of the refugees in different quarters of Beirut, their village culture was strained. A village is a close knit community where the concepts of honour (sharf) and shame (‘a¯r) exhibit an important regulative function. Each member embodies a habitus of this concept and perceives himself within a larger meaningful structure. However, in the city, people became more anonymous as mistrust grew as members from the same family sometimes fought for different militias. According to MacIntyre, “the exercise or the lack of exercise of the relevant virtues” sustains or weakens traditions.233 The tradition of cohesive in-group behaviour disintegrated as the virtues that sustained it were no longer practiced. Several people mentioned to me that before the war people used to visit each other. However, after the war, people became more inward as their trust in their communities had been shaken. Their own sect could not provide a sense of communal identity either. Towards the end of the war, the Shi’a began to fight one another and inner-Christian fighting erupted between those who sided with general Aoun and those following Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese forces. Through the course of the civil war, the city became increasingly segregated and previously pluralistic communities became homogeneous. The displaced sought protection from their respective militias. Throughout the war, crimes were committed by every group. The demographic divide as well as the religious 233 MacIntyre, 1997, p. 261.

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monopoly of the media reinforced distinct religious narratives and stereotypes of the other. At the same time each group attempted to perpetrate the illusion that their own group had not been involved in the same kind of horrific acts committed by other groups. As the urban quarters grew more self-contained, vis-/-vis encounters became increasingly rare. I encountered students who had a closer encounter with a member from another religious group for the first time only upon their entrance into university. Due to the focus on one’s specific sect, the perception of Lebanon was reduced to a clearly defined sector. Many religious authorities on all sides backed the militia corresponding to the religious community it represented. During the 1980’s, secular ideologies lost their appeal and religious identity markers gained precedence.234 As the conflict drug on, motivations for the war began to wane. This prompted various militias to seek religion as a means to sanctify their actions. The collective identity of the Lebanese is marked by the memory of interreligious violence which has been a part of Lebanese history since the seventh century AD. There is a certain ambivalence which I noticed in discussing this topic with students from various religious backgrounds. If asked directly about the religious hostilities, the students, regardless of their background, would condemn these religious identities on which the Lebanese democratic system is based and emphasize instead their desire for national unity. However, if the topic turned to practical everyday issues such as the access to the educational and financial sector, self reflection often ceased and the specific religious narratives would re-emerge.235 This contradiction lies in the tension between lived and told narratives. While most Lebanese wish unity and peaceful co-existence, the historic past and current socio-political structure breeds tensions and violence. Thus, when confronted with existential decisions, almost every individual would still return to his/her sectarian identity in order to guarantee survival. With alliances recently being formed between Aoun and Hizb’allah on one side and Lebanese forces and the Sunni government on the other, the Christian community has been split into two opposing parties. Several people in Furn el Chebbak, a strong pro- Lebanese Forces area, remarked to me that the innerChristian fighting at the end of the civil war was the hardest to understand, as 234 This is at least true for the Shi’a community. Hizb’allah was founded on religious precepts and became a more prominent political force than the more secular Amal party. The question of whether this intensification between the political and religious can also be applied to the Christians and Sunnis in Lebanon can not be pursued further in this paper. 235 From six in-depth conversations on this topic I encountered one exception. This informant was a Sunni who lived in a Shi’a quarter and was educated in a Catholic school. He could present all the religious views with a certain reflective distance without falling into defending his own particular religious identity. However, he had a rather bleak view of the future of Lebanon as he saw young people getting entrenched in their religious identities.

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they could not make sense of why Christians were killing each other. Old religious symbols became absurd as at times two priests from the same denomination were offering their blessing simultaneously upon two opposing Christian militias. Despite the fact that the civil war ended 24 years ago, religious divisions have remained intact largely due to oral transmission of those war memories.236 Although on the surface a modern infrastructure has been implemented in Lebanon, family and clan ties remain an important institution in the political and social life of individuals. Thus the war stories which are recounted repeatedly within the family often form a caricature of the other as dangerous. This demarcation serves the construction of one’s own sense of identity. I noticed that some university students who never lived through the war remain uneasy about travelling to other religious parts of the city. Some refused it all together telling me that it was too dangerous. When asked as to whether they had had any bad experiences in the past to confirm these fears, they often referred to war time stories. The in-group oral memory had gained monopoly in its respective community due to the lack of a shared written history.237 Due to the failure of consensus on a common written history, students are not officially taught anything about Lebanese history after 1948. As noted by Lisa Dyck, this does not mean that nothing is taught in schools, only that what is transmitted at school often simply reflects the teacher’s own sectarian background which in almost all cases represents the majority sectarian background of his/her students, as a result of the sharp demographic divides between sectarian groups in the city.238 Thus self-referential in-group identity is reinforced in school as well. Many people in Beirut do not see the end of the war in 1990 as a definitive ending. They often refer to it as a “frozen war” which has been preserved and continues to affect society. Many of the former militia leaders who committed war crimes now hold seats in the government parliament or lead the opposition group to the government. The state has not been able to unite its citizens in an agreement upon a common interpretation of history and as a result has failed to deal with the effects of the civil war. The end of the civil war was followed by busy rebuilding efforts and hopes among the public for a new beginning. However, these hopes were soon dashed with the political stalemate and what seemed for many as a d8j/ vu of the old history. As some Lebanese remarked to me, they do not feel that their history is progressing but rather going in circles. I noticed some run down bus stops within the city that are no longer used. They were built 236 Other aspects play in as well, such as the confessional system itself and the continuation of militia leaders in power. 237 Ong points out the common features of tribal societies, such as achieving the in-group cohesion by maintaining hostilities towards the out-groups, 2001, p. 198. 238 Dyck 2010, pp. 34–35.

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right after the civil war ended as a symbol of a new order to replace the chaos that ensued during the civil war. However, these bus stops were in use only for a short time and then the old order took over again. Now the buses stop again at random places for every person and not at the prescribed locations.239 The unity of the self “resides in the unity of a narrative which links birth to life to death as narrative beginning to middle to end.”240 During the war, the personal narratives were severely altered as people lost their vision for life beyond daily survival. I asked Mary how the war affected the thinking of people. She replied: The war did not change our thinking. The war changed our life and then our thoughts also changed. The war taught us just to think about bread and survival. There was nothing for our hearts. We lost any vision. We lived in order to survive. If your priority is food and security you do not think about education, about what you want to become in life. We did not dream, because it would be too painful to be disappointed.

The personal narrative lost direction as the telos lost its credibility. Similarly, Samuel recounted several points in his life where seemingly random war events destroyed everything he had been working and hoping for which led him eventually to give up and fall into a mode of resignation. In time, as the war drug on it assumed a form of normality in which people developed a structured order for their lives. Therefore when the war ended, people did not know how to live beyond this ordered structure for survival and to once more have a vision for the post war future. However, it was not just the personal narrative unity that was disrupted. The narrative self is embedded in the stories of communities which help to shape the narrative self identity.241 These communities arise from a particular historic tradition. As the communal narrative disintegrates and loses its cohesive force, the narrative self also becomes increasingly disoriented. This disorientation produces a strong compulsion to find an alternative meaningful narrative.242 Mary interprets the hedonistic post-war life of Lebanese Christians as compensation for the inner emptiness people experience. For Mary, the crisis of meaning came when her father, who embodied meaningfulness through his strong perception of “knowing that God called him to be in Lebanon”, died. Thus, the meaninglessness that had been kept at bay by her father’s presence broke in and was intensified by the fact that Mary did not fit the expectations of 239 Charles Malik, writing before the civil war, denounces the lack of rule of law and confirms the popular saying: “Nothing works in this state.” See in: Malik, 2004. 240 MacIntyre, 1997, p. 243. Van Wolputte also points out that the narrative integrates the fragmentary self. See: Van Wolputte, 2004, p. 263. 241 MacIntyre, 1997, p. 259. Hefner sees the function of the reference group as an anchor for the self, providing a sense of belonging. Thus the “I” can not be properly formed without the reference to the immediate community. See: Hefner, 1993, p. 25. 242 Robbins, 2006b, p. 217.

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society through marriage and motherhood. Mary did not feel at home within her Maronite community as she witnessed brutalities on the part of Lebanese forces and could not affiliate with any social-political cause due to her disillusionment. Instead, she became involved in the Church of God, a traditional non-Pentecostal Protestant church. However, her desire for change was stifled as she experienced there formalized structures that did not “give room for the spirit.”243 Mary identifies her involvement with the Protestant church with her life before encountering the Holy Spirit. Her choice to leave traditional structures was a consequence of a new experience of the divine. Samuel experienced a collapse of meaning of previously held narratives, which clearly outlined the goal and values such as good and bad, when his own father, as a member of another Christian militia ended up shooting at them. This experience of absurdity – of a father who loves his wife and children deeply and yet at the same time ends up shooting at his own loved ones – lead Samuel to withdraw from any sectarian, divisive narrative and to long for an inclusive, open story. Mary’s place within the communal narrative was estranged and left her, as she expressed metaphorically, “an empty bag on the streets.” In Beirut, plastic bags can often be seen lying empty on the streets, not serving their intended purpose. A coherent personal narrative embedded in a wider social narrative provides the individual with a proper sense of belonging. “To stop living life” is a metaphor for depression as the absence of telos prevents the person from motivation and action. With the vanishing of this telos, the individual loses intentionality which is a requirement for any meaningful action. The metaphor of a nomad, often employed by poststructuralist thinkers, fails to capture this loss of orientation as nomads in fact do have a goal, albeit a shifting goal, toward which they move. An exception to the loss of meaning and direction experienced by Mary and Samuel during the war is the testimony of Paul, who converted to the C/P form before the war during his academic stay in the US. For Paul, the C/P narrative did not offer a completely new telos, but rather a fulfilment of tradition by way of the agency of the Holy Spirit. The credibility of the church’s meta-narrative was diminished as many churches took sides during the socio-political conflict, in which a clear demarcation line between victims and perpetrators could not be drawn. In light of this, one might assume that the agnostic or the atheistic narratives would come to replace the Christian meta-narratives. However, this alternative would require a clear break from key elements of the story which has given roots to individuals 243 This phrase refers to both attitude and action. Mary associates the working of the spirit with change and power. Giving room to the spirit means being open for unexpected change beyond the traditional comfort zone. Practically it constitutes speaking openly about Jesus to Muslims, allowing women to take up leadership positions if they are called by God and exercising the gifts of the spirit, such as speaking in tongues and prophecy.

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and communities over the centuries. On the other hand, the C/P meta-narrative allows for the retention of the central former elements while introducing interpretations to the perceived authentic tradition. The retention of the old in a new form is more effective than a mere attempt to cut off a story and start from the beginning. Old stories are not simply forgotten but rather fade away as new stories replace them which are perceived to possess a deeper and more truthful reflection of human experience. Paul’s account is an example of the intensification of the old through new plots. As Paul makes clear, the newness can be found both within the traditional narratives and new practices, which are then incorporated into authorized ritual expressions. In daily life, humans rely on the authority of others to manage their lives. People defer244 constantly to others ad infinitum as they live in a set of conventions. These conventions are a product of a long history of transmission and are experienced as given. This means that all normal human communication involves a mixture of searching for meaning, our own and that of others, and also not searching, moments of understanding and not understanding.245

This relation hinges on the coherence of lived and told narratives. During a time of crisis it is likely that the individual is overwhelmed and depends upon the authority of others. However, once the immediate threat ceases, people evaluate their lives retrospectively and compare their lived experience in relation to the meta-narratives that governed them and their communities. Dissonance and contradiction between the lived and told narratives are likely to provoke tension and doubt. Many Christians terminated their allegiance with the Lebanese forces as they felt an inconsistency between the Christian symbolism, values and actions of the militia. Thus, every story contains certain values which are evaluated by people as to their effects “in regard to one’s concept of self, to one’s behaviour, to one’s relationship with others and society […].”246 Walter R. Fischer suggests two criterions for the evaluation of narrative rationality : Coherence and fidelity. Coherence entails three aspects of a story. The third aspect is “characteriological coherency”. This coherency refers to the reliability of the character telling the story which is tested by his daily life values. Some young people were drawn by the transparent lives of charismatic leaders which lead them to be open to a charismatic expression of Christianity. Samuel’s initial openness towards C/P rituals came about through the appeal to his taste in the looks and music of the band. This expression of the Christian faith and leadership stood in contrast to 244 Bloch defines deference as “[…] reliance on the authority of others to guarantee the value of what is said or done.” Bloch, 2005, p. 126. 245 Bloch, 2005, p. 127. 246 Fischer, 1997, p. 317.

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his experience of Christianity as entrenched in a political-sectarian identity. Other C/P members were also turned off by the high prices demanded for the rites the church offered, which they equated with the corrupt Lebanese culture and state from which they wanted to break free. Within the neighbourhood of Furn el Chebbak, I encountered some young men who professed to have a strong Maronite identity, despite having never visited a Maronite church. They shared stories with me about Maronite priests who travelled to Europe during the civil war to collect funds for the suffering Maronite population. However, these priests, as the story goes spent most of this money on their own building property.247 These young men interpreted Maronite identity in its historic, political and national terms, and in so doing refused the institutional church while retaining the notion of a sacred Maronite origin. The sacralisation of identity and the use of religious language were disconnected from a specific ecclesial institution. Although utilizing other references, C/P believers from Maronite background employ a similar use of the sacred in relation to the institutional church. Disillusionment with the institutional church leads to doubting its claims of representing authentic tradition. Bloch recognizes that doubt by nature leads to questioning. Bloch offers three possible ways as to how the problem of questioning may be solved. One of the possible solutions is to switch off the “intentionality-seeking device” and merely leave things as they are. However, this is difficult to sustain, since the mind can not be turned off through an intentional act. A second solution is to simply defer to some other trustworthy authority. Finally, the crisis caused by doubt may be solved by merging all the single sources of authority into a “[…] phantasmagorical quasi-person who may be called something like ‘tradition’ […] ‘our religion’, even perhaps ‘God’.”248 The difficulty with Bloch’s theory is not its specific content, but its view from nowhere as the sociologist is portrayed as free of contextual rootedness. If concrete lives are ontologically narrative, all of these three possibilities interweave within the narrative structure. In accordance with my observations, people do not live in an enclosed language game. Although the sectarian fragmentation grew wider during the war, the 18 official religious groups still interact through their differing ways of life. This interaction can be perceived as a power field of overlapping circles whose boundaries are fluid. “There is no story that is not embedded in other stories. The meaning and merit of a story are always a matter of how it stands with or against other stories.”249 As the meaning of

247 I can not verify these stories. 248 Bloch, 2005, p. 132. 249 Fisher, 1997, p. 316.

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personal narratives embedded in the communal narrative collapses, a reworking of the C/P meta-narrative emerges vis-/-vis other meta-narratives. So far, I have attempted to locate Mary’s and Samuel’s crisis of meaning within the collapse of their personal narratives and that of the larger sociopolitical sphere. However, broad sociological arguments of deprivation and disorganisation as a cause for new religious movements, if deployed in isolation, are tautological and could be used to explain any phenomena.250 Instead, it is the particular C/P narrative which gives rise to a specific charismatic form of life. The negative account of deprivation theory must be complimented by social agents’ positive interpretation. Within C/P, in order to become a believer one must make a voluntary decision to “enter into a relationship with Christ”. Within the meta-narrative which shapes the lives of C/P believers this moment of becoming a believer is presented in terms of a dramatic rupture, as Paul’s account makes clear. Mary and Samuel also have their conversion narratives, which, although different in particular content, also mark a certain rupture. After the imminent danger of the war fell away, new freedom and consequently openness to the reconstruction of the future emerged. However, people were quickly met with new restrictions on their lives that they were not aware of before the war as the war provided a certain order. There were clearly defined boundaries between enemies and a constant need for people willing to join in the war. With the end of the war, former militia men found themselves unemployed. The social structure changed significantly and different skills were demanded of people in a civil society. With the end of the civil war, the Christian community found itself in a disadvantageous demographic position. The Maronite community which held the greatest political power before the war lost much of its former influence through the Ta’if Accord. I encountered a prevailing victim mentality among many of the Lebanese Christians. Within this victim mentality, the belief persists that the diffusion of their political power also led to limited opportunities within the Lebanese society. As Mary’s acute search for a new meaningful paradigm for life increased, she also became more aware of what she had mistakenly in the past perceived as a fulfilled life. The initial move forward to structure and shape a new post- war life came abruptly to a halt as she became aware of her limited opportunities. Mary was faced with the possibility of holding on to her desires and continuing to imagine the life that she previously had hoped for. However, this option was accompanied by constant frustration and blaming others whom she perceived as 250 Throughout my field research, I also met members of the charismatic movement within the Maronite church who were from upper middle class but chose to join the group of those belonging to the lower middle class who had been displaced. The deprivation theory is too limited in its explanatory scope. Robbins and Hunt give a satisfactory summary of critique concerning the deprivation theory. See: Robbins, 2004b, p. 124. Hunt, 2002, pp. 23–26.

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impeding her ability to realize her dreams. However, this imaginary life was not possible due to the harshness of the post- war realities which she was forced to face after the death of her father. Mary chose then a “realist” readjustment of meaning. Instead of trying to continue to fulfil her previous dreams for a post-war life, she accepted her limited situation. However, she could only do so by placing her life under a different metanarrative, which provided her with a renewed sense of order and motivated her to move beyond the socio-economic limitations. She described the turning point as an encounter, as a sudden shift. Although this encounter may take place over an extended period of time, the C/P believers often define a clear, dramatic rupture between the former and the present self. “Encountering God” is an experience that the believers describe as involving their entire being. Mary perceived her encounter with God as the reason for the disappearance of negative feelings and nagging questions. Mary’s intentions were redirected toward a meta-narrative of God whom Mary perceived as writing her story. As she came to view her own life within a larger story, the evaluation of her own questions changed. The whole lifenarrative of Mary was restructured from this new angle in terms of before and after as she took on a “super-identity” with a view of “super-plausibility”.251 Before this new perspective, Mary struggled to tell a coherent account of her life within the post-war society. With the new reliance upon the C/P meta-narrative, overarching meaning encompassed any specific past moments of meaninglessness. Thus, as Robbins rightly observes, C/P Christianity poses meaningfulness on human lives “as the outcome of dramas in which meaninglessness also has an important role to play.”252 Believers grant meaninglessness a paradoxical status. On the one hand, they strive constantly against the thread of meaninglessness which they perceive as real. On the other hand they deny meaninglessness any ontological status sui generis. Meaninglessness “is” because meaning exists and therefore is merely parasitical in its existence. In C/P cosmology, the devil, as the perpetrator of meaninglessness, is considered a real being. However, he is also God’s creation and therefore finite.253 251 Davis, 2002, p. 165. 252 Robbins, 2006b, p. 214. 253 Karl Barth also developed a similar view of meaninglessness. “Das Nichtige” (English: nothingness or nonexistence) derives its existence as negation of God’s positive will as creator. “Der ontische Zusammenhang in welchem das Nichtige wirklich ist, ist das auf Erwählung begründete Handeln Gottes. ” See: Barth, 1970, p. 405. God did not create meaninglessness neither did he intend it. He is sovereign over it and destroys it through the victory in Christ. Thus meaninglessness does not possess ontological status independent from God. “Die Eröffnung der Möglichkeit des Nichtigen ist umgriffen vom Handeln Gottes” See: Slenczka, 2008/2009. This view of meaninglessness within the Biblical metanarrative lends two positive outcomes for the C/P believers: The sovereignty of God lends the believer confidence in his continuous struggle against meaninglessness. And God’s

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C/P believers maintain that God’s meta-narrative transcends the religious, national and socio-political narrative and thus remains insulated from particular changes within history. However, the believers, in their quest for meaning, struggle to grasp the relationship between their personal story and God’s metanarrative. Although the believer at times may recall particular pleasurable instances of the old life, these instances are viewed as shallow pleasures with negative significance for the ultimate telos. The memories of the old life are reduced to isolated events lacking cohesiveness within the new meaningful life story of a believer. In a teaching session on how to give witness to unbelievers, one leader of the “MwG” group stressed that the believer should avoid describing past sins. Otherwise it could create a positive association with sin. Instead, the witness should portray the old life as a mad circle lacking any vision and coherence. One member of the group described his life before conversion in the following way : “I just lived for today. I drank and had women. But I was empty. Then I decided to go to Europe. I got as far as Ukraine. But in reality I was just running from myself […].” Some cultural anthropologists dismiss this kind of conversion story as a clich8 which new converts recite. According to their theories, the old patterns of culture continue to govern the convert’s behaviour. As Joel Robbins pointed out, this anthropological view is a result of most cultural anthropologists’ investment in confirming the continuity of cultural patterns. Discontinuity within a culture is dismissed prematurely and often out of ideological bias against the Christian meta-narrative, which strikes too close to their own philosophical assumptions.254 However, if the conversion serves as an orientation point for one’s daily life and is maintained through ritual remembrance, then its centrality must not be written off.255 The conversion rupture changes as well the concept of time. goodness provides him security and trust. Meaninglessness is real enough in order to strive against, and yet it has no existence of its own, but rather is swallowed up by God’s victory. The struggle against meaninglessness takes on a dynamic approach as meaninglessness is not fixed. This understanding of meaninglessness allows the C/P believer to be relevant as meaningless practices are acknowledged yet not viewed as fixed. Thus, the interpretation of and the struggle against meaninglessness is a significant part of emergent C/P meta-narrative. 254 Robbins describes this antagonistic relation as “disdain and dependence”. See: Robbins, 2007, p. 9. The relationship to the missionaries on the field is paradigmatic. On the one hand, the missionaries often provide the anthropologists with valuable material. On the other hand, there is also competition since the missionaries often have had more extensive experience with the culture and a better knowledge of the local language. At the same time, this competition takes on philosophical dimensions. The will toward meaning is part of the Christian heritage. Thus anthropologists recoil from the “Christian drive for meaning […] because it looks too much like their own.” Robbins, 2006b, p. 221. On the relation between Theology and Cultural Anthropology see Robbins, 2006a. 255 David Martin contends that “Pentecostal lives need to be retold in terms of the moral tale, looking before and after, teasing out the connectedness of events, acts and experiences as

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Time before the conversion shrinks as it is moulded into a new framework. The time after conversion extends endlessly and acquires a new quality. Although the encounter with God is experienced as healing from unanswered questions, questioning per se is not viewed as a symptom of a sick person. It becomes neurotic only if the person dwells on questions which are perceived to have no answers. To illustrate this point Mary uses a metaphor of hardened coffee. If the coffee is finished the sludge at the bottom should be tossed out. Otherwise the sludge hardens and is difficult to remove. The lack of answers to these questions drains a person’s ability to move on towards a new perspective and therefore wastes the life of the person given by God. This waste is seen as meaningless and therefore evil as contradicting the individual purpose for life as bestowed upon the individual by God. The three possible responses as outlined by Bloch are employed at the same time. A meta-narrative allows for complexity within the plot. The “intentionality-seeking device” is not turned off but redirected toward a different object. Cartesian doubt seeks to penetrate the empirical reality by questioning in isolation. Doubt is viewed as a virtue leading to the progress of knowledge. Bloch assumes that once a question arises in the human mind it is impossible to turn it off until this question is answered. He presupposes, of course, that doubting and asking are in themselves virtues. In contrast to this position, Mary views the continuation of questioning, under certain circumstances, to be a vice leading to psychological illness. The encounter with God meant for Mary breaking free from a circular meta-narrative with herself at the centre, and moving toward a linear meta-narrative with God at the centre and in control from beginning to end. The charismatic believer’s way of thinking is not isolated from the world they find themselves in. They overcome the Cartesian distinction between res cogitans and res extensa through their embodied presence as their reasoning is more akin to the ethnographic work of anthropologists. Anthropologists, like charismatics, tend to construct their arguments through people, through grounded events and persons rather than abstractions, and within such grounding the part is frequently presented as somehow embodying the ethnographic whole.256

The methodological difficulties encountered by cultural anthropologists while studying C/P Christianity reflect their ironically similar way of constructing arguments. This similarity of exclusivity creates competition which is often mistaken by cultural anthropologists for their difficulty to maintain distance. they bear on the Pentecostals’ pilgrimage from this world to the next’ since that pilgrimage governs their whole being.” Martin, 2006, p. 35. 256 Coleman, 2006b, p. 11.

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Cultural anthropologists have tended to portray the Pentecostals as exotic, premodern believers who are reacting against modernity,257 thus reinforcing the evolutionary model in cohorts with traditional secularisation theory. Charismatic meetings are characterized by a lot of laughter and humour about their own shortcomings, in this way demonstrating their ability to distance themselves from their own idiosyncrasies. However, C/P believers reject any possibility of looking at the world from a moral distance. Rupture as a narrative spin is not only employed by C/P believers. A European scholar committed to the meta-narrative of evolutionary progress favours this story as qualitatively different in order to create a rupture from the volatile religious past at the beginning of modernity. Thus ironically, the Enlightment substraction stories borrow certain key notions from its Christian predecessors and employ them differently. Bourdieu betrays the sacred task of sociology by using religious concepts within a different context. Rupture in fact demands a conversion of one’s gaze and one can say of the teaching of sociology that it must first ‘give new eyes,’ as initiatory philosophers sometimes phrased it. The task is to produce, if not ‘a new person,’ then at least a ‘new gaze’, a sociological eye. And this cannot be done without a genuine conversion, a metanoia, a mental revolution, a transformation of one’s whole vision of the social world.258

Once the metaphors have been traced back to their ontology, it would appear that the concept of sociology and God alike demand a conversion of their followers.259 While (if) and (tf) differ in their narrative spin, they both appeal to the human possibility of changing allegiance and employing various strategies to evoke rupture. Both (if) and (tf) portray the former held narrative as deficient in light of the new narrative. Both the C/P believer and the cultural anthropologist commit themselves to a communal meta-narrative. The goal of the sociologist is the control of the social sphere through rationalization. “For a sociologist more than any other thinker, to leave one’s thought in a state of unthought (impens8) is to condemn oneself to be nothing more than the instrument of that which one claims to think.”260 Mary takes up a more modest epistemological position. The C/P believer accepts the limitation and finiteness of the social sphere. She views the social as neither a mechanical structure, which predetermines the individual, nor a blind force, but rather, a purposeful continuation of history with a beginning and an end. Therefore the mind of the believer is relieved from the task 257 Robbins critiques the portrayal of charismatic Christianity as primal spirituality as it comes close to “a kind of generic primitivism and at least implicitly invokes[s] binaries the discipline no longer charters.” See: Robbins, 2004b, p. 126. 258 Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 271. 259 Milbank shows the theological roots of the modern social theory. Accordingly, one of the strategies to promote a new meta-narrative is to negate its predecessor. 260 Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 238.

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of chasing after the “unthought”. Mary denounces the task of indefinite rationalization as enslaving, stemming from mental dysfunction, since the individual is not a master of his own narrative due to his/her embeddedness in the community and the wider sacred meta-narrative. Mary does not tell her story as if she is the lone creator of her own story. She switches between the first person and third person singular, perceiving herself as an agent and yet also as acted upon. While telling me about her ministry, Mary exclaimed: “God is moving! Like chess.” She then added: “Of course I know that I have free will.” Engelke and Tomlinson are right in their observation, that “such moves toward constructing consistent, internally focused senses of personhood help to position meaning as at least determined by models of intentionality.”261 However, this model of intentionality that Mary employs in the construction of her new narrative deserves more attention.262 Through C/P testimonial narratives, the contextual nature of doubt and asking questions becomes evident. Priest points out that the seemingly self evident virtue of doubt as method is used to marginalize and essentialize the other. Thus, while “religious people are often seen as credulous believers in contrast to scientists, who are rational doubters, in fact doubt is a function of where one stands vis-/-vis the culture’s dominant myths and certitudes.”263

Mary resolves her epistemological crisis by transitioning to a larger narrative while looking back and rearranging her past experiences in light of the new epistemological stance. If Bloch’s and Bourdieu’s theories are placed within a real life context, Mary’s understanding of doubt and resolution of crisis appear to be closer to how humans change. MacIntyre points out that the epistemological criteria of non-contextual doubt as espoused by Descartes are impossible, since Descartes failed to locate his doubt within the linguistic and historic traditions which preceded his epistemological crisis. The epistemological ideal of doubting all beliefs, independent of reference to the historical and autobiographical context “is not meaningless; but it is an invitation not to philosophy, but to mental breakdown.”264 A person evaluates the legitimacy of the questions s/he encounters. At times these questions are abandoned to preserve sanity. However, this filtering process does not take place in a void but rather is informed by a person’s meta-narrative. Bloch rightly observes that “all normal 261 Engelke and Tomlinson, 2006, p. 15. 262 Due to space, this question can not be pursued further here. I have begun to theorize C/P implications for agency and intentionality further above in the chapter on ritual. 263 Priest, 2001, p. 44. If this contextual function of doubt is exposed, deeper doubting as a dialogical method can emerge which acknowledges legitimacy of other ways of life. 264 MacIntyre, 2006, p. 12.

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human communication involves a mixture of searching for meaning, our own and that of others, and also not searching, moments of understanding and not understanding.”265 However, as in Mary’s autobiographical story, these two moments are intrinsically interwoven. For her, to choose to abandon her past understanding leads her to a deeper and fuller framework of understanding within the new story. The larger meta-narrative defines the parameters for understanding and doubting. Several members of C/P groups did not identify a dramatic rupture but rather a gradual shifting toward a more meaningful expression of their faith. Summarizing the results of Gershon’s field research on the conversion of Samoans from traditional churches to evangelical churches, Engelke and Tomlinson point out that […] converts are not changing religions, but moral economies; however, in doing so, ‘their own voiced concerns were with meaningful expression of worship. They spoke often about how worship in more mainline churches felt meaningless – that the services were not adequate vehicles for allowing them to convey and experience their strong connection to God.

Several members from traditional Protestant, Maronite and Orthodox churches remarked how they experienced “God speaking to them” through C/P worship. They found that the language used in a C/P worship service provides them the proper tools for expressing their relationship with God. One member acknowledged that the Maronite liturgy is very profound but that people do not understand what they are reading. Thus, meaning is not contained in a written form, but is embodied through the performative speech acts. Gershon concludes that “[…] conversion was not about the content of one’s faith but about the way of being faithful – not about principles but about personhood.”266 Although my field research confirms Gershon’s findings, I also observed how the new personhood of a believer provides a fresh reflection on the content of their faith. A constant re-appropriation of meaning is seen as a virtue. Meaning therefore does not “freeze” into a formula but remains fluid through referencing the lived experience. The newly found moral stance grants the believer authority to define the content. Gershon separates practices of the moral self from written doctrines and maintains that the Samoans were concerned only with the former. However, I found that the believers I observed did not even conceive of this distinction, since they did not “believe that”, but “believe in”. The only distinction C/P believers made was between embodied and disembodied beliefs. If

265 Bloch, 2005, p. 127. 266 Gershon, 2006, p. 161.

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the body unites the written/shared and lived narratives, the meta-narrative is experienced as real. On the occasion of visiting an Anglican church, Mary expressed her unease with the written Anglican liturgy. “I am not comfortable if I read everything. It is not spontaneous.” Predictability is seen as a hindrance to the work of the Holy Spirit. Meaning, if fixed within the written form diminishes the expressive embodied meaning as exercised by a person. However, a paradox arises. On the one hand, the C/P groups expect their members to commit to the meta-narrative of rupture in order to become believers and to exercise a strict moral predictability in their conduct. On the other hand, the leaders distrust meaning as confined to the written form as it may lead away from the embodiment of this meaning. Therefore, retelling and re-enacting of this new story is seen as a vital part of the constant narrative struggle towards the telos. The apocalyptic narrative forces the issue of the meaninglessness of ordinary time […] by asserting that history – both personal and impersonal – has a telos: the meaning of individual acts and the lives they amount to, and the meaning of the world itself, will find their ultimate specification at the end of time. It is, for many Christians, the omnipresence and constant relevance of this plotting of time as a march toward a sudden final reckoning that most obviously compels them to make every moment meaningful and that most forcefully raises the spectre of meaninglessness.267

C/P believers strive toward authenticity and transparency between the inside and the outside self as they believe that the inside will be uncovered at the end of time. Through the act of exposing the inner self, social taboos are broken. For example, through being vulnerable about personal weaknesses, C/P believers transform the Lebanese habitus of “maintaining face”. Through this constant reclaiming of meaning the rupture narrative becomes the central paradigm. Robbins describes two rupture points governing the lives of C/P believers: Thus, along with the rupture of one’s own life narrative effected by one’s conversion, we should also consider the rupture that many kinds of Christianity require believers to make with the ‘world’ around them, as well as the rupture in the course of historical time that the apocalyptic event promises to bring about upon its arrival. All of these ruptures, I would argue, define what they break from as kinds of meaninglessness that believers are directed to strive against.268

Branding something as meaningless renders it obsolete. Ethical values determine what is to be forgotten. Acquiring new ethics through a larger metanarrative leads to the restructuring of memories. Believers no longer commemorate the Christian saints who serve as important sacred anchors in the 267 Robbins, 2006b, p. 216. 268 Ibid., p. 214.

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intertwining of religious and ethnic identity. In Beirut, the real self is often masked behind pretence. People living in poorly furnished flats drive expensive cars and wear brand name clothing. Throughout her sermons, Mary describes this behaviour as the way a post-war generation copes with unprocessed trauma. Those who experienced the war passed on to their children the habit of masking one’s wounds. Mary used the story of Abraham whom God called out of his comfortable hedonistic environment to embrace a true, authentic relationship with God. In a similar way, Mary urged believers in her group to resist the pull to succumb to the wider social expectations. This “uncovering” of the lie perceived in many social practices through the sacred meta-narrative constitutes a positive critique. The conversion of the moral self leads to recognition of the social evil, as Martin rightly recognizes: “No doubt there is ‘protest’ here. Of a sort, just as sociologists say there is, but it is protest lodged against evil, beginning with the moral self, and it seeks global betterment. Pentecostals are not ‘masses’ huddling together as victims from an oppressive social system, but people who refuse to be en masse or to be victims, and who have walked out of their own situation.”269

The victim mentality is negated as the stories do not portray the believers on the losing end, despite their economic and political disadvantage. Furthermore, the values are symbolically reversed. Within the meta-narrative of C/P believers, victory is achieved through alliance to Christ and empowerment by the Holy Spirit which is expressed in the change of the moral self. Symbols are borrowed from the “world” and reinterpreted through a sacred meta-narrative. The desire for possession and status is translated in the charismatic narrative into being constantly filled with the spirit. The belief in the presence of God’s kingdom and its imminent arrival becomes for the believer a tangible alternative to the materialist-hedonistic lifestyle of Lebanese society. Narratives shape and define communal boundaries. In order to be a believer one must experience a personal conversion, anticipate an eschatological rupture and live a moral life in between the present and future events. However, narratives are flexible and can incorporate the critique of others, as has been seen in Mary’s critique of the “Catholic fanatic”. This flexibility allows the narrative to accommodate to various contexts. The shaping force of the sacred narrative lies in its ability to capture the allegiance of believers and furthermore through the imagination of the C/P believers be stretched over their lives. The C/P meta-narrative acquires its realness through the merging of told/written and lived narratives within the individual C/P bodies. This embodiment occurs through various actions such as testimonies and ritual behaviour. 269 Martin, 2006, p. 26.

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With conversion, the former normative stories are clearly demarcated as belonging to the past. This conversion marks a break in their shift of allegiance towards a different meta-narrative which structures their lives. Since believers stress the awareness of one’s story and its articulation by the believer, faith becomes a journey of transformation in which the old is abandoned and the new is embraced. Thus, the new meta-narrative must be embodied, “the words must become flesh”, in order to appear as real to the believers.

2.4.5. The failure of testimony While testimonies are usually effective in establishing realness through bodily mediation, they can also fail. Accepting both (s/e.t) and (i/i.t) as a definition of testimony, the failure can be attributed to the communicative speech act failure. Austin provides helpful category of “infelicities”270 in describing the failure of various speech acts. One day Syrian construction workers visited me in my house. They came to Beirut from rural traditional areas and were at times overwhelmed by the urban modern culture. While we drank coffee, a couple from a C/P church stopped by. The woman was dressed in tight clothes, which were most probably interpreted as inappropriate by the religious Muslims. She approached one of the Syrian workers sitting on a chair, towering above him while he sank back into the couch. After a short conversation she started narrating a testimony about the working of the Holy Spirit in her life. The Syrian man kept looking down at her legs. He smiled politely, but seemed to be having difficulty concentrating on what the woman was saying. The first rule is, then, that the convention invoked must exist and be accepted. And the second rule, also a very obvious one, is that the circumstances in which we purport to invoke this procedure must be appropriate for its invocation. If this is not observed, then the act that we purport to perform would not come off – it will be, one might say, a misfire.271

The C/P believer broke both of these rules. The convention of the non-gendered presence of the Holy Spirit was not accepted unequivocally. While the C/P believer transgressed the gender divide, the Syrian man felt overpowered and disrespected on the one side, as the woman clearly disregarded the patriarchal rule that a woman should not exercise authority over a man publicly. It is pos270 “The various ways in which a performative utterance may be unsatisfactory we call, for the sake of a name, the infelicities; and an infelicity arises-that is to say […] if certain rules, transparently simple rules, are broken.” Austin, 1970, p. 237. 271 Austin, 1970, pp. 237–238.

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sible he even felt shamed by her act. At the same time he might have perceived her behaviour as sending him sexual signals as in his tradition women do not engage men outside of the immediate family circle in any way. Similarly, the circumstances of the testimony were also not accepted unequivocally. While the C/P believers view any encounter as an opportunity to testify and are used to the religious other, the Syrian workers socialized in a religious homogenous field. They were used to discussing religion exclusively in male circles, and predominantly among other Muslims. Thus, for the Syrians, the circumstance of visiting a Westerner and being talked to authoritatively by a Christian female was not the accustomed context for religious conversations. From my observation, the intention of the C/P believer to convey the reality of the Holy Spirit to the Syrian workers, had failed. However, I might also be mistaken, as testimony works within a historic and autobiographic span. Thus, what might be perceived as a punctual failure, might over a longer period of time take a different turn. Therefore, whether the act of testifying was without effect can only be judged retrospectively. Transgressing cultural boundaries through C/P testimonies means risking failure or stretching the habitus of the other and extending the previous norm. Austin describes further possibilities of infelicity : “And if you use one of these formulae when you do not have the requisite thoughts or feelings or intentions then there is an abuse of the procedure, there is insincerity. […] And there may be an infelicity of a somewhat similar kind when the performative utterance commits the speaker to future conduct of a certain description and then in the future he does not in fact behave in the expected way.”272

Within one C/P group, I observed internal power struggles and as a result, the process of the splitting of the group. One particular leader seemed to begin to use her testimonies as a tool to discredit the other party and show her higher authority due to the Holy Spirit communicating with her and speaking to her. I do not have the room here to describe the rhetoric strategies she employed in doing so. However, it may suffice to remark, that as a result, many members began to doubt her charismatic authority and her sincerity. Thus, the members could not trust her testimonies because the personal trust had been undermined. When listening to her speaking, many members started to ask themselves the question: “What does she really mean?” The reality of the Holy Spirit, which is normally evoked through C/P testimonies, became a surface event, masking the true human power games underneath. Sincerity can not be measured, as we are not able to know the mind of the other. However, the listeners do make conclusions about the sincerity of the witness based on their former interactions with the one giving witness. 272 Austin, 1970, p. 239.

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After a worship service at “AL”, I met a man I will name George. I asked him if he is a C/P believer. George smiled, shrugged his shoulders and responded: “It depends on what you mean by that.” During the ensuing conversation, he shared with me his reservations about certain “excesses” in C/P circles. He told me about some revivals happening in California, USA. Some of his friends had traveled there and witnessed miracles like healings and peoples’ teeth turning into gold. However, he concluded, “While this preacher was performing miracles and testifying to the power of the Holy Spirit, he secretly had an affair.” Faulkner fittingly describes the normativity of affective trust: “Let me say that a trusted party S is trustworthy in a circumstance where A trusts S to Ø if and only if S fulfils the expectation that A had in trust.”273 The disappointment of these normative expectations leads to “reactive attitudes”.274 Internal distance and caution towards C/P testimonies, as in the case of George, is a consequence of disappointed expectations. H. Frei goes as far as describing Christian language as self involving, “[…] all Christian language is self-involving, existential; that whether it is directed toward God or the neighbour, it is the learning and exercising of concepts in a performative manner.”275 This self-involving nature of testimony is very effective in establishing a realness of a life world as the testimony addresses the world and the larger normative meta-narrative. These converge in the body of the believer. However, if this convergence is broken, as in the example above, the reactive attitudes also undermine the realness of a life world by viewing testimony as a mere propositional surface masking something beneath it. In both cases mentioned above, the performed testimonies served to cover over human desires for sexual drives in the former and power in the latter. At this stage, when C/P testimonies fail, they can be more easily circumscribed into different ideological narratives. Testimony can fail due to both the failed communication and the failure of charismatic authority. However, the failure of the body as the grounding for testimony can fail as well. One convert from the Sunni Islam used to attend a small group made up of other converts from Sunni and Druze backgrounds. I asked him, why he had stopped attending this group. He responded that it became impossible for him to respect the heavily overweight leader of this group. “He preaches about our body being the temple of the Holy Spirit but I look at him and it is hard to believe.” The body of this leader failed to produce affective trust.

273 Faulkner, 2011, p. 147. 274 Ibid., p. 147. 275 Frei, 1992, p. 42.

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2.4.6. Conclusion Philosophers assume that the goal of testimony is to produce and transfer knowledge. I believe that this philosophical assumption must be questioned as it leads Coady automatically to define the purpose of testimony as establishing evidence. However, Austin points out correctly that such labels as “true” or “false” in connotation with knowledge are merely general labels: “But actually […] the more you think about truth and falsity the more you find that very few statements that we ever utter are just true or just false. Usually there is the question are they fair or are they not fair, are they adequate or not adequate, are they exaggerated or not exaggerated? Are they too rough, or are they perfectly precise, accurate, and so on? ‘True’ and ‘false’ are just general labels for a whole dimension of different appraisals which have something or other to do with the relation between what we say and the facts. If, then, we loosen up our ideas of truth and falsity we shall see that statements, when assessed in relation to the facts, are not so very different after all from pieces of advice, warnings, verdicts, and so on.”276

The general categories, although useful for any kind of understanding, also simplify at best and misguide at worst our understanding. Austin is right in pointing out that speech acts undergird even the descriptive use of language.277 He then rightly hints at “whole dimension of different appraisals” in accessing the speech acts. My study undergirds this process oriented view. Through testimony a realness of a world is established through mediating bodies. The person giving a testimony employs various rhetorical and bodily means in order to convey to his listeners a general impression of realness. Austin still evokes the epistemological paradigm by mentioning the relationship between words and the facts. However, he rightly implies that the relation between the actions of the body and the world which the actions refer to must be scrutinized in order to arrive at understanding how such general categories “true” and “false” come to be. Every witness, either speaking within (if) or (tf) must assume some kind of given reality in order to speak meaningfully and refer to anything. Thus, constructivism can only be employed methodologically. However, as what is taken for given, whether eternally existing matter and energy or an eternal divine being, differ, I avoid talking about “facts.” Instead, the only “fact”, which escapes doubt, is the human body. The human body in the world is the primary constitutive ground for my theory of realness. The world is both given and humanly constructed within the larger tradition of meta-narrative. Through the testimony, the witness re-enacts the past through gestures and speech acts and 276 Austin, 1970, pp. 250–251. 277 Ibid., pp. 249–250.

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establishes a meaningful link to the present, suggesting a possible future. This immediate link between various senses, such as hearing, touching, smelling, tasting and seeing creates a strong experience of realness and a coherent link of the body in the world and within the larger meta-narrative. Testimonies often employ vivid pictures which involve all senses and are performed in a way which involve the entire body. If the proposition of a testimony is enveloped within this full fledged bodily experience, a testimony is effective in establishing realness. Both (s/e.t) and (i/i.t) were helpful distinctions in my study of C/P testimony. However, Coady’s definition of testimony (s/e.t) must be revised. Testimony is not offered as evidence, but, as Faulkner and Frei rightly observed, as assurance due to the self involving nature of language of the one who testifies. Coady recognizes this feature of testimony in his brief recourse into religious testimonies. However, he seems to maintain a distinction between witnesses of historic events and religious people. I believe that this distinction can not be maintained due to the universality of the human body278, which is a precondition for any understanding. Religious and non-religious people alike perform testimony in order to establish the “realness” of their particular world. In doing so, they mediate through their body between the given world and meta-narratives. Since both the world and the meta-narratives as tradition, are within their body, the body becomes the ground of realness and the medium of change. Testimony fails in achieving the realness of the life world if the body fails in its mediation function. In the case of C/P testimonies, if the actions do not establish prior authority or if the body fails to function either as the ground or medium of testimony. Testimony reinforces a meta-narrative through self-referential practice. The believed meta-narrative is acted upon and the results such as bodily transformation, serves as reinforcement of C/P realness. If the agency of the Holy Spirit is omitted one could arrive at the same self-referentiality within (if). In this case, the Holy Spirit would be interpreted as a particular kind of self-illusion, which, although not real, nevertheless functions as a narrative plot and enables the individual agency. Instead of opium, which has a more calming, sedative effect and makes the people compliant, one could call it a “crystal meth” of the masses. In this case, the disempowered masses use religious means in order to achieve a capitalist dream via avenues available to them. The energizing effects of the Holy Spirit could be compared to the working of the drug. However, while short term effects of the drug are positive in helping the individual to be motivated and to focus on a specific task, in the long run it destroys the mental abilities of users and creates addiction which destroys their will, body and 278 I do recognize however, that even this assumption is a particular Christian one and examples may be found where the universality can not be maintained.

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personality. Perhaps theorists doing research within Marxist (if) would also lean towards a similar conclusion: While noticing the short term positive effects of C/P rituals and testimonies, they would caution about long term employment of religious means as it leaves the individual agency dependent on illusionary practices which must be shed in order to arrive at true individual autonomy. This ethical teleology colours research on religion from (if) perspective. The interpretation of C/P phenomena hinges on ethical and ontological presuppositions of the researcher, which I explore in the next chapter.

3.

Interlude: Sketching theoretical perspectives

3.1. Ontological and ethical inevitability Any human encounter, and in particular an intercultural one, triggers the experience of difference, which then often leads to a sharper reflection of ethical and ontological presuppositions which previously had gone unquestioned. During my research I encountered very different life worlds at C/P worship services and a German academic institution. This particular experience triggered a certain level of discomfort as my body had to learn to behave differently at the C/P gatherings and at the research institute. Yet I felt that these two different ways of being in the world were not entirely irreconcilable. Consequently, I began to configure a theoretical framework which could support these two differing bodily ways of being in the world as a part of the same shared reality. In the process of my reflection, I became aware that my strong inclination towards this inclusive theory has its roots in my own biography as I experienced in my childhood belonging to a minority of German ancestry in the Soviet Union and then again later being a minority from Russia as an immigrant in Germany. I experienced exclusion in both contexts and later on in life experienced an urge to advocate for those who are discriminated against. The feeling of exclusion triggered a strong desire for diversity within unity, in which no one would be reduced or swallowed up by a more powerful group. Thus values, which are rooted in the biography of researchers, guide their particular outlook upon the social phenomena in question and direct the goal of their academic narrative. As Roy Bhaskar rightly summarizes the position of M. Weber, “[…] because of the infinite variety of empirical reality, the social scientist had to make a choice of what to study. Such a choice would necessarily be guided by his or her values […]”279 In my case, the experience of seemingly self-contained life worlds served as a motivation to pursue a research question which would apply to both and thus bring to the fore their underlying unity. 279 Bhaskar, 1998, p. 55.

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As Andrew Sayer points out, while social scientists employ certain normative frameworks in critiquing social practices, these remain often unarticulated due to the disciplinary bias towards these values.280 However, Charles Taylor sheds light upon the fact that theoretical discussions over what is real are motivated by and intend a certain value, of what constitutes a good human life. I believe that there is no escaping some version of what I called in an earlier discussion ‘fullness’; for any liveable understanding of human life, there must be some way in which this life looks good, whole, proper, really being lived as it should.281

He then concludes that the “[…] swirling debate between belief and unbelief, as well as between different versions of each, can therefore be seen as a debate about what real fullness consists in.”282 Thus, what we take to be a fact is also influenced by our intentionality, which itself is rooted in our value to direct our attention towards a certain phenomenon. Therefore, fact and value are inseparable in practice and every attempt to divorce these two will lead to a misrepresentation and theoretical misconstruction. Karl Mannheim also critiques the omission of ontological presuppositions: A clear and explicit avowal of the implicit metaphysical presuppositions which underlie and make possible empirical knowledge will do more for the clarification and advancement of research than a verbal denial of the existence of these presuppositions accompanied by their surreptitious admission through the back door.283

Mannheim advocates the explication of ontological presuppositions on ethical grounds. In particular, he mentions the advancement of research, which precludes its own values of truth and goodness. Thus, academic discourse rests on shared values which must be accepted before joining in this communal practice. Therefore, certain ontologies and ethics, which enable this dialogical communal practice, must be judged as “better” than its rivals. Roy Bhaskar poignantly concludes: “The most powerful explanatory theory in an open world is a nondeterministic one.”284 This ethical standard for judging competing theories stands on a particular ontological presupposition about the world and humans. However, it seems evident that in order to enable the very same dialogical exchange and movement within discursive practices, openness must be a value which overrides deterministic paradigms. An absolute ideological closure of understanding excludes itself from this common dialogical enterprise.

280 281 282 283 284

Sayer, 2000, pp. 172–189. Taylor, 2007, p. 600. Taylor, 2007, p. 600. Mannheim, 1996, p. 90. Bhaskar, 1998, p. 64.

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The European conception of rationality has been advanced through the construction of religion as the other. Thus religious practices seemed to serve as a mirror for rationality to become aware of itself. Plato critiqued the gods and contrasted the poets to philosophers. Only philosophers contributed to the real conception of the world thus leading toward advance through controlling the world by means of rational analysis. Similarly, approximately 2000 years later, Descartes sought to lay a firm rational foundation with the intent to somehow unite a divided Europe, plagued by contradicting religious claims which reinforced political strife and fueled wars waged in the name of God. Western rational discourse was forged through various relational modes towards religion.285

This history forms the background for understanding religion today. During one of OIB colloquiums, I suggested a text by Remi Braque on the role of Christianity in the formation of European culture and contrasting this with Islamic history and culture. A few of my colleagues, who otherwise were very open minded and tolerant researching Middle Eastern cultures and Islamic traditions, became emotionally and openly hostile towards the mere suggestion of engaging this kind of text. One of them openly declared that this text evokes memories of her catholic grandma and her catholic upbringing. Religion still serves as the opposite pole to materialist naturalism which triggers and shapes normative discourse in our society, as Charles Taylor noticed, This might make more persuasive my claim that the debate in our society has to be understood as suspended between the extreme positions, of orthodox religion and (in contemporary terms) materialist atheism. It is not that middle positions don’t abound; not even that the number of people in such positions are not very considerable. It is rather that these positions define themselves (as we always do) by what they reject […]. In this sense, the cross pressure defines the whole culture.286

Thus, the main proposition “Jesus became real to me”, from which I deducted my research question and developed a hypothesis of realness, triggers certain ontological and ethical responses on the side of the researcher. I intend to outline possible theories in viewing this proposition and suggest possible routes which follow from underlying ontologies. These theoretical possibilities also serve as suggestions for further points of departure in researching C/P expressions of Christian faith. Thus, I am not spelling out a complete theory underlying my empirical study, but rather suggest main theoretical trajectories which emerged from my field research. I am not arguing for a particular theory per se. Instead, after pointing out the strengths and limitations of Reductive Naturalism and Relativism, I will suggest a possible, better route in Non-reductive Naturalism, which then will be extended towards the possibility of theistic social theory. In 285 Dik, 2013b, p. 281. 286 Taylor, 2007, p. 598.

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order to highlight the continuity between my field research and theory, I will use a particular example of agency, as my main focus has been on certain actions, within ritual, the everyday and testimony. I aim to sketch out my own ontological and ethical angle in approaching the social phenomenon of religion. By exposing my own ethical and ontological points of departure, I hope to invite other perspectives to enter into a dialogical conversation which will hopefully lead towards a hermeneutical spiral of deeper understanding.

3.2. Three trajectories in Social Sciences 3.2.1. Reductive Naturalism Reductive Naturalism (RN) can be pragmatically defined as a set of various views, which are united by a common commitment to interpreting reality exhaustively in terms of matter and energy, which are governed by physical laws. Accordingly, the social world in its basic structure must resemble the natural sciences and render predictable laws which are based on cause and effect regularities. Charles Taylor summarizes this view with regard to agency : Materialism is too closely bound up with reductionist views, in which thought, intentions, desires and aspirations are supposed to be reductively explained either in terms of mechanism, or in terms of more basic motivations.287

He then distinguishes between two forms of reductionisms in Human Sciences: Two forms are particularly common in human science: First, mechanistic explanation (M.1); this means really that we eschew meanings and teleology in our explanation; we only allow for efficient causation. […] But there is also what I might call ‘motivational materialism’ (M.2): we speak of motivated action, but only base our explanations on the lower [material] motives […]288

According to M1 the C/P sentence like “Jesus became real to me” would be rendered meaningless. This strong positivist verification criterion of meaning, as famously outlined by Ayer289 has been almost entirely abandoned in the philosophy departments in the 60’s but still lingers in the sociology departments. Perhaps due to this theoretical blind eye, the phenomenal rise of C/P Christianity has gone largely unnoticed until the 80’s when the prevalent secularization paradigm began to shift towards more nuanced views on the processes and relations between modernization and religion. 287 Taylor, 2007, p. 595. 288 Taylor, 2007, p. 595. 289 Ayer, 1936, pp. 15–40.

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However, while the strong verification criterion of meaning obviously fails due to self contradiction, a weaker form may be adopted in order to arrive at stimulating research questions. Although God’s agency can not be verified or falsified in the same manner as can be done with physical cause-effects regularities, which can be observed under repeatable conditions, there still remain sensual effects from the claimed divine agency. I believe that these effects can be observed independently from the believed causes. Moreover, if the criteria for meaning are not determined a priori, a fruitful engagement with the C/P practices of liminality of talk and meaning may be made possible (For example: Engelke and Tomlinson, 2006). Meaning is not defined in discursive academic practices alone, but in the everyday and in particular, ritual practices. Thus, an exciting research question could be pursued in conversation with M.1 on how criteria for meaning are negotiated within lived practices. Most C/P believers experience the material and socio-economic causes as limiting the fullness of life and seek to overcome these causal restrictions by entering and opening their bodies to divine agency which is experienced as liberating due to the possibility of transcending the immanent pressures placed upon the bodies of C/P believers. However, someone committed to a strong version of M.1 might dismiss altogether such an approach on ontological considerations. Causes are strictly limited to some material events, as Mele summarizes: Causalism typically is embraced as part of naturalistic stand on agency according to which mental items that play causal/explanatory roles in action are in some way dependent upon or realized in physical states and events.290 Jaegwon Kim then spells out this theory for agency. Accordingly, the “[…] general principle of explanatory exclusion states that two or more complete and independent explanations of the same event or phenomenon cannot coexist.”291 Kim then concludes that psychology must be reduced to a more basic theory of neuroscience. Although he does admit in a footnote, that psychology could retain its normative role in describing agency, the role seems to be shrinking to folk psychology in describing apparent impressions, like for example the perception of the flat earth. According to Kim, a first person account of agency, although practical in the everyday life, must be reduced to the neuro-scientific third person explanation as its underlying ontology is better able to represent the real world. From this perspective, actions are caused by the internal workings of the human body and can be properly explained by reducing the first person accounts to scientific biological and finally physical explanations. Thus the basic grasp of reality lies in the physical cause-effect relations. According to RN my analysis of meaning represents a 290 Mele, 1997, p. 3. 291 Kim, 1997, p. 268.

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mere practical surface, which must be supplemented by real materialist causeeffect explanations. Two examples for M.2, which I would like to touch on briefly, are historic materialism in Marxist theory and bio-evolutionary genealogies. Within the Marxist outline of history, religious practices, although consoling, in the end amount to mere illusory practices concealing socio-economic injustices. Thus the sociologist might describe positive effects of religion, which allow those who do not own the means of production to cope with the actual negative socioeconomic and psychological effects. However, while positive, these religious practices also serve the interest of the capitalist class to subdue the working class. Thus, the social researcher is committed to the ethical task to free people from their illusionary practice and lead them to true emancipation and autonomy.292 However, Sayer points out a certain tension: While Marxists rely heavily on certain normative frameworks in their critique these values have largely been under theorized.293 Defining religion as “social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought”294, Dennett seeks to explore why and how religious activities shape the lives of people. Accordingly, religious actions such as prayer has its roots in the divination practices of human ancestors as they were pressed to make decisions in order to survive in harsh natural conditions.295 The bio-evolutionary approach attempts to explain religion as constructed in relation to the biological material context and cultural practices. M.2 could lead to fruitful insights on the function of religion. C/P practices could be interpreted as a sort of communal diversion or manipulation by charismatic leaders, away from the concrete socio-economic injustices, which prevail in the Lebanese society. The C/P practices do not address the concrete socio-economic and political conditions directly, but rather through various modes of engagement transform the perception of what constitutes reality and therefore, enable the participants to view this reality from a different angle and to engage in it with renewed energy. Once the socio-political constraints have shrunk and are drawn into the ritual reality of C/P performance, the individual is then enabled through divine agency to act not as a mechanistic causal puppet within the larger machine, but rather as a free, divinely empowered agent, upon a much smaller world which is held and controlled by God. Therefore, the interpretation of the C/P actions depends on the ideological explanatory plot. What is 292 293 294 295

Marx, 1982, p. 178. Sayer, 2000, p. 174. Dennett, 2006, p. 9. Ibid., pp. 132–135.

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a diversion from the real change for a Marxist, is an establishment altogether of a different reality which enables the individual to act and survive within particular socio-economic conditions. It is only at the point of this larger explanation where a C/P believer and a Marxist would depart. Understanding the socio-cultural and evolutionary function of C/P practices broadens our understanding of why and how religion works if the scholar is aware of his/her particular disciplinary angle. Similarly, the bio-evolutionary approach could also be employed in analyzing the role of religion in enabling the survival of its adherents under harsh conditions. Particularly, the testimonies of C/P leaders who turned to the C/P practices during and shortly after the civil war highlight the important role of religion in lending people an alternative view transcending and reassessing the everyday harsh condition of their lives. Biblical narratives offer the converts an alternative reservoir of meaning when conventional traditions of meaning collapse. RN could shed light and enable a deeper understanding of religious phenomena if it abandons its exhaustive claim on reality and remains open towards other approaches. Ideological closure does not allow new and fresh perspectives to emerge as circularity and tautology is reaffirmed in the following way of reasoning: Religion is -p in contrast to the claim of theists/naturalists for whom religion is p. Religious action has the function x. This function refers to -p. Thus, while the theists/naturalists claim that religion is px, the function x of religion refers to -p. The juxtaposition of the material as primary cause or the immaterial such as ideas or superhuman agents depends on the particular ontology of the interpreter. Both views are as arbitrary and more or less cohesive within their own framework of reference. An example from my fieldwork illustrates well the self-referential arbitrary nature of either materialist or spiritual ontological reductions of social phenomena. During the war between Hizb’allah and the Israeli military, some C/P believers claimed that the physical force and destruction was just a surface event pointing to the true underlying spiritual battle which occurs as evil forces battle over supremacy for Lebanon. In order to resolve the true causes for the war one should employ spiritual means, which is termed ‘spiritual warfare’ by believers. Prayer therefore has a direct causal impact on the outcome of the war as prayer moves divine agents to defeat the evil superhuman agents who are causing destruction and suffering. This example follows the same scheme in the interpretation of social reality as the Marxist/materialist circular reduction. All material is seen as a surface expression of an underlying spiritual reality. Therefore, representation of the other serves only the intent to cement his/her materialist/spiritualist commitment. While reasoning between these two positions is possible as both inhabit a common world, it is not as straightforward and obvious as both would like to believe. The cultural practice of reflection is embedded in a particular life world. Therefore, the arguments about what is real also involve the lifestyles and existential commitments of those asserting a certain position. The human body makes

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a purely rational debate impossible as our mind is embodied. The question of representation, epistemology and power arises even when the researcher is transparent about these dynamics and is aware of his/her own point of departure. A pure representation and understanding can not be achieved as language functions within a certain form of life which is by its nature, particular.296

The underlying value of RN is unity of reality as the material world is available to all humans independent from their mental representations and cultural differences. Thus, if only all humans would achieve a certain rational educational level, so the belief goes, then a unity among all humans would be secured on the basis of a concrete naturalistic worldview which would be accessible to all rational human beings. Thus the improvement of socio-economic conditions contributes to the disappearance of religion as people are able to discern true material causes for and within their life. The overall spin of the RN story in looking at the emergence of C/P movement would be material and psychological deprivation. C/P practices would be interpreted as symbolic actions in encountering deprivation in light of a lack of concrete material means. Religion is viewed then as a thin veneer upon the concrete material causes. Due to its core value of unity, RN has also a mission to change and improve the world by extending RN towards others, who are not yet enlightened. C/P believers and religious people in general must be viewed as somehow lesser rational beings. However, these others do become aware, that RN is at the same time colonializing other life worlds and normative meta-narratives through academic representations and re-descriptions. This practical experience of the plurality and normative claims of life worlds and cultures has led some scholars to various approaches which I subsume under the term “Relativism”.

3.2.2. Relativism Relativism (R) in Social Sciences can be pragmatically defined as a set of various views which state that there is no objective reality independent of human perception of it. If objective reality is acknowledged then it can only be done so under the condition that it is ontologically diverse. The first can be described as Epistemological Relativism (ER), the second as ontological relativism (OR). While ER can deny even the objectivity of RN, OR embraces RN and views religion as one possible life world among many. ER often employs qualitative methods with the aim of answering the question of “how”, bracketing ontological claims in the process, while OR also approaches religion analytically addressing the question of “what”. Thus, relativism is reinforced as normative 296 Dik, 2013b, pp. 285–286.

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and empirical questions are assigned to different disciplines with seemingly different aims. The leading value of R is affirmation of diversity with the prospect of peaceful coexistence as various claims are relative to their epistemic and contextual nature. The motivation behind either the metaphysical analytical or the empiricist version in conceptualizing religion seems to be the goal of objectivity and impartiality. Quantitative research seeks to represent religion “as it is” in its social function and analytical reduction seeks to expose the core of religion thus getting rid of empirical random factors. Paradoxically, both ER and OR presuppose certain general categories in order for their description of religion as a social phenomena, either empirical social reality or theoretical definition, to be understood and agreed upon. In understanding agency, Hornsby argues against Kim, that actions are not ‘accessible’ from the ‘impersonal’ (neuroscientific) point of view. Actions can not be severed from belief, desire, intention, and the like. Otherwise, if disconnected from these, our understanding of actions disappears in a purely impersonal view of things. If there are actions, there are beliefs, desires, and intentions. Therefore, Hornsby argues, the point of view from which actions are present is the only point of view from which they can be explained.297 While Hornsby’s position seems to differ from Kim’s, upon closer inspection, Hornsby and Kim are not contradicting each other at all. Hornsby concludes, that “[…] while the causal successors come to be understood from an impersonal, perhaps scientific one. And we appreciate that causality is a concept that we may operate with from both points of view : people make a difference, and do so because their actions are events which make a difference.”298

Hornsby is concerned with the epistemology of action, how we know what an action is, while Kim is dealing with the ontology of action, although making an epistemological assumption. Hornsby advocates for a double point of view on action, she acknowledges RN and advocates for ER. Kim rightly points out the inconsistency of this relativistic approach in failing to describe how the two competing theories relate to each other. Thus he concludes that one must be reduced to another. However, R also offers various practical advantages on researching religion. In particular, […] the post-Wittgensteinian perspective offers anthropology and sociology a way of studying religion that does not require their taking any stand on the reality of the referents of religious language. […] According to the post-Wittgensteinians, language performs multiple functions in various, self-contained language games. Each language 297 Mele, 1997, p. 6. 298 Hornsby, 1997, p. 306.

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game is but the discursive component of an entire form of life, from which the language game derives its sense.299

This insight is initially very helpful in approaching C/P rituals, testimony and everyday actions. Thus, if ontological questions are bracketed, the “shattered glass” interpretation of Mary within her own self-referential life world is meaningful and works within a variety of other practices which together form a web of coherent, self-enforcing practices. Understanding a life world requires discrimination between concepts and their particular embedding in a social context. Therefore, a na"ve empiricist application of a research question, such as for example the efficacy of God’s intervention, without prior hermeneutical reflection about the life world within which the research questions and methods are meaningful, must fail, or at least produce results which merely conform or at least strengthen the prior commitments of researchers.300 Since researchers are involved in and are shaped by the very same social reality they are set to research, the questions and answers are not as straight forward as we might assume, as our minds are embodied within a particular reality, which we are able to transcend only partially through mental elucidation. Once the difference between speech acts and descriptive language is recognized, the different uses of language within the C/P ritual and within academic re-description can be maintained as relative to their differing intentions. While this approach can serve as an ideal type for the initial understanding of a life world, it breaks down when diverse language games enter into competition over ontological claims. And it is the question of competing claims over what constitutes reality which is relevant for the emergence of normative frameworks, which are then embodied and reproduced through social institutions. Globalization and the worldwide web have shrunk the world and caused multiple ways of life to intersect, each struggling for the authoritative interpretation of reality. Language is constantly negotiated through many actors. When I interviewed a C/P believer, who is also a professor for philosophy, he seemed to easily move between analytic rational discourse and prayerful communications with God. In fact, these seemingly incompatible life worlds were sometimes meshed together in one sentence.301

A more interesting inquiry, after understanding a particular meaning of a C/P life world, would then involve the modes of relations between different social spheres. In particular, how C/P practices are extended into diverse social spheres and the resulting social and religious change out of this interaction. In order to understand the intense ritualistic life of C/P believers and their involvement in 299 Archer, Collier and Porpora, 2004, pp. 7–8. 300 For an example of an empiric research on efficacy of prayer see: Baesler, 2003 vs. Benson, 2006. 301 Dik, 2013b, pp. 289–290.

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other social spheres, their beliefs about and physical experiences of God’s agency can not be treated as a mere self-enclosed language game. The academic secular culture seems to function well globally without the sacred reference. However, this seclusion is becoming harder to maintain, as Peter Berger302 tells the story of his German colleague’s surprise at the Texan religiosity which he encountered upon stepping off the university campus on a Sunday morning. In the current spatially and temporally shrunk world any self-enclosed form of life or prior rationalized space for religion is no longer sustainable. Through an encounter between C/P and secular actors, as for example C/P believers working in a specific setting like finances, or through actors who feel at home in various life worlds while experiencing the unity of their body and mind, as was the case with the C/P professor of philosophy, two basically opposed beliefs about an immanent world and an open world with continuous divine intervention, encounter and shape each other. The divide breaks down when a particular being in the world encounters two competing interpretations. As in the case of the “shattered glass” story the interpretation of Mary seems just as plausible as is attributing it to some natural cause. The only reason against Mary’s interpretation would be a philosophical bias against non-human intentional agency. However, the realness of (if) and (tf) can not be settled by adding reasons. Instead, the realness is negotiated through mediated bodily actions within the everyday life. As I attempt to sketch out, there are several possible solutions how this encounter of opposing ontologies might be solved, one possibility of which is the adjustment and enlargement of prior ontological commitments. The academic construction of the other assumes the power of the one in control of his/her object. Once the other is not interfering with the position from which the researcher looks at him/her, the object is rendered passive as under the control of the researcher. Maintaining a clear distinction between the two spheres allows the researcher to feel a certain safety within her/his “Vor-urteil”, which secures the beginnings of his/her reflection. However, this safety disappears upon a vis / vis encounter, as I have experienced during my field research. While the relativist approach seems to be practical, it does not reflect the complex pluralist interpenetrating worlds. Both, C/P and immanent life forms possess power as an ability to act. Just like a degree from a secular institution opens up job opportunities and therefore a means for earning a living, so does divine agency through a C/P preacher bestow ability upon a person to break free from felt restrictions and rise above immanent constraints. However, these powers are perceived and enacted differently and therefore compete over a vision of a shared reality.303 Dismissing power mechanisms at 302 Berger, 2008, p. 10. 303 I will espouse this aspect further below.

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play in interactions requires also a certain power and authority to do so. An ethical consideration might be that segregation of life worlds breeds violence as the other is more easily framed and objectified into a certain preconception. However, through such a framing of the other, one’s own epistemic horizon shrinks as well in the inability to imagine a plurality of life worlds. Sometimes, the separation of (if) and (tf) stems from a desire for harmony. Therefore, conflict and interaction between these two is kept at bay. Immanuel Kant, who grew up with a pietistic mother, was successful in the academic realm of philosophy. Wanting to reconcile both, the warm-emotional, ethical religion and the cold analytical reason, he sought to outline the limits of reason in order to make space for faith. Kant sought a de-lineation between (if) and (tf). So while reason deals with the spatio-temporal categories, God functions as a postulate of practical reason. Friedrich Schleiermacher, accepting the Kantian dictum about the impossibility of transcending the spatio-temporal categories, reduced religion to some human symbolic-psychological function, such as ‘the feeling of dependence’. Such a theoretical isolation of religion serves practical political interests in the modern state with its division and progressive rationalization of social spheres. When religion shapes the emotional-moral fabric of society, yet withdraws from scientific, political and economic interactions, it loses its transformative grip to act on society and is itself diminished in the end, leaving a vacuum for other normative actors and worldviews. C/P practices defy any neat delineation, either practical or theoretical. The appeal of C/P life world stems from the experienced divine agency with its freeing effects from any immanent causes, whether social or economic. At the core of this ambiguous relation between (if) and (tf) lies a power struggle of positioning: Either the immanent tames the transcendent within the immanent world order or the transcendent subsumes the immanent saeculum within the divine history of the world. Relativism is sustained through the omission of interplay between normative and empiric questions. As mentioned above, an encounter brings unconscious presuppositions to the fore. Without this encounter, the separation prevents critical reflection and a hermeneutical spiral which leads the researcher beyond his/her prior “Vor-urteil”. A genealogical account into theories helps to highlight their particular socio-cultural embedding as theoretical abstraction without careful empirical consideration makes the mistake of reducing social phenomena into narrow theoretical concepts. Kant seems to rationalize a particular pietistic moralistic version of religion. Asad points out that the Kantian essentialized idea of religion can not be comprehended without a particular embedding of the historical process within the Christian tradition.304 304 Asad, 1993, p. 42.

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The failure to become aware of one’s own points of departure, the historic context and the particular use of the language creates a misrepresentation of the other as in the case of Mark Jennings, who examines the role of music within a Pentecostal church and arrives at the conclusion that Pentecostalism is “a religion that is not dominated by ideas, but by the central experience of divine manifestation.”305 Consequently he draws links to Schleiermacher, whom he sees as “[…] a lost theologian of Pentecostalism […] because of his rigorous commitment to orienting theology around experience, rather than attempting to read experience through theological lenses”.306

Jennings uses the term “experience” in pointing out similarity between Pentecostalism and Schleiermacher’s theology. However, he fails to reflect on the differing historic settings, intentions and usage of words and actions which he subsumes under the term “experience”. Jennings is too quickly carried away by his apologetic desire to provide charismatic believers with a suitable intellectual framework (Schleiermacher’s theology) in order to enable them to indeed break free from the “elements of traditional Christianity that have been adopted uncritically.”307 C/P Christians worldwide do not share Schleiermacher’s interpretation of Kant as they derive knowledge through the encounter with a God who is not limited by spatiotemporal categories.308 Their context does not impose on them the same reference points which Schleiermacher felt the need to refer to meaningfully within his particular academic-romantic middle class culture of 18th century Prussian Germany. They do not share the same concern for making Christianity an intellectually viable option to the despisers of religion. At least, their contextualizing is not done within the academic culture, but by engaging the culture directly through their rituals. As Plüss rightly points out, C/P experience is embedded within the embodied web of church, Biblical stories and ritual.309 Thus, the mistake of conflating theoretically constructed categories with encountered social phenomena must be avoided in order to escape a hermeneutical loop. A German theologian could read the C/P proposition “Jesus became real to me” through the theoretical construct of Schleiermacher or existentialist theology of R. Bultmann and completely miss the use and meaning of 305 306 307 308

Jennings, 2008, p. 167. Ibid., p. 171. Jennings, 2008, p. 171. C/P believers would agree with Barth’s main critique of Schleiermacher : Theology must begin with self revelation of the Trinitarian God and not within pious human emotion. See: Barth, 1981, pp. 399–411. 309 Plüss, 2003, p. 3.

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this sentence in the setting of C/P ritual and interpretation of the world, as most German practical theologians adopt the existentialist-symbolic or Wittgensteinian framework. By viewing religion through this particular lens, they fail to conceptualize change and competitive claims of differing normative worldviews. Neither separation of theoretical and empirical questions, nor their unreflective conflation, furthers a fuller understanding of social phenomena. I suggest that a self-reflexive, dialogical and non-reductive approach offers the better route in studying religious phenomena such as C/P expressions of Christianity. Non-reductive Naturalism provides a better alternative to the limits imposed by both Reductive Naturalism and Relativism.

3.2.3. Non-reductive Naturalism Non-reductive Naturalism (NRN) maintains the unity of reality, similarly to RN. However, NRN can be seen as a set of various theories, which seek to provide an explanation for physical-biological and non-material phenomena, such as for example social conventions, without the reduction of the latter to the former. Searle views the answer to this question as central to contemporary philosophy and formulates the task as giving an […] account of how we live in exactly one world, and how all of these different phenomena, from quarks and gravitational attraction to cocktail parties and governments, are parts of that one world.310

The ethical appeal of this set of theories is a shared belief in the ontological unity while maintaining a weak form of epistemological relativism. In fact, Sayer points out that the fact of ER leads one to believe in ontological independence: I would argue that it is the evident fallibility of our knowledge – the experience of getting things wrong […] that justifies us in believing that the world exists regardless of what we happen to think about it.311

In order to disagree, one must presuppose a common reality which underlies various epistemologies. This commitment to a shared reality with a modest relativist epistemology has wider implications on researching religion. While the beginning of researching religion must necessarily begin, due to the particular life situatedness of the researcher, from a relativistic angle, it can not remain there. Nor can it artificially be sheltered, but must be brought into a communal dialogue with other views on shared reality. It is only this second step which brings particular interpretations closer to further elucidation of a shared on310 Searle, 2010, p. 3. 311 Sayer, 2000, p. 2.

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tology. The expression “Jesus became real to me” is uttered and retold not merely within a communal story and existential inner commitments, but with reference to the material, socio-economic and political realities as well. Thus, since the researcher inhabits the same world as the C/P believer, the encounter of a differing claim on the reality of the world will inevitably lead the researcher to an examination of his/her prior ontological commitment as well. All C/P believers maintain that God actively intervenes through the Holy Spirit, either causing actions within believers or even acting upon the material world and events. Thus, as described above, divine agency is central in understanding how Jesus becomes real to the believers through the ritual, testimony and everyday actions. If social explanation seeks to avoid the materialistic reduction of Kim, or epistemic relativism of Hornsby, it must provide another theoretical background for agency which completely reconsiders basic terms such as for example causation. RN misconstrues reality by identifying it with our experiences of the world. Critical Realism, as one theoretical approach within NRN, seeks to distinguish between epistemology and ontology. Critical realism should therefore not be confused with empirical realism – equivalent to empiricism – which identifies the real with the empirical, that is, with what we can experience, as if the world just happened to correspond to the range of our senses and to be identical to what we experience.312

Contrary to RN, Sayer, working within the framework of Critical Realism313, suggests a multilayered view of social reality. He distinguishes between the real, the actual and the empirical. First, the real is whatever exists, be it natural or social, regardless of whether it is an empirical object for us, and whether we happen to have an adequate understanding of its nature. Secondly, the real is the realm of objects, their structures and powers.314

By distinguishing the real world from a human grasp of the world through the five senses, an easy identification of both is prevented as in the case of RN. This separation creates a continuous pull toward research as knowledge remains always incomplete and fallible. Contrary to RN, the nature of the real can not be identified based on human sense data, at best an approximation is possible. Further, “[…] the actual refers to what happens if and when those powers are activated, to what they do and what eventuates when they do […]”315 Finally,

312 Sayer, 2000, p. 11. 313 Sayer and other theorists work out the implications of a Philosophy of Science by Roy Bhaskar for Social Sciences. 314 Sayer, 2000, p. 11. 315 Ibid., p. 12.

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“[…] the empirical is defined as the domain of experience, and insofar as it refers successfully, it can do so with respect to either the real or the actual though it is contingent (neither necessary nor impossible) whether we know the real or the actual.”316

An obvious advantage of such nuanced social ontology is that the social world can be observed and described with confidence yet with epistemic modesty as there is no prior commitment necessary as to the nature of the real underlying social reality. In the case of researching the C/P movement, no prior ideological commitment of explaining religion is required and theory can emerge through approximation via the actual and empirical. This approach allows more openness to the immersion of the local point of view and to enter into a deeper ontological exchange. Observability may make us more confident about what we think exist, but existence itself is not dependent on it. In virtue of this, then, rather than rely purely upon a criterion of observability for making claims about what exists, realists accept a causal criterion too (Collier, 1994a). According to this a plausible case for the existence of unobservable entities can be made by reference to observable effects which can only be explained as the products of such entities.317

This distinction is crucial in researching religion as researchers mostly operating from RN and R commitments often already theoretically frame and explaine the phenomena, without fully understanding the phenomena in question from the religious ontological perspective. As I have described above, if the everyday life is clearly distinguished from religious practices as something other, this “Vor-urteil” will confine the research of religion within the preconceived framework of modernity. Once the C/P ritual is properly described, there should be a theoretical comparison of possible causal realities, from communal social shared group dynamics to the divine agency, without a prior exclusion or posing the burden of proof upon the (tf) paradigm simply because it happens that the current majority paradigm leans towards RN and R. Another positive implication of such Critical Realism Ontology is the nondeterministic nature of social events: A crucial implication of this ontology is the recognition of the possibility that powers may exist unexercised, and hence that what has happened or been known to have happened does not exhaust what could happen or have happened. The nature of the real objects present at a given time constraints and enables what can happen but does not pre-determine what will happen. Realist ontology therefore makes it possible to understand how we could be or become many things which currently we are not […].318 316 Sayer, 2000, p. 12. 317 Ibid., p. 12. 318 Sayer, 2000, p. 12.

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This openness in social sciences and imaginative interpretation of human action resembles the multiplicity of possibilities contained within biblical narratives performed by C/P believers. Thus, certain layers of meaning are only accessed within a particular situation. For example, the concrete action of God in human history can be more fully grasped within historic times when human agency is restricted or experienced as destructive. The meta-narratives contain explanatory and normative powers for human lives which are accessed under certain historic and spatio-temporal conditions. Contrary to RN, Sayer can maintain the ontological status of social phenomena by introducing the principle of emergence. [T]he world is characterized by emergence, that is situations in which the conjunction of two or more features or aspects gives rise to new phenomena, which have properties which are irreducible to those of their constituents, even though the latter are necessary for their existence.319

So while “[…] social phenomena are emergent from biological phenomena, which are in turn emergent from the chemical and physical strata,”320 social phenomena, like actions, can not be reduced to biology and/or physics. However, while this ontological description avoids the apparent ontological-epistemological tension in grasping agency reflected in the debate between Kim and Hornsby, the question remains how causation can be theorized. Since NRN, as represented by Critical Realism, does not assume that all causes must be physical, actions can be described as caused within a particular material culture while not exhaustively restricted to material causes. Moreover, […] causation is not understood on the model of regular successions of events, and hence explanation need not depend on finding them, or searching for putative social laws. The conventional impulse to prove causation by gathering data on regularities, repeated occurrences, is therefore misguided; at best these might suggest where to look for candidates for causal mechanisms. What causes something to happen has nothing to do with number of times we have observed it happening. Explanation depends instead on identifying causal mechanisms and how they work, and discovering if they have been activated and under what conditions.321

C/P rituals are highly unstable events which are performed in continuous relation with the context and communal group dynamics. Thus, the causal mechanisms which I identified are biblical script, the socio-political context and the body of the participants. These mechanisms are activated through certain creative actions of charismatic authorities, claiming divine agency within their bodies and in the world around them. By describing the possible failures of such 319 Ibid., p. 12. 320 Ibid., p. 13. 321 Ibid., p. 14.

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social events, I also attempted to point out their contingent nature, as Sayer spells out: There is more to the world, then, than patterns of events. It has ontological depth: events arise from the workings of mechanisms which derive from the structures of objects, and they take place within geo-historical context. […] the same mechanism can produce different outcomes according to context, or more precisely, according to its spatio-temporal relations with other objects, having their own causal powers and liabilities, which may trigger, block or modify its action.322

This insight is crucial to both ritual and academic actions. The seemingly same action, such as for example shouting “hallelujah”, might succeed by prompting a specific behaviour within C/P ritual or completely misfire within an academic conference where the attendants do not share the C/P culture. However, the study of causal powers is not restrained to specific locations. The complexity mentioned above refrains from straightforward generalizations without prior particular study on the working of causal mechanisms. Since causes are contingent on various variables within an open social world, “this creates the risk of attributing to one mechanism (and its structure) effects which are actually due to another.”323 Sayer suggests a mechanism of avoiding such misattribution through the practice of self-reflectivity and critique. One suggestion is asking questions about necessity and not mere regularity, which then helps “to discern between what can be the case and what must be the case […].”324 The difficulty with this approach lies within the assumption of the reflective approximation to ontology through mental representation. Searle attributes the causes of shared agency, as for example C/P ritual, to the individuals. C/P believers would agree with his view, but locate the necessary cause not primarily within human minds, but within the divine agent. Both the account of Searle and C/P believers can be viewed as coherent within their prior commitment and can not be resolved through mere reasoning as they each embody a certain mode of being in the world which is thicker than their mental states. It seems that a researcher can not reason his/her way into ontology. Therefore, Roy Bhaskar rightly states the limit of academic reflection. […] science, although it can and must illuminate them, cannot fully ‘settle’ questions of practical morality and action, just because there are always – and necessarily – social practices besides science, and values other than cognitive ones […].325

322 323 324 325

Sayer, 2000, p. 15. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 16. Bhaskar, 1998, p. 64.

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I would maintain that science is not only limited in its scope towards practical morality and actions, but also in its self-evaluative and normative procedure. These non-cognitive, or habitual, emotional and ethical aspects are embodied, reproduced in the everyday life and guide our larger construction of theory. Therefore, the necessary causes can not be discerned merely through academic self introspection. While NRN is a more promising route in the study of religion, it takes up a middle position between two poles as outlined by Taylor : that of atheistic materialism on one side and an orthodox form of religion on the other. Consequently, it can be critiqued by both. Proponents of RN may still maintain that NRN are not succeeding in outlining a universal ontology as their theory serves mere practical interests in avoiding positivistic and postmodernist/relativist fallacies. Sayer seems to confirm this critique when he states: Without an appreciation of emergence and the open nature of biological and social systems, and of the existence of two different concepts of nature, unsatisfactory resolutions of the relationship between the biological and the social are inevitable.326

There still seems to be a dualistic concept of nature which is rooted in the theistic imagination, although Critical Realism attempts to overcome it through the theoretical construct of emergence. However, it is not clear how this kind of emergence can be conceptualized beyond its epistemic functions. Similarly, theists might critique NRN as construing a theory which relies on theistic assumptions, breaking with materialist assumptions while excluding God at the same time. Consequently, a few sociologists began to include God as a theoretical postulate in their outline of social theory.

3.3. God as theoretical possibility In their common work “Transcendence: Critical Realism and God”, Archer, Collier and Porpora claim that ontological realism about God is consistent with, although not required by their version of NRN, which they espouse through Critical Realism.327 Sayer’s definition of the real, as mentioned above, does not fit easily with the theistic view of God, as he is neither an object, nor can he be exhaustively grasped by the natural or social. Archer relegates God to the unobservable causes, which can be experienced, but not fully explained. In other words, realism opens up a space, which, of course, was never really closed, in which whatever properties and powers pertain to reality can have an unmediated 326 Sayer, 2000, p. 100. 327 Archer, Collier and Porpora, 2004, p. 5.

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influence upon us, through our experience of them, which need not be articulated. Primitive man experienced gravity as he fell down inclines and failed to jump over large obstacles, under whatever descriptions, if any, he knew these limitations. Although it is inappropriate to speak of God ‘belonging’ anywhere, in a purely conceptual sense he ‘pertains’ to this space, as do other unobservables such as many scientific entities, like gravity.328

Archer goes on to explain, that God causes action within humans and in the world. Although similar to immanent causes, he can not be fully captured by immanent categories. Therefore, there remain limits in metaphorical and conceptual understanding of his agency. This is because we are now fully aware that God transcends time, space and causality – the only categories through which we humans can act in the world. Because God’s ontological difference means that every one of his actions overrides those categorical structures that are intrinsic to human agency, we also lack common terms in which to refer to his doings.329

However, Archer maintains, that while God is ontologically different from humans, his actions can be grasped not primarily discursively, but tacitly through practice. “Because practical knowledge involves the active process of ‘doing’, it is procedural rather than declarative in kind. The former never translates readily or fully into ‘words proper’. Thus, practical knowledge is tacit and takes the form of developing skills rather than enunciating propositions. […] Nevertheless, to admit that there are great difficulties in rendering tacit, procedural knowledge discursively is not to say that the enterprise fails entirely. ‘Irreducible metaphors’ can succeed if (some) readers catch on to (some of) the further tropes that are used to extend them. If they do so, the subsequent exercise of their ‘judgement rationality’ will also need to be practical in form. It will involve participation […].”330

Archer does not further justify this claim of limited epistemological accessibility of God as the ultimate reality. She draws parallels to science where causes are accepted even if not fully conceptualized, based on experienced effects. Thus, God functions as a kind of basic belief which grounds reality and perception.331 While not fully explicable, Archer sees divine agency as constitutive of human agency. “The relations formed in transcendental ‘space’ react back upon the world, to which they are not conformed, by sanctifying it.”332 328 329 330 331

Archer, 2004, p. 68. Archer, 2004b, pp. 103–104. Ibid., p. 106. Similarly, Alvin Plantinga views God as a basic belief akin to memory and the existence of other minds. In order to reason adequately, one has to presuppose and rely on certain basic beliefs about reality, which themselves can not be fully justified or proven. 332 Archer, 2004, p. 80.

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By endorsing the real as a category distinct from human epistemology, and assigning God to this partly experiential reality, Archer points out several positive effects for the study of religion: Some kind of illumination can only be obtained through experience. Only an acquaintance with sacred can communicate them. Were we to deny their putative origins a priori, we would illegitimately be imposing a re-description upon them.333

Thus, if God is admitted as a basic theoretical category, the social phenomena can be more fully described without the impulse to attribute the effect to either social or human causes. As Archer pointed out, both the socio-centric and anthropocentric models of man fail to explain human agency adequately. What is lost, in both versions, is the crucial notion of direct experience of reality ; that the way the world is can affect how we are. This is because both anthropocentrism and sociocentrism are two versions of the ‘epistemic fallacy’, where what reality is taken to be, courtesy of our instrumental rationality or social discourse, is substituted for what the world really is.334

Archer maintains that “[t]here are certain ways of being-in-the-world that remain incomprehensible without the admission of transcendence […]”335 Thus, God as being ontologically real also causes effects and can not be bracketed without the loss of religious phenomena. Archer seems to view religious phenomena sui generis, although dependant on socio-material conditions, not completely and independently conditioned by these. If a theory of agency can not demonstrate completeness and independence, then reduction fails. However, in order to collapse Kim’s reduction one needs to develop a divine agency theory, which, when approached through field research, seems more plausible than re-describing the experience of the divine indwelling. However, as Archer points out, the first difficulty is the limit of language, as God defies immanent categories within which agency is comprehensible. Second, it must be shown, that immaterial causes do exist and that God can be rightly attributed to these without the necessary conditions of repeatability. These conditions must be met for a theoretical understanding of divine-human agency. It seems like a heavy burden on the side of theistic social theory, which Archer and her colleagues avoid by pointing out the limits of discursive practice in grasping divine agency. Finally, Archer mentions Weber as an example of someone who was aware of his limits and did not attempt to explain religion away through redescription: “Max Weber declared that he was himself ‘religiously unmusical’, but he did not therefore conclude that there was no music to be heard, although all he could see were 333 Archer, Collier and Porpora, 2004b, p. 28. 334 Archer, 2004, p. 67. 335 Ibid., p. 80.

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dancers moving to a silent orchestra. He did follow those moving harmoniously through the world’s ballrooms and he had much to say about the pattern of the dance as a way of being-in-the-world. In this he acknowledged the limitations of secular social theory and its inability fully to grasp or legitimately to explain the music away. Thus he also endorsed the need to incorporate that which social theory could not explain and should not reinterpret in secular terms – the love of transcendence on the part of many of its subjects.”336

Archer’s prior modest claim turns out to be stronger than perhaps initially intended. She argues for an anthropology which rests on theistic assumptions with a wider explanatory scope over anthropocentric or sociocentric theories. With this move, she shoulders the burden of proof in showing how NRN, which she relies on, is more coherent within a theistic rather than a RN web of beliefs. In order to show this, she would need to enter a larger philosophical debate. Moreover, she outlines the limits of secular social theory when it attempts to explain religion in its own RN framework. This raises the question of the power of positioning. Perhaps this tension lies in the definition of God Archer refers to. God as overarching reality can not be positioned by humans, but is himself an actor who positions everything else. Thus, introducing God into a theory means addressing the question of authority and power of positioning. Theistic beliefs are the other pole from which critique over NRN can be raised. From the theistic angle, it must then be shown how NRN fails on its own presupposition, as highlighted in the contradiction of terms, non-reductive and naturalism.337 Since theories refer to and arise from practice, perhaps a theoretical explication is limited. Bhaskar acknowledges the limit of theory in its emancipatory role: Correction of the second error sets the spiral in a material context; so that although it is worked out in the discourse of social science, and explicated in that of philosophy, this process of elaboration has practical (extra-theoretical) conditions and causes, whose elaboration is itself the work of the spiral. This restores to social science, and philosophy, real and autonomous, but limited, emancipatory roles. They no longer hold the key to history, but neither are they epiphenomena of it. Such a spiral thus has, as it were, a (potentially variable) centre of gravity in social practices outside itself.338

J. Milbank has elaborated these extra-theoretical conditions of social theory in relation to ecclesial and theological practices. Ferguson Kerr summarizes the central thesis of Milbank as following: “There is no need to bring theology and social theory together, theology is already social theory, and social theory is 336 Archer, 2004c, p. 153. 337 As for example, A. Plantinga attempted to show by pointing out the contradiction between reasoning, aiming at truth and evolutionary biology. 338 Bhaskar, 1998, p. 158.

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already theology.”339 According to Milbank, the secular social theory “[…] is constituted in its secularity by ‘heresy’ in relation to orthodox Christianity, or else a rejection of Christianity that is more ‘neo-pagan’ than simply anti-religious.”340 Secular social theory is therefore nothing else but a mix of Christian heresy and neo-paganism. The thread that weaves the two together is the notion of ‘original violence’.341 Christianity in contrast resists this narrative of original violence through its insistence upon peace that is ontologically prior to violence. Milbank’s deconstruction and reconstruction are therefore motivated by his ethical concerns which are rooted in his interpretation of Christian doctrines and his reading of Augustines’ “Civitas Dei”. Milbank states his intention on the first page of his book: To social theorists I shall attempt to disclose the possibility of a skeptical demolition of modern, secular social theory from a perspective with which it is at variance: in this case, that of Christianity. I will try to demonstrate that all the most important governing assumptions of such theory are bound up with the modification or the rejection of orthodox Christian positions. These fundamental shifts are, I shall argue, no more rationally ‘justifiable’ than the Christian positions themselves.342

By showing that the secular social theory is in itself a theology in disguise, Milbank intends to “[…] overcome the pathos of modern theology, and to restore in post-modern terms, the possibility of theology as a meta-discourse.”343 Milbank assumes, that theology either recovers its role as a meta-discourse, where it can “position, qualify or criticize other discourses”344, or it will be positioned itself and lose its raison d’etre, due to the seeming necessity of an “[…] ultimate organizing logic”.345 To achieve this role, theology needs to get “beyond secular reason”, as the subtitle runs. According to Milbank, the C/P testimony of “Jesus became real to me”, is such a meta-narrative sequence with wider positioning implications. Immanent theories attempt to tame and reinterpret this kind of normative extension through various narrative spins over the realness of immanent categories, which in the end position the transcendent within its narrative framework. According to Milbank, Archer’s modest intention is an oxymoron as invoking God means attempting to position immanent narratives. According to Milbank, there is an either/or between immanent or transcendent narratives. Milbank openly admits his own epistemologically non-foundational, narra339 340 341 342 343 344 345

Kerr, 1996, p. 431. Milbank, 1993, p. 3. Ibid., p. 5. Milbank, 1993, p. 1. Ibid., p. 1. Ibid., p. 1. Ibid., p. 1.

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tive point of view. He refers to Nietzsche who undermined the Enlightenment and religious views alike with a move which itself took on a mythical shape. Nietzsche’s ontology of power and conflict, which is simply another mythos, is a kind of re-invented paganism. Milbank questions whether Nietzschian suspicion is “the final and truly non-metaphysical mode of secular reason.” As a consequence, he sees the “necessity and yet an ungrounded character of some sort of meta-narrative, some privileged transcendent factor […]”.346 Milbank finds it paradoxical, that as a consequence of a post-Nietzschian turn, social theory increasingly finds secularization ambivalent in that it can never leave behind the mythic-religious.347 Borrowing from Nietzsche, Milbank uses a genealogical method in order to “unearth the arbitrary moments in the construction” of the logic of the secular. Through this method, he hopes to undermine the seemingly given nature of the secular.348 In the final chapter, Milbank drops the Nietzschian tone and turns to Augustine to recover a Christian vision for social theory. Milbank’s thesis has been extensively critiqued from theological and sociological angles alike.349 However, his basic insight into the dependence of social theory on normative practices, and in particular, theological and ecclesial ones, remains insightful. Researching C/P practices, I have been continuously confronted with theoretical presuppositions, which themselves arose within a particular mode of relationship towards religion within the European context. Thus, the genealogical development of theoretical paradigms must be understood in the process, in order to acknowledge the difference of religious phenomena and not subsume them under the known Protestant European history. This theoretical mistake in the past, led to the extension of the secularization thesis upon the rest of the world, failing to recognize its European particularity. Moreover, I have found Milbank’s insistence on a meta-narrative as a basic non-foundational category for theory, helpful throughout my research, as theory is contingent on larger teleological values. The nature of the cultural background of understanding can not be fully elucidated. Theory is limited in grasping the totality of reality and its preconditions due to its own situatedness and medium of articulation. Every social theory stands in a particular relation towards the observed social practice, such as religious actions. This relation sketches out the possible angles of approaching the phenomena and the spin the research paradigm will take. Exposing these theoretical and pre-theoretical conditions allows for a deeper perspective beyond the initial surface one. An 346 347 348 349

Ibid., p. 2. At this point he refers to French sociologists. Milbank, 3. Williams, 1996, p. 439; Nichols, 1996, p. 445; Flanagan, 1996, p. 458.

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approximation towards a better ontology remains a goal in flux, while an ideological closure excludes itself, due to its resistance towards movement and change. Relation implies both the closeness and the distance of the researcher towards his/her object of study. Therefore, I will close here with a further exploration of these tensions.

3.4. Conclusion: Theory in tension Researching the emergence of C/P groups in Beirut placed my body under continuous tension. I felt this tension through the bodily inhabitation of very differing life worlds. The question as to how to describe the C/P emergence challenged me to take up a stance towards the C/P life world. Reflection arises at a point of tension, such as bodily discomfort. The primary mode of relation to the world is commitment, as Taylor writes, […] even in our theoretical stance to the world, we are agents. Even to find out about the world and formulate disinterested pictures, we have to come to grips with it, experiment, set ourselves to observe, control conditions.350

Our everyday commitments are governed by a larger story we inhabit. As Taylor fittingly described, due to the finitude of a human life, we are forced to seek for a certain coherence of our lives and commit to a limited number of final ends. Therefore, [r]eal ethical life is inescapably led between the one and the many. We cannot do away either with the diversity of goods (or at least so I would argue against modern moral theory) or with the aspiration to oneness implicit in our leading our lives.351

Thus, my particular commitments as a researcher were confronted with a C/P commitment to an ultimate reality as expressed in the sentence: “Jesus became real to me”. In order to evaluate this claim, I had to initially distance myself from this claim, in order to establish a hypothesis. Grimes describes this process of theorizing: “To theorize is to look at something in a special way, one that achieves its perspective by distancing or by probing beneath a surface.”352 Theory emerges within this place of tension between closeness and distance. Closeness is necessary in order to establish sameness and thus any understanding of the other. Moreover, closeness is required in order for the question to emerge, as any curiosity is awakened by a partial grasp and a desire to experience/know more. Distance is also necessary in order to arrive at a more general 350 Taylor, 1995, p. 11. 351 Taylor, 1997, p. 183. 352 Grimes, 2006, p. 384.

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pattern and discern difference. However, the overall relation to the object of study is contingent on the researcher’s lived narratives and the aims which follow from these. Milbank uncovers basic relational assumptions within modern sociology of religion: Both Durkheim and Weber categorize societies in terms of the relation of the individual to something social and universal, and, this reflects the perspective of modern western politics, whose prime concern is […] between the unlimited sovereignty of the state, and the self-will of the individual.353

Thus, sociology of religion is committed to certain political ends, which also influence the means. Furthermore, Milbank views sociology of religion bolstering these political aims. But it can only fulfil this function by standing on certain metaphysical assumptions, which Milbank throws a critical light upon. Sociology of religion seeks to identify the particularity of religion and to protect its sphere within a fragmented society. The reduced religion serves the purpose of securing the secular order and should therefore be protected at the margins of verifiable facts. Sometimes, religion is even invoked to a public level to overcome the antimony of a purely instrumental rationality. However, if religion asserts itself too much, it can be disciplined by being assigned its minor space within the fact of the social. As mentioned above, Kant’s critique of metaphysics (and establishment of a new kind of metaphysics) lends this view a philosophical ground. However, it is doubtful, whether a finite reason can establish the limits of human understanding. In order to do so, one has to be able to see beyond these limits. If there is no boundary between theoretical and practical reason, then the categories, which the sociology of religion employs in its relation to religion, simply dissolve. Sociology of religion establishes itself on certain metaphysical grounds and transcends the human sphere at the same time. Milbank raises the provocative thesis, that all twentieth century sociology of religion can be exposed as a secular “policing of the sublime”, as “the secular will-to-power.”354 He questions the functionality of religion in relation to the social. Sociology tries to establish general laws of correlation. But it turns out that “the detailed demonstration of the correlation is the work of narrative historiography.”355 Thus functionalist sociology “adds nothing that is not metaphysical to historiography.”356 Sociological explanation turns out to be a mere tautology. To portray the private religion as a necessary evolutionary goal of western history is yet another disguise to render religion non-identifiable and obsolete. Christianity is 353 354 355 356

Milbank, 1993, p. 103. Ibid., p. 106. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 111.

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emptied of its specific contents which are made meaningful only in relation to immanent spheres of life. Milbank’s polemic account emphasizes distance and therefore the power relation while excluding closeness.357 C/P expression of Christianity offers a strong challenge to secular reason in continuously evoking divine intervention, while the secular reason aims to control the transcendent. Theoretical explanation and omission of a secular non-grounded meta-narrative is one way in the positioning of the religious phenomena. An intermediary theoretical position begs the question both from RN and orthodox religion. Even Archer’s introduction of God as a theoretical possibility points to a basic tension between immanent and transcendent meta-narratives in generating theoretical and methodological presuppositions in studying religious social phenomena. It seems that a mere self-reflexivity and presence of meta-questions, which Sayer suggests, can not settle basic ideological disagreements. However, a conversation which is conducted in an atmosphere of vulnerability and transparency could lead towards an understanding of the other, highlighting interdependence and closeness. Distance and closeness can not be clearly outlined a priori. As I took a course on Sociology of Religion at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, while reading Durkheim and Marx, I could hear a call to prayer from the neighbourhood mosque through the open window. I read Milbank at the German research institute, as if in a little island of secularity amidst the religious public urban life surrounding it. Thus, the relation seemed to be reversed and it became increasingly difficult to apply western theories within a different cultural setting, as the tangible background for these theories had changed. Choosing the answer to my question from within the C/P life form already betrays my closeness, as I put the primary emphasis of causation not on external social factors, but located them within the agents themselves and the meta-narratives they inhabit. A more distant approach would emphasize external socio-material causes. Researching C/P religion continuously confronted me with my own theoretical presuppositions, which referred me to larger convictions rooted in my own biography, meta-narrative and everyday practices. Based on his critique of the assumptions and methods of the sociology of religion, Milbank proposes a method of narrative knowledge which overcomes the dichotomy of understanding and explanation schemata, which is based on Cartesian separation between material sphere governed by causality and a spi357 Flanagan critiqued Milbank on the ground that his portrayal of sociology of religion is too static, creating a straw man which he then shoots down. I agree with Flanagan’s critique based on critical realism, which attempts to stay within a naturalist paradigm, while viewing positivist social philosophy critically.

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ritual domain of meaning and teleology. There is no self-contained original cause which we are aware of. If we say “causation”, what we mean is, we see some meaning of the first event in time relation to the second event. Thus, it is a multiplicity of events that we connect to a meaningful narrative structure. Narrating is therefore, a more basic category than either explanation or understanding. It does not need to get entangled with the search for universal laws or truths. Yet at the same time it is also not arbitrary, because every text also forms a knot of resistance. Milbank also places natural sciences within the framework of narrative knowledge: […] first, science has never done with, and continues to be fertilized by, ‘prescientific’, speculative natural histories. Secondly, scientific theories and experiments are themselves repeatable narratives.358

Similarly, David Carr, through elaboration of Husserl, points out that “[…] narrative is our primary (though not our only) way of organizing our experience of time, and understood in this sense it can elucidate our pretheoretical past.”359 Through highlighting several theoretical possibilities in approaching my hypothesis, there seems to be an alterity, which can not be overcome through theoretical elaborations alone. As Charles Taylor pointed out, all theoretical elaborations are only meaningful on the background of understanding, which itself can not be fully elucidated. Our theories are abstractions from our everyday lived stories and experiences. Therefore, in order to probe deeper than mere theoretical presuppositions, I suggest a category of realness, which focuses not primary on the mental stable representations, but seeks to describe pretheoretical conditions, which arise through actions. This is not to suggest that theories are arbitrary. Theoretic abstractions, once established through consensus, do influence the everyday through social institutions. While our body is embedded within time and space, it acts in relation to the wider meta-narrative and its socio-material context. Viewing these categories as basic, allows us to underline a unity within diverse modes of being in the world. How these categories are drawn depends on the particular meta-narrative. In my concluding remarks on the hypothesis of realness, I highlight a common framework in explaining difference between various life worlds.

358 Milbank, 1993, p. 270. 359 Carr, 1986, p. 4.

4.

Conclusion

I have sought to answer the questions of how and why the C/P movement emerged in the post war Lebanese context. My main direction approach to these questions has been from C/P believers themselves, who claimed, that “Jesus became real” to them, which they explained was the primary reason for their commitment to a C/P way of life. In describing my hypothesis how this appearance of realness can be understood, I have considered the C/P meta-narrative and their actions through rituals, testimonies and everyday life. In the following conclusion, I outline the general hypothesis of realness and its application to C/P and academic perceptions of realness. Finally, I consider how a change of realness can be conceptualized.

4.1. What is realness? Realness is a normative human impression which results from the mediating body between the material-cultural world and the meta-narrative. Ritual constitutes the primary site for this mediation. Realness changes due to 1. Alteration of the material-cultural conditions, 2. A new interpretation of the meta-narrative and subsequently, 3. New practices which mediate between 1. and 2. As an embodied attitude, realness guides our perception of what “is” and “must” be the case. The body is part of the material-cultural realm. Yet the human mind also transcends this particularity by assigning meaning to and beyond the particular material-cultural context. “Beyond” refers to the human imagination of fictional states, or that which is not yet, but could become an empirical reality. Due to human mbeddedness in time, our basic structure of perceiving the non-material order takes on the form of a narrative. Values and theoretical speculations are abstracted from the underlying narrative form. A particular narrative acquires a meta-narrative status when it positions itself above other narratives through critique and qualification. The world presses itself upon the body. The material conditions have a direct

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impact on the body. For example, gravity exercises a force on the body independent of whether we as humans perceive it or understand it. Thus, the world exists independent from the perception of it and exerts pressure upon and within the body. Similarly, the cultural world also impacts the body and is embodied through socialisation. However, as humans, we do not merely passively embody and reproduce the material-cultural conditions, but we actively respond to and change the world which we are immersed in as a result of the polyphony of metanarratives and plurality of possible imagined ends. Furthermore, the metanarrative is not merely imposed by the human mind on the ontological chaos, but is built into our fundamentally temporal experience. The plot of a metanarrative allows for various possibilities for describing the past and present as well as projecting a possible future. The impression is deterministic and objective in the sense that each human is born into a pre-existing material-cultural world and narrated tradition, which often takes on the form of basic myths, which are embodied through cultural institutions. Therefore, though various forces present a continual pressure, the bodies respond to these external forces through various acts upon the material-culture world as well as re-interpretation of basic narratives. The individual body finds itself under continuous pressure to reconcile conflicting material-cultural realities and narrative possibilities. I call these actions “mediation” as the body seeks to establish a bodily-mental coherence. If the material-cultural and narrative forces do not cause discomfort to the body, the body acts habitually, thus reproducing the given reality. However, if the bodily equilibrium is shaken, the body acts in response to the causes in order to adjust the shaken web of meaning. The term mediation has been used extensively in Marxist and Communication studies. Contrary to the Marxist theory, I do not view labour as a primary form of mediation. Instead, I assume that the ritual precedes labour as a constitutive mediating form in establishing the impression of realness. Whereas through labour, humans seek to secure their daily survival, the ritual serves as a means towards a more extensive orientation and reconnection between the material-cultural and narrative realms. The experienced gulf between the given body and the mind, which is able to transcend the body through imagination, is bridged, as the body acts in the space between the material-cultural world and the larger meta-narrative. The body-mind dualism can not be reconciled discursively. Thomas Csordas rejects the Cartesian distinction between res cogitans and res extensa. His aim is to collapse the “dualities between mind and body, subject and object” and to conceive of the body as “the existential ground of culture.”360 The body is not seen as an object. Drawing from Merleau-Ponty, Csordas’ goal is the

360 Csordas, 2002, p. 58–59.

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description of “existential beginnings”361 prior to the process of objectification. Csordas employs Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as a practical tool. Bourdieu intends to overcome deep seated antinomies such as the following: subjectivist versus objectivist, separation of the analysis of the symbolic from the material, the divorce of theory from research, structure versus agency and micro versus macro analysis. He does so through the concept of habitus which explains the predictability and regularity of the social life despite its irregularities. Thus, “habitus is a structuring mechanism that operates from within agents […]”,362 it is neither strictly individually chosen, nor in itself fully communally determined, as it is the overlapping space between the social and individual. As Bourdieu & Wacquant state, “The body is in the social world but the social world is in the body.”363 Perception begins in the body and ends with reflective thinking, which leads to the hardening process of objectification. Csordas wants to uncover this state of being “simply in the world.”364 Csordas’ rejection of Cartesian dualism leads him to a deeper and thicker description of embodied cultural practices such as C/P healing. However, Csordas takes up an unnecessary theoretical burden that ironically resembles Descartes, who also sought to establish a definite and unilateral relation between mind and body. It is not the theoretical distinction between mind and body which renders it problematic. Rather, the “mistake […] lies in trying to rationalize the boundary.”365 Rationalization through writing is an imaginative act which proceeds from the lived experience. Therefore, this act is unable to capture the thickness of lived experience since it lacks the immediate presence of the five senses. As Lambek points out, “Embodiment surpasses language, rules, ideal models; the performance is always more than the script.”366 Csordas attempts a task which he can only fully achieve through an embodied performance. Although the mind-body dualism presents itself as an analytically meaningful distinction, it is unreasonable to assume the ontological existence of these two distinct entities.367 Lambek’s attempt to relate mind and body to each other as incommensurable is more insightful. Incommensurables do not exclude each other, but by the same token they cannot readily be mediated since they share no common measure along which an intermediary position could be staked out.368 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368

Ibid., p. 61. Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 18. Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 20. Csordas, 2002, p. 243. Lambek, 1998, p. 110. Lambek, 1998, p. 120. For further grounding of this statement see MacIntyre, 2006b, p. 91–93. Lambek, 1998, p. 109.

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According to Lambek, since “mind and body in mind” (imagination) are not constrained by spatiotemporal limits there is always a “beyond” of the concrete “mind and body in body” (embodied) existence. These two different states of existence are neither opposite nor can they be collapsed into either an embodied paradigm or a disembodied “brain in the vat” model. Instead, this incommensurable relation points to the fundamental tensions of the human experience. Since […] mind/body dualism is at once everywhere transcended in practice yet everywhere present, in some form or other, […] we have to attend to body and mind in body (embodiment), and also to body and mind in mind (imagination).369

As “[…] ethnography originates in orality and only makes the transition to writing with difficulty […]” the written text fails to fully represent the performed live world.370 Writing is not an embodied performance, but an attempt at its representation. It seems necessary to retain these analytical distinctions to describe the creative tension between imagination and embodied practices.371 Therefore the body can not be the “ground of culture” as Csordas claims. To depict a pre-rationalized seamlessly embodied world of practice […] is a tremendously intellectual and literary feat, but it is also to risk a serious romanticization and it also attracts a deskbound intellectualism.372

The body within anthropological interpretation therefore only has relevance in its relationship to other significant categories, lest it be reduced to biology. Therefore the mind-body dualism can only be resolved through embodied practice. Any action, which reduces the senses, such as writing, will inevitably fail to mediate between the two. The transcending, narrative realm is represented 369 Ibid., p. 105. 370 Rabinow, 1986, p. 264. Marcus and Fisher also recognize this discrepancy between the oral and the written: “[…] since oral discourse is labile, continually monitored, and modified by both parties, a text is an extremely poor, if not outright false, representation of such discourse.” See in: Marcus, George E., and Fischer, Michael M. J., 1986, p. 68. 371 Hannele Dufva outlines this basic tension without giving it further reflection. On the one hand, the “mind is incarnated” meaning that it “has an intimate connection with the world – both with the natural world as physical environment, and with the social world in which the embodied agents interact.” On the other hand, humans also generalize their local knowledge thus transcending their particular situatedness in the world. See: Dufva, Hannele, 2004, pp. 133–145. 372 Lambek, 1998, p. 119–120. Most probably, it is this fundamental difference between the prerationalized being and thought which Heidegger attempts to capture. Finally, this difference leads Heidegger to the conclusion, that the “zu-Denkende sich selbst vom Menschen abwendet […].” See in: Heidegger, 1992, p. 7. Heidegger also distinguishes between intellectualism (philosophieren) and thinking (denken). However, it seems that due to his “deskbound intellectualism”, he found it increasingly difficult to find language able to express his thinking. See in: Gadamer, 1995, p. 154.

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within the individual mind, while the material-cultural realm is ingrained within our bodies. The fundamental tensions between our body and mind point to the larger tension between what is and must be the case, between the material experiential reality and the not yet embodied possibility. Among various kinds of mediating actions, the ritual constitutes a primary form of mediation due to its self-reflective and therefore intentional nature in resolving the basic body-mind tension through performance. Through demarcating the spatiotemporal site of the ritual, the mind intentionally emphasizes the difference to its otherwise habitual everyday actions. Thus, the process of demarcation can also be interpreted as an intentional intensification of the fundamental tension. The individual is aware of the fundamental difference between the immanent and the transcendent, between what is and must be the case. Once this tension is brought to the fore, it is then overcome through the ritual bodily mediation. Within the ritual, the body enacts tradition, while engaging the present material-cultural conditions and pointing toward the possible future. Sometimes, even one ritual gesture or speech act embodies distinct times and spheres, which otherwise would be difficult to bridge within a discursive approach. Schieffelin fittingly describes this process of bodily reclaiming through ritual as “deep participation.” When people are intensely engaged together in the same process, the shape, organization, pace, and rhythm of the process ipso facto governs their attitude, action and purpose. They cannot but move to its rhythm, and thus are carried by its energy. At the same time the process or activity itself becomes their mode of mutual sociality-the (for the moment) shared reality that governs them. It is here that deep participation may crystallize and render the situation a compelling consensual reality. Moreover, it is often all the more compellingly real for its intensely shared focus-compared to reality under the various and shifting modes of attention of the same individuals at their various activities in daily life. It is as if the parts, the participants, experience the embrace of the whole that is the greater than the sum of its parts. […] Deep participants are steeped in a sense of reality, and this intense experience achieves a kind of ontological grounding – a sense of the ‘touch of being’ – which often reverberates to inform everyday life long after the event is past. Participants often remember these times as times when they were especially deeply, confidently, and (usually) joyful alive or uplifted. More than this, with such an ontological grounding comes empowerment. The real issue here is not the submission (or submergence or overcoming) of the moralrational individual in the larger ‘force’ or ‘flow’ of deep participation, but rather the steeping of the participants in a deeper sense of reality than they normally inhabit, a reality upon whose power they can comfortably draw.373

The ontological grounding occurs through various bodily sensations within the ritual. The participants begin to be in touch with their emotions and they feel 373 Schieffelin, 2006, p. 624.

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part of a larger whole as they experience the divine presence in within their bodies. Rituals are sites of deep participatory experience, a reconnection and action on the immediate material-cultural world and the bodily reinterpretation of the meta-narratives. In particular, within a post-war climate of rapid change, C/P rituals offer the individual a means of feeling reconnected to him/herself through a purposeful and meaningful action within a group. The external experience of detachment is overcome through a strong sense of divine immediacy, which pervades all aspects of the believers’ lives. Thus, the ritual grounds a certain way of immediate, bodily being in the world, which then is re-enacted in the everyday life. Based on the distinction of Andrew Sayers between the real, the actual and the empirical, one can also define realness as the convergence of 1. The real, 2. The actual and 3. The empirical within 4. The mediating human body. Thus, the meta-narrative is, as part of a cultural tradition of interpretation, together with the material-cultural world, a realm within the real. The actual refers to all the possibilities contained through the bodily activating of the real. Finally, the empirical refers to a specific, observable action, which embodies 1. and 2. While the real and the actual could be imagined and thus have a purely fictional existence, it is only when these are embodied through an empirically observable, particular body that they acquire realness. Thus realness can also be described as the embodied-cultural background. As Charles Taylor observed, “[…] any articulative project would itself rely on a background of horizon of nonexplicit engagement with the world.”374 Thus realness, as an embodied condition, constitutes the ground of reasoning, which in itself can not be fully rationalized. The paradoxical status of the background can then be appreciated. It can be made explicit, because we aren’t completely unaware of it. But the explicating itself supposes a background.375

Total explicating is impossible, as the background can’t be thought as quantitatively at all. Thus, in order to explicate realness as a background for human experience, I have described practices which constitute a particular C/P realness. However, in doing so, I have relied on a certain background, which itself can not be fully grasped. As I have described above, my hypothesis of realness contains also the limits of discursive practice. We can’t turn the background against which we think into an object for us. The task of reason has to be conceived quite differently : as that of articulating the background, ‘disclosing’ what it involves. This may open the way to detaching ourselves from or

374 Taylor, 1995, p. 11. 375 Taylor, 1995b, p. 70.

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altering part of what has constituted it-may, indeed, make such alteration irresistible; but only through our unquestioning reliance on the rest.376

These attitudes of trust and detachment form both, the C/P and academic realness as well as my own unarticulated background. I have found myself within this trialogue, within this tension of constructing my representation, between distance and closeness. I have attempted to make explicit a realness of one particular life world, while taking up a physical and mental distance from it. However, this position is also only possible due to certain material-cultural conditions, which highlight the partial character of my representation. At the end of the day, both C/P believers and academics find themselves in the same world and are able to perceive difference due to the same framework that surrounds them both. Therefore, my hypothesis of realness is also applicable to the academic context. Based on this basic general hypothesis, which assumes some universal categories about the material-cultural setting, a human body and its situatedness and orientation within time, I now turn to the particular constitution and difference of realness.

4.2. Charismatic/Pentecostal realness When C/P believers narrated their conversion stories, they often remarked, that Jesus became real to them. I have provided a possible working hypothesis for realness. Yet the impression of realness differs due to material cultural conditions, meta-narratives and the resulting mediating actions. I have defined the C/P ritual as “(1) bodily mediation (2) between divine agency, the text and the Lebanese context within (3) demarcated spatiotemporal realms”. Since the ritual is the primary site of the mediating body, the C/P realness begins from within the ritual and is then extended to the everyday life. The disintegration of cultural-material urban and mental space through the war in Lebanon reverberated within particular bodies. The body turned inward and felt restricted due to the limited mobility. Moreover, prior embodied believed social bonds of family and religious community were severely damaged and consequently trust among individuals diminished. After the war ended, Lebanon was overwhelmed by the global capitalist and consumer cultural shift which also contributed to the weakening of traditional values and caused further disintegration of families and communities. Along with this material-cultural shift, the traditional religious institutions, which previously embodied a stable and secure world, also lost credibility by failing to adjust the larger narrative to 376 Taylor, 1995, p. 12.

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engage the Lebanese on both a cognitive and bodily level. The C/P movement provided an alternative cultural site beyond the sectarian tradition on one hand and the modern abstract nation state based on some secular ideologies, which represent exclusively the educated elites, on the other hand. The C/P ritual site became a place of emotional reconnection, group solidarity, trust and empowerment, which extends through deep participation into the everyday lives of C/P believers. Moreover, the C/P movement offered a third alternative response by recovering potential meaning and plot within Christian narratives which were more opaque during times of greater stability. Through the emphasis on the Holy Spirit, change and dynamic transformation became central to the Christian narrative. Throughout narrations of the war, the Lebanese continuously shared with me that external forces betrayed and pitted the Lebanese against each other. The shattering of the material-cultural world and the disintegration of the previous coherent meta-narrative into many competing stories, destroyed an overarching unity, creating a body felt split and disorientation. After the war, many Lebanese felt once more trapped as passive victims of foreign socio-economic interests which imposed upon them rapid modernisation and consumerism. Thus, both the traditional narrative emphasizing a sacred past and stability and the modernist narrative of external deterministic socio-economic forces devalued individual body and agency. The C/P narrative reinforces God’s sovereignty and thereby the stability of the world through his sustaining actions. While God’s sovereignty maintains the hope for believers that the end of the story does not end in pure chaos, God becomes experientially close and felt within the bodies through the Holy Spirit. The narrative of God’s sovereign control offers an overarching unity and his bodily presence through the Holy Spirit locates within larger meta-narrative with a particular dynamic bodily expression of this reality. Thus, C/P rituals offer an experience of reclaiming the body first, as individuals lack control to change the material-cultural world. As one C/P believer put it, “I felt numb. Through the Holy Spirit I began to feel myself.” In a post-war context, the C/P rituals offer people a site to reclaim their bodies, to feel once again that they are agents amidst forces, which had previously disabled them. This new bodily reality is then extended into the everyday sphere and becomes empirically verifiable through such secular means as further education, healthier life styles or personal responsibility at work. The paradox of the autonomous, responsible, new self, which is received from God and not discovered from within immanent confines, highlights the ambiguous relation between secular modernity and the C/P expression of religion. The C/P narrative and its concrete bodily ritual mediation site become the source of and experience of the empowered, committed, autonomous, responsible person. The C/P practices bring

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into question a clearly outlined boundary between (if) and (tf) through various modes of relation, from mutual reinforcement to subversion. As most C/P believers do not depend on external sources of power, their body becomes the primary expression of power. Thus, their primary stance towards life is immediacy and commitment. The continuous cultural-material, sectarian and political forces pressure each individual into a grounding of identity. Detachment from these forces would require external power which allows the individual a relativistic stance towards life as s/he is not immediately physically threatened and therefore does not need to ally with these sources of pressure in order to survive. While these traditional forces were often experienced by C/P believers as diminishing the fullness of life, they also offer those who commit to them a level of physical security. C/P rituals ground the loyalty and therefore identity of each member physically. The self-giving and belonging can not just be mental, as other socio-political forces and groups vying for the allegiance of people demand concrete physical involvement. Thus, the ritual and C/P activism within these groups require the body as a medium of new found realness. Pannenberg’s conclusion also describes fittingly the C/P realness: The realness of God is implicitly contained within subjective anticipation of exhaustive reality. The realness is implicit within particular experienced lives and the totality of meaning. These are historic and open towards either confirmation or challenge throughout the continuous process of experience.377

Pannenberg does not distinguish between realness and reality as he uses the same term for both: “Wirklichkeit”. I make the distinction between the realness of God as subjectively mediated and the reality of the world as objectively existing and although contingent on, nevertheless independent from our experience. Realness emerges through bodily mediation. The context of realness for Pannenberg is experienced life in its totality. This surpasses the academic discourse, within which Pannenberg attempts to outline the totality of meaning of the Christian worldview. Moreover, Pannenberg hints at the ontological historicprocessual character of God’s realness within particular lived lives. The C/P realness emerges through the meaningful bodily mediation between external post-war realities and biblical meta-narratives. These mediatory acts are central within the ritual and its extension into the everyday life. Testimony is a particular action which mediates between the two. As C/P rituals do not rely on external socio-economic and political power, they can be easily performed in any urban 377 See the original German quote in: Pannenberg, 1987, p. 312: “Die Wirklichkeit Gottes ist mitgegeben jeweils nur in subjektiven Antizipationen der Totalitaet der Wirklichkeit, in Entwuerfen der in aller einzelnen Erfahrung mitgesetzten Sinntotalitaet, die ihrerseits geschichtlich sind, d. h. der Bestaetigung oder Erschuetterung durch den Fortgang der Erfahrung ausgesetzt bleiben.”

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setting. This independence from external power and its ability to generate bodily felt empowerment through the performance makes C/P realness more easily extendable than the academic realness, which relies more heavily on external structural powers.

4.3. Academic realness Comparing the C/P and academic realness seems to be incommensurable as the first finds its ontological grounding through ritual and the second through the social realm of labour. However, upon closer examination, the relation between ritual and labour is not as distinct as it may initially seem. Specifically, within secular societies with waning public, normative rituals, labour seems to assume the role previously held by religious rituals as mediating sites between the immediate material conditions and the larger realm of meaning. With Luther’s sacralisation of everyday activities the profession (as in the German word Beruf) was then seen as part of a larger divine calling (in German termed Berufung). However, with the increasing secularisation of Western Europe, which was also nurtured by the Protestant reformation, the role of labour shifted from a reflection of a higher divine calling towards a mere means of survival during the Industrial Revolution to a medium of meaning during the post Industrial era. While this general thesis must be further grounded historically, the beginnings of secular universities and academic labour can be traced back to sacred institutions, such as monasteries. With its roots in religious institutions and its current affiliation to the nation state, the academic realness both differs from and resembles the C/P realness. As a practical working definition, I suggest that an academic ritual is a (1) mental mediation (2) between human agencies, tradition, and a particular context within (3) demarcated spatiotemporal realms. In order to suggest how academic realness emerges within a concrete setting, I will use a particular example of the German research institute (Orient-Institut Beirut) where I was a research fellow and refer to my own body. With this short application, I intend to suggest that my hypothesis of realness can be applied to other, non-religious life worlds as well. Moreover, this reversal will highlight my own unarticulated background and therefore, shed light on my material-cultural position from which I have approached the C/P phenomena. The Orient Institute in Beirut stands like an enduring stable material-cultural German stable bastion amidst the fast paced, chaotic environment of Zuqaq al Blat. The old villa is fenced off from the surrounding community by a high wall and three to eight apartment buildings tower over the spacious garden interspersed by several dilapidated ottoman style villas. The orderly Institute garden is maintained by an employed Lebanese gardener. I enjoyed walking among the

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narrow paths to collect my thoughts as I could hear the voices of children playing in the dusty narrow alleys outside the compound which are used by cars, pedestrians and children alike. Sometimes, I greeted people, who would peer into the garden from their cramped balconies. It appeared as if for the sake of creating an orderly space for a few privileged bodies, the research institute had pushed back the chaos of the community outside. The noise and the sweat of the outside seemed to vanish upon entering the quiet foyer of the Institute. The urban chaos and competing physicality outside is substituted for the calm and spacious rooms inside. While riding a minibus and being jammed between sweating people, I felt my skin rubbing against my neighbour, as I was forced to lean into him at every curve. This experience was contrasted by the absence of bodily contact upon entering my office with high shelves, approximately 4–5 meters high, packed full of books. Although I am aware that this appearance of stability depends on wider socio-political and economic factors, which secure the continuation of such an institution, the everyday physical experience of being within this space impresses upon me and favours a certain kind of meta-narrative. To be precise, I do not feel that this physicality is supported by any kind of meta-narrative at all, as its rituals and testimonies are not as immediate as in the C/P culture. There appears to be no movement, but only a repeatable order, a kind of circular ritualistic structure which is open for diverse opinions provided they comply with the established institutional order. This order is not maintained through displayed rules, but through a repeatable habitus which is reproduced through shared performance. Should someone enter the main hall with its quiet, sober atmosphere, and shout out a loud “Hallelujah” or perform any other C/P ritual there, the response would most likely entail a very polite but decisive expulsion. Similar to the C/P ritual, once on the inside, my body begins to adjust to the felt culture. My gestures are reduced to the minimum, my voice is lowered, my emotions subdued as I walk purposefully towards my office. Once I have embodied this culture, I can function in routine within it and focus on the main task, which this physicality is maintained for, namely the production of knowledge. The institutional space is secluded from the chaotic physical environment in order to enable a deep focus of the mind. The sterile environment reduces the experience of bodily senses, as movements are controlled and sounds are minimal, reduced to the immediate information required. Air conditioning absorbs the humidity eliminating the smells of sweating bodies entering from the street. Moreover, touching is reserved to a professional hand shake and tasting food for special occasions only. While I sit in my office with closed window and the quiet hum of the air conditioning, as I smell the books, my mind seems to extend while my other senses shrink. The sense of stability and rootedness in the space and the shelves packed with knowledge from pre-

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vious generations envelops me from all sides reinforcing my desire for disembodied representations in order to arrive at a higher, stable, more general realness which underlies the everyday physical chaos outside. This mental transcendence is further intensified by the hours of sitting still and the only conversations taking place in my mind as I read and evaluate other authors. I concentrate on my mind and feel only my fingers on the keyboard of my computer. The effectiveness of this ritualised behaviour is measured by the amount of written representation, which appears to be carried out without the body. By ignoring the physicality of this ritual, the produced representation seems to acquire a non-bodily form beyond the spatial and temporal particularity. It can be decoded within another space at a different time and be understood without going through the same physical ritualised behaviour.378 At a set hour, a Lebanese employee would bring coffee into my office. In this way, I do not even need to get up, leave the quiet of my office, take up the effort of coffee making myself or meet my colleagues. Moreover, the Lebanese employee keeps the garden trimmed for leisure walks, cleans the Institute, my own office included, after I have left. In exchange for his labour he receives a wage. His manual labour enables me to focus solely on my mind. The enclosed space offers a calm surrounding for a meditating, self transcending experience. Amidst this physical surrounding, the individual body is submersed within the concrete institutional body. The disappearance of the individual body is enabled through the material, socio-political power of the institution. The focus upon the mind is made possible through a reduction of bodily abilities secured by way of external power, such as the exchange of capital for manual labour. Moreover, the academic culture establishes certain rites of passage for those who are allowed into this privileged ritual space. In order to enter the institution, I must pass a check point with a security officer, who asks for my Institute identity card and then reports me to the front desk secretary, who is able to see me through the installed camera. The Institute card is mainly given to academics, thus securing a certain habitual reproductive behaviour. Those who function within the academic culture embody the norms over years of bodily participation within communally performed rules. Other people who would intrude into the shared institutional habitus are kept away through this bureaucratic convention. Control, and therefore group cohesion, is not exercised through the direct bodily interaction or through an agreed and negotiated content based on certain scripture, as in the case of C/P groups. Instead, the control is enforced through external physicality, which then allows for a larger internal mental freedom. However, this 378 Although to some extent the act of reading does reinforce at least partially the ritualized behaviour. In order to read, the body must be controlled and bodily interaction with others is minimized.

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form of institutional bodily discipline is not assigned to a particular individual and is therefore experienced as objective due to its persistence through time and realness beyond the particular temporality. As Christoph Wulf rightly remarks on the ritual, the divergence of content is held together through the repetitive form. “Even when the participants’ interpretations vary, the simple fact that the ritual takes place encourages the creation of a group identity.”379 The sublime force of such an embodied institutional habitus is only felt consciously in moments when individuals break out of the habitually performed norm. When I presented my research on the C/P movement, I intended to play C/P worship music and perform a C/P ritual. However, I felt awkward doing so as the intensity of sound and bodily behaviour would clearly break with the reduced body ritual of the institute colloquium. When my colleagues decided to watch the world cup in the Garden of the institute, the same academic habitus was extended to the game as well. Academic staff had difficulty expressing themselves through shouting and bodily gestures whereas the Lebanese also attending cheered the German team on with passion. One Lebanese guest remarked to me that he felt as if the Lebanese have a stronger desire for the German team to win than the Germans themselves. However, I believe that the disciplined institutionalized body could not easily switch modes of behaviour as the specific setting did not allow a sudden expression of physicality. I suspect that the same academic staff would behave very differently when watching the same game with their friends in a German pub. With the lack of external power resources, the C/P mediation is more physical than that of the academic and requires a higher agreement on the content, whereas the external economic and political power of an academic institution favours the reduction of bodily senses and a more diverse content. Production of knowledge requires certain material-cultural conditions which enable a deep concentration of the mind. These are enforced through external political-economic means. However, these conditions are submerged as produced knowledge, in a written form, suggests a transcending of peripheral daily conditions. An intentional detachment requires a power structure which secures the body. Taylor admits disengagement as a possible methodological procedure. However, through his critique of Descartes, he points out that the “[…] fateful move was, once again, the ontologizing of this disengaged perspective, reading it into the constitution of the mind itself […].”380 The disengaged look and the submergence of deeper narratives is maintained systematically, as Taylor emphasizes:

379 Wulf, 2006, p. 399. 380 Taylor, 1995b, p. 66.

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[…] the hold of the disengaged view on our thought and culture, which has a lot to do, of course, with the hegemony of institutions and practices that require and entrench a disengaged stance: science, technology, rationalized forms of production, bureaucratic administration, a civilization committed to growth, and the like.381

Within the academic culture, demarcation is not performed by individual bodies, but through external political-economic forces, which then enables a disengaged, seemingly non-bodily objective view. The transcending of the particular context is therefore secured through external power and is immanent as the rituals in place follow fixed predictable patterns. Research colloquiums can be described as academic rituals. Everyone sits in a circle around tables. The authority of the ritual expert is not earned through his body or visible performance, but through knowledge production and institutional confirmation. However, this institutional authority is expressed through bodily performance as well. For example, the director opens up the colloquium just like a worship leader opens up the communal C/P ritual. The director’s feedback carries more weight than comments of mere colleagues; he is allowed to walk in and out, as his time is not bound through the ritual. Similar to the C/P preacher, the director also has more freedom to transgress ritual boundaries. His persona stands for the entire institution. These rituals create a transcending experience for the individual researcher as s/he engages in conversation with other researchers, while together they feel that they are part of a larger, ongoing tradition and knowledge production which existed before them and will continue after them. While this historic process is impersonal, it is made personal through particular individuals who direct their attention, discover and clarify earlier written thoughts, thereby securing the continuing communally established impression of transcendence. Testimony plays a crucial, although often unacknowledged role in the production of academic realness. The trustworthiness is secured not through predictable ethical behaviour, but through standardized academic convention, for example clear quotation techniques. Field research makes the scholar an expert and eyewitness, who has been present physically. Similarly, a scholar producing texts must represent his/her trustworthiness as someone, who has read and understood original documents. The original experience and the ongoing adherence to academic expectations which are codified in certain academic values like source transparency and analytical skill, lends the testifier authority to be heard and enter a discursive academic practice. In contrast to C/P rituals, the academic realness is impressed through external demarcation, which enables bodily reduction and mental mediation. The academic rituals aim at control and disengagement as a methodological procedure. 381 Ibid., p. 75.

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Through academic rituals the non-bodily and detached mode of being in the world is ontologized through deep mental commitments which are then extended to other spheres of life. In spite of this, people involved in academia also experience a bodily, emotional and C/P ritual-like state. In Western Europe, the C/P mode of being in the world is represented through arts and the media. At the concert of their favorite band, the C/P believer and an academic may resemble each other, even if for a moment. However, the difference lies in the significance each assigns to this intense bodily ritual experience. When the academic leaves the concert, s/he is aware that this was a temporal emotional-bodily release. This cathartic moment is necessary in highly disciplined societies in order to endure the fragmented spheres. The individualized body is coerced into an imposed external order with its disciplined routinized behaviour even though this order allows controlled breaks of uncontrolled behavior. However, the C/P believer views the ritual experience not as a temporal escape, but as a core stance position towards life. Thus, s/he seeks to incorporate the world into the ritual, while a secular academic views this bodily-emotional experience as a temporal release, in order to return to the overall immanent structure. For the academic, the primary, basic realness overcomes certain modes of being in the world, which a C/P believer views as primary, such as expressivity, immediacy and the body. Thus, this fundamental difference remains even though C/P believers and secular academics share a common goal in their respective mediations: Transcendence of particular tensions and incommensurabilities in order to arrive at a higher, more general perception of reality. The C/P believers and secular academics achieve this through different means and modes of being in the world, as they have different power resources and guiding meta-narratives. However, the fundamental human desire of reconciling mind and body, the concrete material-cultural conditions and the imagined possibilities, remains and is realized through divergent actions. Perhaps due to this common goal each culture negates and excludes the other as there is a power struggle at the core about how these experienced dualities can be mediated best. Since various spheres and segments of our society interpenetrate and interact, realness also changes. Both C/P and academic realness mediate change and cause change as well.

4.4. Change of realness Our impression of the world around us is conditioned by both stability and movement, closeness and distance, both temporally and spatially. We conceive of the world as a stable, reoccurring order, as for example, through the reoccurring seasons of the year. However, our bodies perceive the passing of time through the process of aging. Process seems to be a more basic category than stability.

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However, certain stable moments are required for both ritual and academic reflection. Understanding requires a pause and closure of concepts. Similarly, a ritual requires both a demarcation from the every-day flow and a repetition of the ritual. Through a ritual, humans transcend the ever changing everyday life and take up a transcending view. This presupposes a nature of reality which remains stable and predictable. In the biblical narratives, God is conceived of as beyond time and therefore not affected by temporary change. Thus, in order to mediate change, both stability and movement needs to be related and explained in relation to the body. As mentioned above, realness changes due to 1. alteration of the material-cultural conditions, 2. a new interpretation of the meta-narrative and subsequently, 3. new practices which mediate between 1. and 2. Both C/P and academic realness can be conceptualized as changing realness as well as a force, which itself causes change of other perceptions of realness. Both C/P believers and academics experience change and are agents of change. C/P narrative conceives of stability as solely a divine ability as God is outside the spatial and temporal confines and therefore remains the same. For C/P believers, the sameness of God’s character provides an emotional stability amidst rapid socio-economic changes in a post war situation. Yet God is also actively involved in the world through his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is associated with movement and dynamic change. By placing their trust in the unchanging nature of God, C/P believers embrace change as a human reality and view it positively as God himself is actively involved in redeeming and transforming all of material-cultural reality. Rituals serve as demarcated, repeatable realms of moving beyond the spatiotemporal categories in order to experience the wholeness and God-like state of stability. Humans are able to transcend shifting particularities through their imagination. Rituals ground the transcending narratives within the body. C/P rituals do not depend on external socio-economic conditions and can be demarcated solely by the individual body. Therefore, they are easily adjustable to various contexts and cultures. The C/P rituals redirect the person towards larger goals and transform the believer on an emotional level. This internal transformation leads to action outside of the ritual as activity is interpreted as a visible sign of the dynamic internal activity of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the C/P ritual realness enters into interaction with other social spheres. One C/P preacher contrasted true, spirit filled believers with “lazy philosophers”. From within the C/P realness, academics appear lazy. Laziness is commonly understood to describe someone who does not want to work and is physically inactive. The C/P preacher’s statement could be interpreted as an evaluative statement in order to describe the mind-body split, as academics mostly describe what the world is like and leave the transformation of it to practitioners.

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Even though this mental-bodily division is sought to be overcome in Marxist and feminist theories, the material-cultural conditions, which enable academic rituals, reproduce this mind-body division. Activist academics, who establish a close link between the mind and socio-economic bodily conditions, are themselves bodily exposed to the existential realities, which trigger a close theoretical attention to these relations. However, in most cases, the academic ritual is demarcated through external power. Therefore, the academic speech is descriptive and does not aim to directly change the world which stands in contrast to the proclamative C/P usage of language. One could explain this detachment by pointing out that once the immediate bodily needs for survival are provided for, the mind is freed towards theoretical abstractions. The stable position from which an individual transcends the chaotic present would appear to exists within a vacuum, yet is maintained by external socio-economic forces. The stability of the body favours representational language as the body does not feel the tension and therefore lacks a push to act upon the world through speech. Ronald L. Grimes, in referring to Burke, points out the double function of language: The split between doing and speaking, however, need not be absolute. Burke knows that words mean as well as do, so his dramatistic metaphors never become polar opposites of linguistic ones. For him, language is rhetorical; people are moved by it. Language does not merely reflect, mirror, or inform; it also deflects, selects, and even creates reality. Language is an actor in its own right; words constitute vocal gestures.382

The performative use of language in C/P rituals is obvious. Within academic rituals, the performative use of language is less evident, but nevertheless present. For example, when the director of the Institute opens up the research colloquium, he declares through the use of words within an authoritative role the beginning of the ritual. The term ‘lazy’ may also have been used to describe the seemingly passive role of the academic as rhetoric and body are relegated to the peripheral. A certain non-bodily habitus evokes the appearance of objectivity. While the external bodily-rhetorical use of the other is analysed and criticised, the academic habitus maintains the impression of the unmoved, dispassionate look, which implies reasonableness. However, the impression of disengaged objectivity is maintained by submerging the performative, engaged, emotional and ritual aspect of academic realness. This seeming absence of otherwise daily human expressive modes must be viewed as demarcated ritual space. While theory relies on bodily power relations of the everyday life, it achieves a seemingly disengaged position by suppressing the very same conditions which gave rise to theoretical 382 Grimes, 2006, p. 384.

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objectification. This became all the more evident to me while studying at Saint Joseph University in Beirut and also drawing from the observations of my wife Lisa Fahnestock Dyck as she studied in the Masters program in ChristianMuslim relations at USJ. As the outer power shell decreases, the individual body comes to the fore even in academic rituals. At times, it was baffling to me how “un-objective” the academic professors seemed to be as they did not even attempt to take up a higher objective analytical position, but argued emotionally for a specific socio-ethical position. However, their existential commitments from within their practical engagements as political/social/religious activists explained the presence of their bodies and the resemblance of the academic ritual to that of a religious/political ritual. Rhetorical persuasion, bodily expressivity, religious gestures and prayers; the distinct ritual spheres were intermingled as the academic sphere is not as strongly demarcated, due largely to the lack of economic resources and the weak political state. The academic reality in such a context is more easily perceived as a platform for persuasion, rather than as a centre for objective representations and thus resembles more the C/P rituals, which do not hide the intention of transforming the individual towards a commitment towards the C/P form of life. Moreover, academic realness submerges C/P realness due to the power struggle over the most basic interpretations of reality, which are guided by different images. As Grimes points out: Images, especially performed ones, are more effective than theories at actually challenging dominant, popular ideas of ritual. Hence, it is essential that we who think of ourselves as theorists attend to the images, both latent and manifest, that inhabit our theories.383

The latent image, which informs the academic ritual, is that of a system of disembodied knowledge, which is formed through tradition and maintained and transformed through an ongoing discourse. The system is akin to a mechanical structure, which is maintained by humans and which also affects the human minds in return, but as a structure, does not have its own will or agency. Therefore, when the individual researcher subtracts his own body from the ritual, s/he evokes this impersonal structure, which appears objective as it refers to the immovable, lasting entities, which are independent from particular time and space. This information retains its stability through codified cultural techniques such as writing. Through the performance of the academic rituals, this latent image is embodied. When I enter an academic conference, I find the physical setting conducive to analytically exposing various relations within the system of meaning in analysing the social phenomena. When participating in 383 Grimes, 2006, p. 392.

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C/P rituals, the physical presence suggests a different basic relation to the world. C/P and academic realness differ at the core as expressed through different imagery. An impersonal system, which is solely controlled by human minds on the one side, stands in stark contrast to the human-divine relationship, which can not be controlled, but requires self-giving and abandonment to the divine person. The closest human imagery for worship, which Elias mentioned to me in our conversation, was that of reciprocate sexual relationship. “Laziness” can also describe absence of bodily movement. If an ideal action within (if) presupposes a self-reflexive agent, it will naturally be diminished due to the prior reflexive pause. Contrary to this understanding, the C/P believers move while they ask the Holy Spirit to move them. Agency does not depend completely on the mind of the individual and his ability to articulate reasonably his intentions as is the expectation within the academic world. Instead, agency also occurs prior to the individual understanding of it, as the Holy Spirit moves within and outside the individual body and has a better insight into reasons, goals and causes for actions. C/P actions are therefore less reliant on mental control and socio-economic conditions. “Laziness”, as framed by the C/P preacher, can therefore be viewed as a slower motion due to the higher reliance on individual mental abilities and calculation. On the contrary, C/P actions are under lesser individual control and therefore, can occur faster and more open ended as the intentions must not be framed prior to the actions. Sometimes, as in the story of Mary and the broken glass, the individual acts without full awareness of the reasons and goals for the action. These kinds of actions break the old habitus. This newness is interpreted as a creative action of the Holy Spirit, who indwells the C/P believer and remains a dynamic agent. The evaluation of character is also implied when a person is described as lazy. A person can only afford to be lazy if someone else has worked out the basic conditions for his/her bodily leisure. Therefore, laziness is secondary and redundant. Activity or performativity is thus prior to and involves a fuller sensory expression than theorizing, as C. Wulf summarizes: The power of performative processes results in the incorporation of power structures through the structuring and constitution of world and perceptions; it creates a habitus that is expressed both in particular lifestyles and in the recognition of authorities and hierarchies. Through the staging of physical performances, interaction forms, language patterns, images and rhythms, spaces and time orders, and schemas and strategies are incorporated into the body. The body thus becomes a social repository, as it were. Through its performative construction the body’s relation to itself is defined and a physical geography is developed that contains the pragmatics and schemes of role distribution as well as identity inscriptions. Understanding performativity as productive mimetic normativity in this context means conceiving individual representation as a location for the performance of norms that allows the individual to present the

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norms to which he is subject. Both the fact that these norms are applied and the manner in which this occurs, play more significant roles in this process than theoretical deliberations concerning the norms themselves.384

In a similar vein, Charles Taylor points out that reasoning is only possible against an articulated background, which is embodied through actions. Thus, C/P rituals in their basic mode of expressivity and engagement towards life embody the background realness which then affects other social institutions and theorizing. While Wulf ’s insight has been extensively applied to the role of religious rituals, academic rituals have escaped scrutiny for the most part. To theorize the cultural-material conditions of your own beginnings and background requires a meta-perspective, which is more difficult to achieve than a mere look at the phenomena in front of the researcher. Even if the academic acknowledges his/her own incomplete knowledge, s/he presupposes the knowing of other minds. Within this system, the grasp on reality remains a purely quantitative problem, assuming an exhaustible approach which would be able to arrive at a comprehensive explanation. From an academic perspective, an immanent system, even if very complex can be increasingly exposed and explained through research given enough time and human minds. On the contrary, at the core of C/P ritual and realness lies the image of relationship. God as qualitatively other and the source of everything that exists, evades human control and can only be comprehended through the individual self-giving. Therefore, the basic aim is initially the loss of control, resulting in openness to unexpected receiving and being filled with the divine presence from beyond the spatiotemporal realm. From the C/P view, a desire to control God through the academic ritual and representational language must fail as it remains an illusion, even though a ritual contemplation and understanding might be admitted as a particular human endeavour. Moreover, bracketing God from realness inevitably leads to a void and a distortion of reality. From within the academic ritual, the C/P rituals appear as surface events. Rhetorics, body and expressivity seem as surface processes obscuring the unmoving content underneath and behind these images. The unacknowledged physicality of academic rituals supports the focus of the mind upon theorizing. Thus, as the academic theorizes, s/he attempts to arrive at primary entities and discover causes/mechanisms which underlie the shifting surfaces. These mechanisms are then codified and become fixed narratives. These written academic accounts are then transmitted through education into various social spheres. In order to control the C/P phenomena, it must be bodily reduced through the medium of writing and re-description as understanding requires 384 Wulf, 2006, p. 403.

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closure, which then excludes relational openness. The academic realness imbues C/P realness with a stable, predictable, institutional outlook. As a result C/P realness loses its transformative force due to the loss of its physicality in the academic setting and openness towards the divine, which is increasingly replaced by human control. Moreover, if religious practitioners also embody the academic realness through years of participation within academic rituals, the C/P realness appears as something fleeting and fragile in comparison to the enduring, solid, institutional habitus. Propositional knowledge, as in the case of academic realness, replaces performative agreement. In return, C/P realness also affects the academic realness. Due to the growing C/P movement worldwide, some sociologists began to adjust the conventional theories of secularisation. Theorists began to notice that with the progress of modernisation, religion does not progressively resemble the academic institutional habitus, but continues to reinvent itself, as in the case of the worldwide C/P culture. Thus, major paradigmatic narratives were readjusted. Summarizing this fact in my definition above, the (1) persisting and evolving religion led to (2) alteration of the sociological paradigm of modernisation and subsequently (3) new academic practices of increasing research focus on religion. Although C/P and academic realness differ from and compete with one other about the most basic interpretation of reality, there remains nevertheless similarities, which I, being at home in both worlds, view as complementary. By embracing my hypothesis of realness, both C/P and academic realness must be viewed as two distinct expressions within the same world. If this presupposition is accepted, I believe that each can function as a mirror for the other and therefore increase the self-reflectivity on both sides. Both the C/P believer and a secular academic can gain deeper understanding into their own ontology by allowing the other to question and touch the beginning ground of reflection. If differences and the subtle power structures, which change the other, are acknowledged, similarities and common goals may be found. Although it seems that the C/P realness relies on a stark dualistic ethical concept while the academic habitus stands beyond good and evil, a closer look betrays the inescapable ethical stance of both. In a volatile country like Lebanon, primary discourse is seen as effective and useful. Few people have the economic resources to engage the academic sphere. I asked one Lebanese scholar of Religious Studies whether research has been done on the C/P movement in Lebanon. He responded wryly : “There is no one here to read this stuff.” A C/P praying believer sees him/herself as an active part of God’s transforming the world. Through the embodying of the Holy Spirit, s/he is able to actively transform him/herself and the world by evoking God’s power and acting out the metanarrative s/he tells through testimony and prayer. Similarly, a scholar is also embedded within the larger historic discourse which is beyond

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his/her particular life world. Thus both, the praying believer and a secular scholar enter as mediums within the service of a larger discourse. Merold Westphal sees the de-centered self as the core essence of prayer. Thus the subject does not constitute its own origin. “It does not make itself, but rather receives itself in receiving what is given to it [….]. It is the gift that makes the response possible.”385 Within this reasoning, both the C/P believer and the scholar alike could be seen as de-centered selves, which “must abandon the project of being the center in terms of which meaning, truth, and goodness are defined.”386 A good scholar is aware of the complexity of realness and his own limited position. Both a C/P believer and a self reflexive scholar are aware of their own particularity and seek to transcend the spatio-temporal limitations. This getting beyond presupposes an incompleteness and a desire for fullness, which is partially envisioned and experienced yet not completely grasped. Within this tension, both a C/P believer and a good scholar struggle for actions and words in order to grasp the yet unseen and unfelt which lies underneath and beyond the everyday surface experience. In the beginning of my research, there stood an apparent stark contrast between the C/P and academic being in the world. I hope that by casting light upon the common being in the world, both the C/P believer and a secular academic may be moved to appreciate the difference of life worlds by becoming aware of his/her own particularity. I intended to lessen the artificial gulf of (if) and (tf) and therefore conclude with Goodchild’s remarks that the understanding and appreciation of the other might also lead towards a merging encounter, in this case, the equation of thinking and prayer: “And I understood that […] thinking, directed toward the outside, toward a potential future, toward a higher understanding, characterized by charity, by hope, and by faith, is prayer.”387 Hopefully, my work will contribute to the appreciation of difference, while retaining a shared notion of humanity within a common world.

4.5. Projections for further research My work is a trajectory in interdisciplinary research of C/P expressions of Christianity. With the continuing influx of C/P Christian migrant workers to the Middle East from Africa and Asia combined with the increasing globalized working market, a further account of this evolving expression of Christianity could be further explored. Throughout my field research I have encountered C/P African and Asian groups, but restricted my focus to Arabic speaking groups. 385 Westphal, 2005, p. 31. 386 Westphal, 2005, p. 31. 387 Goodchild, 2005, p. 243.

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Furthermore, one of the main weaknesses in working interdisciplinary in pursuing a research question lies in the necessary constraints upon a deeper analysis in one given discipline. I see a further need for a thicker ethnographic account of C/P expressions of Christianity within Middle Eastern urban contexts. Moreover, I hope that my suggested hypothesis of realness will be further refined from philosophical and sociological angles. The hypothesis of realness could be standardized and employed as a tool to measure the degree of realness in rapidly changing societies. As the hypothesis of realness allows several disciplines such as Cultural Anthropology, Philosophy, Biology, Sociology, Media Studies and Religious Studies/Theology, to enter into conversation, the concept of realness as a normative human impression could be further elaborated and unite diverse disciplines into a shared theoretical framework.388 Finally, I believe that the hypothesis of realness provides a paradigm which could serve in analyzing and explaining change as it relates both to the micro and macro context. In particular, the role of advancing technological innovations for the bodily mediation and the global migration processes could be explored applying the hypothesis of realness, looking at how the particular perception of realness changes with the increasing mobility, transformation of the body and shifting meta-narratives.

388 Upon finishing my research I have discovered anthropological/sociological research, which asks similar questions I have addressed in my work and arrives at comparable conclusions as my own. Tanya Luhrmann researched how God becomes real to praying Evangelicals and Mellor/Shilling introduce the category of the secular as a unifying framework for the religious and secular phenomena. See: Luhrmann (2006) and Mellor/Shilling (2014).

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Object index

“Abundant Life” 11, 31seq., 47, 49seq. Action 13, 19, 26, 34, 38, 44, 55, 59–62, 64–67, 70–85, 87–89, 93seq. , 96, 100, 107–109, 118, 128–130, 133–136, 139– 143, 148–152, 154, 156, 161–163, 168, 176seq. , 179–181, 183seq., 186–188, 193–196, 205, 208seq. , 219, 223seq. , 230–237, 239, 241, 243–246, 250, 254– 256, 258–263, 269seq. , 273seq. , 276 Agency 26, 29, 37seq. , 58, 62seq. , 70– 85, 88–93, 100, 104seq. , 107seq. , 114– 117, 119–122, 125, 133–137, 139–141, 144, 148–150, 152, 156, 158, 162, 165, 168, 174seq. , 177–181, 184, 191, 208, 216, 224seq. , 230–232, 235, 237seq. , 241–244, 246seq. , 257, 261seq. , 272seq. Agent, Social 14, 19, 37seq., 62seq., 70– 73, 75–80, 83seq., 86, 103, 105, 116, 120seq., 124, 135, 137, 143, 147, 150, 152, 156, 159, 168seq., 174, 191, 211, 216, 232seq., 244, 251, 253, 257seq., 262, 270, 273 Anthropology 16, 19, 23, 26, 55, 213, 235, 248, 277 Authority 20, 31, 34seq., 41, 46seq., 51, 55, 68, 87, 93, 104, 109, 112seq., 117seq., 136, 141, 145, 148seq., 151, 154, 157seq., 162seq., 165–167, 174, 180, 182, 186, 188, 190, 193–195, 209seq., 217, 220– 222, 224, 238, 248, 268 – Patriarchal 109 – Religious 149

– Spiritual 104, 109 – State 190 Background 13, 15seq., 21, 25, 43, 54, 66, 70–72, 78, 80, 95, 107, 117, 125, 128, 142, 144, 158, 170seq., 177–179, 202, 205seq., 210, 222, 229, 241, 250, 253seq., 260seq., 264, 274 Beirut 9, 15–18, 21seq., 29, 32, 35seq., 38–40, 45seq., 50, 60, 80, 84, 87, 95, 99, 101seq., 106, 112, 118, 124, 131, 136, 138, 146seq., 150, 152, 154, 159, 164, 166, 178, 188, 190seq., 198, 201, 204, 206, 208, 219seq., 251, 253, 264, 272 Believer 15seq., 19–21, 25seq., 31, 35, 37seq., 41–44, 50, 52seq., 60–63, 66seq., 76seq., 79, 81–83, 85–90, 92seq., 96seq., 99–101, 103–107, 109seq., 112, 115seq., 119–121, 123–125, 129–139, 141–148, 150–152, 154, 156–164, 166, 168, 170– 177, 179–181, 183–190, 192seq., 195seq., 198, 210–222, 231, 233seq., 236seq., 239, 241, 243seq., 255, 260– 263, 269seq., 273, 275seq. Bible, Biblical 18, 21, 43, 51–53, 61, 65, 74–76, 84–86, 88seq., 99, 115–117, 121, 134, 137seq., 146, 158, 161, 168, 172, 176seq., 183–185, 187, 212, 233, 239, 243, 263, 270 Body 13, 34seq., 42, 49, 51, 58seq., 61–64, 66–78, 80, 82–94, 96–98, 100seq., 105, 108seq., 113–116, 118seq., 122, 125– 127, 130seq., 133seq., 136–139, 141–

290 143, 146, 148–150, 152, 155, 157, 161seq., 164, 166–169, 171, 174–177, 180–182, 186–194, 218, 222–224, 227, 231, 233, 237, 243, 251, 254–274, 277 Boundary 15, 101, 127, 130, 142, 145, 149, 158, 173, 252, 257, 263 Break 21, 24, 33–35, 43seq., 62, 67, 69, 76, 88, 108, 110, 133, 137, 173, 176, 178seq., 201, 208, 210, 218, 220, 236seq., 239, 267, 269, 273 Capitalism, Capitalist 37, 40, 50, 79, 95seq., 99, 101, 138, 152, 155, 192, 224, 232, 261 Causation, Causal 14, 37seq., 70seq., 91, 230–233, 235, 241–244, 253seq. Change, Social 13, 16, 22seq., 25, 32, 34, 37, 39seq., 50, 53, 56, 60, 62, 65, 76, 78seq., 90–92, 100–103, 105, 108seq., 115seq., 118seq., 139, 141–143, 151– 153, 159seq., 164, 166, 171, 173, 178– 180, 185–187, 189, 191, 193, 207seq., 213, 216, 219, 224, 233seq., 236, 240, 251, 255seq., 260, 262, 269–271, 275, 277 “Chemin Neuf” 11, 31, 39, 41, 50–52 Civil War 18, 31, 36–38, 40seq., 49, 60, 66seq., 79, 82, 95–97, 99, 101seq., 146, 149, 156, 160, 179, 190, 192, 195, 204– 207, 210seq., 233 Class 14, 34seq., 50, 79, 90, 120, 157, 169, 174, 179, 190seq., 211, 232, 239 Closeness 46, 52seq., 69, 117, 126, 162, 251, 253, 261, 269 Cohesion 24, 64, 152, 161seq., 192, 206, 266 Community 22, 26, 30seq., 37, 39–41, 44– 47, 49, 51, 62, 66, 78seq., 84, 86, 90, 92seq., 95–98, 101–103, 111, 117, 123, 130, 132, 138, 145, 149–151, 154seq., 157, 159, 162, 166, 173seq., 182, 184seq., 191seq., 195, 201, 204–208, 211, 216, 261, 264seq. Constructionism, Constructivist 59 Consumer, Consumerism 32, 37, 40, 138seq., 152, 155, 160, 192, 261seq.

Object index

Context, Contextual 9, 13, 16–18, 30, 32, 34–38, 42seq., 55, 58, 61, 74, 76, 78, 83, 85, 87, 93seq., 99, 101, 112–114, 118seq., 122, 125seq., 131, 134, 136seq., 150seq., 153, 155, 161, 164, 169–172, 175, 177, 184, 188, 203seq., 210, 215seq., 219, 221, 227, 232, 235seq., 239, 243seq., 248, 250, 254seq., 261–264, 268, 270, 272seq., 277 Continuity 33seq., 61, 179, 213, 230 Control 38, 55, 58, 66, 69–73, 75seq., 80– 84, 86seq., 91, 95–97, 100, 104seq., 114, 117, 130seq., 137seq., 141, 158, 173, 189, 191, 201, 214seq., 237, 251, 253, 262, 266, 268, 273–275 Conversion 15, 24–26, 35, 40seq., 53, 109, 156seq., 160seq., 188, 196, 211, 213– 215, 217–220, 261 Critical Realism 241–243, 245, 253 Culture 17–19, 25, 30seq., 33–35, 37, 41, 45, 49, 56, 58, 64, 67seq., 74, 77seq., 92, 94–96, 101, 106seq., 111seq., 116–120, 125, 129, 132, 137–139, 141seq., 144– 146, 150, 152–159, 162–165, 167seq., 170seq., 174–180, 182, 192, 195seq., 203seq., 210, 213, 216, 220, 229, 234, 237, 239, 243seq., 256, 258, 265seq., 268–270, 275 Deference 55–57, 209 Demarcation 32, 59, 61–64, 101, 118seq., 130, 145, 177, 180seq., 206, 208, 259, 268, 270 Democracy, Confessional 38, 40, 99, 102, 192 Deprivation 25seq., 37, 211, 234 Dialogue, Dialogical 19, 51, 76, 84, 123, 169, 216, 228, 230, 240 Dichotomy 21, 98, 105, 180, 253 Distance 19, 38, 46, 76, 92seq., 116, 133, 166, 205, 214seq., 222, 251, 253, 261, 269 Drama, Dramatic 44, 65, 70, 87, 164, 180, 211seq., 217 Dualism 19, 71, 256–258

Object index

Ecclesial 31, 51, 53, 97seq., 100, 107, 111, 117, 150–152, 154, 158, 161–163, 165– 167, 169, 210, 248, 250 Economic 13, 18–20, 23, 25seq., 30seq., 33–37, 39, 45, 49seq., 56, 66–68, 77–80, 82, 90–93, 96–100, 102, 104, 109seq., 113, 119seq., 128, 136–143, 147, 150seq., 153, 157, 164, 174seq., 190– 192, 202, 212, 219, 231–234, 238, 241, 262seq., 265, 267seq., 270–273, 275 Emergence 13, 15seq., 26, 29, 36, 172, 176, 234, 236, 243, 245, 251 Emic 54, 70, 181 Emotion 39, 65–70, 83, 92, 94, 100, 102seq., 105, 107, 113, 123, 155, 166seq., 169seq., 239, 259, 265 – Fear 22, 29, 39, 66seq., 89–92, 101– 103, 147, 159, 188, 190, 192, 199, 206 – Joy 43seq., 49, 72seq., 82seq., 89, 107, 113, 137, 146, 189, 198, 202 – Sadness 66, 68, 113 – Shame 18, 84, 110, 204 Empirical 16seq., 26, 55, 71, 128, 214, 227–229, 235, 238, 240–242, 255, 260 Energy 62seq., 65, 67, 69seq., 73, 79, 81seq., 84, 108, 115seq., 119, 122, 142, 162, 174, 223, 230, 232, 259 Ethics, Ethical 19, 25, 27, 136seq., 162, 176, 194, 218, 225, 227–230, 232, 238, 240, 245, 249, 251, 268, 272, 275 Etic 54, 70, 125, 181 Experience 13, 24, 26, 31–35, 40, 44seq., 50–53, 60seq., 63, 65seq., 69seq., 73–81, 84–88, 90–93, 95, 98, 104, 106, 108seq., 112–114, 117–123, 125–129, 131–137, 140, 146seq., 152, 159–164, 168–170, 175, 178–181, 184–186, 188, 190, 193, 199seq., 203, 206–210, 212seq., 216seq., 219, 224, 227, 231, 234, 237, 239–242, 246seq., 251, 254, 256–260, 262seq., 265seq., 268–270, 276 Explanation 18, 37seq., 44, 56, 61, 67, 71– 73, 76, 78, 81, 89seq., 116, 129, 140, 143, 175, 195, 230–233, 240seq., 243, 252– 254, 274 Ex-tension 35, 128, 143, 174, 181, 184

291 External 11, 26, 36seq., 46seq., 50, 55, 61– 64, 73, 83, 91, 96, 116, 124, 130seq., 137, 141, 147, 151, 154, 161seq., 167, 172, 174, 182, 189, 195, 253, 256, 260, 262– 264, 266–271 Failure 20, 82, 114, 116seq., 119–124, 132, 153, 160, 174, 176seq., 179, 181, 206, 220–222, 239, 243 – Of Mediation 176seq. – Of Ritual 114, 117, 122 – Of Testimony 220 Faith 9, 18, 21, 25seq., 35, 37, 40seq., 51, 67, 128, 134, 141seq., 147, 149, 154, 157, 160, 200, 209, 217, 220, 229, 238, 276 Family 18, 21seq., 32, 36, 44–47, 50, 53, 63, 79, 90, 97–100, 102, 106seq., 111– 113, 120, 125, 130–133, 138, 148, 162, 169, 173seq., 177, 190, 192, 194, 197, 201, 203seq., 206, 221, 261 Female 42seq., 51, 71, 80, 109–113, 115, 117seq., 120, 160, 165–168, 170, 173seq., 187, 189, 221 Field Research 9, 16seq., 20–22, 26, 81, 99, 164, 183, 211, 217, 229seq., 237, 247, 268, 276 Framework 14–16, 23, 26, 33, 51, 55–57, 66, 69, 103, 121seq., 125, 129, 140, 151, 156, 165, 183, 195, 214, 217, 227seq., 232seq., 236, 239–242, 248seq., 254, 261, 277 Framing 64seq., 135, 184, 238 Fullness of Life 169, 186, 231, 263 Gender 13, 23, 31, 80, 109–111, 113seq., 117, 130, 164–172, 174, 177seq., 180, 195, 220 Globalization 27, 106, 151, 236 God 14, 20seq., 31seq., 34, 38–40, 43, 47– 49, 51–53, 56seq., 61seq., 72–78, 80, 82– 90, 92, 95, 98–101, 103–107, 110, 114, 117, 121seq., 124seq., 129, 133–145, 147–150, 153seq., 156, 158, 161–163, 165–169, 172, 175, 177, 179–181, 183– 187, 196–204, 207seq., 210, 212–217, 219, 222, 229, 231seq., 236–239, 241,

292 243, 245–249, 253, 262seq., 270, 274seq., 277 Habitus 13, 19, 50, 103, 133, 137, 143, 151seq., 155, 160, 167–169, 174, 204, 218, 221, 257, 265–267, 271, 273, 275 Healing 23, 30, 34, 53seq., 60, 88, 146, 186, 197seq., 214, 222, 257 Hermeneutics 26 History, Historic 32, 36, 38, 45, 51, 55, 74– 76, 78, 85, 95, 100, 102, 120, 122, 125, 145seq., 150seq., 156–158, 165, 176, 179, 185seq., 195seq., 203, 205–207, 209seq., 213, 215seq., 218, 221, 224, 229, 232, 238seq., 243, 248, 250, 252, 263, 268, 275 Holy Spirit 15, 20, 24, 29, 34seq., 37–41, 43, 50–52, 54, 61–63, 73, 75seq., 80, 82seq., 88–90, 92seq., 95seq., 101, 104– 108, 114, 116–124, 129, 132–134, 136seq., 139, 141–143, 146–148, 150, 152, 154–156, 158–169, 172–175, 177seq., 180, 183seq., 186–190, 192– 194, 199–201, 208, 218–222, 224, 241, 262, 270, 273, 275 Honour 18, 110, 173, 204 Image 20, 60, 95, 101, 115, 135, 139, 167, 170, 189, 272–274 Immanent, Framework 11, 14seq., 78, 80, 87, 91, 100, 135, 137, 140, 148, 156, 175, 179, 231, 237seq., 246seq., 249, 253, 259, 262, 268seq., 274 Immigration 23, 36, 45seq., 110, 143, 204 Incarnation 20, 98 Individualism 34, 93, 100seq., 148, 152, 158, 161seq. Institution, Institutional 18, 20, 22, 33– 35, 39seq., 44, 49, 93seq., 96–98, 108seq., 112, 117seq., 126, 147, 150, 152, 156, 160seq., 165–169, 179–181, 195, 206, 210, 227, 236seq., 254, 256, 261, 264–268, 274seq. Intentionality 56seq., 77, 208, 210, 214, 216, 228

Object index

Internal 11, 26, 37, 39, 44, 52, 63–66, 69, 72seq., 83, 86seq., 93, 117–121, 133, 141, 151, 154, 172, 174, 183, 195, 221seq., 231, 266, 270 Jesus 15, 18, 37, 43, 53, 62, 72, 75, 81, 86seq., 89–91, 98, 104seq., 108, 110seq., 114–116, 118, 123seq., 129, 134, 137, 141, 144–146, 148, 150, 154, 158, 162, 168, 170, 176seq., 181, 185seq., 197– 203, 208, 229seq., 239, 241, 249, 251, 255, 261 Labor 72, 91seq., 140, 153 Laziness 270, 273 Lebanon 15, 18, 21seq., 25, 29–33, 35–37, 40, 42, 45, 52, 68seq., 71, 77, 80, 87, 90, 95, 99, 101, 107, 110, 112seq., 118, 125, 130seq., 135, 138, 143seq., 146seq., 149–151, 153, 155–157, 159, 165, 169, 171seq., 175, 177, 188, 190–192, 196seq., 200, 203–207, 233, 261, 275 Life, Everyday 13, 15, 19seq., 26, 30seq., 33, 35, 37seq., 42–44, 46, 49–51, 55seq., 60, 63, 68–70, 73, 75, 82, 85, 87, 90seq., 98, 100, 102, 105–107, 110–113, 115, 119, 121seq., 124–141, 144, 150seq., 160–166, 168–170, 172, 174, 176, 178– 182, 184–189, 191seq., 195–197, 199, 202, 204, 206–214, 216, 218–220, 222, 224, 227seq., 231, 233seq., 236–238, 240, 242, 245, 251, 253–255, 257, 259– 261, 263seq., 269–272, 274, 276 Life Style 20, 34, 36seq., 46, 82, 87, 97, 102, 139, 160, 172, 189, 262 Material 13, 34–36, 40seq., 50, 53, 59, 61seq., 64, 71–77, 84, 91seq., 94–97, 101, 116, 119seq., 124, 128, 134, 137– 140, 146, 148, 151seq., 159, 185, 191– 193, 198, 213, 230–234, 240seq., 243, 247seq., 253–257, 259–264, 266seq., 269–271, 274 Meaning 19seq., 26, 39, 43seq., 46, 55–59, 61, 74, 76, 87seq., 92, 94–96, 105, 108, 121, 124, 126–128, 132, 143, 145, 154,

Object index

159, 162–164, 169seq., 177seq., 180, 187, 196, 202, 207–213, 216–218, 230– 233, 236, 239, 243, 254–256, 258, 262– 264, 272, 276 Mediation 42, 47, 58seq., 61, 65, 96, 100, 114, 116, 118seq., 122, 125, 163, 175, 181, 183, 196, 220, 224, 255seq., 259, 261–264, 267–269, 277 “Meeting with God” 11, 30seq., 42 Memory 13, 94seq., 119, 132, 155, 182, 188, 190, 196, 205seq., 246 Method 16, 18, 21seq., 163, 216, 234, 236, 250, 253 Mind 13, 39, 56–59, 63, 71–73, 76, 81, 117, 181seq., 186, 198, 210, 214seq., 221, 234, 236seq., 244, 246, 255–259, 265–267, 269–274 Modernity 14seq., 23, 31, 37, 68, 81, 100, 179seq., 191, 215, 242, 262 Movement 9, 11, 15–17, 22–24, 26, 29seq., 32seq., 35–43, 48seq., 51seq., 60–64, 66, 71, 79seq., 98, 107, 119seq., 122, 130, 136seq., 147–151, 153–161, 163–165, 167, 169, 177, 180, 184–186, 188, 199seq., 211, 228, 234, 242, 251, 255, 262, 265, 267, 269seq., 273, 275 Narrative 15, 18–21, 38, 43, 50, 57seq., 61, 64–66, 70, 76seq., 84–86, 104, 112, 116, 121, 123–125, 133seq., 139–143, 145, 156, 161, 163, 170, 172, 183seq., 188, 195seq., 203–205, 207–220, 222–224, 227, 233seq., 243, 249seq., 252–256, 258, 260–263, 265, 267, 269seq., 274seq., 277 Naturalism 229seq., 240, 248 – Non-reductive 229, 240 – Reductive 229seq., 240 Ontology 19, 77, 215, 231, 233, 235, 241seq., 244seq., 250seq., 275 Participation 21, 35seq., 42, 46, 63, 65– 67, 70, 76, 86, 92, 99, 104seq., 109, 135, 152, 155, 157, 161, 175seq., 178, 246, 259, 262, 266, 275

293 Performance 51, 53, 61, 64seq., 69seq., 73, 75, 77, 83–85, 87, 93, 97, 99–101, 103, 108seq., 113seq., 116–118, 121, 124seq., 130seq., 133, 139, 152, 182, 185–189, 194, 232, 257–259, 264seq., 268, 272seq. Physical 24, 34, 39, 52, 58, 60seq., 63, 67, 69, 71, 81–83, 85, 87–92, 94seq., 100, 103–107, 114, 132, 140seq., 143, 162, 167, 170, 178seq., 186–189, 197, 230seq., 233, 237, 240, 243, 258, 261, 263, 265–267, 272seq. Political 9, 23–25, 30seq., 33, 36–41, 46seq., 49, 53–56, 62, 66seq., 77–79, 93, 97, 99, 101–107, 109, 113, 118–120, 125, 130, 134, 137seq., 143–145, 147–152, 154, 156–158, 160, 162–164, 168, 172, 174, 176–180, 184, 187seq., 190–192, 199, 203, 205seq., 208, 210seq., 213, 219, 229, 232, 238, 241, 243, 252, 263, 265– 268, 272 Power 15, 18–21, 26, 30, 32, 38–41, 43seq., 49seq., 65–67, 79seq., 90–94, 96seq., 101–105, 112, 114, 117seq., 121, 124, 130seq., 137, 143seq., 146–149, 151–153, 156seq., 160, 163, 171seq., 175, 182, 185–187, 190seq., 202seq., 206, 208, 210seq., 221seq., 234, 237seq., 241–245, 248, 250, 252seq., 259, 263seq., 266–269, 271–273, 275 Practice 16seq., 19–24, 26, 29–38, 41, 43, 55–57, 62, 64, 76, 78, 109seq., 112seq., 124, 134, 137, 139, 141–144, 147–152, 154–162, 164, 166, 168, 171, 176–184, 186–188, 192–194, 196, 203, 209, 213, 217, 219, 224seq., 228seq., 231–234, 236, 238, 242, 244, 246–248, 250, 253, 255, 257seq., 260, 262, 268, 270, 275 Prayer 14seq., 20, 32, 42–44, 46, 49, 53seq., 60, 62seq., 66, 69, 72, 75, 87, 103seq., 114, 119, 121, 123seq., 132, 134, 137, 142, 148, 154, 162, 177, 179, 185, 187, 197, 199seq., 232seq., 236, 253, 272, 275seq. Preaching 23, 42, 44, 48, 50–54, 70, 74, 76, 84, 89, 99, 110–112, 115seq., 122, 157, 203

294 Private 15, 33, 40, 45–47, 51, 88, 98, 109, 111seq., 117, 119seq., 130–132, 135, 147, 154, 164, 169, 252 Process 13–16, 33, 36, 44, 50, 58seq., 61, 65, 70, 73, 82, 93, 98, 103, 108, 112, 119, 123, 127–129, 132seq., 135seq., 143, 148seq., 158seq., 163, 176seq., 179–181, 187, 191, 193, 203, 216, 221, 223, 227, 230, 234, 238, 246, 248, 250seq., 257, 259, 263, 268seq., 273seq., 277 Prophet, Prophetic 34, 37, 85, 87, 99, 114– 116 Public 24, 30, 34, 41seq., 46seq., 51seq., 77, 84, 88seq., 101, 106, 109, 111–114, 117seq., 120, 124, 130–132, 147–149, 153seq., 156, 159, 164–166, 169seq., 174, 179, 184seq., 190, 206, 252seq., 264 Qualitative 16, 19, 21, 65, 234 Quantitative 18, 21, 40–42, 174, 235, 274 Realness 9, 15seq., 24, 26seq., 37, 53, 62, 78, 85, 91, 114, 118, 122, 124, 126, 136, 140, 146, 164, 169, 174–180, 185seq., 188seq., 195, 219seq., 222–224, 229, 237, 249, 254–256, 260seq., 263seq., 266–277 – Academic 261, 264seq., 267–273, 275 Reduction 17, 71, 181, 233, 235, 240seq., 247, 266–268 Relation 9, 19–21, 24, 33, 35, 42, 46, 48, 59, 61, 68–73, 79seq., 83, 85, 91seq., 94seq., 97, 100, 106, 112, 118, 123seq., 126–130, 133, 136, 139, 150seq., 154, 156, 158seq., 173–175, 177seq., 180, 184seq., 191– 193, 203, 209seq., 213, 223, 230–232, 236, 238, 243seq., 246, 248–254, 257seq., 262–264, 270–273 Relativism 229, 234, 238, 240seq. – Epistemological 234, 240 – Ontological 234 Religion 13, 17, 21–24, 37, 40seq., 46, 55seq., 74, 101seq., 105, 126–128, 131, 133, 140, 148seq., 151, 156, 165, 176– 180, 199, 201, 205, 210, 217, 221, 225,

Object index

229seq., 232–235, 237–240, 242, 245, 247seq., 250, 252seq., 262, 275 – Christianity, Christian 18seq., 21–25, 29–33, 36–42, 44–46, 66, 79, 87, 94seq., 97, 101–105, 107, 109seq., 113, 119, 121, 130, 140seq., 143, 145–150, 153–165, 170–174, 177–179, 187, 190–192, 198, 201seq., 204–215, 218, 221seq., 224, 229seq., 238–240, 249seq., 252seq., 262seq., 272, 276seq. – Charismatic/Pentecostal 9, 11, 15, 29, 38, 42, 78, 196, 203, 261 – Evangelical 11, 25, 29, 32–35, 40, 49, 140, 152seq., 196, 217, 277 – Maronite 29, 31, 33, 36, 39, 46, 50seq., 97, 101seq., 119, 130, 138, 142, 144–146, 150, 152, 155, 158, 164, 166, 200seq., 208, 210seq., 217 – Orthodox 29, 33, 41, 152, 159, 200seq., 217, 229, 245, 249, 253 – Protestant, Liberal 17, 22, 33, 40seq., 70, 74, 76, 80, 86, 106, 156, 177, 200, 208, 217, 250, 264 – Roman Catholic 21, 29, 31–33, 36, 51, 102, 138, 152, 158 – Traditional Churches 11, 29, 31, 33–35, 38, 42, 49, 54, 61–63, 94, 96seq., 149, 217 – Islam, Muslim 22–24, 110, 130, 145, 149, 169, 199, 201, 222 – Shi’a 103, 147, 157seq., 173, 190, 204seq. – Sunni 18, 66, 101, 103, 130, 138, 146, 148seq., 158, 164, 173, 190, 205, 222 Ritual 9, 20, 33–36, 41seq., 46seq., 49–51, 54–70, 72–74, 76–78, 81–86, 88, 92–96, 98, 100–125, 128–139, 142–149, 151seq., 154–158, 160–164, 167–169, 171seq., 174–176, 178–181, 184–186, 190, 194seq., 209, 213, 216, 219, 225, 230– 232, 236, 239–244, 255seq., 259–275 RWO Religious Welfare Organization 99 Sacredness, Sacred, Sacralization 19, 40, 52, 61–63, 65, 89, 94–96, 119, 130, 134,

295

Object index

138, 142, 152, 155seq., 160, 163, 166, 178, 192, 210, 215seq., 218seq., 237, 247, 262, 264 Saint 9, 17, 21, 38, 94seq., 101, 112, 120, 154seq., 158, 161seq., 165, 171, 179, 200, 218, 253, 272 Secular 14seq., 26, 40, 44, 50, 55, 65, 78, 80, 125seq., 128, 133seq., 153, 163, 178– 180, 205, 237, 248–250, 252seq., 262, 264, 269, 275–277 Senses, Sensory 49, 53, 58, 86, 90, 115, 126, 135seq., 186, 188seq., 216, 224, 241, 257seq., 265, 267, 273 Sincerity Culture 106 Social 9, 11, 13seq., 16–19, 21, 24–26, 31, 33seq., 37, 41, 45, 47, 55, 58–61, 65, 68, 77–80, 82, 86seq., 91, 93–100, 102, 105– 107, 110seq., 113, 123, 125, 129, 132seq., 135, 139, 144seq., 147, 149seq., 152seq., 160, 162–164, 172, 174–176, 179–182, 191seq., 194, 206, 208, 211, 215, 218seq., 227–230, 232–245, 247–250, 252–254, 257seq., 261, 264, 270, 272–274 Sociology 9, 23, 26, 66, 215, 230, 235, 252seq., 277 Solidarity 36, 93, 159, 192, 262 Spatial 91, 126seq., 146seq., 162, 175, 180seq., 190, 266, 270 Speech Act 70, 76, 182seq., 185, 187seq., 190, 217, 220, 223, 236, 259 Structure 13, 26, 31, 33seq., 36, 38, 40seq., 45, 51, 58seq., 61seq., 64seq., 68, 84, 93seq., 96–98, 105, 107–109, 111seq., 121, 125, 130seq., 135, 140, 152, 157, 164, 166, 179seq., 184, 188, 191seq., 204seq., 207seq., 210seq., 215, 220, 230, 241, 244, 246, 254seq., 257, 265, 267, 269, 272seq., 275 “Sword of the Spirit” 32 Symbol, Symbolic 34seq., 46seq., 58, 86, 92, 94–96, 102, 139, 145, 147, 149seq., 154, 162, 187, 198, 206seq., 219, 234, 238, 240, 257 Telos, Teleological 250

72, 207seq., 213, 218,

Temporal 14, 58, 62, 86, 100, 114, 119, 122, 125–127, 162, 167, 169, 175, 180seq., 238, 243seq., 256, 266, 269seq., 276 Tension 20, 35, 38, 45, 63, 68, 80, 82, 90, 93, 101seq., 106, 117seq., 125, 129, 133– 136, 142seq., 147, 156, 164seq., 168, 174seq., 177, 180, 205, 209, 232, 243, 248, 251, 253, 258seq., 261, 269, 271, 276 “Tent of Praise” 11, 31, 52, 54 Testimony 20seq., 44, 72, 76, 85, 93, 112, 121, 137, 162, 181–196, 203, 208, 220– 224, 230, 236, 241, 249, 263, 268, 275 Theory 14, 16seq., 26, 55–57, 59, 68, 78, 122, 133, 171, 194, 210seq., 215, 223, 227–232, 242, 245, 247–251, 256seq., 271 Tradition, Traditional 14seq., 22, 24seq., 31–34, 36–39, 45–47, 49, 51seq., 54, 56seq., 62, 68, 76, 79seq., 86, 94, 96seq., 99seq., 106–108, 110, 112seq., 115, 125, 130seq., 138, 146, 148seq., 152–166, 168–175, 178–181, 185, 191, 193–195, 199, 204, 207–210, 215–217, 220seq., 223seq., 229, 233, 238seq., 256, 259– 264, 268, 272 Transcendent, Framework 11, 14, 62, 86, 168, 238, 249seq., 253, 259 Tribe, Tribal 96, 99, 138, 147–151, 160, 172, 206 Trust 17, 21, 36, 44, 47, 55, 69, 85, 102, 106, 121seq., 140–142, 163, 173, 182, 193–195, 204, 213, 221seq., 261seq., 270 Understanding 14, 16seq., 26, 35, 47, 55– 59, 61, 63, 70–76, 78, 82, 88, 116, 125, 128, 138, 140, 145, 157, 163, 165, 169, 171seq., 175, 177seq., 180seq., 184, 191, 199, 203, 209, 213, 216seq., 223seq., 228–230, 233–236, 240–242, 246seq., 250–254, 270, 273–276 Urban 9, 15, 35, 38–40, 42, 48, 98, 101, 138, 146seq., 153seq., 160, 163, 178, 180, 188, 192, 205, 220, 253, 261, 263, 265, 277

296 Warfare, Spiritual 53, 115, 143, 148, 198, 233 Wastah 49, 79, 82, 92, 97–100, 104, 125, 142, 153, 174 Work 17, 20, 23, 25seq., 32, 34, 36, 39, 41seq., 44, 52, 54seq., 57, 65, 68seq., 72, 79, 82, 90seq., 93, 97, 102, 105seq., 112, 117seq., 122, 126, 131, 133, 135, 137, 140–143, 154, 164, 168, 175, 182, 187, 195, 197, 201, 207, 214, 218, 221, 233,

Object index

236, 241, 243, 245, 248, 252, 262, 270, 276seq. Worship 21, 30–35, 42–44, 48, 50, 52–54, 60, 65, 67, 72, 83, 87–89, 95seq., 98, 100, 103, 106seq., 109seq., 112–116, 118seq., 123, 132seq., 144, 146, 148, 153–155, 157seq., 162, 166, 169, 181, 184, 186seq., 199, 217, 222, 227, 267seq., 273 Zionism, Christian

29, 156, 176seq.