University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2014 The Last Remnant: Pentecostal Salvation, Desire, and Queering the Holy Ghost Experience in the Rust Belt Joshua Eugene Noah University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Ethics in Religion Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Noah, Joshua Eugene, "The Last Remnant: Pentecostal Salvation, Desire, and Queering the Holy Ghost Experience in the Rust Belt" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 2255. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2255 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Last Remnant: Pentecostal Salvation, Desire, and Queering the Holy Ghost Experience in the Rust Belt The Last Remnant: Pentecostal Salvation, Desire, and Queering the Holy Ghost Experience in the Rust Belt A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Joshua Eugene Noah Berea College Bachelor of Arts in Appalachian Studies, 2008 Appalachian State University Master of Arts in Appalachian Studies, 2009 August 2014 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _______________________________ Dr. JoAnn D’Alisera Dissertation Director _______________________________ ____________________________ Dr. Kirstin Erickson Dr. Ted Swedenburg Committee Member Committee Member Abstract Iconoclastic parishioners who gather at a Pentecostal church in Rust-Belt Indiana envision their movement to be the final piece of a reconfigured eschatological prophecy; this is a last-day revival that evangelicals have been anticipating for over two thousand years. Having been estranged by intolerance and misunderstanding of scripture, as the narrative goes, “God’s gay children” are returning to the “Shepherd’s fold.” The predominately white and working-class congregation seeks a redefinition of what it means to be homosexual in the United States: persons not thought of simply for sexual desire but a shared normalcy with other moral Christians. Mainstream Pentecostals demonize the dubious movement as a perversion of the sacred, as evidence that they are living in the End of Days. In this dissertation I explore the innovative ways in which believers negotiate and coalesce their queer and Pentecostal identities as they entertain a spirit world and prepare for the Second Coming of Christ. Amidst the homophobia of mainstream evangelicals and the perceived moral dangers of queer America, the reconciled Pentecostals negotiate identity dissonance as they speak in tongues, cast out devils, become “slain in the Spirit,” and dance as a Holy Ghost mounts their born-again bodies. ©2014 by Joshua Eugene Noah All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements I had not planned to go to college until a coworker at a retail job told me I should explore the possibility. This dissertation happened, in part, because of a young woman whose name I cannot even recall. I did not know what a Ph.D. was until I was given the incredible opportunity of attending Berea College, a school devoted entirely to providing a cost-free education to working-class individuals. I am forever grateful to Berea College, which eventually led me to the University of Arkansas for another incredible educational experience. Dr. JoAnn D’Alisera, I hope that I am able to channel your intuition, brilliance, empathy, passion, strength, and genuine love for humanity and your students. You are a wonderful mentor and friend, and I am forever indebted to you. You have been there for me through some rough times. Thanks for helping to make this dissertation a reality. Dr. Kirstin Erickson, thanks for challenging and inspiring me in your class entitled Performance, Narrative, and Identity. I greatly appreciate the ways in which you have always been a source of encouragement. Dr. Ted Swedenburg, many thanks for offering your Queer Theory course, in which you challenged me to think in new ways and develop an understanding of the material. I greatly appreciate your enthusiasm for this project. A special thanks goes out to The Jerome W. Hughes Humanities Enrichment Award at Berea College for funding a pilot study for this project, as well as thanks to Dean Todd Shields and The Graduate School at the University of Arkansas for believing in my work. To a few of my friends, Amanda Phillips, Danielle Quales, Hannah Potts, Terry Gosnell, you have been an invaluable strength during this process. To my mentor at Berea College, Dr. Chad Berry, you are an incredible man. Hope Amason, thanks for taking me under your wing and welcoming me to the program. To my parents, Larry and Mary Jane Noah, I love you more than you know. Both of you have encouraged me to strive for more and to stay true to the human values you helped to instill in me. To my brother, Richard Dellinger, thank you for being a model of intelligence, kindness, and determination. To my sister, Rebecca Noah Tripp, I love you. I realize that the topic of this dissertation, and even my own positionality, may not be palatable, but please know that I have not written it to shame or embarrass those I love. Rather, I have written it as an expression of empathy and a common human love we share for each other, regardless of our differences. To my friends in the Rust Belt and elsewhere who gracefully allowed me to be a part of your lives, your resilience has inspired me to love more. I have made some incredible friends. Please know that you will always be a part of my heart. Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my late grandmother, Janet Snyder Eppley (1926-2012), and to queer people in church pews around the world who, with dreams of honesty, struggle to maintain Pentecostal faith. Table of Contents I. Introduction 1-23 II. The Piano Bench: Fieldwork and Pentecost 24-42 III. A People Who Were Once Not A People 43-70 IV. I Will Pour Out My Spirit Upon All Flesh 71-96 V. Be Ye Not Unequally Yoked 97-122 VI. There is Neither Male Nor Female 123-149 VII. Two Men in One Bed: Two Women Shall Be Grinding Together 150-174 VIII. Conclusion 175-180 IX. Bibliography 181-191 X. Notes 192-202 XI. IRB 203 1 Chapter One: Introduction My research centers on a predominately-LGBT Pentecostal church in the Indiana Rust Belt and the congregation’s desire to form a global network of sexually marginal practitioners. I explore the complexities of queering one of the world’s fastest growing religions, the way in which believers critique mainstream queer America, and their attempt to achieve inclusivity among their normative, Pentecostal counterparts. In particular, I examine the ways that my informants filter everyday experience through biblical text and their assertion that the spiritual reconciliation of LGBT peoples is a final piece of biblical prophecy. As others have been liberated from the bonds of oppression, the marginal Pentecostals contend that liberation and salvation for the LGBT community is inevitable, despite a sensed opposition. Through reimagined belief and practice, my informants reinvent mainstream Pentecostalism and articulate their understanding of the Bible through the performance of piety in public venues. Believers negotiate belonging amidst the homophobia of mainstream evangelicals and mainstream queer America by accepting a neoconservative religiosity as a means to offset an oppressive and spiritually uncertain existence. As such, the notion that they are engaging in a rearticulated oppression, a mere queer copy of heteronormative faith, is challenged. For LGBT Pentecostals, mirroring heteronormative lives and achieving inclusion in the larger faith is preferred over a lifestyle of queer secularism. Accordingly, heteronormative Pentecostal leaders continue to inspire my informants regardless of the fact that such patriarchs view the inclusive movement as a “doctrine of devils.” How these men and women reinterpret biblical text to produce a complex liberation narrative that asserts that queer people are the last remnant of humanity to be reached and reconnected to a gospel that has often, in practice, rejected them, is at the heart of my dissertation. 2 Why Study a Queer Pentecostal Community? Queer and gender theorists typically focus on the intricacies of a particular subset of the broader queer community, whether that means working with men who perform on Saturday nights as drag queens or lesbians living on communes in the countryside, for example. Studying life at the intersections of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, straight, however, does not often happen. This ethnographic data offers insight into a religious community in which the entire spectrum of sexual and gender identities are all together in one setting. Not only are LGBT individuals present in this work but also included are straight informants who are queered because of their connection with the marginal church. This analysis should contribute to dismantling an academic tradition that tends to isolate women and men and by doing so often ignores the interconnections and how such communities overlap. The lives that my friends negotiate are counterintuitive to the hypersexual stigmas that have been branded on their existence and, furthermore, are, in part, a reaction to those imposed stigmas. In addition, queer religion is a subject that has only minimally been explored by social scientists, as marginal sex acts are perhaps too often the focus within queer studies. The queering of Pentecostalism, one of the world’s fastest growing religions, is a critique that is just beginning to occur and one that will continue to transform the faith. Overall, this ethnographic data should contribute to an interrogation of the assumptions that are made about queer lives, imaginings that typically position queer people as anti-Church.