Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology ‘Sounds of the Poor That Deify the Rich’

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283

brill.com/pent

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy as Primary Theology ‘Sounds of the Poor that Deify the Rich’

Monte Lee Rice1 Republic of Singapore [email protected]

Abstract

An ongoing task in Pentecostal studies is identifying categories that articulate Pentecos- tal theology in manners congruent to the intensely embodied liturgical practices that fund Pentecostalism as a theological tradition. In this paper the author suggests as a promising rubric, the patristic era’s monastic and ascetically rooted, Evagrian notion of prayer as theology, which has deeply funded the liturgy as primary theology movement. Together, the author calls these notions the Evagrian-lapt grammar of prayer/liturgy. Part One explores how Steven Land’s A Passion for the Kingdom monograph was a direct by-product of the lapt movement, thus describing Pentecostal spirituality through the Evagrian-lapt grammar. Part Two suggests how this grammar clarifies three pertinent foci within Pentecostal spirituality; Pentecostal primary theology, liturgy, and liturgical ascetics. Part 3 delineates as the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostalism, the shalomic efficacy of its oral liturgy, which generates its primary theology of eschatological hope.

Keywords primary theology – liturgical ascetics – Pentecostal orality – oral liturgy

Introduction

An ongoing task in Pentecostal studies is identifying theological categories that articulate Pentecostal theology in manners congruent to the spirituality

1 Monte Lee Rice (MDiv, Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Philippines, 2002) is a missionary based in the Republic of Singapore. He resides at 308B Anchorvale Road, #17–74, Republic of Singapore 542308.

260 Rice that underwrites Pentecostalism as a gifted theological tradition.2 Provid- ing important headway is Daniel Castelo’s recent book, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition. Towards this aim, Castelo argues that we frame Pentecostalism as a contemporary expression of the ‘mystical tradition of the church catholic’.3 While I resonate with his attempt to show how this tradition provides us an apt grammar,4 I feel that his effort at primarily framing Pentecostal spirituality within the negative (apophatic) theological themes of Christian mysticism5 undermines another crucial task he pursues. Name- ly, communicating this resonance to grassroots Pentecostals in manners that resonate with both Northern and Southern hemispheric expressions of world Pentecostalism.6 Granted, negative theology provides applicable facets to the task, given its stress on human cognitive and linguistic limitations towards theological ar- ticulation. Yet as an entry point, I feel that non-scholarly Pentecostals may too quickly construe the retrieved language as incongruently abstract for the bodily kinetic practices that commonly characterize Pentecostal spirituality.7 We must thus consider which foci and correlating language of Christian mysticism most readily resonates with the embodied practices of Pentecostal spirituality.8 Castelo briefly references one motif that I suggest as a more promising rubric, though perhaps more reminiscent of ancient Christian monastic asceticism. This is the patristic era’s monastic and thus ascetically rooted, Evagrian

2 D. Lyle Dabney, ‘Saul’s Armor: The Problem and Promise of Pentecostal Theology Today’, Pneuma 23 (2001), pp. 115–46 (121, 139, 141, 143); Kenneth J. Archer, The Gospel Revisited: To- wards a Pentecostal Theology of Worship and Witness (Eugene, or: Pickwick, 2011), pp. 7–9, 152. 3 Daniel Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdma- ns, 2017), p. xvi. Castelo’s work functions as a follow-up to aims earlier pursued by Simon Chan in his book, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (JPTSup, 21; Shef- field: Sheffield Academic, 2000). 4 Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. xviii–xix, 1, 37, 74, 76, 178. 5 Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. 128–29. 6 Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. xvi–xvii, 47, 77. 7 Castelo notes that if we are to use the term ‘mystical’ as a Pentecostal theological category, it must be ‘conceived, appropriated, and applied largely in emic (i.e., insider) ways’; Pentecos- talism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, p. 47. 8 I am proceeding from George Lindbeck’s cultural-linguistic theory of doctrine, which describes religious traditions as cultural-linguistic mediating traditions; George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Louisville, ky: John Knox, 1984), pp. 20, 33, 39, 107. He thus argues that the grammar a religious community uses to express its beliefs and practices, ‘regulate’ and thus shape those beliefs and practices; p. 18.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 261 notion of prayer as theology (theologia).9 This doctrine has deeply funded what we may call the contemporary liturgy as primary theology movement (lapt). Later I will demonstrate how the two notions can be coalesced as what I call the Evagrian-lapt grammar of prayer/liturgy. In this paper, I suggest that the Evagrian-lapt grammar provides us apt theological categories for theologically articulating Pentecostal spirituality, in manners methodically congruent to its intensely embodied oral liturgy, and practices of primary theologizing. I thus believe that this grammar may prove especially helpful towards the growing focus in Pentecostal studies on the liturgical life of Pentecostalism. I shall also suggest this as an apt orientation for articulating Pentecostal notions of liturgical theology, and theologically assessing current developments in Pentecostal liturgical studies, including construction of Pentecostal theology in manners that retrieve resources from the liturgical life of Pentecostalism.10 This grammar can thus help systemize pertinent foci within Pentecostal liturgical theological research, clarify their meanings in ways congruent to Pentecostal spirituality and its core motifs, and thus assess efforts at constructing Pentecostal liturgical theology or liturgically themed theology. I shall develop this task through three steps. In Part One I will survey three historic warrants that substantiate the Evagrian-lapt grammar as an apt language for theologically articulating Pentecostal spirituality, specifically attending to its liturgical practices. I will first briefly summarize Evagrius’ prayer as theology doctrine. I will then demonstrate how this doctrine funded the lapt movement, and review its main themes. I will then analyze Steven Land’s ground-breaking 1993 monograph titled, Pentecostal Spirituality, A Passion for the Kingdom.11 I shall demonstrate that his monograph substantiates the grammar by showing how it was a direct by-product of the lapt movement, thus describing Pentecostal spirituality through the Evagrian-lapt grammar. In

9 Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, p. 56. See Augustine Casiday, ‘Church Fathers and the Shaping of Orthodox Theology’, in Mary B. Cunningham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Theology (Cam- bridge, uk: Cambridge University, 2008), pp. 167–87 (172–74); Augustine Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (New York, ny: Routledge, 2006), p. 5; Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford, uk: Oxford University, 2nd edn, 2007), pp. 95, 106–109. 10 The most recent example of constructing Pentecostal systematic theology from resources emerging from Pentecostal liturgical practices is Wolfgang Vondey’s, Pentecostal Theology: Living the Full Gospel (London: Bloomsbury, 2017). 11 Steven Jack Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (JPTSup, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993; Cleveland, tn: cpt Press, 2010).

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

262 Rice

Part Two I will retrieve from lapt proponent and Roman Catholic liturgical theologian David Fagerberg, three important lapt terms: primary theology, liturgy, and ascetics, to suggest ways that the Evagrian-lapt grammar proves helpful towards research in Pentecostal liturgical theology. I will thus suggest how this grammar helps clarify the meaning of pertinent foci within Pentecos- tal spirituality; specifically: Pentecostal primary theology, liturgy, and liturgical ascetics. In Part Three, drawing on Walter Hollenweger’s work on Pentecostal orality and oral liturgy, along with Jesuit priest and anthropologist Walter Ong’s seminal work in orality studies, I shall delineate the shalomic efficacy of Pen- tecostal oral liturgy and the oral epistemology operative through its liturgical practices. More specifically, I shall argue that an important moral warrant for understanding Pentecostal orality as the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostalism, lies in their observed efficacy towards empowering the poor and lower social- economic people into higher levels of shalomic flourishing. Yet as Hollenweger similarly argued, I shall also show how the primary oral-literacy of the world’s poor in contrast to the print-literacy and evolving it secondary orality of the world’s rich, raises an important ecumenical task for today’s world Pentecostal- ism. Namely, the task of reconciling these contrasting gifts and the people they represent as requisite towards the Christian vision of true shalomic flourishing.

1 Prayer/Liturgy as Theology: An Apt Grammar

1.1 Evagrian-LAPT Grammar of Prayer/Liturgy as Theology Rigorously ascetic in his life and teachings on spiritual progression,12 Evagrius of Pontus (346–399 ce) taught a practical form of mystical theology.13 His doctrine of spiritual ascent comprised communally situated ascetical practices, for fostering victory over demonic forces, moral reform, and virtue formation.14 Scholars in Evagrian studies commonly identify two Evagrian dictums that summarize his teaching. First: ‘Christianity is the doctrine of Christ our Sav- iour. It is comprised of the practical, the natural, and the theological’.15 Clarity

12 Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, pp. 13, 26–27, 35. 13 Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, p. 110. 14 Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, pp. 7, 26–27, 36; Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagri- us Ponticus: Beyond Heresy (New York: Cambridge University, 2013), pp. 77, 143–44; Robert E. Sinkewicz (ed.), Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (New York: Oxford Univer- sity, 2003), pp. xxiv–xxxii. 15 Evagrius, ‘Praktikos’, 1, in Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, p. 97.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 263 comes from Evagrian scholar Augustine Casiday, who translates ‘practical’ as ‘ascetic practice’.16 Secondly, ‘If you are a theologian, you will pray truly, and if you pray truly, you will be a theologian’.17 Casiday notes that the first dictum describes how theology relates to life, while the second defines ‘theology’ as prayer, meaning: ‘true converse with God is theology’.18 Evagrius thus con- strued theology as the aim of all ascetics: knowing God through prayer. Since the mid-twentieth century to today, the Evagrian prayer as theology doctrine has deeply funded what we may call the contemporary liturgy as primary theology movement (lapt). An influential impetus was the earlier twentieth century, ecumenically effective Liturgical Movement,19 which fostered a greater pneumatological and ‘specifically epicletic, dimension of Christian worship’.20 It thus defined liturgy at its barest meaning as, ‘the Church at prayer’ (ecclesia orans), while presuming God’s salvific action operative within this action.21 While sharing similar aims, the lapt movement differs from Geoffrey Wainwright’s theology from liturgy approach,22 which Pentecostal studies has found highly profitable, given its resonance with Pentecostal intuitions that theologizing begins through the Church at prayer.23

16 Casiday also translates ‘natural’ as ‘natural contemplation’. Hence Casiday’s full translation: ‘Christianity is the teaching of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which consists of ascetic practice, natural contemplation and theology’; Casiday, ‘Church Fathers,’ in The Cam- bridge Companion to Orthodox Theology, p. 173. 17 Evagrius, ‘On Prayer’, 60, in Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, p. 199; also see the translation in Evagrius, ‘On Prayer’, 61, in Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus, p. 192. 18 Casiday, ‘Church Fathers’, pp. 173–74. 19 Geoffrey Wainwright, Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy & Ecumenism Embrace (New York, ny: Oxford University, 1997), p. 17. 20 Wainwright, Worship with One Accord, p. 59. 21 Joris Geldhof, ‘Liturgical Theology’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (Oxford University Press, online edn, 2017). http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/ 10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-14 [Accessed July 28, 2017], pp. 2, 11. 22 Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life. A Sys- tematic Theology (New York: Oxford University, 1980), pp. ix, 1, 3, 218–25, 252; David W. Fagerberg, Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology? (Mundelein, il: Hillenbrand Books, 2nd edn, 2004), pp. 43, 54–62; see also Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, The Hale Memorial Lectures of Seabury-Eastern Theological Seminary, 1981 (Pueblo, 1984; Col- legeville, mn: The Liturgical Press, 1992), pp. 123–25; Don E. Saliers, Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine (Nashville, tn: Abingdon, 1994), p. 16. 23 Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids, mi: Zondervan, 2006), p. 54; Frank D. Macchia, ‘Theology, Pentecostal’, in Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Mass (eds.), The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

264 Rice

By recognizing liturgy at its barest meaning as the Church at prayer, I shall merge these similar themes through the phrase, prayer/liturgy as theology, call- ing this the Evagrian-lapt grammar. The lapt movement strongly insists that far more than functioning as a theological source, Christian liturgy is theology, and liturgical practices are acts of theologizing.24 From this follows several other themes. Most important is the movement’s distinction between primary and secondary theology. While as formal academic theologizing, secondary theology may retrieve liturgical practices and experiences as theological sources,25 lapt proponent Aidan Kavanagh describes primary theology as the worshipper’s ‘adjustment’ having encountered God through the liturgy.26 That adjustment ‘is theologia itself’.27 lapt proponents thus stress that the ‘rule of prayer’ (lex orandi) establishes the ‘rule of belief’ (lex credendi); hence, liturgy generates primary theology.28 Finally, these convictions infer a corresponding advocacy towards a grassroots egalitarianism that qualifies liturgy as primary theology, and thus, primary theologizing. As ‘primary theology’, Wesleyan liturgical theologian Don Sa- liers similarly describes congregational worship as itself, ‘a theological act’.29

Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, mi: Zondervan, rev. edn, 2002), pp. 1120–41 (1122); hereafter: tnidpc. See also Christopher A. Stephenson, Types of Pentecostal Theology: Method, System, Spirit (New York, ny: Oxford University, 2013), pp. 112–15. 24 Following are notable representatives. Eastern Orthodoxy: Alexander Schmemann, In- troduction to Liturgical Theology (Crestwood, ny: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003); Roman Catholicism: Robert F. Taft, ‘Liturgy as Theology’, in Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Rome, Italy: Pontifical Oriental Institute, rev. edn, 1997), pp. 233–37; Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, pp. 12, 73–95, 124; Fagerberg, Theologia Prima; Lutheranism: Gordon W. Lathrop, Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Minneapolis, mn: Fortress, 1993; 1998), pp. 3; 5–9; Wesleyanism: Saliers, Worship as Theology, pp. 15–16, 85–86, 131–32, 136. See Geldhof, ‘Liturgical Theology’, p. 6. 25 Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, p. 75; Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. ix, 43, 68. 26 Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, pp. 73–75. 27 Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, p. 75; see Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. 9, 39, 44, 67. Chan captures this trajectory stating, ‘Ecclesial experience constitutes the primary theology (theologia prima) of the church’; Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up (Downers Grove, il: ivp Academic, 2014), pp. 15–16. In the same discussion he clarifies ‘ecclesial experience’, as the ‘liturgical event’ of a gathered Christian community, which ‘expresses a primary theology’; p. 17. 28 Geldhof, ‘Liturgical Theology’, p. 6; Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. ix, 66–67; see Kava- nagh On Liturgical Theology, pp. 91–92. For a discussion on the historically contrasting approaches between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, see Wainwright, Doxology, pp. 218–19, 251–52. 29 Saliers, Worship as Theology, p. 15.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 265

Hence, we can say that at the primary level, the Church theologizes through acts of worship. Kavanagh thus described the primary theology that emerges from liturgy as ‘proletarian’ and ‘communitarian’.30 I find these themes deeply resonant with Pentecostal intuitions, demonstrating how the Evagrian-lapt grammar provides us theological categories deeply congruent to Pentecostal spirituality and its intrinsic methods of theologizing.

1.2 Steven Land’s Methodological Example I shall now more specifically demonstrate how the Evagrian-lapt grammar provides us apt categories for articulating Pentecostal spirituality in ways congruent to its observed oral-aural liturgy, attendant ascetical practices, and generated primary theology. A ready bridge and third historic warrant for doing so is Steven Land’s 1993 monograph, Pentecostal Spirituality, A Passion for the Kingdom.31 For Land’s work amply shows the lapt movement’s implicit influence on many directions his work instigated in Pentecostal theological studies.32 Castelo recalls the pivotal role Land’s work played in the maturing of Pentecostal theological studies during the early 1990’s.33 Following Walter Hollenweger’s landmark suggestion that the first decade of North American Pentecostalism signifies the ‘heart of pentecostal spirituality’, and thus ‘the norm’ to measure its ‘subsequent history’,34 Land delineated a theological methodology aimed to that very end. He thus strove to identify the contours of Pentecostal theology as it emerges from the practiced ‘spirituality’ of early 20th century Pentecostalism.35 Yet let me suggest that Land saliently states through his book’s first chapter title, his research conclusion: ‘Pentecostal Spirituality as Theology’.36 I suspect that underlying that title was a growing conviction

30 Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, pp. 74, 89. 31 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality. 32 Based on his dissertation, Land’s monograph served as the inaugural volume of the Jour- nal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement series, which also marked the beginning of the Journal of Pentecostal Theology; see John Christopher Thomas, ‘Editorial’, Journal of Pente- costal Theology 18.1 (2009), pp. 1–5 (2–3). 33 Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. 2–4; Land, Pentecostal Spiri- tuality, pp. 1, 12–16, 37; W. Hollenweger, ‘Pentecostals and the Charismatic Movement’, in Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold (eds.), The Study of Spirituality (Oxford, ny: Oxford University, 1986), pp. 549–53. 34 Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pp. 2–4. 35 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 1, 12–16, 37; see: Hollenweger, ‘Pentecostals and the Charismatic Movement’, p. 551. 36 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 1, 30.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

266 Rice

Land was reaching towards; namely, that at heart of Pentecostal spirituality is a Pentecostal liturgy of prayer, generating a primary theology. Land described this as, passion for the kingdom.37 The conduit that transmitted lapt themes to Land’s project was his Doktor- vater, Don Saliers. A comparative reading of Land’s monograph next to Saliers’ Worship as Theology book, illustrates Land’s consistent reliance on Saliers’ own lapt orientation. Contrasting his work from Wainwright’s ‘theology oriented to worship’ perspective and aligning himself with lapt forerunners Alexander Schmemann and Kavanagh, he thus argues as his methodological orientation: ‘worship … is “primary theology”,’ and ‘a theological act’.38 Saliers thereby defined liturgy as prayer, granting it its eschatological quality, arguing that prayer is a ‘thoroughly eschatological’ action.39 So for Saliers, liturgy is primary theology, and this theology, is ‘prayed theology’.40 Similarly, Land states that his starting point for analyzing Pentecostalism is his understanding of, ‘Spiritu- ality as primary theology’.41 He thus distinguishes scholarly developed theology from theology that emerges at the grassroots level of Christian liturgy.42 I therefore suggest that Saliers transmitted the lapt orientation on Land’s research, thereby instigating the integrating link Land discovers between Pente- costal spirituality and its ascetical practices of ‘Pentecostal prayer’ that generate eschatological passion.43 What I shall now do is suggest that Land’s orientation particularly evidenc- es an Evagrian ascetical understanding of prayer as theology. Hence, that he depicted Pentecostal spirituality, even if unintentionally, as a contemporary expression of Evagrian spirituality. I recognize this is quite a bold claim for nowhere does Land explicitly mention Evagrius. Yet a major clue is Land’s Evagrian sounding description of prayer as theology. Land describes his vision towards a ‘Pentecostal theology-as-spirituality’, as an example of ‘theologia’ being ‘restored to its ancient meaning’.44 Stressing that theology begins in prayer, he argues, ‘prayer … is at the heart’ of Pentecostal ‘spirituality’.45 He thus states

37 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 23–24, 120, 164–67, 172–78, 219–20. 38 Saliers, Worship as Theology, pp. 15–16. 39 Saliers, Worship as Theology, pp. 14, 16–17, 26–27, 31, 49–51, 67–68, 136. 40 Saliers, Worship as Theology, p. 136. 41 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 37. 42 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 23–24. 43 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 74–91, 120–21, 133–77 (esp. 163–72), 182–83, 219. 44 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 30. 45 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 22. Confirming this reading is Macchia’s description of Land’s monograph as a ‘prolegomenon’ designed ‘to root theology fundamentally in prayer’; Macchia, ‘Theology, Pentecostal’, p. 1122.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 267 that early Pentecostals understood prayer as their ‘primary and essential theological act’.46 Again, even if unintentionally, Land closes his work with an ap- parent correlation between Evagrius’ dictum and his stress on eschatological passion as the outcome of Pentecostal prayer. Hence, Land concludes stating, ‘Theology itself is a kind of passion for God, and passion for God requires ongoing theological work … the merging of the two is the mark of a true theologian – one who truly prays for the kingdom’.47 Accordingly, Land describes Pentecostal spirituality as both ‘ascetic and mystical’ according to these term’s patristic meanings.48 He correspondingly argues that Pentecostal spirituality posits an understanding of theology similar to ‘patristic-monastic theology in which there was no distinction between prayer and theology’.49 Pentecostal spirituality thus fosters a ‘mystical, ascetical journey’ to the knowledge of God.50 He moreover devotes a chapter expan- sively delineating this Evagrian-ascetic rendering of Pentecostal spirituality, explicating its notable practices within Pentecostal liturgical settings. He describes these as the ‘Pentecostal prayer’ practices, each issuing in an ‘apocalyptic affection’: prayer with words understood, forming the affection of ‘gratitude’; prayer without words, forming ‘compassion’; and prayer with words not understood (tongues speech, forming ‘courage’). Together, these affections generate the ‘ruling affection of passion for the kingdom’.51 These practices thus form an ascetically structured scheme of spiritual progression narrated along the first three motifs of the Pentecostal fivefold gospel: salvation, sanctification, and Spirit baptism.52 To reiterate, this Evagrian theme of prayer as theology permeates Land’s whole book, and he consistently strove to characterize early Pentecostalism and its liturgical practices through these Evagrian and lapt categories. I believe that a careful reading of Land’s work shows that pervading his monograph is the lapt base understanding of liturgy as the ‘the Church at prayer’. Observing the ‘centrality of worship’ in Pentecostalism, he thereby observes

46 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 183; S. Land, ‘A Passion for the Kingdom: Revisioning Pentecostal Spirituality’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 1 (1992), pp. 19–45 (23); S. Land, ‘The Triune Center: Wesleyans and Pentecostal Together in Mission’, Wesleyan Theological Journal 34.1 (1999), pp. 83–100 (87); published simultaneously in Pneuma 21.2 (1999), pp. 199–214. 47 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 219; Land, ‘A Passion for the Kingdom’, p. 46. 48 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 18. 49 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 27. 50 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 69. 51 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 163–83. 52 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 74–91, 120–83, 219.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

268 Rice

‘prayer … at the heart of this spirituality’, and thus its chief ‘theological task’.53 In Pentecostal spirituality, ‘Pentecost’ thus functions as ‘a liturgical paradigm’ signifying the in-breaking of God’s kingdom upon His praying people.54 There- fore, Land insists that it is primarily the prayer life of the Pentecostal community, which shapes the ‘affections’ of Pentecostals, and orients them towards the coming of God’s kingdom.55 Pentecostal liturgy as the Church at prayer is thus ‘the primary theological activity of Pentecostals’.56 Land concludes by suggesting that the divinely given ecumenical role of Pentecostalism is to remind the greater Church about this one thing: all true prayer is petition for God’s coming kingdom. Practicing this prayer thus makes us a courageously hopeful people, growing in faith, hope, and love.57 To summarize this analysis, I would paraphrase the concluding outcome of Land’s research like this: that at the heart of Pentecostal spirituality is a liturgy of prayer that generates a primary theology, foremost comprising ‘passion for the kingdom’.58 To conclude this section, Land’s work thus functions as a historic precedence and prime reference within second level Pentecostal theologizing, for positing the Evagrian-lapt grammar as an apt orientation for articulating Pentecostal notions of liturgical theology and theologically assessing developments in Pentecostal liturgical studies.

2 Articulating Pentecostal Spirituality through the Evagrian-lapt Grammar

2.1 David Fagerberg’s ‘Liturgy-Theology-Asceticism’ Triad I shall now narrow the focus by analyzing core foci in Pentecostal spirituality through three helpful categories from the work of lapt proponent and Roman Catholic liturgical theologian David Fagerberg. Fagerberg synthesizes core concepts from earlier lapt proponents. Given that his work broadly appropri- ates the grammar of patristic monasticism via the Evagrian prayer as theology notion,59 he describes his project as a grammatical ‘deepening’ of meanings

53 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 24; see pp. 1, 25, 27, 165–66, 219. 54 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 173. 55 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 163–64, 168, 172, 219. 56 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 165. 57 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 219. 58 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 23–24, 120, 164–67, 172–78, 219–20. 59 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. 4–6.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 269 we commonly attribute to the grammar normally used within the subject of liturgical theology.60 Stressing the distinction between primary and secondary theology,61 he generally defines the phrase ‘liturgical theology’ as ‘the theological work of the liturgical assembly’,62 rather than as second order theological scholarship. Drawing from Kavanagh, Fagerberg defines primary theology as the ‘living adjustment’ to the God-encounter63 emerging from the practices of ‘liturgical asceticism’.64 Liturgical ascetics thus ‘capacitate’ worshippers,65 forming them into ‘theologians’.66 Working from the Evagrian-lapt grammar, I will thus show how we can appropriately organize and evaluate varied themes of Pente- costal spirituality through three core ingredients of Christian spirituality that Fagerberg identifies: primary theology, liturgy, and asceticism.67 In Pentecostal spirituality, we can identify these concepts as Pentecostal primary theology, liturgy, and liturgical ascetics. As a precursor, the grammar suggest that we might describe Pentecostal spirituality as a spirituality grounded in embodied epicletic prayer, intensified through its ascetical practices of oral liturgy, which liminally generates a primary theology of eschatological passion and hope, centered on Christ as narrated through the Pentecostal four/five-fold Full Gospel. I will thus suggest both within Part 2 and 3, how the three ingredients are operative within Pente- costal spirituality, and how these categories can prove helpful towards ongoing research in Pentecostal liturgical theology, specifically towards clarifying the meaning of pertinent foci within Pentecostal spirituality in manners conso- nant to its orality and historically observed core motifs.

60 Thus, the title of Fagerberg’s first chapter of his Theologia Prima book, ‘Deepening the Grammar of Liturgy’, pp. 2–38. 61 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. ix, 41. 62 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, p. ix. 63 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. 66–67. 64 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. ix–x, 4–7, 9, 19–20, 32, 63. 65 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, p. 7. 66 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. 5–6, 63. 67 Fagerberg describes these ingredients as a ‘liturgy-theology-asceticism’ triad; Theologia Prima, pp. x–xi. Within this triad, liturgy can be described as ‘the place of communion with God’, and liturgical asceticism as imitating the priestly life of Christ in worship. In its primary sense, theology thus refers to the outcome of ‘liturgical asceticism’; namely, growth in knowing God; p. 5.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

270 Rice

2.2 Pentecostal Primary Theology I will begin on the subject of primary theology. Let us recall Frank Macchia’s suggested phrase ‘nonacademic theology’68 and Kenneth Archer’s counter phrase, ‘pietistic theology’69 for better conceptualizing Hollenweger’s reference to Pentecostal ‘oral liturgy’ and the orality dynamics describing how Pen- tecostals theologize within Pentecostal liturgical settings. However, I believe we can better capture the practices Hollenweger was observing through the liturgical category of ascetics. Hence, what orality actually designates within Pentecostal spirituality, are the distinctive ascetics, meaning ascetical practices, through which Pentecostals produce primary theology. Recalling my earlier discussion on how the Evagrian-lapt grammar shaped Land’s revisioning of Pentecostal spirituality, I must reiterate an earlier stated proposition. Namely, that the primary theology generated through the liturgical ascetics of Pente- costal spirituality has historically manifested itself as a Christocentrism and eschatological passion mediated through holistic-experiential encounter(s) with God, typically signified through the tradition’s varied doctrinal notions of Spirit baptism. As Wolfgang Vondey argues, these assents have become globally and historically, ‘theologically narrated’ through the four/fivefold ‘full gospel’ of Jesus as Savour, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptiser, Healer, and Coming King.70 Therefore, the intensified eschatological orientation of Pentecostal liturgical asceticism means that the derived theology has historically comprised foremost, eschatological passion. To use a simpler word, hope, in the soon coming of God’s kingdom. Sometimes this generated passion becomes misdirected, such as towards nihilistic apocalypticism.71 This illustrates a prime example on the ecclesial role of secondary theologizing: namely, to help insure that this generated passion centers on the moral aims of God’s kingdom for present creation, and identifying theological language, symbols, themes, and narrative structures that best clarify what the Spirit is saying to the Church through liturgical practice and experience.

68 Macchia, ‘Theology, Pentecostal’, pp. 1120–21. 69 Archer, The Gospel Revisited, pp. 15–17. Specifically, Archer believed that the phrase ‘pietistic theology’ better captures Pentecostal intuitions that ideally theology should be ‘holistic’ and ‘embodied’. 70 Vondey identifies the ‘full gospel’ as the most recurrent ‘theological narrative’ character- istic of ‘Pentecostal theology’ worldwide; Pentecostal Theology, pp. 1, 5–8, 21–24, 281–82, 288–91. 71 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, pp. 273–75.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 271

2.3 Pentecostal Liturgy Let us now consider how the notion of liturgy from an Evagrian-lapt perspective, can aid our assessing of Pentecostal liturgy. To do so we must first recall how Pentecostal studies are steadily showing that contrary to popular opinion within and outside it, Pentecostalism is in its own right, a liturgical tradition.72 Recalling its Evagrian themes, Vondey more recently describes Pentecostal- ism as ‘a liturgical tradition oriented around the altar’.73 In fact, Hollenweger argued that the greatest contribution of Pentecostalism to world Christianity lies not in areas of theological stress such as ‘pneumatology’, but rather within its ‘liturgy and preaching’.74 Yet, contrasting Pentecostalism from more print- funded liturgical traditions, he seminally characterized Pentecostal liturgy as oral liturgy.75 Hollenweger’s writings and ongoing scholarship have identified a variety of oral liturgical practices that foster congregational participation through ample kinaesthetic movement, audibly spontaneous or improvised worship expressions, and the exercising of spiritual gifts.76 Land retrieved Hollenweger’s thesis to suggest that the orality of Pentecostal liturgy forms in Pentecostals a tran- srational ‘speech’, meaning tongues speech, for articulating epicletic-giving

72 Daniel E. Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/Charismatic Spiri- tuality (JPTSup 17; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), p. 150; Mark J. Cartledge and A.J. Swoboda (eds.), Scripting Pentecost: A Study of Pentecostals, Worship and Liturgy (London: Routledge, 2017); Monique M. Ingalls, ‘Introduction: Interconnection, Interface, and Iden- tification in Pentecostal–Charismatic Music and Worship’, in Monique M. Ingalls and Amos Yong (eds.), The Spirit of Praise: Music and Worship in Global Pentecostal-Charismat- ic Christianity, (University Park, pn: Pennsylvania State University, 2015), pp. 1–25 (1–5); Vondey, Pentecostal Theology, pp. 31, 281, 291. 73 Vondey, Pentecostal Theology, pp. 31, 281, 291. 74 Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (London: scm Press, 1972; Peabody, ma: Hendrickson, 1988), p. 466. 75 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 18–19, 23, 33–34, 195–96, 270–71, 329, 399; see Albrecht, ‘Worshiping and the Spirit: Transmuting Liturgy Pentecostally’, in Teresa Berger and Bry- an D. Spinks (eds.), The Spirit in Worship – Worship in the Spirit (Collegeville, mn: Liturgi- cal Press, 2009), pp. 223–44 (224). 76 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 18–19, Albrecht, ‘Worshiping and the Spirit’, p. 241; Mar- tin Lindhardt, ‘Introduction’, in Martin Lindhardt (ed.), Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians (New York, ny: Berghahn, 2011), pp. 1–48 (1–6); Allan H. Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University, 2004), pp. 13–14; Allan H. Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University, 2013), p. 8.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

272 Rice foretastes of the coming kingdom.77 He also argued that the bodily worship practices characterizing Pentecostal oral liturgy, proleptically signify the eschatological promise of the resurrected body comprising perfected union between the Spirit and human materiality.78 Macchia thus argues that Hol- lenweger’s research suggests that what is most theologically distinctive about global Pentecostalism is a holistic experience of the Spirit, coupled with how Pentecostals express this experience through oral modes of theologizing.79 I would thus say that historically grounding Pentecostal spirituality are oral-aural liturgical practices that fund an oral-aural epistemology operative through those practices and the tradition’s liturgical settings. I will further develop this argument in the following section titled, ‘Pentecostal Liturgical Ascetics’. Given the ample kinesthetics involved within Pentecostal oral liturgy, I shall suggest an important way its practices exemplify a common Christian liturgical theme; namely, the prayer of epiclesis for the Spirit’s descent. The oral liturgical practices of Pentecostal spirituality bodily intensify80 the prayer of epiclesis, thus reflecting Pentecostalism’s eschatological passion. I would also argue then that a definitive feature of Pentecostal liturgy is its embodied intensifying of epicletic prayer, exemplifying liturgy at its primary theological meaning: ‘the Church at prayer’. Daniel Albrecht thus perceptively observed that the main action within the ‘Pentecostal liturgical vision’ is prayer,81 comprising ‘radical receptivity to the Holy Spirit’,82 anticipating the Spirit is coming ‘with transfor- mative effects’ on people gathered in prayer.83 As ‘a prayer movement’, Pentecostals often exemplify this embodied intensification of prayer through ‘simultaneous plurivocality’, meaning, everyone praying aloud together.84 We might say that Pentecostal orality funds eschatological passion because it prayerfully taps on the very forward moving, future

77 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 105–107. 78 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 108–109. 79 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, pp. 28, 34, 51, 56. See: Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 18–20, 196, 329. 80 See Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 168, 219. 81 Albrecht, ‘Worshiping and the Spirit’, p. 236. 82 Albrecht, ‘Worshiping and the Spirit’, p. 239. 83 Albrecht, ‘Worshiping and the Spirit’, p. 242. See Keith Warrington’s observation that what ‘is fundamental to Pentecostalism’ is ‘a personal, experiential encounter of the Spirit of God’; Pentecostal Theology: A Theology of Encounter (London: T&T Clark, 2008), p. 20. 84 Néstor Medina, ‘Orality and Context in a Hermeneutical Key: Toward a Latina/o-Canadi- an Pentecostal Life-Narrative Hermeneutics’, PentecoStudies 14.1 (2015), pp. 97–123 (110).

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 273 orientation of sound itself.85 So on one hand, this intensification accounts for Castelo’s apt description of the Pentecostal embodied ‘way of being-in-the- world’ as radically ‘epicletic’.86 On the other, it reflects Land’s observation that Pentecostal spirituality generates passion for the kingdom. As an important corollary, let us recall that as Cappadocian contemporaries, both Gregory of Nyssa87 and Evagrius88 interpreted the Lord Prayer (Lk. 11.2) to posit as theological synonyms, the coming of God’s kingdom and the Spirit’s descent on creatures and creation. Referring to Gregory, Macchia identified the kingdom of God as the eschatological orientation of Spirit baptism.89 Yet let us also note another stress we can retrieve from these links between the Evagrian notion of prayer as theology, the Spirit’s descent, the kingdom, and the full eschatological horizon of Spirit baptism: that through its bodily intensifying epicletic prayer, Pentecostal oral liturgy generates passionate hope in the coming of God’s kingdom on all creation.

2.4 Pentecostal Liturgical Ascetics Finally, let us consider how the Evagrian-lapt grammar might help us identify and assess the ascetics of Pentecostal liturgy. Stemming from the ancient term askesis with its imagery of athletic training, Fagerberg defines ‘liturgical asceticism’ as the practices comprising liturgy.90 Liturgically rooted and situated practices, express the ways worshippers theologize while forming them into theologians.91 So how does do these ascetical dynamics operate within Pente- costal liturgies? Good answers are emerging from ongoing empirical research on Pentecostal-Charismatic worship life and practices. Utilizing the disciplines of ritual studies and sociology of religion and/or human body-embodiment studies, their recurring appraisal is that Pentecostal-Charismatic worship and social life are vigorously ritualistic. Pentecostals bodily practice their liturgical rituals through high measures of kinaesthetic movement, with presumed

85 Walter J. Ong, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Culture and Religious His- tory (New York, ny: Simon and Schuster, 1970), p. 316. 86 Daniel Castelo, Revisioning Pentecostal Ethics: The Epicletic Community (Cleveland, tn: cpt, 2011), p. 22. 87 Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord’s Prayer, cited in Killian McDonnell, The Other Hand of God: The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal (Collegeville, mn: Liturgical Press, 2003), pp. 209–10, 226. 88 Evagrius, ‘On the ‘Our Father’, p. 151. 89 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, pp. 89–91. 90 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. 4, 65–66, 120–21. 91 Fagerberg, Theologia Prima, pp. 4–5, 63, 120, 127–28, 133, 224.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

274 Rice and demonstrated, efficacious and formative outcomes.92 Meanwhile, Vondey shows how the Pentecostal doctrines historically traditioned through the Five- fold Gospel, have much emerged through liturgical practices consistently observed through these phenomenological studies.93 Vondey’s conclusions thus infer how again paralleling Evagrian-lapt themes, Pentecostal spirituality generally structures the lex orandi before the lex credendi.94 Therefore, I would argue that we foremost appreciate as the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostal liturgy as the varied modalities that characterize Pentecos- tal oral liturgy. Hence, what orality designates within Pentecostal spirituality, are the ascetical practices through which Pentecostals produce theology, and through which they become Pentecostal theologians – people praying and la- bouring for the coming of God’s kingdom through the generated eschatological passion and hope that forms their way of life and teleological aims. This thesis thereby introduces the theme for Part 3: how these practices empower the world’s poor into higher levels of shalomic flourishing, and how, when the rich of this age embrace the poor and their oral epistemological giftedness, they too become empowered towards shalomic flourishing and true humanity.

3 The Shalomic Efficacy of Pentecostal Oral Liturgy

3.1 Empowering Epistemology of Pentecostal Primary Orality To now orient the preceding discussions towards the conference theme on the ‘Good News of the Kingdom and the Poor in the Land’, I shall now argue an important moral warrant for appreciating Pentecostal orality as the liturgical

92 Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit, pp. 150, 196, 208–209; Lindhardt, ‘Introduction’, 1; Joel Robbins, ‘The Obvious Aspects of Pentecostalism: Ritual and Pentecostal Globalization’, pp. 49–67 (51, 65); Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse, ‘Social Theory, Religion and the Body’, Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse (eds.), Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 8: Pentecostals and the Body (The Netherlands, Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 1–14; Wilkin- son, ‘Pentecostalism, the Body, and Embodiment’, pp. 1–35. 93 Vondey states: ‘I suggest that the full gospel functions not as an alternative system of doctrine but as a descriptive mechanism of spiritual practices shaped by a range of personal and communal experiences; salvation, sanctification, Spirit baptism, divine healing, and the coming kingdom function as heuristic devices for Pentecostal theology because they emerge from and yield embodied practices’; ‘Embodied Gospel: The Materiality of Pente- costal Theology’, pp. 102–19 (103). See also Vondey, Pentecostal Theology, pp. 15, 17–18, 26, 30–31, 291. 94 Warrington similarly argues that Pentecostals intuitively sense and would generally posit that theology begins with experientially encountering God; Warrington, Pentecostal The- ology, pp. 20–27, 219–21.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 275 ascetics of Pentecostalism. I refer to their observed shalomic efficacy towards empowering the poor and lower social-economic people into higher levels of flourishing, often effecting social-economic uplift.95 As the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostalism, Pentecostal orality foregrounds the lowly, empowering them to dream, prophesy, and minister the gifts of God’s coming kingdom. Therefore, these oral-based rituals substantially account for the ability of Pen- tecostal communities to thrive within harsh social-economic environments.96 I suggest then that by giving voice to the poor, these liturgical ascetics prophetically signify and efficaciously function as sounds of Jubilee. Hence, the orality that characterizes Pentecostal liturgical ascetics are sounds proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour, prophesying shalomic flourishing for the poor in the way of salvation (Lk. 4.18–19).97 To demonstrate this thesis, I shall review several themes from Hollenweger’s work on Pentecostal orality, complementing these with insights from orality scholar and anthropologist, Walter Ong. Ong’s 1960’s/1970’s-era work remains a staple resource within orality studies, which he theologically aimed towards ecclesial and ecumenical purposes. To further build this case, I shall also frame Hollenweger’s themes within Ong’s history of human communication. To begin, let us note that Ong divided human history into three overlapping epochs. First is the pre-modern ‘orality’ stage, which included the invention of alphabets and writing.98 Second is the print-‘alphabetic-movable type’ stage, which marked an epistemological shift from communicating, understanding, and transmitting knowledge through embodied oral-aural events to doing so through visualizing printed texts.99 Third is the late twentieth century ‘electronic stage’, which he characterized as a new ‘secondary orality’. Whereas Ong saw this stage emerging through verbal communication via electronic technology

95 Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, pp. 457–59; Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 23–24, 35, 273; Anderson, ‘Global Pentecostalism in the New Millennium’, in Allan H. Anderson and Wal- ter J. Hollenweger (eds,), Pentecostals after a Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 210–211, 213; Hollenweger, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, p. 45. 96 Robbins, ‘The Obvious Aspects of Pentecostalism’, pp. 52, 54–56. 97 A. Yong, ‘God, Christ, Spirit: Christian Pluralism and Evangelical Mission in the Twenty- First Century’, in The Missiological Spirit: Christian Mission Theology in the Third Millen- nium Global Context (Eugene, or: Cascade, 2014), pp. 211–21 (217–18); A. Yong, ‘Jubilee, Pentecost, and Liberation: The Preferential Option of the Poor on the Apostolic Way’, in The Hermeneutical Spirit: Theological Interpretation and Scriptural Imagination for the 21st Century (Eugene, or: Cascade, 2017), pp. 162–78 (173–78). 98 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 17, 22–35. 99 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 36–53.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

276 Rice

(e.g. telephone, radio, television, earlier computer technology, etc), it now comprises information technology (it).100 Ong argued that our present ‘secondary orality’ epoch has, in many ways, renewed the role of oral-auditory processing within the ‘sensorium’, referring to the bodily sensory modes humans use for engaging their exterior world.101 Shifting back to our main concern regarding the socioeconomic ramifications of Pentecostal orality, he recognized that ‘the haves and have- nots in our present world’ roughly represent two kinds of epistemologically rooted literacies. The ‘haves’ are generally print-literate/high-it-technology (secondary orality) cultures yet oftentimes very oral-literate. In contrast, the ‘have nots’ are oftentimes print-illiterate/low-it technology cultures yet generally very oral-literate, in the sense of orality.102 In many ways, descriptions of Pentecostal oral epistemology closely paral- lel Ong’s descriptions of ‘oral’ epistemology. Hence, we can say that thus far, Pentecostal orality corresponds to Ong’s category and descriptions of ‘orality’. Orality describes a very physically embodied sensory and communicative mode, executed through the acts of speaking and listening, which together creates a presence-making event between speaker and listener.103 Ong further stresses two important characteristics of sounded words within this event. First, oral culture people generally believe that spoken words are loaded with effectual and spiritual potency.104 Second, the performative power of spoken words requires aesthetically attending to how words sound, such as through using mnemonic, oratorical, and tonal patterning structures.105

100 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 87–92. 101 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 1–16, 88. 102 W.J. Ong, ‘Orality-Literacy Studies and the Unity of the Human Race’, Oral Tradition 2.1 (1987), pp. 371–82 (373–76); see also Donna M. Beegle, ‘Overcoming the Silence of Generational Poverty’, Talking Points 15.1 (October/November 2003), pp. 11–20 (15–16); unesco Publishing, ‘Understandings of Literacy’, in Education for All: Literacy for Life (Paris, France: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2005). Accessed online: https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/2006/literacy-life [Accessed December 19, 2017], pp. 147–59. 103 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 1–3, 22–35, 111–13; W.J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York, ny: Routledge, 3rd edn, 2012), pp. 31–32, 45–49, 67–68. 104 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 111–13; Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 31–33. Ong dis- cusses how mechanicalized print eroded this perception, which he argues is illustrated throughout the Bible; Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 161–91; Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 73–74, 129. Pentecostalism retrieves these ancient assumptions; A. Yong, ‘Understand- ing and Living the Apostolic Way’, pp. 43–62. 105 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 24–35; Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 33–49.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 277

Hollenweger similarly argued that lower social-economic and Major world orality comprises an epistemology operative within Pentecostal oral liturgy,106 as a holistic ‘body/mind relationship’ reasoning mode.107 Néstor Medina describes Pentecostal orality as a complexity of ‘life networks, rituals, and practices’, though which Pentecostals

construct theological knowledge, interpret reality, express their faith, and actualize the meaning of the Bible for their immediate context and experience. Thus, orality is an epistemological source, a way of knowing and living, and not just a feature of how they communicate their faith experiences.108

This epistemology transforms gathered worshippers into a dialogical event,109 where they may110 anticipate miraculous and invasive, ministerial manifes- tations of God’s presence.111 Amos Yong notes how Pentecostal experience testifies to an oral culture where understanding God’s Word emerges from a di- versity of human bodily modes of discerning, responding to, and rightly inter- preting God’s invasive presence.112 So a crucial Pentecostal ‘orality orientation’

106 Hollenweger, ‘Charismatic Renewal in the Third World: Implications for Mission’, Occa- sional Bulletin of Missionary Research (April 1980), pp. 68–75 (73); Hollenweger, Pentecos- talism, pp. 34, 38, 294. 107 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 18–19. 108 Medina, ‘Orality and Context’, p. 114. 109 Kevin M. Bradt, Story as a Way of Knowing (Kansas City, ka: Sheed & Ward, 1997), pp. 3–11, 14, 17. 110 Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, ‘The Word of God from Living Voices: Orality and Literacy in the Pentecostal Tradition’, Pneuma, 27.2 (Fall 2005), pp. 225–55 (225–26, 231, 238–39). 111 Albrecht, ‘Worshiping and the Spirit’, p. 239; Christopher A. Stephenson, ‘The Rule of Spirituality and the Rule of Doctrine: A Necessary Relationship in Theological Method’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 15.1 (2006), pp. 83–105 (92); Marcela A. Chaván de Mat- viuk, ‘Latin American Pentecostal Growth: Culture, Orality and the Power of Testimonies’, Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 5.2 (July 2002), pp. 205–22 (217). James K.A. Smith similarly describes Pentecostal epistemology as an ‘epistemic grammar that privileges aesthesis (experience) before noesis (intellection)’; James K.A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 81. 112 Yong, ‘Understanding and Living the Apostolic Way’, p. 58; see also A. Yong, ‘The Spirit and Proclamation: A Pneumatological Theology of Preaching Part ii: Orality and the Sound of the Spirit: Intoning an Acoustemological Pneumatology’, The Living Pulpit (Summer 2015), pp. 28–32.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

278 Rice towards the production of theology,113 is recognizing as a theological source, the aesthetic role of embodied movement towards God’s ministering presence through ascetical practices of oral liturgy. Hollenweger posited that a major cause for Pentecostalism’s twentieth century global growth is its ‘oral root’,114 given how Pentecostal oral-funded liturgies have historically resonated with the world’s oral-literate ‘have-nots’.115 For as ‘churches of the poor’,116 Pentecostalism has significantly restored ‘the power of expression to people’ who have lost their ‘powers of speech’.117 In doing so, Pentecostalism has democratized socioeconomic access to the practicing of congregational liturgy and theologizing, by ‘dismantling’ the privileged role that Cartesian/rational certainty-aimed and print-literate reasoning modes have predominately held over Christian liturgy and theologizing within modern Christianity.118 Pentecostal orality has demonstrated a social and revolu- tionary power by empowering all social-economic strata into full-vocalized participation within the gathered community.119 A notable example has been the ‘liturgical ascetic’ of congregational tongues speech, which has functioned as a ‘sacramental gesture’120 towards socioeconomic democratizing of spiritual giftedness.121

3.2 Ecumenicalism and the Humanizing Gift of the Poor While championing Pentecostal orality, Hollenweger consistently urged, however, that we recognize both oral-literate and print-literate peoples, operating from contrasting epistemological modes and practices, as complementarily gifted. He thus argued that the greatest ecumenical task is not about intra- Christian tradition relations but, rather, about bringing these two peoples

113 Yong, ‘Understanding and Living the Apostolic Way’, pp. 57–62. 114 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 19–23. 115 Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, pp. 457–67; Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 20, 33–34, 196, 198, 270, 273, 293. 116 Hollenweger, ‘Pentecostalisms’, European Pentecostal Charismatic Research Association. Accessed online: http://www.epcra.ch/papers.html [Accessed 18 May 2011]), p. 12. 117 Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, p. 459. 118 Hollenweger, ‘Pentecostalism and Black Power’, Theology Today 30 (October 1973), pp. 228–38 (235); Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 35, 272–73. 119 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 23–24, 35, 269–75; esp. p. 273. 120 Daniela C. Augustine, Pentecost, Hospitality, and Transfiguration: Toward a Spirit Inspired Vision of Social Transformation (Cleveland, tn: cpt, 2012), pp. 37–38. 121 Dale T. Irvin, ‘“Drawing All Together in One Bond of Love”: The Ecumenical Vision of Wil- liam J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 6 (1995), pp. 25–53 (25–26).

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 279 along with their respective epistemologies and the theologies they respectively produce, together into a global community of ecumenical gift sharing,122 and I might say, a more humane world. I believe that Hollenweger’s argued ecumenical task pointedly introduces us to the moral responsibility that rich Christians have towards the world’s poor and lower-social economic peoples – that on account of their entrusted gifts, the rich justly posture their wealth towards the poor. Yet conversely, I also suggest that the moral formation of the Christian rich, requires not only executing this responsibility, but their corresponding reception to the epistemological giftedness of the world’s poor which Pentecostal orality signifies and fosters through its liturgical ascetics. More specifically, that through the primary oral epistemological giftedness of the world’s poor, the rich become humanized; that is, more humane. Therefore, the shalomic efficacy of Pentecostal orality actually suggests that as long as this polarity exists within the present age, the respective epistemological giftedness of both rich and poor are requisite towards the Christian vision of a new humanity flourishing through the shalom of God’s reign. I will substantiate this thesis by revisiting Ong’s distinctions between the world’s present ‘have-nots’ and ‘haves’ in relation to primary and it-funded secondary orality. Ong argued favourably towards the evolving it-funded secondary orality, noting its power towards granting humanity a shared global consciousness; one that is moreover expanding towards the whole universe. He also argued its needful role towards formation of globally informed theologies.123 Yet Ong recognized two critical concerns about it-funded secondary orality in relation to the present age rich/poor disparity. First, he realized that print literate/‘orality-illiterate’ people generally enjoy greater immediate access to newly emerging information technologies over against the world’s poor who are nonetheless far more ‘orality’-literate than the former.124

122 Hollenweger, ‘Pentecostalism and Black Power’, p. 238; Hollenweger, ‘Charismatic Renewal’, p. 73; Hollenweger, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William J. Seymour. A Comparison Between Two Ecumenists’, Norsk Tidsskrift for Misjon 39 (June 1985), pp. 192–201 (199–200); Hol- lenweger, ‘The Other Exegesis: Horizons in Biblical Theology’, An International Dialogue 3 (June 1981), pp. 155–79 (156); Hollenweger, ‘Intercultural Theology’, Theology Today 43.1 (April 1986), pp. 28–35 (35); Hollenweger, ‘The Ecumenical Significance of Oral Christi- anity’, Ecumenical Review 41.2 (April 1989), pp. 259–65 (260–61, 264–65); Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, pp. 39, 295. 123 Ong, The Presence of the Word, pp. 295–96, 298–301, 313; Ong, ‘Orality-Literacy Studies’, pp. 379–80. 124 Ong, ‘Orality-Literacy Studies’, pp. 373–74.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

280 Rice

Second, while arguing that the evolvement of humanity requires expanding development of it-funded secondary orality, Ong acknowledged that on its own, it lacks humanizing features that only primary orality provides.125 He conceded there are dangers; we may inadvertently esteem our ‘machines’ and technologies as models for true human telos.126 Hence, he acknowledged we must regularly ‘humanize’ the technology that funds our evolving secondary orality.127 For primary orality comprise primal human traits not equally present within secondary orality. For example, at least up to our present time if not in the future that is likely to comprise advancing forms of human-it integra- tion, the epistemology of primary orality foremost operates, even in contrast to the technology of writing, from and through our fleshly bodies. For we speak and receive words from one another through embodied gestures, vocal inflec- tions, facial expressions, and the ‘existential setting’ that our fleshly lives cre- ate with one another.128 Harvey Cox suggested that through its practices of tongues speech and bodily movements performed in hope of ecstatic experiences, visions, and healings, Pentecostal spirituality ‘restores’ to people something crucial to our ‘imago dei’. He called this, ‘primal spirituality’; meaning ‘primal’ ‘speech’, ‘piety’ (referring to practices of prayer), and ‘hope’.129 Follow- ing Cox, I thus suggest that the liturgical ascetics of primary orality express a restored primality to our humanity that awaits the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. As Michael Wilkinson notes in his research on the bodily kinesthetics that typifies Pentecostal/Charismatic worship, through these liturgical ascetics, we as embodied people are proleptically experiencing the full bodily healing that shall mark the fullness of God’s coming kingdom.130 Therefore, notwithstanding the future possibilities of greater levels of in- corporated information and mechanized technologies, and possibly even ar- tificial intelligence within our very bodies, perhaps there is something about primary orality, requisite to true human flourishing and the telos envisioned through Christ’s humanity. Noting the Bible’s repository of both oral and print literate categories, Ong reminds us that it presents Christ to us not through an analogy of written words but rather through the analogy of the ‘human spoken

125 Ong, ‘Orality-Literacy Studies’, p. 375. 126 W.J. Ong, Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Itha- ca, ny: Cornell, 1977), p. 300. 127 Ong, ‘Orality-Literacy Studies’, p. 379. 128 Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 45–47. 129 Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Cambridge, ma: Da Capo, 2001), pp. 81–82. 130 Wilkinson, ‘Pentecostalism, the Body, and Embodiment’, p. 33.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 281 word’.131 Appropriating his work to challenges that secondary orality poses for contemporary liturgy, Ong for instance argued that as prayer, Christian ‘liturgy is basically oral’, for through it we do not write, but rather ‘we speak to God’.132 He therefore advised that print-literate ‘high technology’ cultures welcome the gifts that oral people provide for the humanizing of second-orality generating information technology; namely, the epistemological giftedness of orality.133 The shalomic efficacy of Pentecostal orality requires the ecumenical sharing of gifts from both rich and poor for the making of God’s new humanity. But do the Pentecostal rich recognize their own poverty without the giftedness that the world’s poor provide them? For instance, not only have economically prosperous Pentecostal communities worldwide often minimized space within themselves for lower social-economic people,134 this has often been marked by a shift away from practices that have historically characterized Pentecostal primary oral liturgy.135 In his essay titled, ‘The Costly Loss of Testimony’, Scott Ellington noted a corresponding loss of the psalmic language of lament within Pentecostal churches. As Ellington infers, might it be that more socioeconomic successful congregations and people, perceive a troubling incongruency between their achieved or acquired wealth, with the language of lament? Ellington argues that by removing this language from our worship, we de-legitimize the realities of anything less than our own enjoyed success. We thus make it difficult to explore, acknowledge, and involve ourselves with the suffering of those who do not share our prosperity.136 Meanwhile, Land argued that the language of lament funds the Pentecostal ascetics of ‘prayer without words’: that is, prayers for the coming of God’s justice that forms in us, the affection of compassion.137 I would thus suggest that the twenty-first century traditioning of Pentecostal spirituality requires lamentably praying and ecumenically laboring for the union of rich and poor into shared spaces, within sacred times of worship

131 Ong, ‘Orality-Literacy Studies’, pp. 380–81. 132 W.J. Ong, ‘Worship at the End of the Age of Literacy’, Worship 43.8 (1969), pp. 474–87 (480). 133 Ong, ‘Worship’, pp. 375–76, 380. 134 A. Anderson, ‘Introduction: World Pentecostalism at a Crossroads’, pp. 28–29; Hollenwe- ger, ‘Crucial Issues for Pentecostals’, pp. 188–89. 135 Margaret M. Poloma, Pentecostalism at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilem- mas (Knoxville, tn: University of Tennessee, 1989), pp. 202–203; Scott A. Ellington, ‘The Costly Loss of Testimony’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 16 (2000), pp. 48–59 (53–54, 59); Gary B. McGee, ‘“More than Evangelical”: The Challenge of the Evolving Theological Iden- tity of the Assemblies of God’, Pneuma 25.2 (Fall 2003), pp. 289–300 (296). 136 Ellington, ‘The Costly Loss of Testimony’, pp. 58–59. 137 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, pp. 164, 171.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access

282 Rice before God. Doing so comprises prophetic critique against all flourishing evolvement of print-literate cultures through the technologies of ‘secondary orality’, without the ‘humanizing’ presence of orality-literacy and the oral people it signifies. For as Hollenweger noted, as ‘literary conceptual’ people, rich ‘Pentecostal elites’ can ‘pride themselves on speaking the language of science and technology’; yet as ‘nonconceptual people’, the Pentecostal poor are our teachers of something more basic to humanity at prayer before God: the liturgical ascetics of primary orality. So turning to the Bible, Hollenweger, like Ong, argues that we keep our evolving technologies and reliance on them, grounded in the ‘oral categories’ of primary orality.138 To conclude, insuring the ‘oralizing’ of both our primary and secondary theologies, requires the ecumenical inclusion of both rich and poor, and North and South hemispheric people, within shared spaces of fellowship through the Spirit of Jesus.139

Conclusion

To sum up, I have argued that the Evagrian-lapt grammar of prayer/liturgy as theology, grants us apt theological categories for articulating Pentecostal spirituality, in manners congruent to its intensely embodied oral liturgy and practices of primary theologizing. This grammar thus also provides us an apt methodological orientation for articulating Pentecostal notions of liturgical theology, and theologically assessing current developments in Pentecos- tal liturgical studies. The argued grammar can help theologically systemize pertinent foci within Pentecostal liturgical theological research, clarify their meanings in manners congruent to the orality of Pentecostal spirituality and its historically observed core motifs, and thus assess past and ongoing efforts towards the development of Pentecostal liturgical theology. I concluded Part One by showing the lapt movement’s influence on Land’s monograph, thus establishing it as a seminal harbinger in these directions. In Part Two I retrieved Fagerberg’s ‘liturgy-theology-asceticism’ triad to explicate how the argued grammar would orientate ongoing research in Pentecostal liturgical theology. I showed how this language helps us articulate pertinent foci within Pentecostal spirituality, and assess efforts in constructing Pentecostal liturgical theology. I then suggested that we might describe Pentecostal spirituality as grounded in liturgies that intensify epicletic prayer, through its

138 Hollenweger, ‘The Pentecostal Elites and the Pentecostal Poor: A Missed Dialogue’, in Karla Poewe (ed.), Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture (Columbia, sc: University of South Carolina, 1994), pp. 200–14 (213). 139 Hollenweger, ‘The Ecumenical Significance of Oral Christianity’, pp. 264–65.

journal of pentecostal theologyDownloaded from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2018) 259-283 01:36:01AM via free access

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy As Primary Theology 283 highly embodied ascetics of oral liturgical practices, which liminally generates a primary theology of eschatological passion and hope, centered on Christ as narrated through the Pentecostal four/five-fold Full Gospel. I thus argued that the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostal liturgy are the varied bodily practices that characterize Pentecostal oral liturgy. Through these ascetical practices, Pentecostals become primary theologians, producing primary theology; in other words, people praying for God’s coming kingdom, proleptically receiving it through the Spirit’s responsive descent, who empowers them to labour for its coming through renewing hope in God. In Part Three, I delineated the shalomic efficacy of Pentecostal oral liturgy and the oral epistemology operative through its liturgical practices. I thus argued how these ascetics empower the world’s poor into higher levels of shalomic flourishing. I also argued that when the rich embrace the poor and their primary orality epistemological giftedness, they too become empowered towards shalomic flourishing and true humanity. Hence, I also argued that an important ecumenical task for today’s world Pentecostalism is the task of reconciling these contrasting gifts of rich and poor, not only for the uplift of the poor but that the rich be humanized through the primary oral epistemological giftedness of the world’s poor. Therefore, the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostal oral liturgy prophetically signify, and efficaciously function, as the sounds of Jubilee. For the orality that characterizes Pentecostal liturgical ascetics are sounds proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour (Lk. 4.18–19). They are the sounds of good news empowering the poor, by restoring their voices, releasing captives by healing their bodies as instruments of worship, and recovering sight to the blind through the giving of eschatological hope through dreams, visions, and prophecies. Pentecostal liturgical asceticism thus liminalizes the world’s poor into the riches of God’s coming kingdom. Training them in the priestly ministry of Christ the Spirit Baptizer, it capacitates them with restored eschatological horizon and apostolic destiny, foregrounding them as prophets of His coming kingdom. For the ascetics of Pentecostal oral liturgy, deify the poor as partakers of Christ’s reign, for theirs is the Kingdom of God. Learned in poverty, there are groans spoke in prayer too deep for words. Yet the sounds of the poor deify the rich, as they too embrace, learn, and speak the tongues of Pentecost.140

140 My rhetorical use of the word ‘deify’ points to the paradoxical irony operative within God’s salvific economy regarding the kinds of gifts the poor and rich mutually give and receive from one another. I have argued that the ecumenical gift of the poor to the rich is the practiced ascetics of Pentecostal oral liturgy, which fosters mutual movement towards deification.

journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 259-283Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:36:01AM via free access