I feel a bit like a subject this week, a research subject that is! While engaging with our reading this week, it\u2019s like I\u2019ve been poked, prodded, examined, questioned and generalized to the point of exhaustion.\u00a0 It feels a bit strange to have someone study me, my group actually, and present findings based on observed group behaviors, even if those findings are generally positive\u2026\u00a0 As an individual positioned within the research subject group, I almost immediately begin to take umbrage at some of Miller and Yamamori\u2019s assertions in their book Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement.<\/i>\u00a0 It seems to me that their research from the standpoint of the \u201coutsider\u201d misses out on some important details.\u00a0 I am reflecting on how this kind of \u201cmisunderstood lab-rat\u201d status feels as I am starting to really dig into my own research.\u00a0 How careful should I be as I seek to make sense and draw inferences from others\u2019 stories?\u00a0 More on that later.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of things that cause me to just hesitate a little when I read this book, things that an actual Pentecostal would know.\u00a0 Perhaps if the authors had engaged a more ethnographic approach to their research, these would not have been overlooked.\u00a0 For example, the rarely spoken of secret among classical Pentecostals is that the Assemblies of God was not simply the result of \u201csome 300 preachers and laypersons gather[ing] for a \u2018general council\u2019.\u201d1 \u00a0That\u2019s kind of the whitewashed version (pun intended).\u00a0 The reality is that the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) was the earliest chartered Pentecostal church in America and it happened to be led by black ministers.\u00a0 \u201c[H]undreds of white Pentecostal preachers were ordained at (Charles Harrison) Mason\u2019s hand and given credentials from the [COGIC].\u201d2,3 \u00a0But it seems that these white ministers only accepted this ordination to reap the benefits of the registered church ordination.<\/p>\n
They largely ministered to whites and held separate, white conferences.\u00a0 Then, as soon as they were able to generate enough momentum to form their own registered religious organization\u2026 well we know what happened.\u00a0 They jumped ship’ leading to that aforementioned, glorious \u201cGeneral Council\u201d in 1914 when the Assemblies of God was officially formed.\u00a0 In my view, this was one of the most tragically racist occurrences in the history of modern Pentecostalism, effectively dismantling what could have been a colorless, classless Christian community in the mode of Azusa.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have time to delve into the mischaracterization of the \u201cspontaneous outbreak of speaking in tongues\u201d4 at St. Mark\u2019s Episcopal.\u00a0 But suffice it to say that the locals’ \u00a0response to Bennett’s Holy Spirit baptism fell well short\u00a0robust acceptance! \u00a0Bennett finished his career in Seattle after being tossed out of Van Nuys amid cries of \u201c[t]hrow out the damned tongues-speakers, we are Episcopalians, not a bunch of wild-eyed hillbillies!\u201d5<\/p>\n
So why am I using up so many of my very limited blog words pointing these things out?\u00a0 Because research is important and statistics only tell a portion of any culture\u2019s story.\u00a0 So, if the authors glossed over these (and other) parts of our story, I guess it\u2019s easy to understand simplistic perceptions like \u201cit is worship that makes Pentecostalism democratic, egalitarian, empowering, energizing, humbling, and communal.\u201d6 \u00a0Worship behaviors can be empirically observed from the outside, without living among us. \u00a0Outsider observations oftentimes result in these kinds of reductions, far too simplistic to be of much value.\u00a0 Perhaps this is the result of trying to find a sociological answer to what are deeply spiritual questions without the benefit of ethnography. \u00a0Questions like “why in the heck are these Pentecostals blowing up all over the world?” \u00a0Or, “how can it possibly be that these people are on the increase while the rest of the Evangelical world is in a statistical nose dive?” \u00a0(See how quickly I devolved into the same kind of generalizations I was criticizing in the book?)\u00a0<\/em>can’t be answered by simple, empirical observation. \u00a0They can only be answered by living among us, understanding our view of God\/man relationships and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n Which brings me full circle. \u00a0When acting as a researcher how careful must I be to not just watch statistical trend lines from 60,000 feet?\u00a0 I mean if I\u2019m interested in my research actually being helpful\u2026\u00a0 Do the things I am looking into actually matter to me personally?\u00a0 Or am I just inquiring for the sake of inquiry?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I feel a bit like a subject this week, a research subject that is! While engaging with our reading this week, it\u2019s like I\u2019ve been poked, prodded, examined, questioned and generalized to the point of exhaustion.\u00a0 It feels a bit strange to have someone study me, my group actually, and present findings based on observed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[475,716,717],"class_list":["post-6217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lgp5-2","tag-miller-and-yamamori","tag-pentecostal","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6217"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6239,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217\/revisions\/6239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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