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Book Reviews / Pneuma 35 (2013) 87-156
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Martin Lindhardt, Power in Powerlessness: A Study of Pentecostal Life Worlds in Urban Chile, Religion in the Americas Series 12 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012). viii + 272 pp., €105.00; $144.00 hardback.
Power in Powerlessness,written by the Danish anthropologist Martin Lindhardt, is an ethno- graphic study of a traditional Pentecostal church in the city of Valparaíso en Chile. Through detailed descriptions and examination of Pentecostal rituals and everyday practices, the author wishes to uncover how people learn to think and live as Pentecostals. The author raises the question: “How — or through what processes — are Pentecostal life worlds and self-identities constituted, reproduced, and modified?” (19).
Since the pioneer works of Christian Lalive D’Epinay and Emilio Willems in the 1960s, Latin American Pentecostalism has been investigated and analyzed from several perspec- tives, including topics such as politics, gender, and socioeconomic consequences due to con- version. Most of the works have tried to assess the reason for the growth of Pentecostalism and its impact on the private and public spheres in Latin American societies. According to Lindhardt, the explanations of the phenomenal growth of the movement usually have a certain measure of instrumentalism. Though he does not object to the findings of these investigations, he says that they only tell part of the story. One should not only investigate why people convert, but also how they develop their particular Pentecostal way of relating among themselves and the social world. Most researchers have focused on the non-religious effects of conversion, while Lindhardt gives attention to Pentecostals’ rituals, their under- standing of divine activity in human lives, and their everyday religious experiences and interpretations of events. His analysis of these issues makes this work an important contri- bution to the scholarship on Latin American Pentecostalism.
Lindhardt conducted the major part of his research in an Evangelical Pentecostal Church (EPC) in a poor neighborhood in Valparaíso. The church is a conservative and “traditional” Pentecostal church, characterized by its strict rules for physical appearance and clothing. The research methods applied were qualitative interviews and participation in church activ- ities, and his ethnographic fieldwork was conducted over shorter periods from 1999-2009. Through these methods the author provides a detailed description of church life and rituals, the everyday practices of the church members, and their understanding of the world. His theoretical framework relies especially on Thomas Csordas and George Herbert Mead, and their theories about the “self”.
The author sees a strong connection between the EPC’s theological emphasis on human impotence and total dependence on God, and the feeling of social powerlessness that many Chileans experience. However, even though the Pentecostals speak much of this human powerlessness, practicing the faith nurtures a sense of agency and therefore empowers peo- ple. Divine power only works if humans activate it by praying, Bible reading, evangelization, and ritual practice; thus Pentecostals have power in their powerlessness. The Pentecostal the- ology and praxis helps members negotiate new identities, and engage in the social reality with a sense of authority, autonomy and control (11). Lindhardt argues that Pentecostals also redefine the social world and their place in it “through everyday linguistic practice, dis- courses on healing and politics, the narrating of testimonies and life stories, ritual prac- tice . . . , the ritualization of everyday life, gender politics, discourses on the Devil, . . . the
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15700747-12341309
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 35 (2013) 87-156
articulation of rumors, conspiracy theories and apocalyptic readings of world history” (10). These topics are treated in separate chapters and support Lindhart’s main arguments.
The chapter discussing demonology is especially thought-provoking. With the title: “Why the Devil is Satan So Important in Chilean Pentecostalism?” Lindhardt attracts readers’ attention. The description of the Pentecostals’ understanding of the workings of God’s coun- terpart, and how to protect themselves from his attacks, demonstrates the complexities of Pentecostal demonology. Satan interferes in the world and in the church, and attacks a per- son’s body and mind. The author argues that the satanic attacks on the human mind can be viewed as an internal dialogue with the “self”, where Satan represents the critical voice of society. “The advantage of this perspective is that it enables us to see the diabolic other, which imposes itself on the mind and becomes an uncanny, conflictive, and skeptical part of the self, as deriving from wider society or the ‘world’ that Pentecostals perceive themselves as having a tense and oppositional relations to” (229). Satanic attacks on the mind are in this way analyzed as a self-reflective process. I wish the author expounded this argument and how it relates to the rest of Pentecostal demonology and worldview; giving it a broader con- text would strengthen this interesting argument.
One of the things I appreciate about this book is its accurate description of Pentecostal praxis, beliefs and inner logic. The author is an outsider but shows deep sensibilities to the community he studies and a deep understanding of the Pentecostal perspectives on differ- ent areas. He also has a strong emphasis on empirical evidence as foundation for his argu- ments, which is especially evident in his description of Pentecostals and politics. In very few instances does Lindhardt suggest ideas that he cannot validate through his evidence, and on these instances he clarifies that it is speculation, i.e. what role sexuality plays in women’s “marriage with Jesus”.
I consider this work a valuable volume on Global Pentecostalism, since many of the issues treated are relevant for the study of the movement worldwide. Lindhardt brings new perspectives into the field; he connects theories in a constructive manner, and describes issues that have received little attention previously. I would recommend this to scholars and students of global Pentecostalism, both for it’s theoretical and analytical value, as well as its ethnographic accounts.
Reviewed by Rakel Ystebø Alegre PhD Student
Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia [email protected]
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