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Pneuma 33 (2011) 271-276
Media, Pentecost and Prosperity: Te Racial Meaning behind the Aesthetic Message
Anthea Butler
Associate Professor of Religion, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Abstract
Te deft use of media by Afro-Pentecostal evangelists and performers has popularized historic changes in Pentecostal belief, theology, and practice. Tese changes are magnified when inves- tigated through the lens of race, gender, and aesthetics. Focusing on how Afro-Pentecostals deploy and use the media is important in discerning how beliefs are changed and/or reinforced by Afro-Pentecostals.
Keywords
Pentecostals, Birgit Meyer, aesthetics, race, prosperity gospel
It is an honor to write the coda for this special edition of Pneuma on the inter- section of media with African American Pentecostalism. I can personally “testify” to the media savvy of many Afro-Pentecostals in my own life. Grow- ing up in Houston, Texas, I listened to Reverend Ike (Eikenrotter) on KCOH, the black AM station. It was not easy for a black Catholic girl to find out exactly what a “prayer cloth” was inside parochial school circles. Reverend Ike was neither recognized nor revered by the adults in my Catholic world, to say the least. Tough I did not necessarily appreciate this at the time, Rev. Ike had managed to pierce my hermetically sealed religious context with the power of the airwaves. Radio brought into my life a different religious perspective that no one, not even the Catholic Church, could keep out.
Tis issue of Pneuma on media and Pentecostalism takes an important step toward revealing these familiar words and sacred worlds of the airwaves and charting particular trajectories of African American Pentecostalism. Te essays illumine how theological changes “on the ground,” changes in Pentecostal belief, theology, and practice have permeated the movement broadly across
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/027209611X575050
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race, gender, and region. Such core themes in this collection, along with eco- nomics and sexuality, call into question traditional scholarly definitions of what constitutes Pentecostal belief. If “the medium is the message,” then what these essays reveal is just how much the underpinnings of the Pentecostal movement have shifted. Classical Pentecostalism no longer constitutes the center. Te messages, still text-based, have more power in their aesthetic rep- resentations than in their doctrinal constructions. For good or ill, the center of the movement is comprised of Charismatic and neo-Charismatic offshoots. Taking each of these essays, I will highlight how their trajectories take our understandings of Afro-Pentecostalism forward while attempting to hold on to one important core of early Pentecostal theology: the transcendence of race. If, as Frank Bartelman proclaimed at Azusa Street, “the color line was washed away in the blood,” the manner in which each of these essays addresses race becomes an important element in discerning how Afro-Pentecostals relayed their ideas about race through media and beliefs.
Jonathan L. Walton’s essay, “Te Greening of the Gospel,” shows how the varied theological innovations of Rev. Eikerenkoetter transcend traditional streams of his religious background. Eikerenkoetter’s movement — from Baptist, to Pentecostal, to science of mind — is a shared theme of many in black Pentecostal leadership. Prominent leaders who have helped shape Pente- costal beliefs have taken stints in other denominational contexts. Reasons vary. Sometimes it is a matter of receiving ordination, and/or it may involve geo- graphic movements and migrations. Such fluidity of movement allows these actors to tap multiple springs of spirituality. Walton deftly recognizes this in Eikerenkoetter’s appropriation of Neville Lancelot Goddard. Goddard’s mind- science teachings and emphasis on aesthetics ties into an important point. Media, both television and print, allow Eikerenkoetter’s aesthetic of wealth to “have skin.” Te textual (word) becomes “real” and renders the Reverend’s messages with additional layers of cultural power. Walton’s formulation con- nects well with Birgit Meyer’s 2010 article, “Aesthetics of Persuasion: Global Christianity and its Sensational Forms.” Meyer’s assessment that emphasizing the “materiality” of religion, the value attributed to bodies, things, texts, and gestures, make the divine tangible in the immanent.1 Using Meyer’s theory, then, helps to understand Eikerenkoetter’s appeal and broad message: his theology of wealth and physical aesthetic made his prosperity teachings become
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Birgit Meyer, “Aesthetics of Persuasion: Global Christianity and Pentecostalism’s Sensational Forms,” South Atlantic Quarterly 109, no. 4 (Fall 2010): 743.
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the material, sensate, and reachable. Eikerenkoetter’s emphasis on his own “good hair” conkaline hairstyle and emphasis on Dutch ancestry also played into his distinctive materiality. Te media are what transmitted that message of prosperity and racial transcendence. Even if the public consumption of his messages were predicated on obtaining wealth like Eikerenkoetter’s, his physi- cal presence, as seen in media sources, gave an aesthetic nuance his followers recognized, which ultimately enhanced the message of his prosperity teaching. Josef Sorett takes this theme of racial transcendence forward into the world of Christian rap music with his treatment of Stephen Wiley. From a Word of Faith background, Wiley’s association with Rhema Bible Training Center would prove to be an important step in his entrance into the rap world. Like Rev. Ike, Wiley, too, had a Baptist background. But it was his experiences within the Word of Faith world that opened him up to both the potential of music and its ability to transcend the bonds of racism. Perhaps it is no stretch to see how the Word of Faith world translated into rap music; both are heavily fixated on the creative articulation of language, and it is the formulation of the word that holds importance in the Word of Faith realm. Wiley’s acceptance by whites for modeling “race” in his rap music, and his concomitant struggles in the black community with rap music being a denigration of the race, reveal the dichotomy of racial transcendence. Both groups seemingly operated within stereotypical racial norms in operations, yet how they perceived race “perform- ing” in each community was read differently. Te deployment of racial “norms” on both sides suggests that even if the Word of Faith and prosperity ministries claim to transcend race, race clearly operates as a demarcation line to the possibilities of complete transcendence. Like Eikerenkoetter, Wiley’s CDs served as a “physical repository of the world,” bringing the materiality of the word into being. Tus Meyer’s sensational form can be applied to Wiley’s story as well.
Debra Mumford’s piece on Creflo Dollar, however, points to the perils of Dollar’s teachings on racial reconciliation insofar as they possess the potential to undermine true reconciliation. Dollar believes that personal repentance, rather than corporate or structural repentance, is important in transcending race to becoming part of the larger family of God. What is most useful in this essay, and perhaps most subversive, is Mumford’s brief focus on how the “look” and “feel” of Dollar’s ministry support his preached word. Mumford’s personal account of visiting World Changers, and the ways in which African American worship styles were present, even foregrounded, would seem at first glance to be an innocuous description. Yet it is this aesthetic performance of racialized
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worship that lures both white and black viewers into believing that the Holy Spirit is present, and thus the worship is authentic. Dollar’s actual teaching is that race is transcended in becoming “born again,” and worship is not embed- ded in heritage. Dollar represents the apotheosis in racial transformation within the Word of Faith media world. Worship masks what Dollar truly thinks about race in the African American context. Prosperity, not race, is the social constructed marker in the Word of Faith realm.
Each essay, interestingly enough, is about the Afro-Pentecostal experience in the media. Yet the three share something else in common: All of the actors, in one way or another, have tried to change their phenotype, clothing, worship style, or congregational aesthetic to a broader-based understanding of Ameri- can media-based styles of consumption that are “palatable” to their perspective audiences. What drives this? Is it the use of media, or is there something more fundamental to Afro-Pentecostal understandings of the body and self in oper- ation? What is more, this racial transcendence, first talked about at Azusa Street, did not ignore racism. But the prosperity gospel discussed in the work of Walton, Sorett, and Mumford mediates the negotiation of race through reconciliation, inclusion, or, in the case of Rev. Ike, economic equality. Bodies, then, have become central to their respective narratives. And, for this reason, it would have been interesting to witness a fuller discussion of the role of the body included in these essays.
Te black Pentecostal body does play an important role in Darnell Moore’s and Monique Moultrie’s essays. Both show how televangelists like Juanita Bynum and Jamal Bryant use Pentecostal/Charismatic understandings of gen- dered norms in racialized ways. Each deploys messages that seem to speak liberation through their performance of gender (à la Judith Butler), yet still reinforce and recapitulate gender norms. Te high priestess of Pentecostal sexuality, Juanita Bynum, has staked her entire ministry and evangelistic career on sexuality: preaching about it, revamping it, and harnessing it for spiritual power. Moultrie’s assessment of Bynum’s career in the media and the stories of women who are “married to God” show that although media allow for spec- tacular preaching moments like “No More Sheets,” the messages are embed- ded in a common Pentecostal teaching on Holiness and on women’s roles. It is the woman who needs to be celibate, focused on God, and “keeping her- self.” Bynum’s sexual wordplay is a holy tease, designed to keep followers hooked into the message, sold out into mortifying and crucifying their flesh for God. None of Bynum’s teachings, unfortunately, reflect that men should do the same.
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Tese teachings, whether from Bynum or Michelle McKinley Hammond, play into a broader historical discussion of black women’s sexuality, namely, the need for it to be “harnessed.” By constantly talking about her flesh, Bynum unwittingly perpetuates the notion that black women are overtly sexual and need God to subdue their flesh. Te politics of respectability and media- imposed negative images and stereotypes of African American women’s sexual- ity obviously influence these evangelists’ teachings, and I look forward to Moultrie’s continued exploration of this valuable and relevant topic.2 Manhood, as evinced in Moore’s essay, is reinforced to ensure a not neces- sarily healthy heteronormativity based on impractical gendered standards and compulsory sexual prescriptions. Jamal Bryant’s performance of “I’m the man” can be seen not only as a performance of prosperity gospel (dressing for pros- perity), but also as a reinforcement of black manhood defined by the prosper- ity gospel’s materialist, racialized, and gendered discourse. Sermons that address homosexuality head on, such as the Fan or Follower segment by Bishop Moore, offer a priori conceptions of immorality. And any sexual act outside of the marriage bed is verboten. So whether it is Bishop Weeks talking about what to do in the bedroom, or Juanita Bynum asserting that she will never “withhold” sex from her then husband, all of the messages support traditional gender and heterosexual relationships within the confines of marriage, while failing to offer a sexual ethic based on mutual respect and reciprocity toward human fulfillment.
But Moore’s essay also opens up an interesting trajectory about the use of new media such as YouTube for the dissemination of these messages. Sermon clips, comments, and other methods of distributing these messages ensure that they remain in the “ether.” Nowhere was that more important than the recent Eddie Long civil suit, in which many of Long’s sermons at New Birth were viewed by thousands of viewers. Te “fresh sperm” video in particular gained thousands of hits, and many comments were also made about Long’s sexuality. Moore’s essay attunes us to the ever present reality that media messages last and that original intent is irrelevant, as sermons will be interpreted in other contexts over time. Tus, Moore is correct to sound the moral alarm here.
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Te Politics of Respectability is discussed in Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s Righteous Dis- content: Te Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
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Conclusion
All of these essays then, have one question at their core: how do Afro- Pentecostals in Word of Faith traditions understand themselves as persons of African and American descent? Do the modifications and subversions they effect in order to present themselves in a certain matter to the media have something to say about Afro-Pentecostals corporately, or media figures in par- ticular? Have they interpreted the gospel in such a way that their ethnicity is subsumed in the word? I am not suggesting that these actors have become “white.” To the contrary, I believe that they are wrestling with Cornel West’s question, “What does it mean not only to be African American, but Ameri- can?” In this case, we might rephrase the question so as to ask, “What does it mean to be Afro-Pentecostal and of a prosperity/Word of Faith tradition?” As these essays reveal, to answer these questions our interpretive lens MUST take into account media tools.
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