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book reviews
521
Daniel Ramírez
Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico in the Twentieth
Century. Chapel Hill,nc: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Paperback
$29.95.isbn9781469624068.
There has been scant attention paid to the voices of Chicano/Mexican Pente- costals whose existence was marked by constant settlement and resettlement. Daniel Ramírez’s excellent book successfully traverses and lessens this gap in knowledge, providing a voice to long-forgotten testimonies of those whose lack of the ability to speak English left us to the unintentional “sociolinguistic cap- tivity of the [Azusa Street] revival’s leaders” (p. 5).
The focus of Migrating Faith is primarily placed on a particular stream of Pentecostalism, namely, the oneness stream of Apostolicism, which Ramírez considerssui generis. Its root is not Reformed, Wesleyan, or African-American, as has been argued by many scholars for North American classical Pente- costalism. It formed within its own context, oftentimes outside the attention of orthodox Christianity, which allowed for its oneness doctrine to flourish. Ramírez traces these mobile pioneers throughout the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. For them the borders were fluid. At times they moved voluntarily, following employment opportunities. At other times their movement was forced upon them, as best seen in the Great Repatriation that forcibly returned even American-born Mexican-Americans to Mexico. How- ever, these movements only led to the further spreading of the Apostolic mes- sage. Ramírez shows how a continual flow of migration introduced many peo- ple to the Apostolic message, who would then carry the message to their des- tinations. Oftentimes many would become converted in faraway destinations and return to their homelands to share their newfound faith, leading to a fur- ther transnational character and solidarity of Chicano/Mexican Pentecostal- ism. As Ramírez states, “In a sense Pentecostalism represented as much a move- ment of labor and migration as of religious belief and practice” (p. 74). The spread of Apostolic Pentecostalism was further aided by its pragmatist charac- teristic. It easily adapted the musical culture of Mexico, utilizing the rhythms and the instruments of popular culture that had been deemed profane by mainline Protestants and Catholics alike. Due to these various features, Chi- cano/Mexican Apostolic Pentecostalism flourished, treating the border with fluidity in its expansion.
Migrating Faith is divided into six chapters, including the introduction and conclusion. Chapters one and two introduce the reader to important figures and explain the various elements at play in the spread of Apostolic Pentecostal- ism. In them the reader finds that this spread was no easy accomplishment.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/15700747-03804013
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Along with armed conflicts that led to the retreating of missionaries, there were many oppositions at play: persistent racism, religious intolerance, anticlerical- ism, and orthodoxy, for example. However, these oppositions also played a part in the development of stronger solidarity amongst these Pentecostals and the flourishing of oneness doctrine.
Chapters three and four further recount the unintended effects of repatri- ation. Through this unfortunate event, the Pentecostal message spread and created a deeper transnational network. The heterodox oneness doctrine flour- ished due to this jarring experience because uprootedness opened people to new beliefs and ways of thinking and solidified relationships that were forged through this fire. These relationships and networks were also created without foreign missionary assistance, which further strengthened the fraternal bind. These relationships transcended borderlines, overcoming national allegiances. What mattered was recognition within the network. This led to the empower- ment of these Pentecostals who belonged mostly to the lower socioeconomic class. Whether these migrants were legal or illegal, whether of means or poor, they were shown hospitality and fellowship. Especially through letters of rec- ommendation, those “held in low esteem (and meagerly compensated) by a capitalist society during the day (or on the graveyard shift) regained a large measure of self-esteem when gathered with spiritual kin for spiritual fellow- ship and bread breaking” (p. 133). Apostolic Pentecostalism benefited in these regards.
Chapters five and six give a glimpse of the characteristics of this migrant Pentecostalism. Drawing much of his information from the periodical Exégeta Apostólico, Ramírez paints a picture of a musical Pentecostalism, along with its characteristic hospitality and relationality, emphases on healing, missions, and even division. Music has always played an important role in Pentecostalism. Especially for these Apostolics, music was a medium that not only transmitted Apostolic theology to its churches, but also gained wide reach outside Apostolic Pentecostalism. This was due to Pentecostalism’s appropriation of popular culture, much to the chagrin of Anglo missionaries. Music has always been an important medium, and it plays a central role throughout Ramírez’s work.
Migrating Faith is an important work in the history of Pentecostalism that presents much neglected perspectives. However, one minor critique can be raised for an otherwise excellent work. This critique is a matter more of style rather than of substance, although substance is often part of style. In certain places, the valuable information in the chapters did not seem to connect well with each other. Rather than offering an overarching theme within a chap- ter and the work, each piece of information often seemed to lack coherence, leaving the reader wondering how to connect the information together. While
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certain themes, such as migration, music, and transnational solidarity, continu- ally arose throughout the work, which helped to tie much of the work together, this binding seemed to be left to the reader to work out. Ramírez could have helped by placing road markers to help form the information into a coherent whole. Since much of the ground covered in this study has been neglected and is thus new for many readers, comprehension of the material would have been helped by a more systematic presentation. However, even given this critique, which is a minor one, Daniel Ramírez has indeed offered an invaluable work toward giving a voice to an important, but neglected piece of Pentecostal his- tory.
Yoon Shin
University of Aberdeen, Scotland
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