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Pentecostalism Charismatic Economies

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  • Charismatic Economies: Pentecostalism, EconomicRestructuring, and Social Reproduction

    Isabelle V. BarkerBryn Mawr College

    Abstract Pentecostalism is one of the worlds fastest growing religions, expanding mostquickly in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia. To make sense of thisexpansion in so many developing regions, I suggest that Pentecostalism fosters norms andbehaviors that harmonize with neoliberal economic restructuring. I frame this theoreticallywith Polanyis notion of double movement. In our current era of weakened stategovernance vis-a`-vis neoliberal trade and fiscal policy, non-state sites of reaction haveemerged. Pentecostalism is one such site, and, in contrast with Polanyis example, I suggestthat Pentecostalism has embedded the self-regulated aspects of neoliberal capitalism. I makethis argument by using the feminist political economy theorization of social reproductionto interpret a number of empirical studies of Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism addressesdilemmas of social reproduction engendered by neoliberalism, and so may be said to embedthis form of economic organization in human social life in a way that reinforces neoliberalcapitalism.

    The Pentecostals do not have a social policy, they are social policy.1

    If we apply Karl Polanyis mid twentieth-century critique of the self-regulatedmarket to contemporary conditions of neoliberal globalization, it would seem thatthe economic form that has been in ascendance for some decades now is fatedto produce its own undoing. In his classic text, The Great Transformation, Polanyiasserted that the self-regulated market design of the late nineteenth-centuryglobal economy spurred a host of countermovements that resulted in variousgovernment interventions, including the New Deal in the United States, theembryonic forms of European welfare states, and the centralizing planning offascist Italy and Germany.2 Though varied in design and in ideology, theseinterventions embedded markets within government regulations and so effectivelyput an end to liberal fantasies of markets propelled by their internal logic.3 Polanyi

    1 Jeffrey Gros, Confessing the Apostolic Faith from the Perspective of the PentecostalChurches, Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 9:1 (1987), p. 12.

    2 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001 [1944]). Forexcellent sets of essays on Polanyis contributions to contemporary social sciencescholarship, see Politics & Society 31:2 (June 2003) and Kenneth McRobbie and Kari Polanyi-Levitt, Karl Polanyi in Vienna (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1999).

    3 John Gerard Ruggie, International Regimes, Transactions and Change: EmbeddedLiberalism in the Postwar Economic Order, International Organization 36:2 (1982),pp. 379415.

    New Political Science,Volume 29, Number 4, December 2007

    ISSN 0739-3148 print/ISSN 1469-9931 on-line/07/040407-21q 2007 Caucus for a New Political ScienceDOI: 10.1080/07393140701688305

  • made this argument based on the claim that the laissez-faire organization ofeconomic activities so thoroughly disrupted and threatened human social life thatit inevitably set off social and political reactions in the interest of self-protection.For Polanyi, then, liberal economics was unsustainable in practice. Intriguingly,contemporary forms of countermovement in the context of the weakened nationalstate of our era may be proving that Polanyis forecast of liberal economics doesnot apply. While I am sympathetic to Polanyis critique of liberal capitalism, hisclaims regarding its fate seem to no longer hold.

    In many ways, there are striking parallels between the era Polanyi wrote ofand our own. If we consider examples that vary from neo-fascism, religiousfundamentalism, global feminism, and the World Social Forum, it does appearthat our era is marked by a range of social and political countermovementsresponding to the ascendance of neoliberalism alongside the expansion ofderegulated global markets. From a progressive point of view, these contemporarycountermovements may be catalogued as ranging from foreboding reactionaryphenomena to hopeful instances of resistance. However, while these examplesseem to echo the dynamic of countermovement of an earlier era and the politicalrange of ideologies that that era entailed, none offers a model of state governancecapable of re-embedding economic activities through government regulation.In other words, while the current neoliberal organization of economic activitiesspurs countermovement, these movements do not necessarily spell the end of theneoliberal market as we have come to know itin part because there is no viablemechanism of governance to impose regulative policies that would check laissez-faire. In fact, in an era of destabilized national governance, in some instancescountermovements may even have the effect of strengthening neoliberalcapitalism. Rather than embodying a self-protective reaction against and/orresistance to the self-regulated market, some forms of reaction have the effect ofembedding neoliberalism, particularly in the absence of viable state governance.Pentecostalism provides an intriguing illustration of just this dynamic.

    As one of the fastest growing religions in the world today, Pentecostalismfosters norms and behaviors that harmonize well with the demands of neoliberaleconomies. This is especially apparent in developing economies, where recentdecades of economic restructuring have been marked by processes that includethe decentralization of governance vis-a`-vis social policy, the reorganization ofwork, increasing personal and national financial instability, urbanization, andlabor migration. Drawing together a variety of empirical studies andinterpretations, I will suggest that Pentecostalism provides individuals withnon-state resources to adapt to each of these processes. Based on thisinterpretation, it should come as no surprise that a form of Protestant theologyand charismatic worship that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth centuryin the United States has a century later hundreds of millions of adherentsworldwide, growing the most rapidly across sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia, thePhilippines, South Korea, and Latin America.4 From a secular progressiveperspective, the symbiotic role that Pentecostalism has in relation to neoliberalcapitalism may well be troubling. There appears to be little potential in

    4 Allan Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2004), p. 281; see also Paul Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and LatinAmerica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

    408 Isabelle V. Barker

  • Pentecostalism for fostering liberal democratic politics, in part due to its statusas a civil society religious movement and therefore not subject to the publicscrutiny and democratic interventions of state institutions. But this said, itbehooves us to consider why it is that Pentecostalism appears to be so compellingto so many people in this era of neoliberal economic organization.5

    In this article, I suggest that Pentecostalism has the capacity to embedneoliberal economic activities by integrating these activities into society. As such,it exists in a harmonizing, even symbiotic, relation to neoliberal capitalism.Pentecostalism provides adherents tools to respond to the vagaries of theneoliberal organization of the economy in a way that is supportive of thisorganization and in a way that does not result in the kind of governmentintervention that Polanyi observed in the first half of the twentieth century.In developing countries, Pentecostal churches have come to function as non-statesites addressing social needs that have gone unmet by the state due to acombination of factors. Moreover, the individualist theology, charismaticpractices, and the new kinds of community fostered by Pentecostal worshipreinforce shifting modes of production and globalizing markets, purveying valuesthat support the informalization of the labor market, increased labor migration,and the rapid transformation of local communities. This interpretation ofPentecostalism runs counter to Polanyis insistence that the self-regulated marketwas purely asocial in form and in practice and could never be harmonized withsocial life.6 Pentecostalism as a transnational phenomenon may be unique to anera defined by the neo-medieval reorganization of sovereignty and unravelingof state sovereignty.7 In this era, Pentecostalism seems to provide religious,material, and cultural resources that, to quote Polanyi, induc[e] the individual tocomply with rules of behavior which, eventually, ensur[e] his functioning inthe economic systemonly this time, the economic system is one organizedaround the self-regulated market that Polanyi implied was destined to foreverbe at odds with human social life.8

    In the discussion that follows, I will briefly sketch the contours of neoliberalglobalization by exploring the effects of economic restructuring on theorganization of production and on governance and social policy. In order totease out the effects of neoliberal globalization on social life, I will draw on thefeminist analytical concept of social reproduction. While this representssomewhat of a departure from Polanyis conceptualization of the social, feministwork on social reproduction offers a more thoroughgoing definition and is moresensitive to the role of gender in social provisioning and socialization. In laying

    5 For a similarly structured argument regarding the symbiotic dynamics of neoliberalism,see Wendy Brown, American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservativism, and De-Democratization, Political Theory 34:6 (2006), pp. 690714.

    6 Though influenced by Polanyi, several contemporary scholars have parted with thisinterpretation, suggesting instead that liberal capitalism can be embedded in socialrelations. See, for example, Mark Granovetter, Economic Action and Social Structure: TheProblem of Embeddedness, American Journal of Sociology 91:3 (1985), pp. 481510, andmore recently, and more implicitly, V. Spike Peterson, A Critical Rewriting of Global PoliticalEconomy (New York: Routledge, 2003).

    7 David Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Stanford: Stanford University Press,1995).

    8 Polanyi, op. cit., p. 57.

    Charismatic Economies 409

  • out what he means by the social, Polanyi adopts a backward-looking historical-anthropological approach that idealizes the pre-liberal capitalist organization ofthe economy.9 The feminist perspective of social reproduction has a far morecontemporary viewpoint regarding socialization in market societies, one that isuseful for analysis of todays socio-economic dynamics.10

    Having clarified my analytical approach to exploring neoliberal globalizationseffects on social life, I will provide an overview of the history, theology, andworship practices of Pentecostalism. Examples culled from empirical scholarshipregarding Pentecostalism in a variety of national settings illustrate my largerargument regarding symbiotic linkages between Pentecostalism and neoliberal-ism in developing states. The concept of social reproduction is particularly usefulfor illuminating these linkages in that it captures multiple social processes affectedby economic restructuring: the reproduction of the species; the creation of a laborforce suitable for the demands of the day; and the foundation-building of socialidentity and community. Pentecostalism provides cultural, material, and of coursetheological resources for meeting needs at each of these levels, and so it may be saidto be responsive to the crisis of social reproduction engendered by neoliberalism.

    Neoliberalism, Economic Restructuring, and Social Reproduction

    Neoliberal economic restructuring refers at once to the nature of economic policy-making as well as to the organization of production and the ways in which domesticeconomies have increasingly integrated into the global economy. Though theentrenchment of neoliberalism varies in each national context and so has uneveneffects, there exist patterns common to many developing economies, whether low ormiddle-income. These include, first, the opening of domestic market and productionactivities to global transactions, foreign direct investment, and loan packagesdesigned by international financial institutions; second, the restructuring of workwith a contraction of public sector jobs and a shift toward jobs in export-orientedproduction, along with an expansion of the informal sector of micro-enterprise;and, finally, changes in governance, with an emphasis on strengthening civil andpolitical rights along with constitutional laws to secure and clarify political andproperty rights, and a decentralized approach to the administration of social policy.

    The aim of the free market reforms underway in so many national contextsis economic growth, but advancing this goal has profound consequences onsocial and political life that are best illuminated through the concept of socialreproduction. While initially adopted by feminist economists to identify thevalueand the necessityof gendered work taking place outside of marketrelations, the concept of social reproduction has taken on new currency in thecontext of neoliberal restructuring.11 This broader structural application of the

    9 In contrast with Marx and Engels for whom pre-capitalist societies suffered from theidiocy of rural life (The Communist Manifesto), Polanyi seems at times nostalgic for the past.For Polanyi, pre-capitalist economic activities were successfully embedded in cultures andmores that enabled the social sustenance of a communitys members. This more positiveappraisal is due largely to Polanyis historical anthropological perspective.

    10 See, for example, how Peterson, op. cit., p. 91, spins a critical feminist interpretation ofsocial reproduction out of Polanyis work.

    11 Isabella Bakker, Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered PoliticalEconomy, New Political Economy 12:4 (December 2007).

    410 Isabelle V. Barker

  • concept of social reproduction links activities taking place locally and in thehome with forms of social policy addressing education, health care, and socialsafety net provisions. Social reproduction further reflects the mechanismsestablishing moral and political norms of a community. Expanding on the work offeminist economists, I define social reproduction as reflecting three levels. First,social reproduction reflects the literal reproduction of the species and thephysical and emotional care that that entails over the course of a human life.Second, social reproduction includes the reproduction of labor power throughmeeting basic subsistence needs as well as providing education and training.Finally, social reproduction refers to the sustenance of social community moregenerally.12 This conceptualization of social reproduction serves to illuminatethe parallels and linkages of the effects of economic restructuring on social life ateach of these levels.

    The decentralization of the provision of public social services representsneoliberal restructurings most direct impact on social reproduction, and thus isone site of dislocation engendered by economic restructuring. Followingdecolonization, developing states approached the provision of social services ina variety of ways. For example, in Latin American countries, social rights werefacilitated by way of clientelism, or the development of a class of state workersemployed by state-owned enterprises, with the gradual extension of social rightsbeyond this class.13 In an era of neoliberal globalization and, in many cases,subject to structural adjustment policies, states have reorganized the adminis-tration of social provisioning to increasingly roll back their spending on socialpolicies. This has led to a reorganization of governance vis-a`-vis social policy,such that, as Bryan Roberts has noted of the Latin American context, socialprovision is increasingly undertaken by a decentralized managerial state thatoutsources these activities to civil society institutions.14 This in turn has led to areprivatization of social reproduction whereby private sector actors are enlistedto administer the distribution of social goods.15 This site of privatization is highlyuneven in its effects, as it shifts the burdens of social reproduction ontoindividuals and civil society institutions in ways that vary according to classposition, geographic location, race, ethnicity, and, of course, gender.

    But neoliberal restructuring also indirectly sets off a host of other socialdislocations. Changes in the organization of production are the result oftechnological innovations in information and communication coinciding withneoliberal economic restructuring. This combination has replaced the protec-tionist policies of import substitution industrialization that previously dominatedthe political economy of so many developing states. Developing states have sinceexperienced some combination of a rapid growth in industrialization for export,an expansion of large commercial interests in agriculture, and a rapid increase ininformal sector jobs in services. These shifts in the organization of production

    12 Isabella Bakker and Stephen Gill (eds), Power, Production and Social Reproduction(New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 4, 32.

    13 Bryan Roberts, Citizenship, Rights, and Social Policy, in Charles Wood and BryanRoberts (eds), Rethinking Development in Latin America (University Park, PA: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 2001), pp. 142143.

    14 Ibid., 147; see also Bila Sorj, Childcare as Public Policy in Brazil, in Mary Daly (ed.),Care Work (Geneva: International Labor Office, 2001), pp. 120, 123.

    15 Bakker and Gill, op. cit., pp. 3236. See also Sorj, op. cit.

    Charismatic Economies 411

  • have sparked deep transformations in the socio-economic landscape. Low-skilledmanufacturing jobs have increasingly been filled by women, destabilizingtraditional gendered divisions of labor in many communities. Meanwhile,decreasing production for the domestic market has resulted in waves of rural-to-urban and, in turn, international migration. The expansion of service-basedactivities has paralleled a growth of the informal sector, with an expansion of jobsin small-scale enterprises and in self-employment including professional serviceproviders, street vendors, and domestic workers.16 What all these jobs have incommon is minimal state regulation and increased vulnerability to bankruptcy,chronic poverty, or both.17

    These developments in production have taken place against the backdrop ofever-increasing debt burdens on the part of developing states, leading to economicrecessions and economic volatility. Another aspect of neoliberal restructuringthat has social impacts is the alarming number of financial crises that haveoccurred in the wake of economic reform. The increasing regularity of financialcrises reflects what Brigitte Young describes as a pervasive instability of theglobal financial system.18 Each instance of financial turbulence in turn entailsprofound social dislocation. Thus these regular financial crises, the monetarypolicies devaluing currencies, the rapid cycle of expansion and contraction ofparticular labor sectors, and the splintering of social policy provision, have allresulted in increased job insecurity, poverty, labor migration, and pressures onindividuals to develop increasingly independent survival strategies forthemselves and their dependents.19

    The dislocations set in motion by neoliberal restructuring have not gonewithout reaction. Indeed, social and political reaction to economic dislocation andvolatility is virtually inevitablea point Polanyi made over half a century ago.In his trenchant analysis of the effects of the global economy at the turn of thenineteenth-century, Polanyiironically in the context of this articlecastigatedadvocates of the self-regulated market for their evangelical fervor.20 Polanyiwas particularly scathing in his criticism of liberal economists for their insistencethat economic policy be administered as if the market were not a social institutionwith impacts on social life. In disembedding the market from society anddisregarding social impacts, liberal economic policy-makers set in motion forcesof dislocationleading to the double movement of societys quest for self-protection from the volatility of the self-regulated global economy and the need tocreate new modes of governance by which to re-embed economic activities intosocial life.

    16 Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents (New York: New Press, 1998).17 Guy Standing, Global Feminization through Flexible Labor, World Development 17:7

    (1989); Peterson, op. cit.; Alejandro Portes and Kelly Hoffman, Latin American ClassStructures: Their Composition and Change during the Neoliberal Era, Latin AmericanResearch Review 38:1 (February 2003), pp. 4182.

    18 Brigitte Young, Financial Crises and Social Reproduction, in Bakker and Gill, op. cit.,p. 103.

    19 Saskia Sassen refers to this process as the feminization of survival in WomensBurden: Counter-Geographies of Globalization and the Feminization of Survival, Journal ofInternational Affairs 53:2 (2000), pp. 503534.

    20 Polanyi, op. cit., p. 141.

    412 Isabelle V. Barker

  • Polanyis analysis begs two related questions: how is the principle of socialprotection manifesting itself today? And what mechanisms are emerging to re-embed economic activities into society? A growing body of Polanyi-inspiredscholarship is addressing the first question from a variety of angles.21 And, in anera of the neoliberal state, most scholars underscore that the processes respondingto the quest for social protection are located primarily in non-state institutions.Peter Evans has written of transnational consumer and labor networks, StephenGill of a concern about a rise in fascist elements, and Valentine Moghadam ofglobal feminist networks, while John Gerard Ruggie suggests that corporateparticipation in the Global Compact is filling in for governance gaps and forgingnorms for a global public domain.22 I add my analysis of Pentecostalism to thisbody of literature. One implication of this framing is that in the context ofdestabilized state sovereignty, neoliberalism may come to be embedded by non-state processes and institutions that have flourished in the wake of the weak statecapacity, such as, in this instance, Pentecostalism.

    In the discussion that follows, I will argue that Pentecostalism reflects yetanother social response to neoliberal economic restructuring. In suggesting this,I do not mean to interpret Pentecostalisms growth solely as a reaction to neoliberalglobalization. There are numerous reasons for Pentecostalisms popularity andexpansion, many of them having little to do with political economy. Rather, whatI argue is that the historical coinciding of the ascendance of neoliberalism and thecontinued expansion of Pentecostalism is itself no coincidence. Here I join BerniceMartins innovative claims that Pentecostalism and contemporary forms ofcapitalism are related by way of a complex symbiosis rather than a simple one-way causal relationship.23 It is not that one causes the other, but rather that thetwo phenomena appear to harmonize quite readily one with the other and, in theprocess, resolve questions of social reproduction instigated by economicrestructuring. In the course of addressing these questions, Pentecostalismreconstitutes forms of social life in ways that have the effect of embeddingneoliberalism. So, while Polanyi held that countermovements would challenge thelaissez-faire organization of the global economy by prompting interventionist formsof state governance, in the current context the neoliberal market is not necessarilyits own gravedigger. That is, in an era of weak states, institutions in civil societyhave the capacity to put forth mechanisms to reconstitute social and political life

    21 A body of Polanyi-inspired feminist scholarship is also growing. This work hasgenerally focused on the gendered and racialized aspects of the social dislocations set inmotion by neoliberal restructuring. See all the essays in Bakker and Gill, op. cit. See alsoLourdes Benera, Economic Rationality and Globalization: A Feminist Perspective,in Marianne Ferber and Julie Nelson (eds), Feminist Economics Today (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 2003), pp. 115134.

    22 Peter Evans, Fighting Marginalization with Transnational Networks: Counter-Hegemonic Globalization, Contemporary Sociology 29:1 (January 2000), pp. 230241;Stephen Gill, Globalization, Democratization and the Politics of Indifference, in JamesMittelman (ed.), Globalization: Critical Reflections (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1996);Valentine Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks (Baltimore, MD:The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005); John Gerard Ruggie, Taking EmbeddedLiberalism Global: The Corporate Connection, in David Held and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (eds), Taming Globalization (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).

    23 Bernice Martin, New Mutations of the Protestant Ethic among Latin AmericanPentecostals, Religion 25 (1995), p. 101.

    Charismatic Economies 413

  • that in turn reconfigure norms and practices in a ways that do not negate neoliberalrestructuring. Instead, in some cases, they enable it. Pentecostalism illustrates justthis dynamic. Before going any further to make this argument, I turn next to definethe Pentecostal movement.

    Pentecostalism

    The topic of Pentecostalism as a movement has filled the pages of an untoldnumber of books. For brevitys sake, I limit the current overview by laying out thebiblical roots of Pentecostalism; its history, worship practices, and theology; itsclass make-up and the emergence of the prosperity gospel. Drawing on recentfindings, I will also review the contours of Pentecostalisms extraordinarily rapidexpansion around the world.

    The word Pentecost derives from the Greek term for the Jewish holidayoccurring on the 50th day following Passover; today, Pentecostals celebratePentecost Sunday on the seventh Sunday after Easter rather than Passover.According to chapter two in the Acts of the Apostles, the original Pentecostforeshadowed the second coming of Christ, with the Holy Spirits presenceenabling the Christian faithful to converse across different nationalities, touchedas they were by the Holy Spirit. According to Acts, on the day of the Pentecost, ata gathering of fellow believers from distinct backgrounds, the Holy Spiritappeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them.And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues,as the Spirit gave them utterance.24 In addition to the divine gift of speaking intongues, the faithful can possess any one of a number of gifts of the Spirit.25 Thisparticipatory and embodied, or charismatic, nature of worship deriving fromindividual experience of gifts of the Spirit lies at the core of Pentecostalism in allof the varied forms it has taken across the globe.

    Pentecostalism dates back to 1906, to its origins in a working-class, mixed-raceneighborhood in Los Angeles. William Seymour, an African American preacher,is often credited with convening the first Pentecostal services.26 It was here thatthe distinct Pentecostal forms of worship first manifested. Pentecostal worship isnotable for a highly personalized relationship with God whereby individualworshippers experience personal salvation through conversion and baptism bythe Spirit. This charismatic experience of baptism denotes an immediaterelationship with the Holy Spirit, evidenced in manifestations of the gifts of theSpirit, including glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. Other gifts includeinterpretation of tongues, prophecy, and miraculous healing. In addition tochurch services, the original Pentecostal faithful incorporated specific forms ofdiscipline into their daily lives that included rejecting alcohol, dancing, and music,and adopting conservative dress styles, especially for women. While strictdiscipline in lifestyle has lessened in many Pentecostal communities, theemphasis on a direct link between personal faith and character has not, a pointI will return to in discussing the prosperity gospel.

    24 Acts 2:34 (Revised Standard Version).25 Corinthians 12 and 14.26 Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995).

    414 Isabelle V. Barker

  • Commentators universally take note of the egalitarian nature of Pentecostalworshipwhat some refer to as a contemporary priesthood of all believers. Thefaithful continue to enjoy an unmediated relationship with the divine, thusmaking worship primarily participatory with, at least in its origins, a de-emphasison doctrine, theological training, and hierarchical organization of the churchcommunity. Moreover, as Harvey Cox notes, the focus on speaking in tongues andon spiritual gifts makes Pentecostal religious expression, and even religiousauthority, accessible to those at the margins of societythe illiterate, theundereducated, the poor. Pentecostal worship has seemed to challenge othersocial hierarchies as well; dating back to its origins, women and children haveoften been the bearers of spiritual gifts.27

    Though Pentecostalism has transformed over the years and has taken variousforms in local contexts throughout the world, there remains a common theologicalthread that runs through Pentecostalism both historically and globally.Pentecostalism continues to be defined by its interpretation of millennialism:the belief that the second coming of the Messiah is imminent, evidenced byspiritual gifts amongst the faithful. Evidence of the second coming is furtherderived through signs and symbols in daily lifeleading Pentecostals to embracea dispensational interpretation of human history and to be receptive to ideasabout magic and the supernatural.28

    While Pentecostalism had its origins amongst the dispossessed of the UnitedStates, this is no longer the case; now, Pentecostalism has a diverse class make-upthroughout the world. The majority of worshipers continue to be primarily fromunderprivileged sectors, but, that said, Pentecostalism has enjoyed successamongst middle-class populations around the world who make up the membersof the mega-churches dotting urban and suburban landscapes in so manycountries.29 It is difficult to pinpoint a clear cause-and-effect relationship, but itdoes seem that the shifting class make-up of Pentecostalism, as well as shiftingfortunes within a rapidly changing global economy, has coincided with changes intheology, as evidenced by the massive popularity of what is known as FaithTheology. The contemporary version of this theological approach was developedin the 1970s out of Oral Roberts University, and is alternatively known as the Wordof Faith Movement, the prosperity gospel, or, to critics, the health and wealth orname it and claim it gospel.

    The prosperity gospel interprets health and material prosperity as evidence offaiththat is, health and wealth are viewed as gifts of the Spirit and as central tocharismatic worship. Based on the interpretation of certain passages of the Bible,the Word of Faith movement holds that health and material prosperity are therightful rewards for the Christian faithful, but that these need to be claimed.Through faith and the naming of what is rightfully theirs, Pentecostals undertakea confession that becomes energizing and effective, resulting in receiving [whatthey have claimed] from God. When people do not receive what they have

    27 Ibid., ch. 7.28 Dispensationalism reflects the literal interpretation of passages from the Bible such

    that human history is understood to be made up of several stages. History will culminate inthe separation of true believers and all others, destined for either eternal heaven or eternalhell. Anderson, op. cit., pp. 218219.

    29 Ibid., p. 282.

    Charismatic Economies 415

  • confessed, it is usually because of a negative confession, unbelief, or a failure toobserve the divine laws.30 The prosperity gospel has enjoyed particular successin middle-class populations around the world, but variations on the theology havecertainly influenced underprivileged Pentecostal communities as well.31 Whilethere is disagreement as to the extent of the appeal of this theological approachamongst poor and working-class Pentecostals, its vast popularity across the globeseems clear.32 As Steven Brouwer, Paul Gifford, and Susan Rose have pointed out,the appeal of the prosperity gospel for underprivileged groups would certainlyseem to lie in its ability to enchant people with the prospect of a miracle curefor their own and their societies economic maladies.33 I will return to this aspectof the prosperity gospel as it relates to global economic restructuring.

    Pentecostalism enjoyed tremendous expansion over the twentieth century.Researchers David Barrett, George Kurian, and Todd Johnson note that just over30 years ago, adherents numbered around 72 million.34 By 2000, the number hadmushroomed to nearly 525 million with predictions of upwards of over 800million by 2025.35 The majority of this growth has taken place in non-Westerncontexts. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the worlds largest Christianchurch is located in Seoul, South Korea: the Pentecostal Yoido Full Gospel Church,with 700,000 members. Currently, Pentecostalism is the second largest Chris-tian denomination, following Catholicism, which has over 1 billion adherents.Considering that Roman Catholicism has been in business for quite some centuries,this is impressive growth on the part of the relatively young Pentecostalism.

    Embedding Neoliberal Globalization

    As noted above, neoliberal globalization is marked by a number of socialdislocations; these can be roughly broken down into three categories, eachreflecting an aspect of social reproduction more generally. First, the provision ofpolicies to address social needs is increasingly shifted into the private sphere,through the decentralization and individualization of public services, resulting inthe shifting of burdens into the private sector to be taken up by civil societyinstitutions and individual households. Second, the integration of domesticmarkets and labor sectors into the global economy exposes individuals andcommunities to economic cycles that can be quite volatile and unpredictable, withfinancial crises in one country or region reverberating far and wide. Moreover,work is being rapidly reorganized in multiple ways due to the global integration

    30 Ibid., p. 221.31 Steven Brouwer, Paul Gifford, and Susan Rose, Exporting the American Gospel

    (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 197198.32 For example, Brouwer et al., drawing on the case of Guatemala, suggest that

    theological distinctions split along class lines, with the prosperity gospel appealing tomiddle-class Pentecostals around the world, while the older theology of strict personaldiscipline continues to be practiced by poor, working-class Pentecostals. Brouwer et al.,op. cit., pp. 5964.

    33 Ibid., p. 198.34 David Barrett, George Kurian, and Todd Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed.

    (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).35 Some scholars have taken issue with how broadly Barrett et al. construe

    Pentecostal/Charismatic. See Anderson, op. cit., pp. 1113. But the fact of explosivegrowth is uncontested.

    416 Isabelle V. Barker

  • of markets and production, transforming identities, expectations, and valuessurrounding work. A third site of social dislocation centers on community asglobal economic integration results in a deep and rapid reorganization of how thehuman need for community is met. This is in part the result of increasedmigration, both rural-to-urban and international. As economic activities thatpreviously provided for subsistence lose viability in relation to the internationalmarket, livelihoods in these sectors disappear, fostering rural-to-urban migration.And, for middle-class workers, the stagnation of domestic economies has oftenresulted in middle-class wages at home amounting to far less than working-classwages in advanced industrial countries, leading to international labor migration.

    In a variety of ways, Pentecostalism addresses each of these arenas of socialdislocation left in the wake of neoliberal economic restructuring. As Brouwer et al.suggest,

    [t]his religious tradition helps people exercise control in a seemingly uncontrollableworld through strict standards of right living. Incomprehensible cycles of povertyand violence are made comprehensible through an all-encompassing theology andby the personal authority of the pastor. And, access to an everyday miracle religionempowers people; it gives them hope of negotiating insurmountable obstacles of anunknown future.36

    Certainly, every age presents aspects of the above since the experience of humanexistence is by definition marked by grappling with the uncontrollable, theincomprehensible, and the uncertainty of what the future holds. However,neoliberal economic restructuring casts these questions in a particular wayandPentecostalism provides answers for the kind of questioning endemic of our age,even as these questions are framed by local conditions. The neoliberal market, onits own, cannot reference moral norms to frame society, nor can it address socialreproductive needs that go unmet by the market mechanism.37 Pentecostalcommunities in settings throughout the world, on the other hand, can and do.As I will suggest below, Pentecostal communities meet social reproductive needsin a neoliberal era by providing services along with moral frameworks regardinghow social needs should be met, by recasting individual values and practices, andby reconfiguring community and social identity. Its rapid expansion partially aneffect of the conditions of neoliberal globalization, Pentecostalism simultaneouslynormalizes the rapid changes and dislocations that ensue from neoliberalism.

    Non-state Provision of Social Services

    Neoliberal economic policies prioritize the deregulated, liberalized market as themeans to secure economic growth. However, this market mechanism has no wayof ensuring that any economic growth that does occur will benefit all members of a

    36 Brouwer et al., op. cit., p. 179.37 This is the point that Amy Sherman makes in her favorable appraisal of the

    coexistence of evangelical Christianity and economic restructuring, noting that the freemarket needs the kind of moral-cultural context provided by orthodox Protestantcommunities in order to function well. Amy L. Sherman, The Soul of Development: BiblicalChristianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala (New York: Oxford University Press,1997), p. 18.

    Charismatic Economies 417

  • society, or will enable social reproduction in all of its forms. In the wake ofneoliberal states decentralizing service provision to meet conditions of free marketreform, religious organizations have stepped in to reconstitute processes of socialprovision.38

    Pentecostal communities have been particularly well organized in theirprovision of services in areas around the world. For example, Hannah Stewart-Gambino and Everett Wilson explain that across Latin America Pentecostalcommunities provide an array of social services. They write, [t]ypical programscreated and funded by Pentecostals include rehabilitation programs for substanceabusers, educational projects, and womens and childrens assistanceprograms.39 Pentecostals are also in the business of education, extensively so,as the Pentecostal school system is second in size only to Catholic schools in termsof private education in Latin America. Moreover, social service provision isbundled together, as Pentecostal social services are consolidated for ready access.For example, as Stewart-Gambino and Wilson explain, [t]he vast majority ofthese schools can be found in the most economically distressed areas, and most ofthem offer meals, uniforms, and medical and dental assistance.40

    In the absence of the possibility of services being directly provided by the state,this civil society site of needs provision plays a crucial role in the lives ofindividuals. As such, Pentecostal communities represent new forms of socialsolidarity.41 But these forms of social solidarity harmonize readily with theprivatization of social reproduction such that, while providing new collectiveforms of needs provision, Pentecostal communities place great emphasis on therole of the family as a proper locale for needs provision and in effect de-emphasizethe state as a venue for resource redistribution.42

    Pentecostal communities around the world universally idealize the nuclearfamily form, with interesting twists regarding the gendered division of labor andwith the effect of situating this arena as the proper venue for social needsprovision through gendered domestic and care labor. In addition to the churchcommunity, the family is another civil society institution picking up the slack oferoded state social policies. Within the family, women remain the primaryproviders of domestic and care labor. Pentecostalisms clear chain of command,as it were, reinforces patriarchal authority along with the notion that genderedroles are divinely ordered. Authority can be traced down from God, to pastor,

    38 Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde have gone so far as to develop a model using datafrom the World Values Survey and from the IMF and World Bank to argue that state welfarespending and religious participation are inversely related. This would suggest that in an eraof welfare retrenchment, religious participation will go up. They interpret the strongnegative relationship (abstract) between welfare state spending and religiosity as based ona substitution effect (p. 25). So, it would follow that in the case of welfare stateretrenchment, religious institutions will substitute for the state by providing social servicesto attract parishioners. Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde, State Welfare Spending andReligiosity: A Cross-National Analysis, paper presented at the American Political ScienceAssociation National Meeting, Philadelphia, 2003.

    39 Hannah Stewart-Gambino and Everett Wilson, Latin American Pentecostals: OldStereotypes and New Challenges, in Edward Cleary and Hannah Stewart-Gambino (eds),Power, Politics, and Pentecostals in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), p. 233.

    40 Ibid., p. 234.41 Sorj, op. cit., p. 123.42 Thanks to Kate Bedford for making this point in comments on an earlier draft.

    418 Isabelle V. Barker

  • to husband, to wife, and finally to children.43 This conception of the family isessential to Pentecostalism and is reproduced in churches across the world. In itsmaterials and theology, Pentecostalism pays extraordinary attention to family andto domestic matters, providing clear-cut conceptions of a gendered division oflabor. While this attention is certainly indicative of the tendency for religion,particularly conservative forms of religion, to seek to control womens sexuality, itis also indicative of a need that has been left in the wake of neoliberal economicrestructuringthe need to locate non-state sites to meet social reproductive needs.Indeed, Pentecostal communities idealize a version of the family model in waysthat can accommodate a number of the social reproductive demands passed on bythe neoliberal state.

    In this context, it should not come as a surprise that women Pentecostalsgenerally outnumber men, by nearly two to one in some estimates.44 Somescholars of Pentecostalism have interpreted this lopsided gender make-up asevidence that women find its message and egalitarian charismatic practicesempowering.45 But this view ignores the larger structural context of Pentecost-alism within neoliberal economic restructuring and the increased demands onwomens domestic labor that restructuring has entailed. Certainly, Pentecostalismdoes break down rigid gender hierarchies in more traditional cultures byvalorizing the family for both men and women. The family is not the sole provinceof women. Rather, Pentecostalism teaches that the family should be at the centerof both womens and mens lives.46 In this articulation, clearly distinct roles areascribed to husbands and fathers on the one hand and wives and mothers on theother. By orienting men to family responsibilities in addition to placing men andwomen as equally submissive to God, so this interpretation goes, Pentecostalismreorients patriarchal practices in many communities in developing countries,empowering women in at least the revalued domestic sphere.

    But I suggest an alternative explanation for why Pentecostalism seems to haveso much appeal for women in particular. Because women are disproportionatelynegatively affected by the privatization of social reproduction, a religiousmovement that seems to address these concerns, even if this means subscribing togendered social hierarchy, would be appealing.47 In other words, the high valuethat Pentecostalism places on the domestic sphere, and so on the work of women,may make more bearable the increased burdens women experience due to

    43 The pastoral authority demarcated here seems to contradict earlier forms ofPentecostalism, which de-emphasized pastoral leadership. Scholars suggest that this shifttoward greater pastoral authority is the result of the gradual institutionalization of churchcommunities, as well as the increased use of the mass media for evangelism.

    44 B. Martin, op. cit., p. 107; David Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford:Blackwell, 2001).

    45 Elizabeth Brusco, The Reformation of Machismo: Asceticism and Masculinity amongColombian Evangelicals, in Virginia Garrard-Burnett and David Stoll (eds), RethinkingProtestantism in Latin America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), pp. 143158;Carol Ann Drogus, Private Power or Public Power: Pentecostalism, Base Communities,and Gender, in Cleary and Stewart-Gambino, op. cit., pp. 5576; Anne Motley Hallum,Taking Stock and Building Bridges: Feminism, Womens Movements, and Pentecostalismin Latin America, Latin American Research Review 38:1 (February 2003), pp. 169186.

    46 Brusco, op. cit., p. 149.47 Anna Peterson, Manuel Vasquez, and Philip Williams, Christianity, Social Change, and

    Globalization in the Americas (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001), pp. 910.

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  • economic restructuring. Moreover, it is in the collective provision of services thatPentecostal communities provide much-needed labor and whereby some of theburdens borne by women are alleviated while leaving intact the notion of thegendered division of labor within the family.

    The Pentecostal nuclear family model takes on additional significance inrelation to transforming political economies. Writing of the growth offundamentalist churches more generally, Brouwer et al. argue that these churchescan prove to be modernizing influences in the case of the family and genderideologies. Indeed, in the context of many patriarchal societies across the globe,evangelical Christian churches, including Pentecostal churches, have the effect ofreorganizing the family form and gender ideology in ways that fit quite well withnew social and economic conditions of neoliberal globalization. In parts of theworld where societies have for generations been organized around extendedkinship networks, this nuclearization of the family is one of the transformationswrought by the expansion of neoliberal capitalism.48 Pentecostalism eases a shiftaway from family linkages that extend to large networks of relations by holdingup the small nuclear unit as a model for family and providing for onesdependents within this unit as ones God-given responsibility. This occurs at atime when traditional responsibilities for extended kinship networks function as ahindrance to economic success and mobility.49

    We can interpret the effects of Pentecostalisms value of the nuclear family in avariety of ways. For example, emphasizing the more individualized, psychologi-cal impact, David Martin explains that from the nuclear family can follow all theother forms of bettermentin health . . . in work, in giving priority to feeding,clothing, disciplining, and educating the children, and oneself, in discovering thepotential for leadership and initiative within the life of the church.50 This may bethe case, but from a structural perspective it is of note that the high valuePentecostalism places on the family coincides with the neoliberal shift wherebyfamilies and local communities bear an increased burden of ensuring that socialreproductive needs are met. This valuation also serves to reconfigure communityas based in church and family, rather than in extended kin, towns or villages, oreven nationsa point I will return to.

    Charismatic Worship, National Economies, and Neoliberal Workers

    In addition to the increased pressures surrounding domestic and care labor,neoliberal economic restructuring has resulted in rapid changes in individual andnational economic well-being due to financial crises and to the reorganization ofthe division of labor. In response to these economic conditions, and at anotherlevel of social reproduction vis-a`-vis the fostering of an effective workforce,individuals must find systems of meaning to make sense of the new economicforces shaping their lives. Pentecostalism is responsive to, and reinforcing of,

    48 Brouwer et al., op. cit., p. 246. For a fascinating analysis of the relationship betweenWorld Bank policies and the heterosexual nuclearization of family life, see Kate Bedford,The World Banks Employment Programs in Ecuador and Beyond: Empowering Women,Domesticating Men, and Resolving the Social Reproduction Dilemma, unpublished dissertation,Department of Political Science, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 2005.

    49 Brouwer et al., op. cit., p. 222.50 D. Martin, op. cit., p. 75.

    420 Isabelle V. Barker

  • these changes. Pentecostal theology and charismatic worship styles providemeans of rendering restructured economic conditions coherent.

    From a theological perspective, the contemporary variant of the prosperitygospel provides a lens to render meaningful the individuals experience ofunpredictable changes in personal economic well-being. By linking individualfaith and personal salvation through Spirit baptism to material well-being, theprosperity gospel filters all economic experienceshardships as well assuccessesthrough the lens of faith and miracles touching the lives of thosewho have been baptized in the Spirit. Earlier forms of the prosperity gospel linkedsuccess to a combination of hard work and faithtoday, it is faith along with theactive claiming of what is ones right that will lead to material prosperity.51 Fromthis it follows that individual as well as systemic poverty can be interpreted as theresult either of a lack of faith or of God testing the congregation.52

    In an age of neoliberal economic restructuring of national economies, thepersonalized version of the prosperity gospel has a national variant, particularlyin poor and indebted states. Brouwer et al. cite the sermons of a FilipinoPentecostal pastor who, when sizing up the Filipino economy against that ofSouth Korea, explains that the difference between the national economies boilsdown to the faith and prayers of the evangelized faithful. According to the pastor,

    the intense prayer life of the Koreans has not only resulted in their miraculouschurch growth; it has also brought miraculous advancement to the whole nation aswell. Devastated by two major wars, Korea gradually rose from the economicshambles to become one of the most prosperous nations in the world todayaleading manufacturer of cars, ships, electronics and other products.53

    In a theology that asserts that economic collapse is a sign of national sin, it is notsurprising that examples of national economic growth are attributed to the powerof prayer and conversion.54 Economic downturns, on the other hand, point to theurgency of evangelism for the sake of the nation and demand disciplinedobedience, prayer, and evangelism on the part of the individual believer.

    Pentecostalism can also help provide meaning for the mystification that is themark of neoliberalisms organization of capitalism. It does so by rendering spiritualthe incomprehensible, filtering the extraordinary complexity of the globaleconomic system through the lens of divine order. Brouwer et al. explain that, incontrast to early capitalism wherein economic dynamism was driven by the localactivities of small-scale merchants, contemporary capitalism is driven by exportproduction overseen by national and multinational corporations and facilitatedby international financial institutions and foreign direct investment.55 As a result,the link between hard work and personal benefit is tenuous, with the benefits ofeconomic growth gravitating upward through complex channels to an

    51 Brouwer et al., op. cit., p. 26.52 Ibid., p. 84, quoting Tom ODowd, a US pastor who presides over a poor congregation

    on the plantation island of Negros in the Philippines.53 Ibid., quoting Butch Conde, a Filipino pastor who presides over a mega-church in

    the Philippines.54 Ibid., p. 83, quoting Juan Vencer, the first non-Westerner to head the World Evangelical

    Fellowship. At that time, he was also appointed head of intelligence for the Armed Forces ofthe Philippines under the Ramos administration.

    55 Ibid.

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  • anonymous, transnational investor class and with inequalities within countriesand between countries on the rise. In this context of widening gaps betweenrich and poor and between hard work and economic reward, miracle religion is aninvaluable resource. That is,

    because the ultimate economic authority resides in places so remote from everydaylife, and is exercised through a labyrinth of networks incomprehensible to theordinary citizens, this authority is quite mysterious. The invocation of miraclereligion for a whole variety of material needs indicates that even those people whoare moderately comfortable are afraid of instability and have little concept of theirown individual agency within the political economy.56

    This focus on miracles in ones own life also has the effect of easing the transitionto an era defined, on the one hand, by expanded popular sovereignty while, on theother, by diminished state power vis-a`-vis global economic forces. It is in responseto this dynamic that Pentecostals conceptualize economic and social conditions asrelating to personal salvation, rather than to larger economic, social, and politicalstructures. This mystification could simply be written off as a variant of Marxsopiate of the masses. But, in the context of economic restructuring, it makesbetter sense to understand Pentecostalism as a rich resourceone that providesfor social needs as well as a space for self-representation in an era of splinteredstate sovereignty.

    In addition to providing a lens through which to render meaningful thevicissitudes and complex organization of the global political economy,Pentecostalism also fosters norms and values that harmonize well with aneoliberal work ethic. In so doing, Pentecostalism enables individuals to adapt tothe demands of a flexible labor market and an expanding informal and service-based labor sector. Based on interviews of Pentecostals across Latin America,Bernice Martin has concluded that Pentecostalism effectively updates theProtestant ethic to harmonize with contemporary labor demands of post-industrialcapitalism. It does so by fostering the personal discipline and self-confidencerequired by self-employment, by setting forth both institutional and internalmodes of monitoring, by offering training in marketable skills, and, finally, bycreating networks of social capital.57

    The stringent lifestyle strictures of earlier Pentecostalism have in many placesbeen somewhat loosened, with emphasis remaining on banning behavior associatedwith the vices of drunkenness, gambling, and sexual promiscuity. In turn, qualitiesof cheerfulness, trustworthiness, non-violence, and hard work are condoned.58 Thiscombination of Foucauldian-like self-monitored behaviors and personal qualitiesserve the believer well as references on the job market, with Pentecostalismfunctioning as a shorthand for reliability in the eyes of potential employers. Martinnotes that this was affirmed in interviews with Pentecostal believers at all levelsof services, from successful businessmen to domestic workers to street vendors.Moreover, Pentecostalism holds that evidence of the Holy Spirit is reflected

    56 Ibid., pp. 251252.57 Much of the following is drawn from B. Martin, op. cit., and From Pre- to

    Postmodernity in Latin America: The Case of Pentecostalism, in Paul Heelas (ed.), Religion,Modernity, and Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).

    58 B. Martin, New Mutations, op. cit.

    422 Isabelle V. Barker

  • in happiness and prosperity and so provides a theological basis for an oftenastonishing level of self-confidence, persistence against all odds, energy andingenuity and a willingness to try anythingand then call the result the Lordsmiracle.59 This translates into a high level of self-employment amongstPentecostals, a manifestation of the independence instilled by unmediated worshippractices. Self-employment also provides believers flexibility to incorporateevangelism and prayer into their working life.60 Finally, the conversion andredemption practices of becoming a Pentecostal can serve well in a volatile labormarket that requires that individuals re-invent themselves as sources of incomedisappear and new ways of making a living have to be created.

    Pentecostalism also updates mechanisms of self-monitoring. The centralizedFordist mode of production with its vertical systems of employer oversight iswaning in response to the flexibilized reorganization of production and theexpansion of jobs in services. Thus, oversight is shifted to other sites.Pentecostalism fosters modes of self-monitoring at the level of the individualbeliever, accountable now not to an employer or overseer but to the pastor andtheir Christian peers and, of course, to God.61 Furthermore, Pentecostal pastorsand churches both directly and indirectly provide training and encouragement inmoney management and entrepreneurialism. The high level of participation inPentecostal churches may readily be transferred into skills useful in the services-based labor market, as activities such as teaching Sunday school, preaching inpublic, and assisting with organizing Church funds can all translate intomarketable skills.

    Finally, there is the question of social capitala question that has been thefocus of debate amongst scholars of Pentecostalism. Some scholars enthusiasti-cally appraise Pentecostalism as providing the faithful with networks that in turnfacilitate connections leading to employment. Others are less optimistic,suggesting that Pentecostal churches tend to be economically homogenous, sothat any social capital generated rarely translates into upward class mobility.Regardless of this question of class mobility, there is no doubt that being a memberof a Pentecostal community can be beneficial at the level of pooling employmentresources. For instance, David Martin writes of the example of landless informalagricultural laborers in Chile who will collectively purchase a truck, driven by thedual motivation of needing transportation to get to distant harvesting jobs and totravel great distances to evangelize.62 The issues raised by social capital point tothe third arena of social dislocation that Pentecostalism addressesthe humanquest for community.

    Forging Community in a Global Era

    In taking up the issue of community, the concept of social capital is dreadfullyanemic. Social capital portrays community in an instrumental fashion, as a meansto economic ends. But community serves greater human ends than that. We aresocial animalsperhaps even political ones if Aristotle and, more recently,

    59 Ibid., p. 111.60 B. Martin, From Pre- to Postmodernity, op. cit., p. 136.61 B. Martin, New Mutations, op. cit., p. 110.62 D. Martin, op. cit., p. 81.

    Charismatic Economies 423

  • Hannah Arendt are correct. Moreover, community is the means by which wederive our sense of worth, a means by which we are made to feel that our ideasand opinions matter. Communities also provide a framework for moral normsand a site for practicing rituals that give meaning to our lives.

    Forms of community that have cohered over decades, if not centuries, arecoming undone due to neoliberal economic restructuring. Conditions ofneoliberal economic restructuring have radically altered so many communities,both through transforming the market and through setting off numerous patternsof migration. Of course, communities have never been ahistorical and staticentities immune to change. But what is notable in the contemporary context is therapidity with which communities are subject to change. This speed, in turn,necessitates an equally swift adaptation of new means of deriving identity and asense of meaning in a social context. Pentecostalism seems to provide tools for justsuch a creative rebuilding of social life, in part due to its highly adaptable natureto begin with. As such, Pentecostalism re-embeds neoliberalism by way offostering social practices and forms of community.

    In contrast with the dense bureaucratic institutions of so many religiousdenominations, Pentecostalism is notable for is fragmentation, fission, andflexibility.63 Pentecostal history is riddled with tales of storefront start-upchurches that began from nothing only to grow exponentially over time.Disagreements amongst the faithful rarely lead to the demise of the church, butrather to the splitting off and creation of a new church down the road. In the caseof expansion, churches generally have come to be organized in a cell structure soas to maintain a sense of community in churches whose membership can numberin the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. The pastor Paul Yonggi Cho, whoheads the Yoido Full Gospel Church in South Korea, organizes his 700,000members this way. Members are divided up into groups of five to ten families ofsimilar socio-economic background and meet outside of services for spiritualsupport and to undertake evangelizing together.64 This adaptability andorganizational systematization is the hallmark of this decentralized, butextraordinarily popular, religious movement and renders Pentecostalism well-suited to adapt to changing social needs.65 This is particularly notable in the caseof people on the move.

    A number of sociologists have observed that Pentecostalism is a form ofworship that seems to have particular appeal for migrants, both those relocatingwithin their country as well as those relocating overseas. Allan Andersonexplains that this appeal lies in Pentecostalisms sympathetic approach to locallife and culture and the retention of certain popular religious practices.66 Thiskind of incorporation would hold particular appeal to those overwhelmed

    63 Ibid., p. 74.64 Brouwer et al., op. cit., p. 117.65 See also Malcolm Gladwells discussion of the cellular structure of the largest church

    in the United States, Rick Warrens Saddleback Church in Orange County, California.Gladwell quotes Robert Putnams positive appraisal for the churchs capacity to organizesmall groups in what represents a desert in social-capital terms (p. 63). Gladwellalso notes that the church serves as an alternate site for needs provision and even forfighting global poverty (p. 67). The Cellular Church, The New Yorker, September 12, 2005,pp. 6067.

    66 Anderson, op. cit., p. 223

    424 Isabelle V. Barker

  • by urbanization with its transition from a personal rural society to animpersonal urban one.67 Moreover, this appeal applies equally to internationalmigrants.68

    For example, in his research on Pentecostal churches in the Netherlands, Rijkvan Dijk notes that the ethnic Church is often a means by which migrants adjust tolife in the host society and, furthermore, often serves as a link to life in Ghana.69

    By connecting new migrants with those who are more established, Pentecostalchurches in the transnational diaspora offer resources and networking, arranginghousing, fostering links to friendship circles, and establishing connections toemployment. Membership in a Pentecostal church in the Ghanaian diaspora in theNetherlands entails lengthy rituals of initiation, entrenching the individualsconnection to that community and attachment to the leader of the church.The church pastor, in turn, often maintains active ties with parishes in Ghana andso serves as a conduit for flows of transnational information. Thus, the migrantchurch provides resources of community, all the while helping individualsmaintain links to Ghana by way of a pastors active contacts with churches inGhana.

    Simon Colemans innovative analysis of Pentecostalism explores transnationalcommunity from a different angle.70 Granting that Pentecostalism certainlyprovides for the immediate needs individuals have for community, he adds thatPentecostalism, by its transnational character, crafts a sense of identity thattranscends the local by promoting a particular kind of internationalism.Pentecostalism, especially in its prosperity gospel variant, is a decidedlytransnational phenomenon. It is not simply that Pentecostalism exists in so manycontexts internationally, but rather that its very organization and practicetranscends localities, easing the acceptance of migration and transnationalism intothe lives of its members.

    Pentecostalism normalizes the transnational nature of contemporary life,conveying that phenomena such as mass labor migration are merely meansby which the Spirit moves through the world. With its international marketof literature, tapes, and videos and the network of preachers traveling theglobe and recognizable from the media that have preceded them,Pentecostalism may indeed be considered to be a global, charismatic meta-culturethough a global culture that is receptive too, indeed fosters, localvariation.71 That said, Coleman points out the striking similarity between stylesof worship around the world, noting that while Pentecostals would attributethis to the work of the Spirit, from a social science perspective this is likelydue to complex overlapping social networks fostered through global travel andcommunication.

    67 Ibid.68 Peggy Levitt, The Transnational Villagers (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

    2001).69 Rijk van Dijk, Time and Transcultural Technologies of the Self in the Ghanaian

    Pentecostal Diaspora, in Andre Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (eds), Between Babel andPentecost (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001).

    70 Simon Coleman, The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel ofProsperity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

    71 Ibid., p. 68.

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  • Making use of the information and communication technologies and therelative ease of travel, Pentecostalism is able to in turn foster a global orientationamongst its members around the world. Based on this reading, it should come asno surprise that Pentecostal churches have embraced the global even in theirnames. For example, van Dijk points out that starting in the 1980s, Pentecostalchurches in Ghana began adding international, global, and world to thenames of their parishes.72 Facilitated by globalization, this orientation is furthernormalized by Pentecostal theology and its emphasis on evangelism. Colemanexplains that Pentecostals are concerned to prompt the flow of people, ideasand material objects across the globe, and the idea of cementing interconnectionsbetween believers united in Spirit is powerfully articulated by them in sermons,oral testimonies and literature.73 Indeed, the biblical passage regarding thePentecost is striking in its depiction of the capacity for believers of multiplenationalities to understand one anothertouched as they were by tongues offire.74 Imagining a global community of believers, then, merely reflects an updatedmanifestation of the original Pentecost.

    Coleman points out that this global orientation serves as a substitution forthe organization of the modern state as Pentecostal ideology usually abjuresoverarching, centralising structures of governance.75 In the place of thecentralized institutional form that is the modern state, Pentecostalism as a globalnetwork is organized around conferences, prayer networks and media, and theseforms of participation are valuable precisely because of their transient naturethat is, they are impermanent, free-flowing structures.76 Colemans intriguingpoint then is that the conditions of globalization, including the flow of people andcommodities in ways that are no longer coterminous with national boundaries,are not only acknowledged by Pentecostalism, but are in fact welcomed.

    This transnational community of believers apparently erodes nationaldifference all the while allowing for local distinctions and, as such, ironicallyrepresents a religion-based variant of Marxs workers of the worldhis, of course,a call for unity amongst the global proletariat that has yet to materialize. Thiscurrent variantthe Pentecostals of the worldseems more successful intranscending national differences. But this version of the International for themost part has to date remained silent when it comes to redressing the structuralinequalities that exist globally and between Pentecostal communities. Instead, atthe moment and in locations throughout the world, Pentecostal churches haveaddressed the social reproductive need for community in an era of mass migrationboth through providing community to substitute for whats been lost and throughreconstituting what community should be in the first place. Moreover,Pentecostalism has done this in a way that incorporates and celebratestransnationalism and neoliberal economic restructuring.

    72 Van Dijk, op. cit., p. 221.73 Coleman, op. cit., p. 67.74 The passage reads: Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from

    every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they werebewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Acts 2:56(Revised Standard Version).

    75 Coleman, op. cit., p. 6776 Ibid.

    426 Isabelle V. Barker

  • Pentecostalism: A Soul for Soulless Conditions?

    The economic restructuring of the 148 countries that are members of the WorldTrade Organization has for the past decades applied policies dedicated to theworkings of the invisible hand. Forgotten in the process is what economist NancyFolbre has termed the invisible heart.77 Folbres definition of the invisible heartas representing the care-giving, altruistic activities that underlie any society can beincorporated into the broader concept of social reproduction. As I have noted,social reproduction refers to the physical reproduction of the species, along withthe care work that goes along with meeting material and emotional needs; thereproduction of labor power through education and training; and, thereproduction of broader cultural and social norms, practices, and identities.While perhaps unnerving for secular progressives, it is important to take note ofhow Pentecostalism addresses each aspect of social reproduction in ways thatboth embed and validate neoliberal economic policies. In an era of diminishedstate sovereigntydiminished due to the emergence of competing local, regional,and global institutions and due to the neoliberal erosion of state functions vis-a`-vispublic programsit appears that the non-state site of the Pentecostal movement isaddressing the social in ways that the neoliberal market mechanism on its owndoes not.

    In conclusion, it appears that the study of religion and politics is not wellserved by Marxs oft quoted opiate of the masses. That said, wisdom may begleaned from his less-cited suggestion that religion represents the sentiment of aheartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.78 In the case ofPentecostalism, it may be said that this religious movement represents a soulfor the soulless conditions of our times, perhaps even a manifestation of the heartthat Folbre has written of. Differently put, as evidenced by how Pentecostalismseems to address social reproductive needs engendered in a neoliberal economicera, it appears that the rapid growth of Pentecostalism can, at least in part, beexplained by the resources it offers for meeting these needs in ways thatharmonize with the economic conditions in a neoliberal era of destabilized stategovernance. Certainly, in most manifestations Pentecostalism does not appear tohave the capacity to advance liberal democratic politics, and so it isunderstandable that this form of civil society response to neoliberal capitalismis cause for concern for many on the political left. But if a secular progressiveresponse is to be effective, it must at least begin by acknowledging whyPentecostalism has held such appeal for so many. Moreover, it is important not toput too much faith into social protective movements as automatically being sitesof progressive resistance and to understand that at least one such social protectivemovement, Pentecostalism, has helped embed an economic system in ways thatPolanyi thought was impossible. Contrary to Polanyis evaluation of the fate ofearlier forms of economic liberalism, for now at least, Pentecostalism in manydeveloping countries provides a non-state mechanism that successfully embedsneoliberal economic restructuring into social life.

    77 Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (New York: New Press,2001).

    78 Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right: Introduction,in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1st ed., 1972), p. 12.

    Charismatic Economies 427