csordas 1997 prophecy methaphor

8/11/2019 Csordas 1997 Prophecy Methaphor

1/13

Prophecy and the Performance of Metaphor

Author(s): Thomas J. CsordasSource: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 2 (Jun., 1997), pp. 321-332Published by: Wileyon behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/682213.

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2/13

The Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nation's

different reception of the Poetic Genius which is eveIy

where called the Spirit of Prophecy.

WiSliamBlake,

All Religions Are CAne

THE MOVEMENT NOWN s the Catholic Charismatic

Renewal, beginning in the United States in 1967,

claimed to offer a unique spiritualexperience to Roman

Catholics. It promised dramaticrenewal of church life

based on a spirituality of personal relationship with

Jesus and direct access to divine power and inspiration

through a series of aspiritualgifts, or Ucharisms The

movement attracted a strong following among rela-

tively well-educated, middle-class suburban Catholics,

and since its inception it has spread throughout the

world.l Division into covenant communities and paro-

chial Uprayer roups s the most evident feature of in-

ternal diversityamong charismatics.By far the majority

of active participants are involved in prayer groups,

whose members assemble weekly for collective prayer

but do not maintain intensive commitments to their

group and sometimes participate in several groups si-

multaneouslyor serially. At the opposite pole are the in-

tensely committed and hierarchically structured

communities based on a solemn written agreement or

acovenant. By the mid-1980sseveral distinct networks

of covenant communitieshad emerged, and their efforts

at evangelization were directed as much at their less-

committed charismaticbrethrenas at the unconverted.

A symbolic event of critical import to the move-

ment's course was the decision in 1975 to stage the an-

nual charismatic conference, until then hosted on the

campus of Notre Dame University n Indiana,at the cen-

ter of the Catholic world in Rome. During the confer-

ence the pope formally addressed themovement. Char-

ismatic liturgy including prayer in tongues was con-

ducted in St. Peter's basilica, and in this symbolically

charged setting, Uprophecy was uttered. The prophe-

cies delivered at St. Peter's were uttered

principallyby

prophets from The Wordof God community, he largest

and most highly organized of charismatic covenant

communities. Understood as messages

from the deity

spoken through a divinely granted charism, they

warned of impending times of difficultyand trials for

the church. They stated that God's

church and people

would be different, and cautioned,

Buildings that are

now standing will not be standing.

Supports that are

there for my people now will not be there. They de-

clared that those who heard this divine

word would be

prepared by the deity for a time of

darkness coming

upon the world but also for a time of

glory for the

church and people of God. An inclinationto take these

words literally and with urgency was

reinforced by the

charismatic delegation from Lebanon,

whose country

had just entered the throes of its enduring

civil war and

where indeed buildings that had been

standing were al-

ready no longer standing. Membersof the

Beirut com-

munity raveled to the United States with the AnnArbor

delegation and developed an ongoing

affiliation with

The Word of God. The immediacy of their

plight lent a

sense of urgency to continued

prophecies in the late

1970s.

Until the Rome conference, prophecy had been un-

derstood by charismatics as utterance

intended for the

edification of their own groups or ofindividuals within

the groups. Now for the first time, reinforced by the

powerful symbolic setting of their utterance, these

words were deemed to be a direct message

from God to

the public at large. The URome rophecies, as they be-

came known, were widely disseminated through the

movement's magazine New Covenant

and widely dis-

cussed in charismatic gatherings and

conferences.

THOMAS. CSORDASs a professorn the Departmentf Anthropology,

CaseWesternReserveUniversity, leveland, H44106, anda visiting

scholar t the RussellSage Foundation, ewYork,NY10021.

AmericanAnthropologist 9(2):321-332. Copyright 1997, AmericanAnthropological ssociation.

THOMAS J. CSORDAS / CASEWESTERN ESERVE NIVERSITY

Prophecy n d

t h e erformanee

etaphor

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3/13

322 AMERICAN

ANTHROPOLOGIST

VOL. 99, NO. 2 *

JUNE 1997

Charismatics

beganto see fulElllment

f the prophecies

in the fuel shortages

of the late 1970s,

in disastrous

mudslides in California,

in the blizzards

of 1977 and

1978 n

the Northeast, in the

perceived moral decline

of

American

society, and in

the Lebanese civil war. Be-

yond these signs,

however, the prophecies

were con-

strued to indicatethat the CatholicChurchwas in peril.

There

were not only the long-observed

decline

in reli-

gious vocations

and the perceived

retreat of Catholi-

cism before Protestantism

in the third

world but also a

compromisewith

secular values and a consequent

de-

cline

in moral authority that made

the church ill-

equipped

for the coming

ahard imes. These concerns

appearedto be referents

of the Rome

prophecies'warn-

ing that Usupports hat are

there for my people

now will

not be there.

While some movement

leaders had from the

outset

in the

late 1960sexpressed

the goalof renewing the en-

tire church, the logic of the prophecies appearedto be

that the role of

CharismaticRenewal was actually

to

protect

the church. Thus

it was not only an ideal for

Catholics to become

charismaticbut

also for charismat-

ics to

band together into

covenant communities,

for

these

were thoughtto be structures

nwhich the

faithful

could best gird

themselves for the

impending battle

with the forces

of darkness. This formulation

marked

the years

between 1975and

1980as a phase that was the

closest

the Catholic Charismatic

Renewalhas

been to a

position of apocalyptic

millennialism.

Even prior to

these developments, several

leading groups

had made

plans

to forlaalize ties among covenant

communities.

The principle was that, just as in a single community

each member s

thought to be granteda spiritual

gift, or

charism, which

contributes to the collective

life of the

community as a

abodyt or a apeople,

o each commu-

nity has a particulargift or

mission. Togetherthey

could

form a community

of communities,

a divinelyconsti-

tuted people

building the kingdom of God. The

Rome

prophecies

increased the

urgency of this plan.

As we

shall see, the prominent

metaphor

articulated in sub-

sequent prophetic

utterancewas that

of the allianceas

a Ubulwark or the church

against the apocalyptic

on-

slaught

of the forces of darkness.

Charismatic

Ritual Language

Catholic charismatic

ritual languageis composed

of a

system of genres and

a vocabulary of

motives.

There are four

major genres of charismatic

ritual lan-

guage:prophecy, teaching,

prayer, and sharing.

These

genres

are named, formalized

speech varieties used

with regularityn

ritual settingsand frequently

regarded

as verbal

manifestations

of the sacred. Teachtng

clari-

fies some spiritual

truth andthus enables

its hearersto

lead better

Christian ives.

Prayer to the deity

is of four

basic types: worship, petition

or intercession

on behalf

of another,

aseeking the Lord

or divine guidance,

and

taking authority n the form

of a command for

evil to

depart

from a person or situation.

Sharing is similar

to

everyday

conversationor narration

except that it must

have some spiritualvalue or edifyingeffect. Prophecy s

a first-personutterance

in which the

I is God;the hu-

man speaker

is merely the

deity's mouthpiece.

Our focus

here is on prophecy,

which for charis-

matics

is a kindof divine revelation,

a means of access

to the mind of God. Understood

to be the literal

word of

God,

prophecy is the most

overtly sacred

genre of

Catholiccharismatic

ritual anguage.

This status is high-

lighted in performance

by distinctive features

of pros-

ody and by the imposition

of formal

constraintson dic-

tion. Prophecies are typically

uttered in a strong,

clear

voice and in a tone

that can be declamatory, authorita-

tive, or imperative.Prophecies are usually prefacedby

an opening

formula,most

often UMy hildren or UMy

people. There

is a characteristic

intonation pattern

withineach line of prophecy:

the voice rises in

the mid-

dle and

falls again at the

end of the line, producing a

singsongeffect. Prophecy

is usually recited in

couplets,

a techniquecommon in both

oral and written traditional

poetry.2

In contrast to the

less-formalized genres of

charismatic

ritual language,

the measured cadences

of

parallel structure

add to the solemnity

and sacrality of

propheticutterance.

The second component

of charismatic ritual

lan-

guage is its specialized

vocabulary

of motives (Mills

1940).C. WrightMillsunderstooda motive as acomplex

of meaning

which orients

action. More precisely, he

said, UMotives

re words.... They

do not denote ele-

ments 'in' individuals.

They stand for anticipated

situ-

ational consequences

of questioned

conduct.... Mo-

tives are names for consequential

situations,

and

surrogates

for actions leading

to them 1940:905).A vo-

cabulary

of motives is not

a random ist but a self-refer-

encing system of terms that

orient action. Charismatic

motives

include positive terms

such as covenant, com-

mitment,

power, love, and brotherhood,

and negative

ones such as

world, flesh, and devil.

Across ritual

events, discrete acts of utterance constantly

circulate

motives,

constituting the

basis for a speciElckind

of in-

tertextuality

withinand across genres.

We can best

understandthis by

invokingRoy Rap-

paport's

(1979) observation

that ritual performance

communicates

two kinds

of messages to participants.

First

are messages encoded

in the ritualcanon

that cor-

respond to enduring

aspects of the

social and cosmo-

logical

order. Second are

messages carried

by vari-

ations

in performance that index

current states of

participants in

relation to the invariant

orderencoded

by the

canon. AlthoughRappaport

s concerned primar-



4/13

PROPHECYAND PERFORMANCEF METAPHOR

THOMASJ. CSORDAS 323

ily with the

fixed, invariantrituals of a liturgical order,

the distinctionis relevant to charismatic ritual

commu-

nication. To be precise, the charismatic

motives are

terms common in many other Christian forms

of reli-

gious

discourse, derived directly from and refexTing i-

rectly to the scriptures (Burke 1970). Thus on

the one

hand, the vocabulary of motives constitutes the charis-

matic

canonical language.On the other hand, as the mo-

tives are

circulated n performance,each genreendows

them with a

characteristic rhetorical function, indexi-

cal in that it

addresses and reflects the immediate state

of participants. In prophecy, motives are

promulgated:

UMy eople,

you are part of my plan. In prayer, hey are

invoked: uLord,help me serve your purpose and

your

plan. In teaching, they are expounded: It is

part of

God's plan that we should build strong Christiancom-

munities- n sharing, they are negotiated: UWhen

did

that, I felt I

was helping to bring about a small part of

God's plan. Thus performance circulates motives by

formulatingthem into generically recognizable

utter-

ances, giving

them the specificity to redirect attention

and instigate

to action.

The BulwarkProphecies

Much charismatic prophecy is highly

redundant

and, as it were, spirituallyquotidian.But there are

occa-

sionally

prophecies such as the Rome prophecies that

have

significant impact on subsequent events and dis-

course. In the wake of the Rome prophecies came a less

widely known series of prophecies critical to sub-

sequent

relations within and among charismaticcom-

munities.

Informally referred to as the Ubulwark

prophecies,

hese texts constitute an exhortation and a

call for unityin service to a collective goal of

protecting

the church

against the onslaught of evil in the world.

They emphasize the difficulty of achieving thisgoal and

enumerate a variety of possible pitfalls along the

way.

Communitymembers saw in them the

articulation of a

vision and a

mission. As ritualperformance hat is at the

same time a

manifestation of the sacred, the utterance

of these

prophecies created the bulwarkas an objectifi-

cation of the collective self.

The first

two texts were uttered by experienced

prophets at a 1975 conference convened to

establish a

federation of communities.The third was spoken

a little

over a year

later at the anniversary gatheringof The

Wordof God. I

transcribed hem from audiotape several

years afterthey were uttered. At that time I was

unable

to determine the identities of the prophets.

But it is

probably safe to assume that they were among a

select

group of prophetically gifted members of The

Word of

God.3

Prophecy 1, Summer 1975

1 This gathering s a

great hope

This meeting is both a hope and a promise.

I am raising up courageous, strong, gifted men and

women who will join

themselves to you.

As you hold fast to one another, others will come and

be joined to you.

5 Together you will labor with me to stem the tide of evil

that is sweeping the

earth.

I have broughtyou together for this purpose;go on with

confidence, courage,

and determination.

I will be with you, and in the days to come I will raise

up men in communities

Who will bind themselves fast to you in my service.

Let yourselves be

joined together;

10 Hold on to one another in faith and hope and see what

I will do.

Prophecy 2, Summer 1975

I am doing a new work of unity;

I am stirring you up to new dedication and new zeal in

my service.

Those of you who

have never seen one another will be

drawn nto unity

As you recognize your common bond of commitment o

me and to my

purpose.

15 I will stir you up;

I will rally you to

new effectiveness in my seIvice:

For I am forming a

people to proclaim my Wordanew.

The day is at hand

when my Wordwill be proclaimed

with new power.

Whenthose who have never heard it before,

20 Whose ears have

been closed, will begin to hear.

I have brought you here to the beginning of something

very important n

my Church;

I have brought you

together here to join you together

And to give you a vision of what is to come:

I will make you a

bulwark to defend against the on-

slaught of the

Enemy.

25 Those of you who are not prepared,

Those of you who

are not ready,

I will not have them

swept away because they are not

ready;

But I will protect

them behind the bulwarkthat I form

out of you.

I want you to be ready to join yourselves with others

30 And to stand

together with them in the battle against

the onslaught that's coming:

To defend the weak

And to defend those who are confused;

To protect those who are not prepared

Until I am able to fulElllmy entire plan.

35 I tell you, you are a part and not the whole;

You are a part and not the whole.

There are many

other things I am doing in this world

today

And there are many other ways that I am at work to

raise up my people in strength and in glory.

I want you, though, to take your part seriously,



5/13

324 AMERICAN

NTHROPOLOGIST

VOL.

99, NO. 2 *

JUNE1997

You are

to go to

those outlying sprouts

and

call them

in.

It is for

you to see

that they receive

my Word,

hat they

are gently uprooted

and

transplanted,

80

That they too

may flourish

and add

strength to

my

bulwarkthat I am

raising up.

And you are to be open to sending partsof that hedge

out,

To seeing it

transplanted o

extend the

bulwarkacross

the face

of the earth.

But are

you ready;

Are you

readyto believe

in your hearts

that you

are that

bulwark?

85

Do you have

the conviction

Do you

have the

courage

To say to the

world

To say to others,

UWe re that

bulwark,

90 We are

God's work:

Come stand

with us ?

I

tell you this,

Thatunless you have come to me

And become

utterlydestitute,

You will not

have the

courageto speak

that truth.

95

If you say, I am

God's plan,

we are God's

bulwark

And you

cling to

anything from

the world,

You will not

speak the

truth,you

cannotbe believed.

You cannotbe believed

unless

you are utterly

destitute.

If you

say to me,

100

aI have received

your truth,

And yet you have

protected

a corner

of your heart

to

cling

to the things

of the world,

I cannot believe

you.

If you say to

yourself,

I believe

God'sWord,

105 And yet you treasure things of the world,

You cannot

believe yourselves.

If you say to

the world,

We are

God's bulwark,

we

know God's

truth,we are

God's

plan for man,

And the world

sees that

you treasure

thingsthat belong

to them,

110

They will not

believe

you.

Only if you

are utterlydestitute,

Only

if you give

up all that

you have

And come to me

with empty

hands,

Can you be

believed.

115

The truth is

too great, the truth

is too

profound

To be

compromised

by any

attachment o things

of this

world.

Yes, you are

free to receive

from

me a greatabundance,

But you are

not free to

take it for your

own purposes;

You can receive

from me riches

and power,

lands

and

cities,

120 But you

cannot

use them for

your own pleasure.

All that

you have

must be turned

to my

service,

And when

you speak

my word of

truth

The

world will be

convicted,

And the world

will believe.

125 Know

this,

That no one

who has

given all to

me,

40

And to lay

your lives down

for it.

But I

want you to understand

hat

only I see

the entire

plan;

Only I

see every

front of the

battle.

I will

raise you up

with others,

And bind

you together

to make a

bulwark.

45 But that is not all there is to be, because whenyou have

stemmed

the onslaught

of the

Enemy

ThenI will reveal

to you greater

things.

In the

unity you have

with one

another there

is a prefig-

urement and

foreshadowing

of something

much

greater

that I

intend to do;

Something

greater, much

more vast,

much

more glori-

ous, I

will unveil

at that time.

You are

a foreshadowing

and a prefigurement

50

You are a bulwark

I have set

up to stem

the onslaught

of the

Enemy.

You are a part

and not

the whole;

You are

my servants

andmy

people.

Lay down your

lives now

for the things

I have

revealed

to you;

Commit

yourselves

to them, so that

in the day

of battle

you can

stand fast

and prove

victorious with

me.

Prophecy 3,

November

21, 1976

55 I have

spoken to

you of a bulwark;

I have told

you that I

am raising

a bulwarkagainst

the

coming

tide of darkness,

A bulwark

to protect my people

And

protect my

Church.

And because

your mind

of man cannot

comprehend

he

mind

of God,

60 I've spoken

to you

in figures.

You might envisionthe bulwarkas a wall of rock:

I speak to

you now of

that bulwark

in the figure

of an

impenetrable

hedge.

Yes, I have

scattered

my seed of truth

widely across

the

surface

of the earth;

And some

of that seed

has sprouted

andbegun to

grow

into the

impenetrable

hedge that

will be my

bulwark.

65

Yes, see how just

four seeds

have landed

in your

midst

and sprung

up;

And other

seeds have

been cartied

by the wind

of my

Spirit,

Otherseeds

have been

windbrokeat that

first sprouting

of the

hedge,

And there they

too have

germinatedand

taken root

and

grown up,

And the hedge

has grown,

70

And more

seeds have

been brought to

it by the wind

of

my Spirit.

It continues

to flourish,

to rise in strength;

And I

prune it vigorously.

Yet look about

and see that

other seeds

have germi-

nated

away from

the hedge;

They stand

by themselves-they

grow

unpruned.

75 I say

to you, you are the

bulwark

You are the

hedge,

And

you are to see

that the

bulwarkgrows in

strength:



6/13

PROPHECYNDPERFORMANCEF METAPHOR

THOMAS. CSORDAS 325

No one

who has entrusted himself completely to me,

Has ever penshed.

Those who give themselves to me

130 Are they who endure and taste everlasting

victory.

Motive and Metaphor

For the

analysis of ritual language, StanleyTam-

biah (1979)has proposed a distinction between

the illo-

cutionary

frame that establishes the force of an utter-

ance and the

predicative frame in which qualities are

attributedand transferredamong persons and

entities.

In charismaticritual language, the articulation

of mo-

tives

contributes to both the illocutionary and predica-

tive frames. First, motives reinforce theillocutionaryef-

fect by serving

as aids in composition. Such elementary

constituents of verbal formulas are, as Albert

Lord

(1960) hasshown, an essential part of the linguistic rep-

ertoire of individualsfluent in spontaneous oral

compo-

sition. The ability to generate poetic formulas

from the

vocabulary of

motives not only helps a speaker utter

prophecies

likely to be Udiscerned s appropriatebut

also abets the spontaneity of composition

experienced

as powerful

inspiration rom a divine source outside the

individual. Motives also guide the predication of

quali-

ties, both in the manner in which they are

elaborated

and in that

they suggest or Umotivate ppropriatemeta-

phors. The

repeated use of these motives and repeated

judgments about the appropriateness of their use en-

sure that prophetic utterance expresses a consistent at-

titude towardthe social world. Theirprominence in the

bulwark exts is evident, and I will list them only

briefly

in order of the

frequency of their occurrence:world (9),

word (5), service (5), people (4), plan (4), enemy (3),

darkness/evil (2), commitment (2), power (2),

battle

(2), promise (1), and freedom (1).

Although

it appears only once at the beginning of

the series of

prophecies, the divine Upromise s the key

motive

elaborated and fulEllledby the creation of the

metaphorical

bulwark. It is also of interestbecause for

speech-acttheory, in which illocutionary orce

typically

is found to

inhere in Uperformative erbs, promising is

the protoptypcial Ucommissive llocution.4 I

suggest

that the use of Upromise line 2) as a motive in its

noun

form in fact

fuses the predicative and illocutionary

frames. First, both hope and promise are

predicated

onto the

meeting, lending a particular qualitzzo what

otherwise

would be a typical case of a charismaticritual

gathering.Second, I would argue that, while in

formal

linguistic

terms the illocutionaryact of promising s not

performed (I promise that . . . ), to consider the

utter-

ance in the illocutionary frame suggests that it

does in-

deed have the force of a promise ( Thismeeting is a

promise ),

especially since the speaking subject is God.

The argumentof

the bulwarkprophecies follows a

rhetorical trajectory

from the opening statement that

the meeting is a hope and a promise to the concluding

statement, which specifies that to give and entrust the

self to the divinity corresponds to an ultimate promise

of imperishability and everlasting victory. That these

prophecies conclude with such an emphasis should re-

mind us of Michelle

Rosaldo's analysis of the cultural

implications of the promise as a prominent and even

privileged speech act in

Euro-American ociety:

To think of promising is, I would claim, to focus on the

sincerity and integrity of the one who speaks.... It is a

public testimony to

commitments we sincerely undertake,

born of a genuine

human need to contract social bonds,

an altruism hat makes us want to publicize our plans. Thus

the promise leads us to think of meaning as a thing derived

from inner life. A world

of promises appears as one where

privacy, not community, is what gives rise to talk.

[1982:211]

For Rosaldo, the

possibility and perhaps even the neces-

sity of the promise presumes a prior lack of connection

among discrete,

private selves that have inner lives

characterizedby capacities for orientationto the world

such as sincerity and commitment. In contrast, she

posed the example of the Ilongots. In the Ilongot world,

the self is not at all aninner one, continuous through

time, such that its

actions can be judged in terms of sin-

cerity, integrity,and commitment.Because Ilongots do

not see their inmost

'hearts' as constant causes, inde-

pendent of their acts, they have no reason to 'commit'

themselves to future deeds (1982:218). Rosaldo here

distinguishes a self culturally constituted as constant

and interiorized from one constituted in the conse-

quences of acts for relationships in a community. We

will shortly have occasion to warn against drawingsuch

a distinction too sharply. Nevertheless, Rosaldo's ob-

servation contributes to

our understandingof the rhe-

torical cqnditions under which the sacred self struggles

to come into being. Thatis, as the condition of possibil-

ity for promise and

commitment, the individuated self

characteristic of both

the deity and his followers is at

the same time that which makes community problem-

atic. We thus begin to understandthe internal connec-

tion among motives such as promise, commitment, and

community.

Let us now consider the transformationof motive

into metaphor. Recall

that the setting for the first two

bulwarkprophecies was a conference convened to form

an alliance among

covenant communities. The per-

ceived need for this

alliance evolved through the elabo-

ration of motives including community, commitment,

and the negativities of world, flesh, and devil. Given its

pivotal role in group ife and culminatingwith the words

spoken at the Rome

conference, prophecy was a princi-



7/13

326 AMERICANNTHROPOLOGISTVOL. 99, NO. 2 * JUNE1997

pal medium for articulating these motives. In the bul-

wark prophecies, the alliance came to embody the mo-

tive of promise in the sense that it was the deity's an-

swer to the sense of urgency of the Rome prophecies.

The alliance was taken up into this body of discourse

not in terms of motives as a acommunityof communi-

ties, however, but as a metaphorical Ubulwark, he

purpose of which is to stem the onslaught of evil and

protect the church.The establishment of the alliance as

a sacred reality is achieved by the creation of the bul-

wark through performance of a complex illocution-

predication by God, the ultimate speaker in prophetic

utterance. We can examine the bulwark mage in the il-

locutionary frame by turning to the use of verb tense

and in the predicative frame through ts relation to mo-

tives, to Uinchoate ronouns (Fernandez 1974), and to

itself as it is transformed n discourse.

In line 24 the divine speaker first says, I will make

you a bulwark, nd continues to describe the function

of the bulwark n his plan. Again n lines 43-46 the deity

states this promise/intention, adding that there will be

more to come afterward.The critical act occurs in line

50: the tense changes to simple present, and God says,

You are a bulwarkthat I have set up. In John Searle's

(1979) terminologyof speech acts, the Ucommissive ct

marked by the future tense is replaced by a declara-

tion n the present tense. In the act of utterance the bul-

wark has been created, and this creation is rhetorically

effected by a simple change in verb tense from future to

present. There s yet more, however, for the tense imme-

diately changes again to the present perfect Uhave et

up. This enhances illocutionary force by, in John

Austin's (1975) terms, referring o the bulwark n a con-

stative or simply descriptive mode, thus marking the

creation of the bulwarkas alreadya fait accompli.

Cultural eality s not created once and for all, how-

ever; to be sustained it must be continually re-created.

Thus we find that more than a year later, in prophecy 3,

the creative act is repeated. In line 56 it is stated, uIhave

told you that I am raising a bulwark, but by line 75 this

has become I say to you, you are the bulwark. The tem-

poral continuity between the prophecies is evident not

only in the affirmationby repetition of the performative

act but also in the difference in choice of verb tenses.

The later prophecy acknowledges the prior creation of

the bulwark by initiating the performative sequence

with the present perfect (I am raising) rather than the

future (I will raise).5The illocutionaryforce of the act is

emphasized by inclusion of the formula I say to you,

leaving no doubt that the utterance is declarative and

not constative. Again, however, the continuity of pro-

phetic discourse over time suggests that the declaration

is not only a re-creationof the bulwark.It maintainsa lo-

cutionary or constative element insofar as it is a re-

minder of an act alreadyperformed,a description of an

already extant state of affairs. It can also be construed

to have the force of an assertive insofar as it can be read

as taking for granted hat God s in fact creating the bul-

wark and then asserting that the listeners aarethat bul-

wark. n either case, once more the bulwarkappears as

a fait accompli.

From this analysis we can see that the efficacy of

the bulwark metaphor s dependent on a genre conven-

tion in the performanceof prophecy.This convention is

the use of performativespeech acts, the force of which

derives from their combination in a performative se-

quence intratextually within each utterance and in-

tertextually across a temporally continuous body of ut-

terances. This sequence can be summarized as

progressing from commissive to declarative to consta-

tive (assertive) speech acts. To the extent that pro-

phetic utterance is heard as the definitive word of the

deity and to the extent that the deity is omnipotent, the

conditions for its effect on the audience is self-

contained in the utterance. Prophecy encodes what we

might call a Upresumptive erlocution and therefore

carries its own guarantee of performative elicity and

predicative success.6

Let us be more precise regarding his claim about

presumptive perlocution. Searle (1975) points out that

in both commissive and directive utterances, which

form the bulk of these texts, the relation of aworld nd

UwordXs that the world Ufits he words. I promise

things will be a certain way and that state of affairs s ex-

pected to come to pass. Onthe other hand, the assertive

or constative presupposes the inverse, that the words fit

the world:such and such is the case, and I am saying so.

As the middle term, a declarativeact achieves its media-

tion by means of what Searle understandsas a very pe-

culiar relation between world and words that the per-

formance of a declaration brings about by its very

successful performance 1975:18).To explain how this

is possible, he appeals to the necessity of an uextra-

linguistic institution hat determines constitutive rules

in addition to those of language, and within which the

speaker and hearer must occupy specific places. Among

charismatics these conditions are met, respectively, in

the constitutive rules that define prophecy as a genre

and in the organizationof the covenant community.

Searle carries us even further,however, in observ-

ing that the only two exceptions to the requirement hat

an extralinguistic institution underlie every declaration

are statements that concern language tself and super-

natural declarations. Thus when God says, ULet here

be light, hat is a declaration. The remarkablestate of

affairs is that in prophecy the constitution of the extra-

linguistic institution erases the requirementof its own

existence as assurance of a declaration'sefficacy. Inso-

far as the declaration must be understood to be made by

God in order to count as prophecy, we can say there is a



8/13

PROPHECY ND

PERFORMANCEF

METAPHOR

THOMAS

J. CSORDAS

327

presumptive

perlocution

alreadyembedded

n the utter-

ance.

Metaphorssuch

as that of

the bulwark

constitute a

critical link

between

prophecy as an

arbiter of

social

practice

(intersubjectivity) and as an

ongoing

body of

discourse

(intertextuality).

Withregardto

intersubjec-

tivity, the metaphorsupplies a

concrete

identity to an

inchoate weX

that is in

search of a

new pattern

of rela-

tionships motivated

by religiously

prescribed

goals

(Fernandez 1986).

Indeed, the

texts give

explicit in-

structions on

how to use

the pronoun

we. With

regard o

intertextuality,the

metaphor

contributes to the

tempo-

ral

continuity,

coherence, and

creativityof

discourse as

it

is repeated

in

successive

utterances and applied in

new

situations (Rosaldo

1975). This

pivotal

role of

metaphor goes

beyond the possibility

for

repetition of

the

constitutive act

documented above, in

which the

bulwark is

created and

re-created in

prophetic utter-

ance. Once ithas enteredinto ritualdiscourse, the meta-

phor can be

transformed

or amplified,as

occurs in the

third

prophecy.

In lines 60-62

the deity

specifically

acknowledges

speaking

in figures,and

the figure

introduced to

trans-

form the bulwark s

that of a

hedge, as

opposed to a wall

of

solid rock.

The

semantic

transformation s frominor-

ganic to

organic and

frommonolithic

unityto the

plural

unity of

intertwining

shoots. This

allows an

amplifica-

tion of

meaningthrough

the

incorporationof

aspects of

group

life intothe

web of sacred

discourse.Thus

the ref-

erence

to the Ufour

eeds from

which the

hedge has

grown is

simultaneously

an allusion

to the four

found-

ers of the community and to the good seed of Mat-

thew's

gospel, a

doubling that

not incidentally

contrib-

utes to the

mythologization of

the

founders' role. The

image of

separateshoots

intertwining

o form the

hedge

is

an idealization of

interpersonal

relationships among

membersof

the

community.Thenotion of

Upruning he

hedge

refers both to the

loss of

members who

cannot

maintain

heir

commitmentto

the groupand

to the com-

plex of

self-discipline and

groupauthority

by means of

which

individualsare

disburdenedof

their

aworldlyX t-

tachments.

Incorporating

wayward

shoots into the

hedge

refers to the

necessity

of recruiting

new mem-

bers, and

transplantingparts of the hedge refers to the

community'splan to

send out

small groups

of members

who would

establish

outposts in other

localities.

Thatthe

performanceof the

bulwark

metaphorwas

indeed

compelling for its

listeners is

affirmed n the re-

sponse

of two

people present

during the

prophecy in

whichthe

bulwarkwas

transformed

nto the hedge.One

man recalled

that he

pictured the big

square hedge

along

with other hedges

and got the

feeling of

runners

going out to attach

them

together. The

Ubig,squareX

shape of the

hedge is

probablya formal

eature

retained

from its precursor

the bulwark,

suggesting

that the pro-

cess

we are observing

is indeed a

transformation of

metaphor nstead

of a substitution

of one

metaphorfor

another. Whereas the

text

describes

transplanting

sprouts that

germinate rom

separateseeds into

the bul-

wark

and

transplantingpartsof the

hedge to

extend the

bulwark, the

hearer's image

elaborates,

speciEles, and

interprets by evoking a

scene that

includes

multiple

hedges

linked by

runners.

Another

participant

stated that the

image of the

bulwark in

prophecy

brought to

mind aall

the other

things the

Lordhas told

us about

our mission as a

com-

munity,

thereby confirming

Turner's

(1974)

insight

that key

symbols are

multivocal and

polysemic.

This

woman describedher

original

notion of the

bulwarkas

a kind

of seawall.

The seawall

represented an

idea she

could

understand, but the

transformed

hedge made it

much

clearer for

her sincethe

hedge is both

penetrable

and

impenetrable. Her

nterpretationappears

to recon-

cile a felt contradiction between the broader under-

standings of the

community as an

inclusive

space of in-

timacy

andas an

exclusive

barrier o

aggression.

Textualityand

Intentionality

I haveshown

how

prophetic

utterance created

and

transformed

a metaphorical

bulwark but

have not

yet

fully

accounted forhow

that

performance

became com-

pelling.

Thebest

place to begin

this part of

the argument

is with

pronouns.

Pronouns

aresimultaneously

rhetori-

cal andindexical,

both

asserting a claim

about

relation-

ships anddemonstrating hose relationships in speech.

Thus

they may also

belong to

both the

illocutionaryand

predicative

frames. The

classic paper by

Roger

Brown

and A.

Gilman 1960)

showed how

the use of

formaland

familiar

pronouns of

address determines

relations

of

power

and

solidarity. More

recently, Milton

Singer

(1984,

1989) has

elaboratedCharles

Sanders

Peirce's I-

It-Thou

riad in a

semiotics of self.

In the present

in-

stance, we

must consider the

aI of

charismatic

proph-

ecy both in

its

pragmatic relation to the

person

who

utters the

prophecy (anI-I

relation) and in

its

discourse-

internal relation

to the

audience addressed

by the

prophecy (an I-yourelation).

At stake

in the I-I

relation is

the

authoritativeness

andself-evidence

of the

speech, as well as

the

speaker's

responsibility and

control over

that

speech. Two

authors have

recently

proposed schemes

by means

of

which

linguistic

analysis can

identify a

continuum of

possible

relations

between speaker and

speech in

this

sense. The

continuumoutlined

by Greg

Urban

1989:43)

refers

speciElcally o the

first-person

pronoun and

runs

from

everyday

speech in which

the uI

ndexes anevery-

dayself to

speech

characteristic of trance

in which

the

I

projects a

nonordinary elf. The

continuum

outlined



9/13

328 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST VOL. 99, NO. 2 *

JUNE 1997

by John Du Bois (1986:328)refers to degree of speaker

control and runs from sovereignspeech ultimately con-

trolled by the ego to speech in trance and beyond ego

control. Both emphasize increasing reliance on formal

features and contextual metapragmaticcues to distin-

guish stages of distance from

everydayself or sovereign

ego. The linchpin of both systems, however, is the role

of indirect speech, or Ureported peech n the sense de-

rived fromV. Voloshinov (1973)

and taken up in current

linguistic anthropology

(Hill and Irvine 1993; Lucy

1993). In this view, although

the IX of direct quotation

typically refers to a thirdperson, as speech moves along

the continuum toward mimicry or the role-playing of

theater the speaking first person (in Du Bois's terms,

the proximate speaker who produces the utterance)

disappears, eaving an aIXn

the form of an alter ego (the

prime speaker to whom the speech is attributed) that

can ultimately, n trance behavior, take on the autono-

mous characterof an ancestoror a deity.

The critical difference between the two accounts is

that for Du Bois the end of the continuum with the least

ego control suggests the possibility of apersonal, inten-

tionless speech, while for Urban the continuum is

folded back on itself in a

way that suggests the possibil-

ity of a dual I. For charismatics,the UIt f prophecy is

subjectively and formally

distinguished from the self of

the proximate speaker, but

within the text it functions

as an indexical referential

self in its own right,that is, as

God. Thus charismatic prophecy is typically not re-

ported speech. Whereasreported speech is quoted or

paraphrased from what

has previously been said, by

convention prophecy is the deity speaking directly

throughthe prophet in the

present moment. The typical

opening of a prophecy in

group settings is a term of di-

rect address, such as My

childrent or uMypeople. In

the bulwarkprophecies eventhis formality s dispensed

with, and God begins to speakstraightaway n his own

voice.

Furthermore, given the performative convention

that the deity may speak continuously regardless of his

mouthpiece, there is no opening

formula in the second

bulwarkprophecy. Indeed,

the convention is so power-

ful that the first word of the second utterance is the pro-

noun aI, with no apparentneed to preface this with any

speciElcation hat the UIts God and not the proximate

human speaker. This tightly

articulated transition

merges the predicative and

illocutionary frames, predi-

cating intimacy between speakers insofar as they are

participating in the same inspiration and bearing the

force of authority nsofaras it is recognized that the de-

ity can choose his mouthpieces

at will. Moreover, t is a

concrete embodiment of the point (made explicitly in

the third prophecy) that the divine plan is larger than

any individualor even any community:you are a part

and not the wholeX lines 35-36, 51). The performative

result is the virtual absence of an uintertextual gapX

(Briggs and Bauman 1992)between the first and second

utterance.

The only significant reportedspeech in these texts

occurs in lines 55-60, andquite remarkably his passage

consists of the deity reportinghis own previous speech

(I have spoken to you, I have told you, UI've poken

to you ). Much more than

a simple reminder, this is

once again a rhetorical strategy for reducing the in-

tertextual gap between utterancesseparated in time by

more than a year. Thus, following these prefatory re-

marks the very next line

shifts into the present with I

speak to you now (line 62). These strategies of in-

tertextuality that renderprophecy independent of indi-

vidual speakers and continuous

across time are critical

contributions to its authority.Taken together with the

circulation of motives that

we identified above as an-

other strategy of intertextuality and the strategy of in-

scription in which prophecies are transcribed and kept

as a communityarchive, these

oral performativestrate-

gies implicitly seek to minimize the intertextual gaps

between prophecy and sacred

scripture. If scripture is

the word of God, prophecy

is its direct extension in the

present: the living word of God among his people.

Another strategy of pronoun use occurs in lines

89-90, 95, 100, 104, and 108, in the form of what we can

call hypothetical reported

speech (for example, line 95:

If you say, 'I am God'splan,we are God'sbulwark' ). In

these instances the divine

speaker formulates possible

articulations of collective identity that might be made

by those listening to the prophecy.In a curiously hyper-

reflexive way, the I in these lines could be the indexi-

cal referential aI of the prophet as well as that of any

other participant,here as

it were twice removed by be-

ing embedded as a hypothetical n divine speech, which

is in turn embedded in the

utterance of the prophet.

What s particularlystriking

s that these hypotheticals

are the only places in whichthe first-personplural Uwe

occurs: only four times in 130 lines and only within

quotes in order to instruct

community members how

they should articulate the relationships among them-

selves (lines 89, 90, 95, and108). Thus the we, the pro-

noun of intimacy, indexes

participants'collective iden-

tity but not the relation betweenthe divine speaker and

the assembled audience.

That this usage is not only indexical but also bears

rhetorical force is brought home by the avoidance of

Uwe ven where its use might be presumed obvious: in

line 5, when God says,

UTogether ou will labor with

me, nstead of Together we will labor. In sharp con-

trast, a relation of authority

is asserted by the occur-

rence in 22 lines of the sequence I/you and in 11 lines of

the inverse sequence youlI-me-my.The former se-

quence typically frames a

statement of what God will do

with or for his followers, while the latter frames a state-



10/13

PROPHECYNDPERFORMANCE

F METAPHOR THOMAS. CSORDAS 329

ment of reciprocal commitment

and obligation to the

deity and his plan. The separation

of divinity and hu-

manity is further emphasized by

the occurrence of pro-

nouns of address (you-your-yourselves) alone

in 36

lines and of pronouns

of self-reference(I-me-my)

alone

in 16 lines.

This discussion suggests that we pursue the issue

of intentionality,

a key issue in the critique of speech-

act theory in the philosophy

of language (Lepore and

Van Gulick 1991; Searle 1983).

For the most part, an-

thropologistshave taken up the problem of intentional-

ity with respect

to the relations among intention,

re-

sponsibility, and control in

speech.7 The critique

mounted by these authors has

been an importantcor-

rective to accounts

that place the intention of individual

speakers universally

at the center of the meaning-mak-

ing process in

language. Despite its powerful contribu-

tion, however, in its strongest

version this antiperson-

alist critiqueX of meaning and the elaboration of

intentionless

meaning could easily be interpreted

to

draw an irreconcilable distinction

between the Western

speaker characterizedby subjective intention and

the

non-Western

peaker characterizedby collective deter-

mination. Indeed,the linguistic

argumentclosely paral-

lels the distinction drawn in psychological

anthropol-

ogy between

an entified Westernegocentric self and a

permeable non-Western

sociocentric self, an implicitly

orientalist distinction that has

recently come increas-

ingly to be

modified and attenuated (Csordas

1994b:33S337).

Some of these authors grant

speech-act theoryand

the speaker'sintention a degreeof value, rejectingonly

its universalclaims (Du Bois 1993:69;

Duranti1993a:44).

Duranti n particular

calls for a balanced approach,

not

denying that there

may be occasions in Samoa where in-

dividual intention can be invoked

in understanding

meaning. Du Bois acknowledges

the advances made by

speech-act theory

even in pointingto the occurrence

of

intentionless

meaning in Euro-American societies.

Charismatic

prophecy and charismatic ritual language

in general add a vivid ethnographic

example of the inter-

subjective constitution of meaning

n a Euro-American

setting, but one that at the same time remains

perme-

ated with intention.

As in Samoa,there is a much

more

obvious concern on the part of

hearers of prophecy with

the public, displayed,performative

aspect of language

than with the

actors' alleged subjective

states

(Duranti 1993a:44).Yet prophecy is far from the

inten-

tionless meaning in the version of the critique

formu-

lated by Du Bois, for it displays

control, responsibility,

and intentionat the same time

as spontaneity, collectiv-

ity, and intersubjectivity.

Our corrective to the antipersonalist

corrective re-

quires recognition

of two points: the kind of genre

typi-

cally presented as an example

and the kind of assump-

tion typically

made aboutsubjective states

of speakers.

The kind

of genre is often one characterizedby substan-

tial structure

and rigidity,allowing for diminished

spon-

taneity in the enactment

of more or less fixed texts.

Duranti's 1993a) example of Samoan political

oratory

offers the most flexibility in allowing the

speaker to

strategically switch between a dramatispersona repre-

sentinga group and a personal

identity.But his version

of the

critique is based more on the coconstruction

of

meaning

by performerand audience. Du

Bois, however,

argues that the need in

ritual language for self-evidence

and authoritynot subject

to critical scrutinydictates a

fixed

source of meaning which stands

outside the

chain

of human fallibility (1986:333).

He makes the

strongest case for this

position with respect to the ex-

treme example of the

highly overdetermined anguage

of divination 1993). Even

in traditionalnarrative enres

such as the Shokleng

origin myth (IJrban1989) or the

Weyewawords of the ancestors (Kuipers 1990, 1993),

the vector

of intentionality s in the direction

of approxi-

mating a timeless and fixed mythic account.

By con-

trast,

in prophecy the vector of intentionality

is re-

versed, and utterance

is an elaborationrather than an

approximationof the

timeless word of God fixed in

scripture.

This is the case for both the

proximate and

prime

speakers. The intentionality in prophecy is to-

ward

the mind of God, ultimately toward

the revelation

of the

divine plan. Theintentional horizon is defined by

the extent

to which that plan is perceived

already to

have

been revealed. The intentionality

of the prophet

becomes concordant with divine intentionality

as an act

of forthtelling in the way a surfer catches a wave.

The subjective state that corresponds

in an ideal

typical

way to the speech of intentionless

meaning is

trance, which is placed

at the opposite end of the con-

tinuum from the wide-awake

awareness of everyday

speech (Du Bois 1986; Urban 1989). Implicit

in such

continua s that the everyday

self is modeledon the sov-

ereign,

egocentric Western self while the

nonordinary

self is

modeled on the trance-prone sociocentric

non-

Western

self. I think Urbanbecomes snared

in this dis-

tinctionwhile at the same

time offering away out. He of-

fers the intriguing suggestion that the far

right of the

continuum s connected back up with the left, such that

projective

uI merges with the indexical

referential I

of everydayspeech (1989:42,

47). In Urban'saccount,

the projective UI perates

just like an everyday I and

constitutes an alternate

self. If there is trulya merging,

however, then the alternate self does not

supplant the

everydayself but is superimposed on it.

This appearsto

create the paradox that

there must be bothan ordinary

and

nonordinary self present, both sovereign

speech

and trance

at the same time. Moreover, f

the projective

I is

really behaving like the referential

indexical I of

everyday

speech, then it wtll not be speaking

in a Elxed



11/13

Performer

Audience

Apersonal

I

\

us

' >

csordas 1997 prophecy methaphor

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