“God Is Not Affected by the Depression”: Pentecostal Missions during the 1930s

Abstract

Near the beginning of his classic depression-era novel,The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck introduces the Reverend Jim Casy, a “Burning Busher” who “used to . . . get the people jumpin' an' talking' in tongues, an' glory-shoutin' till they just fell down and passed out.” But now Casy has given up preaching. “The sperit ain't in the people much no more;” Casy tells his friend Tom Joad, “and worse'n that, the sperit ain't in me no more.” Throughout the novel, Steinbeck underscores the crisis of religious meaning in the face of financial catastrophes confronting families like the Joads—share croppers and over-extended farmers who were forced off their land in dustbowl states such as Oklahoma, traveled west seeking work and better wages in California, only to find themselves struggling to stave off starvation, disease, and despair in crowded makeshift or government camps where they encountered sharp-tongued, fire-baptized believers like Steinbeck's character Lisbeth Sandry, a “deep-down Jesus-lover” who accused them of wickedness and warned that God was watching and smoking out sinners who took pleasure in play acting, devil-dancing, and other “hell-burning” behaviors.