Heavenly Choirs In Earthy Spaces: The Significance Of Corporate Spiritual Singing In Early Pentecostal Experience

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The phenomenon known as the heavenly choir was a common feature of early Pentecostal worship and revival, rivaled only by speaking in tongues. Participation in the heavenly choir was transformative of both singer and hearer, producing a desire for a fuller experience of God. The experience of participation in the communion of singers transformed the marginalized into prophetic leaders, their earthy meeting places became sanctuaries of ‘heaven below’. This transformation was subversive in that dominant cultural constructs based on race, gender, class, ethnicity, and age were weakened if not toppled. Interpretation of this phenomenon by participants involved an approach to Scripture more dynamic than the later biblicism, interpreters finding resonance with the worship scenes in the book of Revelation rather than dependence upon a one-to-one correspondence of events in the Acts narrative or discourse by Paul, subverting later doctrinal construction beholden to Evangelical schemes.