Kevin Lewis O’Neill, Hunted: Predation and Pentecostalism in Guatemala

Abstract

American Religion 1, no. 2 (Spring 2020), pp. 151–153 Copyright © 2020, The Trustees of Indiana University • doi: 10.2979/amerreli.1.2.11 Book Review Kevin Lewis O’Neill, Hunted: Predation and Pentecostalism in Guatemala (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019) Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, USA Kevin Lewis O’Neill’s Hunted sits alongside recent ethnographies of Pentecostal men, street ministries, and prisons, including Helena Hansen’s Addicted to Christ, Andrew Johnson’s If I Give My Soul, and Brendan Thornton’s Negotiating Respect. These books explore how Pentecostal conversion offers dignity and supportive community to Latino men on the margins—like addicts, convicts, and ex-gang members—who have been abandoned by the state, and deemed expendable. Through testimony and the sharing of personal stories of redemption, Pentecostals enact a reformed self. For men, the more they narrativize their past ungodly lives of sex, drugs, and violence, the more Pentecostal prestige and religious authority they win, becoming leaders, pastors, and living proof of Jesus’ power. Hunted does not center on the tearful scenes of renewal that have become so part of the genre of ethnographic work on Pentecostals. Instead, O’Neill offers stories of continual falls and relapses, in which men constantly chase—but sometimes never win—redemption. Saving the sinners and addicts of Guatemala City takes handcuffs and straightjackets as much as prayer and worship. In the absence of state social services and rehabilitation for “substance use disorders,” Pentecostal treatment centers hold men captive for months and sometimes years in hopes of providing salvation American Religion 1:2 152 from drug use and alcoholism through Jesus. They function on the idea that rehabilitation is a miracle, as “substance abuse is a sin not a disease.” O’Neill demonstrates that Pentecostalism in captivity does not so much provide a guaranteed path to a clean-cut life as it guarantees a place where men can remain alive. Caring for vulnerable men meant not just praying for them, but preying on them. Bands of hunters prowled the streets looking for wayward addicts. Summoned by worried relatives, hunters enter homes in the dark of night, stir addicts from bed, subdue them, and transport them to the center by any means possible. In the center featured in Hunted, affection and violence were two sides of the same coin that is the “Christian commandment to love thy neighbor” (148). Pedro, the center’s pastor, imagined himself as a shepherd: tracking, keeping, and protecting wayward sheep. He ruled his herd with a metal bat. Hunting involved beatings and restraint, but what is so striking about O’Neill’s book is that he argues that these violent acts are not necessarily contrary to Christianity—these logics of predation are part and parcel of Pentecostalism. Pedro put families at ease. His pastoral and rehabilitative services assured them that their sons, husbands, and brothers would be safe behind the walls of the center rather than open to the drugs and gun violence of the streets. Captivity meant life. Freedom surely meant death. The book troubles liberal ideas about the autonomy of self, ideas core to US-centered conceptions about individual freedom of religion and religious choice. O’Neill challenges readers to see how hunting and predation are central to Christian ideas about the sinful and evil self as an enemy that must be escaped (143, 87). The men in the center do not always choose religion—they are kidnapped into it. Religious practice and identity is as much—or more—about force and discipline than belief, choice, and free will. During services men pick the paint off the walls to pass the time instead of singing, dancing, and weeping—exuberant scenes so central to many other representations of Pentecostalism. Here we see how boredom and forced labor are too central to the making of the religious and righteous self. This book is provocative for the field in its exploration of money—not as an abstract economic concept, but as actual dollar amounts put on the promise and potential of safety and salvation. Kidnapping is often a profitable transaction, requested by families who make “offerings” for the duration of their loved ones’ stay, generating a steady...