Shouting for the Lord: The Power of Women's Speech in the Pentecostal Religious Service

Abstract

PENTECOSTALS IN SOUTHERN INDIANA are quick to assert that theirs is a religion of equality; all members, male and female, are equal in the sight of God and all may participate in the ecstatic behaviors that have become the trademark of this charismatic religion. In fact, if anything, the newcomer to a Pentecostal religious service would report that dominate the services: they are there in greater numbers; they sing more; they march and dance around the church with tambourines more than men do; they are more likely the ones to go into trance, jerk, fall down, speak in tongues; and it is they who go forward for special healing. For all of this, male authority and control in a Pentecostal church must not be confused with female spiritual power. Although can be preachers in this faith, at least in name, they are rarely pastors. Men maintain the position of authority in this religion that is based squarely on a Biblical hierarchy that places below men. The traditional sex-linked roles in this religious community dictate behavior models and support only those performances that maintain and perpetuate the status quo. By recognizing this fact, it is possible to understand the differences in the artistic verbal performances of Pentecostal men and women. This study of women's speech in the Pentecostal religious service supports I. M. Lewis's contention that ecstatic religion is most attractive to those segments of society that are politically impotent, providing them a means for expression and group identity (Lewis 1971:32). Denying any innate tendency toward hysteria in women, Lewis correlates the peripherality of women in most, if not all, social systems with female tendencies: It is in terms of the exclusion of from full participation in social and political affairs and their final subjection to men that we should seek to understand their marked prominence in peripheral possession (1971:88). Attraction to trance and experiences provides a means for establishing cohesion for disjointed groups, according to Lewis, who sees such experiences as thinly disguised protest movements directed against the dominant sex. Thus, they play a significant part in the sex-war in traditional societies and cultures where lack more obvious and direct means for forwarding their aims