Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | November/2021 |
Spalte: | 1114–1115 |
Kategorie: | Ökumenik, Konfessionskunde |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Riches, Tanya |
Titel/Untertitel: | Worship and Social Engagement in Urban Aboriginalled Australian Pentecostal Congregations. (Re)imagining Identity in the Spirit. |
Verlag: | Leiden u. a.: Brill 2019. XIV, 308 S. = Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, 32. Kart. EUR 59,00. ISBN 9789004400252. |
Rezensent: | John G. Flett |
Tanya Riches might be a familiar name to some readers of this review: her roots lie in the now international Hillsong Church, serving within its worship team leadership, including six years as the head of the youth band, Hillsong United. She authored a num-b-er of Hillsong songs, such as, »Jesus, What a Beautiful Name«. R.’, in other words, has unquestionable Pentecostal bona fides both in Australia and internationally. The text under consideration was her PhD dissertation in Intercultural Studies awarded through Fuller Theological Seminary (2017).
It begins with a preamble – a short history of European colon-isation of the lands that are today named »Australia« and the sig-nificant and enduring effects upon the First Nation peoples of the land. This history indicates that the development of ›local‹ theol-ogies necessarily includes movements of healing and of the re-imagining of structures of authority. But it also indicates that such movements and imaginings often develop outside of the dominant structures and institutions. Recognizing this draws R.’ attention both to how the First Nation peoples appropriated the Christian gospel within their local communities, and to Pentecostalism as a form of Christian experience and gathering as likewise marginal to the main lines of social and religious discourse.
This background history sets the text’s key question: what potential lies in Aboriginal-led religious, specifically Pentecostal, communities for readdressing historic oppressions? This question is examined through an empirical study of three urban Pentecostal communities, each led by a married couple of Aboriginal heritage. These communities were situated within lower socioeconomic suburbs of Australian cities (Perth, Tweed, Manunda), across three states (Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland). They resided within three Aboriginal nations (Nyoongar, Bundjalung, and Djabugay/Yirrganydji) and had three different denominational affiliations (Australian Christian Churches, Victory Life Movement, Power of the Spirit).
The text is comprised of three parts. First, »the research design« addresses the historical, theoretical, and methodological frameworks for the study, as well as significant questions regarding researching colonised peoples, and the agency of those peoples in shaping the study’s methodology. Generally stated, this first part traverses too much ground too quickly and the published form would have benefited from a more detailed conversation regarding the methodological concerns, and a related consolidation and better systematisation of other points of discussion (such as the cluster of issues surrounding, deculturation, the socioeconomic ›gap‹, issues of shame, the potential of Pentecostalism to address these issues).
The transition across a range of material tends to drown out the more constructive elements such as the discussion of »yarning« (24–42) as an Indigenous mode of listening and talking that became basic to the research process itself: as the question concerns Abo-r-iginal leadership, so the approach needed to follow these patterns of leadership. Indeed, one of the key findings of the study rests in the decolonising effect of yarning, the way this encouraged the building of relationship between First and Second peoples, and the positive emotional affect for the Aboriginal leaders of this process.
R.’ selected lens for interpreting the experience of these communities is Interaction Ritual Chain Theory. This assumes »em-bodied human experience« to be »the foundation of all social or-ganisation« (51). Embodied human experience here means rituals (and so worship) and how these affect people by increasing or decreasing »emotional energy«, a type of energy driving self-determination and the capacity to reimagine the self. Not only is this approach named as a natural fit for understanding the structures and ends of Pentecostalism, it also foreshadows the claim that Indigenous-led worship does indeed help address the experience of social exclusion. This results in the following thesis: »Urban Aboriginal-led Pentecostal congregations can be seen as inter-ac-tion ritual chains, with their worship practices generating affect or ›emotional energies‹, that charge collective symbols for use in (re)imagining individual and group identity, and in transforming lived realities.« (84)
R. tests this thesis through six questions, the examination of which constitute part two of the text. First, the leadership, via a complex pattern of networking, exercises both a freedom of culture and of self-determination by drawing on a mixture of denomin-ational, theological, and cultural resources. Second, the worship practices do incorporate »culture« (music, dance, storytelling, art), but with significant qualification: R. points to practices that were simply assumed and not identified as culture (such as yarning), while noting that the complexities of being a visitor on another’s »country« (local Indigenous land) lead to a proper modesty regarding culture from other countries. R. concludes that »the intention of senior leaders was less to promote Aboriginal culture in the services than to make space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to worship« (155). Third, the narratives promoted in worship name all people as equal with before God; no one was »lesser«. This positive message contrasted with the casual racism of wider Aus-tralian society. Fourth, participation in the »rituals« of the churches (Sunday worship, midweek meetings, personal worship) result in an improvement of self-reported well-being. Fifth, the consequent »emotional energy« would stimulate efforts at both evangelism and social justice. R. notes significant social outreach programs across the communities studied, identifying especially relational work among Aboriginal peoples. In a departure from »Pentecostal Aus-tra lian leaders who sought an apolitical worship space«, political speech against government policies that negatively affected Abo-rig-inal peoples appeared during worship (207). Sixth, R. found that social action did not create an energy which flowed back into worship, but that worship stimulated a »Pentecostal ›imaginary‹« that energised collective action and lead to a reimagining of the self, the church and society.
Part three provides a summary and conclusion, which echoes the findings in part two.
If a critique might be made, it would centre on the, not simply uncritical, but apologetic reading of Pentecostalism. This results in normativities, leading the argument to read a little predetermined, as well as creating something of a blind spot regarding the cultural possibilities explored through the text. Part of this apology made rests in normative claims regarding the freedom of Pentecostal structures and the inference that culture finds a greater liberty of expression than found in other denominational bodies. Unattend-ed, however, are questions of local Indigenous heritage in relation to Pentecostal theologies concerning spirits, or ideas of continuity/ discontinuity, and to the local forms of embodied enculturated worship. But any such concerns should not detract from this constructive and culturally embedded argument.