Heaven Below
Early Pentecostals and American Culture
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- $30.99
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- $30.99
Publisher Description
In this lively history of the rise of pentecostalism in the United States, Grant Wacker gives an in-depth account of the religious practices of pentecostal churches as well as an engaging picture of the way these beliefs played out in daily life.The core tenets of pentecostal belief—personal salvation, Holy Ghost baptism, divine healing, and anticipation of the Lord’s imminent return—took root in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Wacker examines the various aspects of pentecostal culture, including rituals, speaking in tongues, the authority of the Bible, the central role of Jesus in everyday life, the gifts of prophecy and healing, ideas about personal appearance, women’s roles, race relations, attitudes toward politics and the government. Tracking the daily lives of pentecostals, and paying close attention to the voices of individual men and women, Wacker is able to identify the reason for the movement’s spectacular success: a demonstrated ability to balance idealistic and pragmatic impulses, to adapt distinct religious convictions in order to meet the expectations of modern life.More than twenty million American adults today consider themselves pentecostal. Given the movement’s major place in American religious life, the history of its early years—so artfully told here—is of central importance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pentecostals fundamentalist Christians who identify speaking in tongues and miraculous healing as divine gifts have long been ridiculed as poor, ignorant, violent and licentious. In this remarkable study, Wacker, raised a pentecostal and now a respected historian at Duke University, devastates the standard stereotypes. But he also departs from the Edenic model of denominational historiography, which imagines, for example, that the Azusa Street mission was a model of interracial harmony before the fatal break between its black and white founders. What emerges instead is a remarkably rich account of the inner lives of ordinary men and women who felt themselves filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. In 15 tightly organized chapters, Wacker offers a comprehensive ethnography of the first generation of pentecostals their faith, their social attitudes and their politics. He leads the reader through enchanted landscapes populated by angels and demons, pauses to assess reports of xenolalia (speaking in a human language allegedly unknown to the speaker) and surveys the gulfs that have divided charismatics from their detractors. It is difficult to imagine a more judicious treatment of the subject; meticulously researched, lyrically written and continuously illuminating, Wacker's book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the origins of this influential current in American culture.
