https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K57SkT5deuU
In the above Vice documentary an outsider spends time with an old-fashioned Pentecostal tent preacher. I thought this look into one of the American Christian traditions was interesting, especially as I had very little experience with this tradition. The documentary mainly follows one of the Vice reporters talking with the preacher about his life and his faith, but there are also scenes of some of the actual Pentecostal services taking place. Near the end of the documentary the preacher the reporter had been following asks him if he would like to try giving a Pentecostal sermon. The reporter agrees but admits to the camera that he is not really religious at all. I wondered how this would be viewed by Christians. I know of many instances in history of lay people giving sermons but usually they were at least part of the faith. I wonder if people consider this disrespectful or blasphemous. The video also shows some of the Pentecostal tradition's staples, like speaking in tongues and accepting the holy spirit, both of which I found interesting to learn about.
Thanks for posting Xenia. Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteSo, I looked at the video and watched the reporter preach and, in response to your question, I really didn't find it offensive. I think it would have been offensive if he had been clearly mocking the congregation, but he seemed sincere. I don't think you have to be an ordained minister to share your experience in a spiritual setting, and that seems like what he did here. I also find speaking in tongues interesting, and if you want to learn more about it, I would recommend watching "Jesus Camp". It's very interesting! Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteI just watched the documentary, and though I had a few laughs, I also had many issues.
ReplyDeleteTo me this read as a covert fight for authenticity. The Christian community points to the fact that tent revivals are a "dying breed" that the younger generations don't know much about. They emphasize how their community goes back to the basics with old fashioned revivals, selecting an origin which holds meaning to their tradition: the 60s as the hay-day of tent revivals. Of course this revival practice goes all the way back to the first and second Great Awakenings. All this is to say that to these insiders, this is the most authentic way of practicing what they preach, literally through simple tents and impassioned preaching.
This is an outsider's experience being documented, and while it was intended to be humorous, I could see many Christians considering the subversive humor downright offensive. This was not an attempt to show an unbiased educational perspective on Pentecostalism, rather, similar to the snake handling stories, there is a clear exoticization of The Other.
Snarky highlights included comparisons of spiritual experience to strong MDMA (ecstasy), speaking in tongues to being drunk, and what was most offensive to me: "I'm not sure if that's a coincidence or a sign from God, or if there's any difference."
On some level, I get it: The target audience of the piece was not the insider but the outsider, millennials are increasingly less religious, and substances and subversive humor resonate with the "me me me generation." However, as a millennial myself, a Christian (though not a Pentecostal), and most importantly to my critique, someone dedicated to interfaith dialogue: I find this piece to be the sort of thing that contributes to the building of walls between different traditions, discouraging productive interaction between theists and non-theists, and painting the religious as stuck in the past and religion as irrelevant.