Review of James KA Smith’s <i>Thinking in Tongues</i> in two parts: Part II

(x-posted at church and pomo)

The stated goal of James KA Smith’s Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy is to promote the agenda of a distinctively pentecostal approach to philosophy (151).  Recognizing the sort of boundary crossing such an endeavour requires Smith admits that what he offers is a sketch, a ‘cartoon’ even (xxv).  The agenda and scope attempted ends up looking more a like the mascot for a minor league team considering the possibility of turning professional.  Until now the image of the team (pentecostalism) has been flat, predictable and poorly fitted in its costume.  Smith transforms what appeared shabby and turned it into gritty and then backs the mascot with a host dazzling and sexy European cheerleaders that have boosted other dominant teams of philosophy.  For this reason I suspect the book may well feel like a VIP pass to young pentecostal-minded (spirited?) undergrad philosophy students though how it will be met by larger audiences is less clear.

The basic movement of the book is first to demonstrate that pentecostalism (small-p to include a larger swath of expressions) has a legitimate place in larger philosophical conversations.  Smith then articulates an epistemology and ontology that reflects pentecostal spirituality.  Finally Smith offers a critique of contemporary philosophy of religion based on his prior epistemology and ontology and then adds a contribution to the philosophy of language using glossolalia as a test case.

Smith begins with a postmodern critique of the Enlightenment in which the Enlightenment is characterized as representing a foundational and objective rationality by which all truth can be evaluated.  Smith argues that strands of contemporary and postmodern philosophy have come to understand that humans function with a prior affective posture towards the world that conditions how we think and reason.  We are constituted by prior formations and beliefs (a worldview or spirituality) before we engage with philosophical ideas.  This critique is important for two reasons.  First, Smith takes this as admittance to the conversation.  “The crucial implication here is a certain levelling of the playing field: if everyone operates on the basis of a worldview, and all worldviews have a basically confessional status, then a specifically Christian or pentecostal worldview has as much right to come to the scholarly table as any other” (29).  The second reason for framing the conversation in this manner is because the postmodern philosophical critique as Smith tells it flows into his understanding and prospective project for a pentecostal contribution to philosophy.

Smith’s project hinges on the question of whether or not a pentecostal spirituality offers a ‘radically open’ engagement with the world (epistemologically and ontologically).  This openness forms the centerpiece of his understanding of pentecostalism (33).  I want to focus my review on this element because the reader’s response to Smith’s overall contribution will likely be determined by how she or he interprets this claim.  Epistemologically this openness emphasizes an affective form of knowledge; a knowledge that is prior to objective reason and is formed ritually, bodily and narratively.  In this way personal testimonies, the laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, kneeling at the alter, emotive music, hand raising all create layers that reflexively mould an orientation towards the world.  It is these modes that create new possibilities prior to and outside the parameters of Enlightenment reason.  Ontologically this openness points towards an enchanted understanding of the material world.  Smith is hesitant to speak of supernaturalism as that term suggests a dichotomy he does not feel represents a pentecostal worldview.  In broad alignment with Radical Orthodoxy Smith views the entire material world as sustained and infused by God’s Spirit and as such it remains ready for the surprising and creative work of participating with God.  This is what Smith calls a non-interventionist view.  “A ‘miracle’ is not an event that ‘breaks’ any ‘laws’ of nature, since nature does not have such a reified character; rather, a miracle is a manifestation of the Spirit’s presence that is ‘out of the ordinary’ (referred to as ‘sped-up’ or more ‘intense’ in another context); but even the ordinary is a manifestation of the Spirit’s presence” (105; parentheses added).

How is one to evaluate these claims to ‘openness’?  I would like to explore his contribution on his own terms by focusing on the bodily practices and testimonies (narratives) that shape the pentecostal worldview (xxiii, 31).  Each chapter begins with an account retelling a vignette of pentecostal spirituality.  I appreciate the risk of including these accounts as many ecclesial-minded theologies are sparse if not barren when it comes to testimony.  However, what I found surprising is the complete lack of paradox or irony in his accounts of pentecostal openness.  The only real hint of irony is when Smith says that for pentecostals “the unexpected is expected” (33).  Smith’s examples of a ‘radically open’ spirituality come off as a confirmation of the caricature I already have of pentecostal worship.  There is boisterous music, informal structure, sentimental testimonies and tearful alter calls.  I am not criticizing these expressions or this mode of worship, I actually have more than a little appreciation for the charismatic gifts of the church.  What I am criticizing is the notion that these forms reflect a unique mode of openness to the world.  I could have written similar accounts of pentecostal worship without ever having attended the churches he refers to.

It is on this critique of pentecostal openness that Part I of my review was developed.  While Smith acknowledges at several points that pentecostals are not immune to abusing their practices nowhere does he reflect on the possibility that it is all scripted in a way that has little more internal variance than a Catholic Mass (or virtually any other liturgy).  Moreover I would suggest that the felt need for the unexpected lends itself to a much more coercive environment than many other traditions (as I give account in the first witness of Part I).  But more than the predictability of pentecostal worship I would argue that Smith nowhere entertains the sort of account that Bazan provides in Foregone Conclusions.

You were too busy steering
the conversation towards the Lord
to hear the voice of the Spirit
telling you to shut the fuck up.
You though it must be the devil
trying to make you go astray.
And besides, it could not have been the Lord
Because you don’t believe He talks that way.

It is the sort of structured practice of the ‘unexpected’ Smith gives account of that may actually keep people from the openness represented in the biblical account.  What would happen if someone told the worship band, in full-swing or the teary woman in mid-confession that God was telling them to shut the fuck up (not saying it hasn’t happened)?  Another testimony is of a woman who could not conceive (49-50).  She wanted to be a ‘Hannah’ but the Lord did not seem to be listening.  She even became angry with the Lord.  But now she is pregnant.  And so she is a Hannah.  The issue here is not about being happy for this woman but theologically this is not a unique account of entering God’s openness.  I am not convinced this is an instance being situated in the biblical narrative (51).  To be situated in the narrative is also to have a radical break with the narrative.  To be a ‘Hannah’ within the Bible is the shift from the desired pregnancy of Elizabeth in old age to the unexpected and unsought pregnancy of the single teenage Mary.  The precedent then is an ‘open’ and foreseen possibility in the present.  Openness is repetition in the Kierkegaardian sense which assumes and demands a difference.  Jesus’s (Yeshua’s) ministry is a repetition of Joshua’s conquest.

It is this complete lack of irony or paradox that ultimately keeps this project from gaining traction.  I am not suggesting that there are never occurrences of ‘openness’ or repetition in pentecostalism only that I don’t see pentecostalism being particularly unique in this case.  This is the point of my final witness in Part I.  There was nothing particularly ‘pentecostal’ in that account in that there was no discernable working of the Spirit.  It was, however, as best as I can interpret it an intensification, a ‘plateau’ perhaps, of God’s work.  It left an indelible mark upon me that both connects and breaks with what was prior and gave possible direction to what was to come.  In this way it may be better to speak of the ‘fugitivity’ of the Spirit to borrow from Peter Dula (who borrows from Sheldon Wolin) than to think about how to ‘structure’ for openness as Smith does.  If there is, however, an open structure it is more likely to be found in Liberation Theology than in pentecostalism (or most other confessional approaches for that matter).  I am not saying the pentecostalism and Liberation Theology are incompatible.  In fact Gustavo Guiterrez’s framework of beginning from a ‘pre-understanding’ seems to share some similarities with Smith’s affective or bodily approach.  However, I would maintain that Liberation Theology is better equipped to speak of ‘openness’ because of its posture towards the powers of the world.

While Smith makes several insightful and interesting observations relating strands of contemporary philosophy with pentecostal spirituality the whole project is plagued by the spectre of his ‘mascot’ (I get the impression this a trend here and here).  As he cheers on would-be pentcostal philosophers there is no irony in the prescribed forms that are to create openness and too many references to the ‘staid’(a favourite term in the book) academic community and how they would have a hard time handling the ‘raucous’ and ‘gritty’ pentecostals.  I am all for the promotion of more rigorous and diverse forms of thought and expression in the church but this notion of enforcing the ‘rights’ of pentcostalism to some elite academic ‘table’ does not seem to be a method that will bear good fruit.  Don’t worry about the mascot just play the game.