The Assemblies of God: Godly Love and the Revitalization of American Pentecostalism

9. Covenants, Contracts, and Godly Love

188 | 9 Covenants, Contracts, and Godly Love With Matthew T. Lee There it was, then, in pairs: The primitive and the pragmatic . . . . We might think of the two impulses as alternating voices in dialogue, or as contrasting threads in a tapestry, or as complementary plots to the story. . . . The list of possible metaphors does not end here, but by now the point should be clear. No effort to describe the world of early Pentecostalism can be complete without accounting for the impulses and the way they worked together to secure the movement’s survival. (Wacker 2001, 14) Grant Wacker (2001, 15) has identified a process that has gone on throughout the history of Christendom in which groups “have found ways to weave heavenly aspirations with everyday realities.” This interchange between primitive experiences and pragmatic practices serves as a foundation for Wacker’s historical discussion of Pentecostalism. While taking for granted the primitive or charismatic features inherent in this religious movement, Wacker ’s analysis focuses on pragmatic practices rather than on charismatic experiences , leading him to wonder whether the tale of early Pentecostals was one in which “heaven had invaded earth or earth had invaded heaven” (p. 15). Crossroads (Poloma 1989) had a similar focus on pragmatism with its assessment of the institutional dilemmas that seemingly sounded the death knell for mystical charisma. While this book began by revisiting the Crossroads thesis, it goes further in presenting a detailed examination of the revitalizing effects of religious experiences through a dynamic process we have called Godly Love. Godly Love—the dynamic interaction between divine and human love that enlivens and expands benevolence—is the engine drives the revitalization process. In our analyses of the pastoral survey data (framed by Thomas O’Dea’s [1961] theory of routinization of charisma) and congregational survey Covenants, Contracts, and Godly Love | 189 results (framed by the interactive theory of Godly Love), we have sought to describe the two partners in the dialectical dance between primitivism and pragmatism. We have provided narrative and statistical accounts of experiences of the divine to show how “heaven has invaded earth” through spiritually empowered benevolence. Our description of the organizational work in the AG suggests that even if Pentecostals have not “invaded heaven,” they have created a bit of heaven here below. The key to understanding revitalization in the AG lies in the tension between the primitive and the pragmatic forces found in its judicatory and in its congregations . In this final chapter we assess the pragmatic forces in terms of contract, a system of lived-out legal agreements basic to modern organization as found in the AG judicatory, while primal forces are discussed in terms of covenant, relationships that are rooted in promises and interpersonal relationships commonly believed to be divinely empowered, which are the lifeblood of congregations. We use these concepts as sociological “ideal types”—that is, as heuristic devices to describe a world that does not exist in its pure form, but which serves to demonstrate the rich diversity found in the Assemblies of God. Thus, contractual judicatories also contain elements of congregational covenantal relationships, and covenantal congregations contain varying degrees of contractual leadership. For the most part, however, covenants are expressed within the congregation , where the divine promise of a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit is lived out through Godly Love, which facilitates ongoing revitalization within church communities. The Diamond Model of Godly Love In order to visualize the process of Godly Love, Figure 1 presents a diamondshaped diagram with labels of interaction components and arrows designating relationships (see also Lee and Poloma 2009a). At the top is a box labeled “God,” the non-empirical divine actor who has customarily been discounted in social-scientific analysis. The boxes featured to the left and right, respectively , are labeled “primary actor” and “collaborating actor(s)” to designate human interaction. As demonstrated by our statistical analysis of the survey data, prophecy has proven to be an important catalyst in accounting for different forms of “benevolence,” the box at the bottom of figure 1. Of our three spirituality measures (glossolalia, a sense of divine presence, and prophecy), prophecy provides the best illustration of the interaction represented in the top half of the diamond-shaped model. 190 | Covenants, Contracts, and Godly Love Collaborating Actor(s) Primary Actor(s) Benevolence God Prophecy begins with the primary actor who believes God has spoken a personal word (usually experienced as a sense...