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212 Epilogue that composed the cultural milieu in which “love energy” (emotion energy ) was being produced and stored at BnF. Through the many voices of people we interviewed and through our personal observations we documented David’s charismatic effect on others . As a visionary David has the power to create and to destroy through his control of emotion energy. Collaborators that David could hear and trust might have been able to diffuse the negative emotion energy associated with the schism. Resolving the issues between covenant and contract in BnF would have permitted the visionary to soar while the collaborators ’ feet remained planted in the realities of life. This was not to be. Those who once seemed like potential collaborators were turned into villains, regarded as thieves trying to steal the ministry. As the prophetic leader of BnF, David denies this status to others. This is both a source of strength and of weakness. David shares his visions, but not his power. Godly Love in Cultural Context Godly love, as it shines through the many accounts woven together in our narrative, is more than an isolated act. As we have conceptualized it, godly love consists of interaction rituals linked together in what Randall Collins calls interaction ritual chains. Central to the process of godly love are vertical interaction rituals with God that empower loving horizontal relationships with others. The story of BnF is thus more than a series of isolated interaction rituals. It is a way of life that illustrates Sorokin’s “active ideationalist culture”—one that is antithetical to the dominant sensate culture of the American dream. It is a culture that strives “to convert others to a vision of God and ultimate reality” (Johnston 2006, 146). BnF’s “ideationalist culture” is attractive to those who follow David’s vision, which rejects the materialist and sensate American dream in favor of a spiritual walk promising to usher in the Kingdom of God. The culture of BnF, with its neo-Pentecostal vision and practices, thus provides a milieu in which divine-human interaction is normative. Research on prayer has shown experiences of the divine to be commonplace; surveys have found that a clear majority of respondents say that they “hear from God” in prayer, at least on occasion (Poloma and Gallup 1991; Poloma and Pendleton 1991). Blood-n-Fire provides a milieu in which divine-human interaction is encouraged as part of the lived experience of community life. This was not only true for David, but also for all the major voices in the BnF story. Epilogue 213 David’s prophetic experiences and teachings created the community and the culture that encouraged followers to listen for the voice of God. Those we interviewed—active followers, board members, as well as homeless addicts—all had stories to share in which they told of hearing from God. Many came to BnF already aware of a God who walked and talked with them; others learned to hear the divine voice through community interaction rituals; but nearly all seemed to find BnF to be a place was God was active in a special way. While it remains outside the parameters of social science to determine whether God was in fact speaking, the narratives do attest to the emotion energy linked with such encounters—EE that energized human interaction rituals and the development of interaction ritual chains—especially for those in the BnF family. Godly love implies that the vertical relationship with the divine will have effects on daily life. Despite inevitable human frailties, David’s vision of a relational family church did take root in his disciples. The BnF members we interviewed during the first year of the study unequivocally cherished the depth of relationships they found at BnF. Although many said that being “family” was not easy, it was highly valued. The poor who identified with the BnF family also valued family-like relationships. Those living in the Sanctuary formed them with each other, as did the men in the Training Program. Any relational ties of the poor and homeless with David and his inner circle, however, were weak at best. As we have demonstrated , despite David’s attack on the American dream, BnF culture was largely one that appealed to white middle-class followers and not the poor. We observed a common disjuncture in the BnF interaction chains between David and his followers, including the homeless. David functions best as a prophet of God; for him, human relationships are always secondary . In David...

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