Azusa Reimagined (Keri Day) - Review
AZUSA REIMAGINED: A Radical Vision of Religious and Democratic Belonging. (Encountering Traditions). By Keri Day. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022. X + 218 pages.
When did the Pentecostal Movement actually begin? That is a
question many have asked through the years. Was it the night of January 1,
1901, when Agnes Ozman first spoke in tongues during a watch night service at
Charles Parham's Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas? Or was it the Azusa
Revival that broke out in Los Angeles in 1906 under the leadership of William
Seymour? The question revolves around whether speaking in tongues as initial
evidence is the foundation piece of Pentecostalism, or whether a revival that
birthed missionary movements, new denominations, and more, is the beginning
point. Mixed into all of this is the question of race. Charles Parham was a
white holiness preacher, while William Seymour, a former associate of Parham's,
was Black.
The racial-ethnic piece is
important to the conversation, as Azusa Street was marked both by its Black
leadership and its roots in Black religious life. These roots include spiritual
practices that emerged during slavery, and which proved offensive to many, including
Parham. There are political and cultural issues at work here. Parham’s negative
responses to Azusa were rooted in his own racism, as was true of other white
holiness preachers (not to mention the larger white Christian community).
Having experienced the Pentecostal
movement during my late adolescence and early adulthood through my involvement
with two congregations affiliated with the International Church of the
Foursquare Gospel, I have long been interested in the history of the
Pentecostal movement. I have been especially interested in the story of
Foursquare founder Aimee Semple McPherson. In addition, one of my seminary
professors, Mel Robeck, is one of the preeminent scholars of the Azusa Street
Revival. What has fascinated me about the Azusa Street Revival is its
racial/ethnic/gender diversity. I have always grieved over the fact that within
a short period the diversity of Azusa Street gave way within Pentecostalism to
largely segregated denominations. Where the movement of the Holy Spirit seemed
to be drawing people together and empowering those who had been on the margins
(women and people of color), before too long that all ended as Pentecostalism
acclimated itself to the larger fundamentalist/evangelical world. Nevertheless,
Azusa’s witness remains, if only we pay attention to it.
Fortunately, greater attention has
been given to Azusa Street, especially since the centennial observances in 2006.
This attention is part of a larger interest in Pentecostalism and the
charismatic movement, as these movements explode across the globe.
Pentecostalism is now the fastest growing segment of the Christian movement,
especially outside the USA and Europe, and so it can no longer be ignored. But
there is still much to learn. With that in mind, we turn to Keri Day's book Azusa
Reimagined: A Radical Vision of Religious and Democratic Belonging. Day
dives deep underneath the revival, looking not to its theology and the role of
speaking in tongues, but to the social-political-cultural dynamics that gave
birth to the revival. She is especially interested in the role that race and
gender play in the rise of the revival and how it was received. She sees Azusa
not only as a religious revival, but as an expression of a Black
religious/social dynamic that reflects both the social location of the
participants at the moment of the revival, and going back to slavery.
The author of this study, Keri Day,
is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religion
at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is the author of several previous books,
including Notes of a Native Daughter: Testifying in Theological Education (Eerdmans), which I previously reviewed
here. Day is by background Pentecostal,
so this is a deep dive into her own tradition.
Central to Day's thesis is her
belief that "Azusa's religious life embodied a critique of America's
racial-capitalist order" (p. 3). It was, in her view, a subversive
movement that rejected American racial capitalism, and empowered a political
order that stood outside the white-dominated system, one that excluded them
from participation. I find it interesting that Day's book comes out at a time
when we are witnessing a white backlash against antiracism training along with a
focus on diversity in schools and businesses. In other words, the message that
Day seeks to bring forth here is the same one that is being resisted in the
United States, especially by white evangelicals. If you are uncomfortable with
facing the prospect that the history of the United States, as well as the
current system, is marred by racism, then the message embedded in this book
will be uncomfortable. However, if we’re to understand the Azusa Street Revival,
we must understand the racial/gender/ethnic margins that gave birth to the
revival.
Day begins her study by contrasting
Azusa Street with the World's Fairs held in Philadelphia and Chicago at the end
of the 19th century. She suggests and offers evidence that these fairs were
designed to emphasize American and European superiority over other non-white
cultures. She points out that at both fairs, the image of Pentecost was used to
define the message of the fairs. The image of Pentecost here reflected a white
nationalist industrial capitalism. With that as the backdrop, Day can set up
Azusa as a movement that contested these "orthodoxies." Central to
this was Black religiosity, which is rooted in slave religious practices that
were deemed demonic by white observers.
One of the most significant elements
in the story is the ethnic and gender diversity of the leadership at Azusa
Street. This is especially true of the revival’s Black leadership. The leadership
of William Seymour is relativity well-known, but he wasn’t alone. Day
emphasizes the role Black women domestic workers played in the revival. She
speaks in chapter 3 of "Black Female Genius," noting that Black women
had long served as domestic workers in North America. This begins with house
slaves and continues to expand as time marched on so that as late as 1960, ninety
percent of domestic workers in the south were Black. Though they filled this
economic role, we learn here that they provided the backbone of the leadership
of the revival. She writes that "the leadership of Black women domestics
also directly challenged the plantation patriarchy that shaped and guided Black
churches and Black communities more broadly." (p. 83). Even within the
revival, there was pushback, especially from husbands who were disappointed
that their wives were busy preaching rather than doing laundry. That led even
Seymour, who had welcomed women into leadership, to try and limit the degree to
which women were playing a leading role in the revival. Therefore, while Seymour
sought to support gender equality in the leadership of the revival, he ended up
getting caught up in the resistance. This aspect of the revival is explored in
chapter three, which is a fascinating chapter that is worth a close read.
That chapter is followed by one that
speaks of the "erotic life of racism. She addresses the racist
sensibilities that were then expressed about Black religious experience, which
was described as erotic and inappropriate. One of the criticisms leveled at the
participants in the worship at the revival was that men and women of different
races were dancing in the Spirit. There was a certain intimacy in the worship
that was deemed inappropriate by critics. Thus, Day addresses that critique of
the revival and the racist origins of the critique. She concludes that “Azusa
embodied an erotic generosity because this community knew that gifting oneself
to the other constitutes the most powerful expression of communion, connection,
and belonging at the deepest levels of ourselves” (p. 126).
While the participants were charged
with being sexually provocative, they were also charged with being lawless. Day
engages this critique, that the participants were lawless, by turning it on its
head and critiquing American democracy. She points out that the police were
often called on to close down the revival by the Los Angeles Ministerial
Association for disturbing the peace. Azusa becomes not only a religious
revival, but also a critique of a racist political system that does not include
but suppresses people of color and women, many of whom were not at the time
allowed to participate in a political system that was geared to white men of
property. Thus, the revival transgressed political boundaries. Within this
conversation, she addresses both the apocalyptic and the premillennialism
present in the revival. She points out that the apocalyptic/premillennialist
theology was anything but quiescent. Yes, they believed that the second coming
was close at hand, but they were also concerned about current situations and
creating an alternative to that reality. I should note that when she speaks
here of the apocalypticism of the movement, she brings the work of the late
German biblical scholar/theologian Ernst Käsemann into the conversation
about apocalypticism since Käsemann emphasizes the political implications of
apocalyptic movements that resist oppressive political systems.
Day closes Azusa Reimagined with
a discussion of Azusa's vision of a democracy that is still to come. While much
of Pentecostalism today has embraced the prosperity gospel and Christian
nationalism, that was not true of Azusa. While the revival gave birth to a
longing for a better world, that vision led to the creation of a subversive
movement of the margins, especially among persons of color. With the important
role played by Black leadership, especially the Black women domestic workers,
along with the borrowing from spiritual practices born within slavery, it's
understandable that a person like Charles Parham, who had racist tendencies,
would reject the movement. It’s also understandable that some in the larger Black
church movement, which at the time sought to assimilate, would find it
problematic. In the end, the question remains: What makes Pentecostalism
Pentecostal? Is it Topeka or Azusa Street? Parham or Seymour and the Black
women domestic workers? Day makes a compelling case for the latter. She does so
by exploring the socio-cultural dimensions of the revival, which offered a
strong rebuttal to oppressive tendencies present in the larger church and
larger culture.
Keri Day’s Azusa Reimagined
is an academic study, so it is not an easy read. Additionally, those looking
for a theological analysis might find some of that here but that is not the
focus. Instead, Day brings into the discussion a socio-cultural analysis that
brings to the fore crucial elements of the revival and its influence on later
developments. It is a challenging work, but if, as I believe, Azusa Street is
one of the most important religious developments in American history, we need
to engage with the entire story, and Day offers valuable information to help better
understand this movement that began in Los Angeles in 1906. By better
understanding the movement, we might be able to embrace its critique of
American religion and culture.
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