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Conversion and CommunitasAuthor(s): William M. ClementsSource:
Western Folklore, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1976), pp. 35-45Published
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Conversion and Communitas WILLIAM M. CLEMENTS
American folk Christians, whose beliefs and practices flourish
"apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical
forms of official religion,"' divide the population of the world
into two categories. On one hand there are sinnerfolk, all persons
who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior; on the
other there are Christians. The factor which distinguishes
individuals in one group from those in the other is a ritual
experience; for Chris- tians are defined as those believers who
have gone through a crisis conversion. When accompanied by
formalized behavior, the tran- sition from sinner (a secular state)
to Christian (a sacred state) is a classic instance of the rite de
passage phenomenon characterized by Arnold van Gennep.2 For most
folk Christians, the crisis con- version is the only major rite de
passage of their religious lives; but one sizable faction, the
Pentecostals, believe that there are other transforming rituals of
spiritual value. The baptism of the Holy Ghost, the most striking
of these, is an emotion-charged experience usually accompanied by
glossolalia which initiates the average be- liever into an elite
group of spiritually endowed Christians. As the crisis conversion
and, to a lesser degree, the baptism of the Holy Ghost are basic
features of the behavior systems of many American folk Christians,
an understanding of these rituals is essential for comprehension of
a major force in American folk culture. The purpose of this paper
is to describe the rituals as they exist among white folk
Christians-primarily Baptists and Pentecostals-in northeastern
Arkansas and then to suggest that one source of the rituals lies in
matters relating to social structure and its antithesis, what
anthropologist Victor Turner calls "communitas."3
1. Don Yoder, "Toward a Definition of Folk Religion," Western
Folklore 33 (1974): 14. This is one of five definitions that Yoder
suggests as, possible for folk religion.
2. Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. Monika B.
Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago, 1960).
3. Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and
Anti-Structure (Chicago, 1969).
[35]
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36 WESTERN FOLKLORE
The crisis conversion is the experience by which an individual
becomes a member of a sacred group of Christian believers. Through
the grace of God he accepts the fact that he is inherently sinful
and recognizes that salvation from sin and its consequences is
effected by dedication to Jesus Christ. The contention that this
experience should be thought of as ritual hinges on the assumption
that some sort of patterned or formalized behavior is operative.
Basing my conclusions upon published conversion accounts, oral
narratives, and personal observation of conversion experiences, I
believe that the crisis conversion is characterized by patterned
be- havior with symbolic dimensions relevant to the ritual's social
functions. This behavior primarily consists of vocalization and
secondarily of physical movement and visionary trance.
The type of vocalization usually associated with all kinds of
re- ligious emotionalism is "shouting," a term which apparently
refers to almost any vociferous outcry, intelligible or otherwise.
Since shouting is quite closely connected with religious
enthusiasm, it has sometimes been regarded as a sure sign of a
crisis conversion. For example, during an interview concerning the
history of a camp meeting in Sharp County, Arkansas, I asked the
elderly informant if the meeting had been the scene of many
conversions. He replied simply, "Yes, we had shouting all over the
grounds."4 Accounts of camp meetings and protracted meetings from
the nineteenth cen- tury often describe the cries of new converts.
A good illustration is encouched in a couplet from a doggerel
versifier whose rhymes were meant to derogate the emotionalism of
camp meeting Protestants: "Or when their souls are rais'd to heav'n
/ A shout by all, at once is given."5 In most contemporary crisis
conversions which I have observed, however, the tendency to shout
represents ideal, not real behavior. Instead, vocalization
manifests itself in sobbing and in choked whispers of "Thank you,
Jesus." Whether male or female, old or young, all subjects whose
conversions I have witnessed sobbed audibly throughout their
experiences and evinced no em-
4. Interview with Church of the Nazarene layman in Calamine,
Arkansas, on 12 October 1971.
5. A Camp Meeting Review, Containg [sic] the Proceedings of a
Camp Meeting, and a Confutation of the Arguments Which Are Produced
in Favor of the Same: Also Showing That They Are Not for the Good
of Society, Written by a Visiter [sic] to One of the Meetings. Also
Poems on Other Subjects (n. p., 1824), 18. A copy of this pamphlet
is in the rare books collection at the University of Texas library
in Austin.
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CONVERSION AND COMMUNITAS 37
barrassment regarding their emotionalism. Their sobbing was
shared by those seasoned Christians who helped them "pray through"
to spiritual rebirth. On the basis of my observation of sobbing and
other observers' descriptions of shouting, it is tempt- ing to
suggest that some sort of emotion-charged vocalization al- ways
characterizes a crisis conversion.
The physical movement associated with religious emotionalism in
general, and the crisis conversion in particular, has been called
the "jerks," a series of spasms which often possesses sufficient
force to prostrate the subject. Visitors to nineteenth-century
religious exercises, especially on the American frontier, often
came away shocked at the spectacle of converts writhing on the
floors of tents and churches. For example, Frances Trollope, who
attempted an unsuccessful commercial venture in Cincinnati in the
1830s, at- tended a camp meeting where the women "threw about their
limbs with such incessant and violent motion, that [she] ... was
[at] every instant expecting some serious accident to occur."6
Psychologist Frederick Morgan Davenport wrote of an individual who
clutched a tree to steady himself during a crisis conversion but
"was whirled round and round until the bark of the sapling peeled
off in his grasp."' Writing from a different perspective, Methodist
circuit rider Peter Cartwright recalled a sinner who refused to
yield dur- ing a conversion experience and suffered a broken neck
as a con- sequence of the fearful jerking.8s Among contemporary
folk Chris- tians in northeastern Arkansas, I have never observed
the jerks as a part of crisis conversion, but some sort of
minimally patterned movement often accompanies the ritual. Most
often this consists of clapping the hands or of raising and waving
them above the head. This movement begins at a slow, rhythmic pace
and gradually be- comes faster and more frenetic as the climax of
the experience ap- proaches. That climax frequently occurs as the
subject sweeps his arms dramatically heavenward and emits a
particularly loud sob.
A visionary trance is virtually impossible to document on the
basis of ethnographic observation. Occasionally I have seen a
sub-
6. Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, ed.,
Donald Smalley (New York, 1949), 172.
7. Frederick Morgan Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious
Revivals: A Study in Mental and Social Evolution (New York, 1905),
226.
8. Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, ed.,
Charles L. Wallis (New York, 1956), 46.
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38 WESTERN FOLKLORE
ject, usually a young girl, faint, but I hesitate to label this
an in- tegral part of the ritual experience. Yet trances and
visions are sometimes considered part of a crisis conversion, and
printed ac- counts of conversions sometimes emphasize these
phenomena. For example, Cartwright claimed, "Divine light flashed
all around me"9 at his conversion. One of psychologist-philosopher
William James's subjects recounted hearing a voice during his
experience which urged, "Venture on the atonement, for you will die
anyway if you don't."'0 Southwestern humorist Johnson Jones Hooper
effectively burlesqued conversion visions when he had Captain Simon
Suggs tell a camp meeting congregation of seeing an alligator
during his crisis conversion."
Ideally the ritual of crisis conversion is experienced only once
in each individual's life and thus operates as the threshold for
mem- bership in the Christian community and perhaps for further en-
counters with religious emotionalism. However, exceptions to this
ideal may occur. If a folk Christian fails to conform to the code
of behavior required of a Christian-if he "goes back into sin" or
backslides-his status as a group member is jeopardized. For in-
stance, if a folk Christian is caught drinking, he is liable to
censure. If he is a Baptist, committing such a sin-especially when
done re- peatedly-may be evidence that his crisis conversion was
not valid and he, in fact, has never really been a true Christian.
In order to become a Christian reintegrated into the group he must
undergo another crisis conversion, which all hope will this time
prove to be a legitimate mystical experience. A Pentecostal caught
sinning would also need to go through some sort of reintegrating
experi- ence. While Pentecostals recognize that an individual who
has had a valid crisis conversion can "fall from grace" into sin,
they believe that that individual must have some kind of new
experience anal- ogous to the original ritual in order to restore a
right relationship with God.
To summarize this point, I contend that the crisis
conversion,
9. Cartwright, 38. 10. William James, The Varieties of Religious
Experience: A Study in Human
Nature, Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered
at Edinburgh in 1901-1902 (New York, 1929), 245.
11. Johnson Jones Hooper, Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,
Late of the Talla- poosa Volunteers, ed., Manly Wade Wellman
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1969), 111-126.
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CONVERSION AND COMMUNITAS 39
usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience, should be viewed as
ritual. Its function is primarily integrative, but interestingly
many sub- jects themselves emphasize that it often occurs when they
are struggling to resist religious involvement-for instance; when
spitefully wearing a short skirt and make-up to a religious
exercise or nourishing a grudge against some enemy. The
symbolically rel- evant ritual behavior consists of standardized
vocalization (shout- ing, sobbing), conventionalized movement (the
jerks, hand clap- ping), and visions. It should be noted, of
course, that these kinds of behavior may characterize religious
emotionalism outside the boundaries of this ritual, but the crisis
conversion usually marks the first occurrence of such behavior in a
religious context for the individual. Before suggesting the
symbolic value of crisis conver- sion behavior, the other major
rite de passage of American folk Christians must be described.
While the crisis conversion is the most important initiatory
ritual in the lives of folk Christians, those who belong to a
loosely bound aggregation of groups designated as Pentecostal
believe that subsequent rites de passage, if not requisite, are
certainly recom- mended. Chief among these rituals, and the one
which gives Pente- costals their name, is the baptism of the Holy
Ghost-also called "Spirit-baptism," "receiving the Holy Ghost," and
the "infilling of the Holy Ghost"-which occurs, according to the
theology of most Pentecostals, sometime after the subject has
successfully en- tered the Christian community through a crisis
conversion. Draw- ing upon the apostles' experience on the day of
Pentecost for their precedent, Pentecostals assert that a Christian
who has achieved the proper spiritual state will receive some sign
that the Holy Ghost has begun to use him as a medium for divine
activity. The sign of the baptism of the Holy Ghost is almost
always glossolalia. This tongue-speaking behavior is to be regarded
as an external indicator that a particular inner condition, the
presence of the Holy Ghost in one's life, has been attained. After
this experience, the subject may become a vehicle through whom the
Holy Ghost's power peri- odically operates. This power is made
manifest in the nine "gifts" of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing,
working of miracles, prophe- cy, discernment (the ability to
distinguish between spirits), speak- ing in tongues, and the
interpretation of glossolalic utterances.
A consideration of ritual behavior during Spirit-baptism
reveals
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40 WESTERN FOLKLORE
that vocalization is obviously the prominent feature. Although
in- formants insisted that speaking in tongues was not essential to
the experience, they could provide no illustrations of baptisms of
the Holy Ghost without glossolalia. When speaking in tongues
occurs, it is usually a relatively stylized utterance whose meaning
is un- known to the speaker. Changes in pitch, tempo, and timbre
seem to reflect affective developments in the subject as the
experience approaches its climax.12 In a manner similar to the
crisis conver- sion, the behavior during the baptism of the Holy
Ghost may also involve clapping and waving of hands and sometimes a
trance.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost should be regarded as a gateway to
a completely new kind of religious career during which the sub-
ject serves as an enduring medium for the Holy Ghost's operations.
The continued presence of the Holy Ghost is demonstrated by evi-
dence whose frequency of occurrence varies from daily to every few
months. One such evidence is recurrent glossolalia. Speaking in
tongues on a relatively regular basis helps a believer to maintain
his spiritual fervor, allows him an exclusive channel of communi-
cation with God when the unknown language is heavenly rather than
earthly, and permits the Holy Ghost to make prayer requests which
the intellect of the subject may not recognize as necessary.
Nevertheless, glossolalia at the moment of Spirit-baptism is not
regarded by Pentecostals as the only external evidence that the
Holy Ghost is active in a mature Christian's life.
Another evidence of the presence of the Holy Ghost is the power
to heal physical ailments. In this situation the Holy Ghost uses
the Spirit-filled believer for the channeling of healing power to
the sick and injured. Resulting cures may be gradual or
miraculously instantaneous. Together with the seven other divine
activities men- tioned above, tongue-speaking and healing
constitute spiritual gifts available only to those who have been
baptized of the Holy Ghost.
As ritual, the baptism of the Holy Ghost is quite similar to the
crisis conversion. It overtly functions integratively to initiate
Chris- tians into an elite group of spiritually endowed believers,
but may operate latently in other ways as suggested below. Yet the
baptism of the Holy Ghost occurs only when a believer is receptive,
and it often must be assiduously sought. The behavior usually
character-
12. Felicitas D. Goodman, Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural
Study of Glos- solalia (Chicago, 1972).
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CONVERSION AND COMMUNITAS 41
istic of this ritual is vocalization (glossolalia), but some
sort of move- ment and trance may occur as well. An additional
similarity be- tween these major rites de passage of American folk
Christians lies in their symbolism and sociological sources.
In a recently published analysis of ritual behavior, Victor
Turner has emphasized the significance of what van Gennep calls the
"lim- inal" stage in a rite de passage. This is the period of
actual transi- tion, after the subject has shed his former secular
status, but before he has become a member of the sacred group into
which he is pass- ing. Liminality is thus a condition without
socially defined identity. As Turner puts it, "Liminal entities are
neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions
assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial."'3
As a nonsocial being, the liminal subject generally behaves in ways
not in accordance with his usual manner; in fact, he may violate
some of his society's implicit and explicit proscriptions. Turner
argues that while a sub- ject experiences liminality, he comes into
contact with a model for "human interrelatedness" which stands in
antithetical juxtaposi- tion to social structure. This model is
called "communitas." While society is usually modeled as a highly
structured system of hier- archical categories characterized by
politics, economics, or tradi- tion, communitas is unstructured or
minimally structured as a community of equal individuals submitting
only to the authority of the supernatural or its
representatives.'4
Under most circumstances liminality is a fleeting experience,
enduring only as long as the liminal stage of the rite de passage.
Hence, one experiences what Turner calls "existential commu-
nitas," and the behavior and ceremonial apparatus during the ritual
symbolize the subject's nonsocial position. However, the con- tact
with communitas may be appealing, especially for those who rank low
in the hierarchy of social structure. Therefore, attempts may be
made to establish a normative communitas which persists over a
length of time. This communitas must ultimately revert to social
structure however, as the need for organization develops.'5 It is
my contention that the crisis conversion involves the subject in
existential communitas. According to the ideals of
Christianity,
13. Turner, 95. 14. Turner, 96-97. 15. Turner, 132.
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42 WESTERN FOLKLORE
communitas is preferable to structure, so after completing his
rite de passage, the subject tries to participate in a normative
commu- nitas with his fellow folk Christians. Since normative
communitas is innately doomed to reversion to structure, the folk
Christian may make an effort, as communitas slips from him, to
recapture his orig- inal experience of this unstructured state.
Thus, Pentecostals sug- gest the need for additional rites de
passage during which contact is again made with existential
communitas. In other words, Pente- costal folk Christians seem to
rejuvenate the slipping normative communitas of their religious
involvement by periodically return- ing to existential communitas,
first during the baptism of the Holy Ghost and later during the
continued operation of the Holy Ghost in their lives through the
nine spiritual gifts. Folk Christians of other theological bent,
such as Baptists, may rejuvenate communitas by means of generalized
religious emotionalism outside the para- meters of ritual. The
presence of ritualized existential communitas subsequent to the
crisis conversion among Pentecostals may re- inforce the notion
that members of Pentecostal groups are less like- ly to find
satisfaction in their social identities than Baptists and thus turn
to communitas for compensation.16
The argument that crisis conversion involves the subject in
existential communitas gains support from the testimony of in-
formants and from observed behavior. Behavior during the crisis
conversion ritual symbolizes opposition to social structure, for
ritual subjects are stripped of their social identities as mature,
decorous adults and act in ways that are socially unacceptable in
normal circumstances. Persons doubly violate the conventions of
society through symbolic behavior during crisis conversions. First,
they act in fashions that are at least implicitly taboo. For
example, the overt emotionalism that always accompanies a crisis
conversion contradicts the typical proscription on public displays
of emotion in most American social situations. Especially relevant
is the spect- acle of grown men sobbing in a most "unmanly" manner.
Another socially censured aspect of conversion behavior is the loud
vocal-
16. Sociojournalist Vance Packard has intimated in his chapter
title "The Long Road from Pentecostal to Episcopal" that
Pentacostals are regarded as low in social status both esoterically
and exoterically. See The Status Seekers: An Exploration of Class
Behavior in America and the Hidden Barriers That Affect You, Your
Com- munity, Your Future (New York, 1959), 194-206.
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CONVERSION AND COMMUNITAS 43
ization and violent movement. Decorum is violated, and the un-
involved observer may be scandalized by trespasses against the be-
havioral norms of structured society. Second, conversion subjects
break through the boundaries of their particular roles in social
structure. As one informant said, "When you get at the foot of the
cross, the ground's level, you know, whether you're rich or poor.
And so-well, you know-person's standing in life won't affect
him."17 The idea that many claim to have been converted at mo-
ments of resistance suggests that the social roles of the subjects
are perceived as being directly challenged by the experience. In
other words, this ritual of existential communitas sometimes
affects in- dividuals who are doing their utmost to maintain an
identity in social structure apart from the Christian community.
For example, a young woman told me that she had been converted
during a re- ligious service at which she had shown her lack of
interest in the proceedings by wearing her shortest skirt and heavy
make-up.'s Her social role as coquette was thus pointedly
confronted by the symbol-laden behavior of the ritual. Like other
conversion sub- jects, she moved outside of social structure into
the brotherly, non- social atmosphere of communitas.
After this brief contact with communitas, folk Christians become
members of groups which offer at least token adherence to the
preservation of a communitas-like state beyond ritual. The norma-
tive communitas which represents the ideal of American folk Chris-
tians is symbolically served by the trait of egalitarianism, a
basic feature of most Protestant polity which has been especially
empha- sized by groups at the folk level. The doctrine of the
"priesthood of all believers" is taken quite literally by folk
Christians. This is manifest in their addressing spiritual leaders
by the egalitarian term "Brother" rather than the respectful
"Father" or "Reverend." The use of this term of address extends to
all their fellows, for in talking to or about coreligionists, folk
Christians invariably append "Brother" or "Sister" to a proper name
and eschew artificial, status- charged expressions like "Mr.,"
Mrs.," "Dr.," or "Professor." This sort of terminology is
symptomatic of the desire for normative com-
17. Interview with Missionary Baptist minister in Jonesboro,
Arkansas, on 21 June 1973.
18. Interview with Pentecostal woman in Jonesboro, Arkansas, on
24 July 1973.
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44 WESTERN FOLKLORE
munitas and in some groups may be the only evidence that such a
desire ever existed.
Communitas is an ideal state and always becomes corrupted by
structural intrusions. Some groups like the Franciscans may at-
tempt to prohibit these intrusions by institutionalizing commu-
nitas, but folk Christians generally have neither apparatus nor in-
clination to erect great institutional edifices. Pentecostals must
rely on new rituals during which existential communitas again
replaces social structure. As with crisis conversion,
Spirit-baptism and other subsequent operations of the Holy Ghost in
a Christian's life in- volve the subject in two kinds of
symbolically nonsocial behavior. Once again, intense and overt
emotionalism, loud vocalization, and violent movement violate
standards of social decorum. At the same time, when a subject
speaks an unknown language or heals a phys- ical ailment, he acts
beyond the personal limitations which struc- tured society has
arranged for him. An uneducated subject who speaks or interprets a
language unfamiliar to himself and others in his milieu goes beyond
the bounds of his intellectual and experi- ential background. When
a layman effects a miraculous cure, he has transcended his social
position. Yet the act of glossolalia or faith healing does not
result in a new social position for the subject, for it is really
the Holy Ghost who is active. The subject who heals does not become
a healer; he is the medium through whom the Holy Ghost operates the
gift of healing. Next week this individual may prophesy and another
may heal. Both will be behaving in ways not defined by social
structure; they will be without social identity. This repeated
involvement in existential communitas should ac- tually be regarded
as a substitute for, not a rejuvenation of norma- tive communitas.
The Pentecostal does not live in perpetual com- munitas. Rather he
finds this state attractive enough to merit his periodic return to
it from the realm of social structure.19
The symbolic value of behavior characteristic of the rites de
passage of American folk Christians reflects the nonsocial position
of ritual subjects. Although the point must not be pressed too
strongly, it is certainly true that many folk Christians are poor,
un-
19. An application of Turner's concept of communitas to the
whole congregation at certain American religious exercises has been
proposed by Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., And They All Sang Hallelujah:
Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800-1845 (Knox- ville,
Tennessee, 1974).
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CONVERSION AND COMMUNITAS 45
educated, and without social prestige. Hence, it might be argued
that these rituals which obviously integrate individuals into the
sacred community of Christianity also function in a compensatory
manner. Individuals who may not be receiving complete satisfac-
tion through their existence in social structure receive the oppor-
tunity in ritual to discover a replacement for structure where
their lack of social commodities is irrelevant.
Arkansas State University State University, Arkansas
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Article Contentsp. 35p. 36p. 37p. 38p. 39p. 40p. 41p. 42p. 43p.
44p. 45
Issue Table of ContentsWestern Folklore, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan.,
1976), pp. 1-90Front Matter [pp. 34-34]Editorial Statement [pp.
1-2]Concepts of the Past in Folkloristics [pp. 3-22]The Implied
Obeah Man [pp. 23-33]Conversion and Communitas [pp. 35-45]Robert
Gordon Sproul, 1891-1975 [pp. 46]Topics &CommentsFolk Themes on
the Carillon [pp. 47-52]Kennedy in Camelot: The Arthurian Legend in
America [pp. 52-59]Cokelore [pp. 59-65]The Place of Folklore and
Folkloristics in California Community Colleges [pp. 65-71]
Notes &QueriesThe Chicago Folklore Prize [pp. 72]The San
Francisco Museum of Art [pp. 72-73]Minority Studies Conference [pp.
73]Earthquake Erotica: Some Bawdy Lore from the Los Angeles
Catastrophe of 1971 [pp. 73-74]The Abortionist's Advertisement [pp.
74]The Electronic Pocket Calculator: Joke 1 [pp. 75]
Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 76-78]Review: untitled [pp.
79-80]Review: untitled [pp. 80-82]Review: untitled [pp.
82-83]Review: untitled [pp. 83-85]
Film ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 86-87]Review: untitled [pp.
87-89]Review: untitled [pp. 89-90]
Back Matter