The Emergence of Italian Pentecostalism: Affectivity and Aesthetic Worship Practices
Pentecostalism is distinguished by the move from orthodoxy (right-doctrine) to the emphasis on orthopathy (right-affections). This shift appears in the elevation by Italians of direct experience over doctrinal statements. The beginning and expansion of Italian Pentecostalism is charted more than any other phenomenon by the incidence of Spirit baptism.[34] Wilma W. Davies attributes the birth of Argentinian Pentecostalism to Italians from the Chicago Mission, whose ministry to the Italian diaspora in Buenos Aires led to the “first known Pentecostal experience in Argentina” in 1909.[35] The Chicago missionaries also planted the first seeds of the Pentecostal movement in São Paul, Brazil. While Spirit baptism is commonly considered a crisis experience, it is framed within the organic whole that encompasses the Christian life. Spirit baptism acts as a marker of spiritual progress, a symbolic gateway or bridge in the transition to more profound levels of Christian experience and worship.[36]
Pentecostal worship opened Italians to the dynamism and spontaneity of the Holy Spirit.[37] The freedom of the divine Spirit stood in sharp contrast to the formalism and rigidity Italians experienced in orthodox denominations. They found they could encounter God in the fellowshipping community in a more personal, immediate, and influential way. The experiences and practices of Pentecostal worship allowed Italians to recover from the social-psychological deprivation that played such a significant role in the early Italian-American experience. The gifts of the Spirit were distributed freely with little partiality to age, rank, or gender. According to Harvey Cox, a large scale effect of this was a renewed view of the involvement of women in Italian Pentecostal worship. The freedom and spontaneity of worship created “a new space for leadership [and] empowerment” among women.[38] In North America women served as prophets, healers, evangelists and preachers. The first Italian-American converts as well as the first Pentecostal missionaries were women.[39]
Cox maintains that Pentecostal worship is fundamentally “aberrant” and poses a challenge to the existing social order. Pentecostal worship provides a platform on which women testify and also dance in public. This can be seen in the emergence of Pentecostalism in Italy where the same realities contravene the social norms of a patriarchal society. In Sicily women are confined to the domestic domain and expected to exhibit compliant, modest behavior in public. The songs, prayers, and testimonies of women Pentecostals reflect the reframing of Italian theology and worldview. This theology is displayed not primarily in prayers offered to the Virgin Mary, but in the qualities attributed to the Godhead. The titles “Father,” “Son,” and “Spirit” are comprehended in light of feminine characteristics, and the distant and judgmental God of traditional Catholic theology is reconceived as a being more concerned with human emotion and affectivity.[40] In this context affectivity is connected to a feminine spirituality and opens the door to a holistic theology of mutuality and love. Cox refers to this feminine dimension as a “primal spirituality,” motivated by the attempt to uncover the religious wellspring of the Italian people. Suppressed by centuries of “male-dominated, institutional piety,” the religiosity of Italians points to the profound value placed on female exemplars. In addition to the Virgin Mary, the legacies of female exemplars such as Mary Magdalene and Saint Catherine of Sienna are ensconced in frescoes, statues, and Cathedrals bearing their names.[41]
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