PENTECOSTAL SPIRITUALITY IN A POST MODERN WORLD

Mrs. Rebecca Jaichandran

1.INTRODUCTION

 ‘Our Time’ is the epithet David Harvey attaches to modernity and its postmodern successor.[1] Princeton philosopher Diogenes Allen declared, "A massive intellectual revolution is taking place that is perhaps as great as that which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages."[2] It is a shift that shapes every intellectual discipline as well as the practice of law, medicine, politics, and religion in our culture. We can readily identify with Charles Dickens when he depicted the French Revolution in The Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”[3] 

All that one see and hear about is the decline of any absolute truths, the creation of relativity, the lack of purpose and direction in historical change, the disintegration and division of all academic subjects into a variety of perspectives - with no 'answers', no agreement and the fragmentation of cultural forms into a ‘playful celebration’ of chaos. Strong is the belief that there are no certain, single truths about the world. Instead, every question has an infinite number of answers, each being equally as valid as each other. This is the Post Modern world – the world of rock groups like U2, Oasis, Blur and Prodigy. The world of celebrities like Madonna whom Jock McGregor calls the ‘Icon of Post Modernity.’[4] It is the world in which children enjoy watching Star Trek, Star Wars, Johnny Quest, Harry Potter and Pokemon.

Darren Mitchell begins his article Embracing Uncertainty with thought provoking quotes that best summarize the invading influence of Post Modern thought and culture.[5]

"I thought Star Trek was pretty harmless, but when I sat down to watch the new series with my children, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the same sort of plots worked over, souped up technology, a bit more splashy. But the epistemology had fundamentally changed. Program after program pushed or assumed postmodernism. My kids couldn't see any problem, but my jaw was dropping."

"Postmodernism, in its arrogance, far from safeguarding our liberties, is becoming one of the most tyrannical controllers of thoughts and culture and speech and discourse that has walked this planet since the dawning of the Reformation."

These are times that James R. White describes as a tidal wave sweeping across Western thought undermining the very idea of absolute truth.[6] From the classroom to the television and even to the churches, institutions are asking the audience what they think truth should be and what it should look like, and then marketing their products to the whims of the world. This is the first time that people are asking ‘not to know’ and are being obliged by their society. The symbol of this age could easily be the bungee cord. It is a free-fall into nothingness just for the sake of doing it.

Whether we accept it or not, whether we want to believe it or not, we live in a post modern world which Ravi Zacharias, himself Indian born has observed that, “What’s happening in the West with the emergence of postmodernism is only what has been in much of Asia for centuries but under different banners.”[7] Thus the mammoth task before us as Pentecostal theologians is to address the whole issue of Pentecostal Spirituality in this present context of a Post Modern world.

‘Spirituality’ is relatively a new term to many Pentecostal believers who have all the while been more preoccupied with the whole concept of ‘being spiritual’.[8] Christian spirituality has its center of gravity in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. has written, “True spirituality involved the giving of our very selves to the One we worship and adore (Romans 12:1,2)”[9] Therefore spirituality is giving ourselves to God through both our beliefs and emotional attitudes, which ultimately influences our actions and values.

Richard Lovelace aptly divides Christian Spirituality into two major trajectories that he calls ‘Ascetic spirituality’ and ‘Pentecostal spirituality’.[10] According to him the ascetic spirituality focuses on spiritual disciplines[11] that is the progressive, training mode of spirituality. He finds biblical support in passages like I Corinthians 9:24-27. This kind of spirituality will cause spiritual growth but in a gradual process.

The second trajectory that he calls Pentecostal Spirituality emphasizes the spirituality that grows by means of the work of the Holy Spirit. He uses Galatians 3:2-3,5 to define this group that is epitomized by the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” which is not a progressive stage but a leap as it were to a new dimension. It is spiritual growth by means of coming into contact with God that is experiencing God.

Pentecostal spirituality has for all these years upheld the basic orthodox doctrines and tenets of the faith. The major point of distinction is that the Pentecostal believes that God continues to work in the Church through supernatural means. However there are specific values that shape Pentecostal spirituality. Russel Spittler in his article ‘Spirituality, Pentecostal and Charismatic,’ in the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements isolates five implicit values that govern Pentecostal spirituality.[12] They are:

·The utmost importance of individual experience.

·The importance of the spoken. (orality)

·The high esteem places on spontaneity.

·An other worldly tendency in which the eternal, the ‘up there’ in heaven is more real than the present.

·The authority of the bible as the basis of what we should experience.

This paper seeks to understand Post Modern thought and expressions. An attempt will be made to determine whether Post Modernism has influenced Pentecostal Spirituality like it has done to fashion, literature, art, architecture, television and culture. It then seeks to examine the extent of this influence in order to see how we as Pentecostal theologians would look at this influence – as a threat or an opportunity.

2.FEATURES OF THE POST MODERN WORLDVIEW

Rick Strader presents postmodernism as the third of three time frames: the Pre –Modern Era, the Modern Era and the Post – Modern Era.[13] According to him, “If modernism began in the 16^th century with the Enlightenment, brought on by the French Revolution, pre-modernism is that long period of history that led through the Dark Ages, the Reformation and up to the 1700’s.”[14] During this period there was a definite belief in a God (or gods) that meant, even to the pagans, that there is a certain moral accountability to a Being beyond oneself. Hence people believed in good and evil as present realities that affect their lives. Mankind was made by a Creator (even if a mythological god) and was free to obey or disobey his Creator’s wishes.

The Modern era he classifies along with Oden to the period, the ideology, and the malaise of the time from 1789 to 1989, from the Bastille to the Berlin Wall.[15] This era saw the rise and influence of the Enlightenment, English Deism, French Skepticism, German Rationalism and American Pragmatism leading to exaltation of the rights of man and the supremacy of reason. The coming of this modern era, however, effectively reversed most basic scientific and religious assumptions of the previous era. As a result Christianity was dismissed as a relic of the past. The world was now a closed system that could be satisfactorily explained by cause and effect; morality was utilitarian; nature is self-contained and man is the highest product of the survival system; and only the senses contain reality. "Logical positivism" had become the law of scientific investigation: If we cannot see God, he does not exist.

Then comes the post modern era that Carl Henry wrote about saying that, "The intensity of ‘anti-modern sentiment’ is seen in the widening use of the term ‘postmodern’ to signal a sweeping move beyond all the intellectual past—ancient, medieval, or modern—into a supposedly new era."[16] This era that has set in after 1989, does not point to an ideological program, but rather to a simple succession—what comes next after modernity. The Industrial Revolution of modernity is giving way to the information age of post-modernity.

Walter Truett Anderson tells the story of the three umpires representing the three ages of human history. The first, representing the pre-modern age says, "Three strikes and you’re out and I call ‘em the way they are." The second umpire, representing the modern age says, "Three strikes and you’re out and I call ‘em the way I see ‘em." The third umpire, representing the postmodern age says, "Three strikes and you’re out, and they ain’t nothin’ til I call ‘em."[17] For those of us who are now in this era, it simply is the elimination of truth. Truth does not exist except as the individual wants it to exist. In fact, he can create his own truth.

In an interview, Dennis McCallum responded, "A simple definition of postmodernism is the belief that truth is not discovered, but created.”[18] A typical post modernist jargon could be read as follows, ‘There is now a consensus that consensus is impossible that we are having authoritative announcements of the disappearance of authority, that scholars are writing comprehensive narratives on how comprehensive narratives are unthinkable.’ Postmodernism is not a theory or set of ideas as much as it is a form of questioning, an attitude, or perspective.

In this section, we will look at some of the features of the emerging postmodern worldview (Postmodernism) and the kind of culture it is creating (Post modernity). Peter Stephenson feels that very few people appreciate the philosophical basis of the postmodern worldview simply because it is the whole set of “givens” that explains what it means to be human, “givens” that need no explanation or justification because that is just the way things are.[19] The following suggestions are an attempt to stimulate thought and make no pretence of being definitive. It is after all, a culture in a state of “becoming”, of flux, unconformity, ambiguity and contradiction.

If we are to understand what postmodernism means, we must first define modernity to which it claims to be the successor. Modernity is characterized by the triumph of Enlightenment, exaltation of rights of man and the supremacy of reason. Modernism assumed that human reason was the only reliable way of making sense of the universe. Anything that could not be understood in scientific terms was either not true or not worth knowing. Human beings, by means of scientific reason, could make sense of the world and even manipulate it for their own benefit with or without reference to God (who or whatever he/she/it might be). Stephenson acknowledges that this ability to understand and manipulate the natural world that is the only part of the world knowing about held out the promise of unlimited progress.[20] The world was recognized as being infested with problems of ill-health, poverty, suffering, war but science would find the solutions sooner or later.

As the 20^th century progressed, some of the first cracks began to appear in the Modernist worldview and the myth of Progress. Two World Wars showed that the same scientific technological Progress that promised great hope to mankind could also be used to inflict untold suffering on men, women and children and could even destroy the entire world.  The same Progress that promised to save now threatened to destroy us.  Hope was shattered and now like Frankenstein’s monster it threatens to turn on its creator and wreak global devastation through ecological disaster or nuclear/biological/chemical holocaust in the hands of some madman and God forbid even through technical failure of control systems.  Thus, modernism and the myth of scientific progress is dead or at least in its final stages, but there is nothing to take its place.  We do not know what is coming, only that it will be the worldview that replaces modernism.  Until we know exactly what form it will take, we might as well call it post-modernism for the time being.

As the name implies, postmodernism is something that comes after modernism. Thomas Oden puts it, "If modernity is a period characterized by a worldview which is now concluding, then whatever it is that comes next in time can plausibly be called post modernity."[21]It is the recognition that modernism has run its course and that a change is taking place in the thinking and beliefs of our present generation. The entire post modern worldview is based on the failure of modernism. Intellect is replaced by will, reason replaced by emotion, morality replaced by relativism, reality replaced by social construct. 

            Some of the basic tenets of post modernism are as follows:

2.1       The Anti-Foundationalism of post-modernism:

To a post modern knowledge is uncertain. Therefore it totally abandons foundationalism that is the idea that knowledge can be erected on some sort of bedrock of indubitable first principles. No wonder it denies the framework of reason in modernity.  The goal of post-modernism is to do without frameworks. The anti-foundationalism also cries out that history is dissolved. There is no distinction between truth and fiction.  Since there is no objective truth, history maybe re-written to the needs of a particular group. (Eg., in favor of women, homosexuals, blacks and other victims of oppression).

 There is no transcendent mental or spiritual approach to Pure Reason or Ultimate Reality, nor is there an unchanging internal essence within the individual exempt from physical law. This is what one would call the basic naturalistic presumption of anti-foundationalism.

2.2       Deconstruction of language:

According to Stephenson modernism as an explanation of what it means ot be human (worldview, Big Story or Metanarrative) has been shown to be inherently violent, as all other metanarratives.[22] This is the essence of deconstructionism- the knocking down of would-be Big Stories (world views with universalistic pretensions) often through listening to the local understandings of truth of minority communities.

The only hope then is to deconstruct and reject all would-be Big Stories since they are all oppressive. It is oppressive because culture defines language and cultures are oppressive, therefore language is oppressive.  In Nietzsche’s language, culture is defined as “will to power”.  In Marx’s language, culture is a mere ‘class-conflict’.  In Freud’s language, culture is ‘sexual repression’.  In Feminist language, culture is reduced to gender conflict.  In short, for a post-modernist language does not reveal meaning, it only constructs the meaning.  To put it in the words of David F. Wells, “Words mean only whatever we wish them to mean.”[23]Therefore, the aim of post-modernists is to deconstruct language and ultimately the truth.  The de-construction is done firstly, by analyzing the metaphors inherent in scientific language and secondly, interrogating the text to uncover its hidden political or sexual agenda.

2.3       The Denial of Truth:

Stephenson while discussing this topic in his paper says that absolute truth does not exist ‘out there’ in the world waiting to be discovered. ‘Truth’ as perceived by every human community is that community’s interpretation of the world.[24] If ‘Truth’ does not exist outside human consciousness than it would be best to insist that no version of truth is inherently better than any other way. No one belief system has superiority. Postmodernism is thus inherently pluralistic.

We are beginning to see this in the people around us. For example, a politician breaks his promise without any shame, a judge constructs brand new legal principles that reflect current fashions, a journalist writes biased stories: stories that people want to hear about rather than recording the truth and a teacher offers processes and experiences instead of knowledge. Some people object to abortion and still claim to be "pro-choice," some people claim to be "Christian" in their thinking and also accept the idea of reincarnation, etc. This is the effect of postmodernism. Without any order or absolute truth, people are free to believe what they want whether is fits with other beliefs or not.

2.4       Virtual Reality:

Post-modernists reject the connection between thought and truth.  In a post-modern world, people want to think least and feel more. The life of mind has new models.  The new model is the virtual reality helmet. Technological wonders such as television, movie theaters, videos and computers have become realities and no state of existence typifies postmodernism better than "virtual reality." It is a state of being informed but disconnected; of power without the difficulties of confronting others face to face. Leonard Payton wrote of technological wonders that they are "made by people who tend not to know one another for people they do not know at all and will probably never meet."[25] Indeed, to a postmodernist, "all reality is virtual reality."[26] Since our existence has no meaning and we are not connected to history or its values by any binding truths, no one can be quite certain where reality and non-reality start and stop. Francis Schaeffer wrote, "If one has no basis on which to judge, then reality falls apart, fantasy is indistinguishable from reality; there is no value for the human individual, and right and wrong have no meaning."[27] Technology can be a blessing or a curse. In this regard it is becoming a curse.

    Neil Postman has called this technological control, "Technopoly--The submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology."[28] Groothuis, in the same vein as Postman, laments the takeover of our society by such a valueless medium, "When information is conveyed through cyberspace, the medium shapes the message, the messenger, and the receiver. It shapes the entire culture."[29] A key ingredient is not only the blurring of the fact with the fiction, but the participation by the user in this virtual world. Through a computer, one can actually participate (of course, only virtually) in sporting events, world-wide field trips, and even in virtual eroticism. Technology fits well in the postmodern world of surface realities. Today, people experience the feelings simulated by computers, televisions and video games. It has ushered us into a new age where reality is seen as virtual reality or hyper reality. The virtual reality has influenced us to an extent that we do not know which is real and which is fictional. Thus things that were authentic and absolutes that were never questioned before have been targeted because of the real is now questioned and seen as virtual.

A popular example is of Chou: Last night Chuang Chou dreamed he was a butterfly, spirits soaring he was a butterfly (is it that in showing what he was suited his own fancy?), and did not know about Chou. When all of a sudden he awoke, he was Chou with all his wits about him. He does not know whether he is Chou who dreams he is a butterfly or a butterfly who dreams he is Chou.

2.5       Disoriented Self:

Post modernism also suggests that we can make ourselves whatever we want to be. We are shaped by endless cultural and social factors that make it impossible to know who the real ‘me’ is. Therefore it totally abandons the search of the inner self simply because there is no inner self to find, no essence from which to be alienated. Richard Middleton says, “the fully saturated self becomes no self at all. To be more precise, we are left with an infinitely malleable self, capable of taking on an indefinite array of imprinted identities.”[30]

In view of the fact that who we are is created by life experience, it would make perfect sense for me to now take control of my identity amd make ‘me’ whatever I want it to be. According to Philip Sampson the exemplary case of a self  presenting a range of identities or performances is provided by Madonna who draws an a multiplicity of representation, from Material Girl, through creator of her own sexuality, to the vulnerability of Monroe.[31]

With the emphasis on society, postmodernism also denies that man is the most important thing in the world. Secular humanism’s exaltation of man has no place in postmodern thinking. Before we applaud the death of secular humanism at the hands of postmodernism, we should realize that the postmodernists deny that man has any special significance at all. People are no better or no more important than anything else in the world. This is where the modern animal rights and ecological movements have gained their strength. Man is just another living thing on the planet, no more noble and with no more "rights" than spotted owls or pine trees. Man himself is insignificant. Perhaps you can see where this is going. If human life is no more valuable than any other life, then there can be nothing wrong with infanticide, abortion, or any other means of population control. Even the so-called ethnic cleansing of Hitler and, more recently, in Bosnia would not be wrong to the postmodernist.

3. POSTMODERN INFLUENCE ON PENTECOSTAL SPIRITUALITY

In the context of Post Modern moral weightlessness we see a contemporary interest in forms of spirituality. James M. Houston further explains by saying that “There is a thoroughly postmodern distinction now being made between those who say that they are not religious (because of the inconsistencies and offences they see in organized religion), and yet who say they are on a spiritual quest.”[32] Graham Cray quotes Chris Carter the creator of the popular T.V. serial X Files as saying that, “I’m a non-religious person looking for a religious experience.”[33]  It seems that something of the ‘beyond’ suits the postmodern discontentedness well. Spirituality is identified with the individual quest as well as with the questioning of institutionalism. As a result contemporary breakdown of traditional values and communal life is compensated for by a renewal of spirituality.

If Christian spirituality can be defined as the practice of the Christian life in the real world then according to Houston a post modern definition would be, “the ways individuals seek to renew spirit and soul in their lonely lives.”[34] The much talked about Pentecostal revival at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, many believe is just this-individuals being renewed by the Spirit of God.  If so, the question that needs to be answered is whether what one sees around happening in Pentecostal churches is the subtle influence of the postmodernism worldview. 

In this paper, I would like to place before you for discussion two areas of Pentecostal spirituality that seem to bear the influence of postmodernism.

3.1Postmodern and Pentecostal Emphasis on Experience:

Christian faith is interpreted more in terms of feeling and experience than a reasonable belief.  Pentecostal spiritual models, rituals, symbols, signs are all geared towards ministering to the feelings of the person.  Pentecostal worship services revolved around and have evolved strange spiritual experiences- like being slain in the spirit, barking in the spirit, growling in the spirit.

It cannot be denied that the most important value that governs Pentecostal spirituality is the importance of individual experience.  Viewed positively, this means that the Pentecostal is not be satisfied until he or she has had an experience with God.  The Pentecostal’s use of the phrase, “I am praying through” epitomizes this.  A person is not satisfied by hearing about someone else’s experience with God, they must experience God themselves. This strong emphasis on individual experience should be seen as a necessary balance in our churches.  However, viewed negatively, experience can become the tail that wags the dog. Beliefs/faith can become secondary to experience or else beliefs can be denied as ‘untrue’ unless they are experienced.  To make things worse, many a times experiences can be manufactured.

Margaret M. Poloma talking about the Toronto revival quotes Leslie Scrivener, a reporter of the Toronto Star, Oct. 8, 1995:

The mighty winds of Hurricane Opal that swept through Toronto last week [were] mere tropical gusts compared with the power of God thousands believe struck them senseless at a conference at the controversial Airport Vineyard church. At least with Opal, they could stay on their feet.  Not so with many of the 5,300 souls meeting at the Regal Constellation Hotel. The ballroom carpets were littered with fallen bodies, bodies of seemingly straitlaced men and women who felt themselves moved by the phenomenon they say is the Holy Spirit.  So moved, they howled with joy or the release of some buried pain. They collapsed, some rigid as corpses, some convulsed in hysterical laughter. From room to room came barnyard cries, calls heard only in the wild, grunts so deep women recalled the sounds of childbirth, while some men and women adopted the very position of childbirth. Men did chicken walks.  Women jabbed their fingers as if afflicted with nervous disorders.  And around these scenes of bedlam, were loving arms to catch the falling, smiling faces, whispered prayers of encouragement, instructions to release, to let go.[35]

Of all the incredible manifestations of the Spirit at TACF—speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, tearful conversions—the cleanliness of its crib has been most disturbed by the controversial animal sounds made by some of its worshipers. The revival has also been characterized by wild bouts of "holy laughter," "slayings in the Spirit," and the shaking, quaking, and prophetic words.

Margaret Poloma, a sociologist who has studied the Toronto Blessing, regards this unusual physical manifestations associated with the revival to be "’normal’ responses to intense emotional reactions that may occur during spiritual, inner, and physical healing."[36] Can one conclude that if as a result of an intense inner encounter with God, a person experiences a physical inability to move (to the point that he/she appears almost dead, a bodily lightness (to the point of rising above the ground), a deep inner pain (perhaps with crying), or an intense sensation of God’s presence (to the point of a strong feeling of happiness), then the person is gripped by God or ‘totally with God’.[37] Or is it a fascination with the phenomena that cause them to be created by human efforts. The Apostle Paul himself agrees that it is possible to do this.[38]Veronika says that, “When spiritual phenomena are sought for their own sake and accompanying phenomena are desired as an end in themselves, the proper order of things in reversed.”[39] The question we need to ask is we seek to experience God or seek to experience the phenomena?

Margaret Poloma in her article examines the Toronto Blessing and the unusual manifestations associated with the revival. She examines the behavioural manifestations-some rather unusual and unprecedented in revival history-from the postmodern emphasis on semiotics in order to interpret what signification the manifestations may represent in constructing and maintaining a Pentecostal world view. She concludes that that this emphasis on manifestations draws on the premodern consciousness marked by holism, and holds a balance between the straightjacket of Enlightenment-generated modernism and the chaos of a postmodern de-centered universe.[40] The influence of Postmodernism is obvious to Poloma.

3.2Virtual Reality of Postmodernism and Ecstatic Worship in Pentecostal Spirituality:

Worship presents a set of meanings configured by Pentecostals. Our understanding and practice of worship lies at the heart of our liturgies and spirituality. No wonder we constantly hear phrases like, “I have come for worship” or “Vineyard has the best worship” or “Worship is the best part of our service”.  Dr. Daniel Albrecht says that Pentecostals understand worship as having 3 main connotations:

·Worship as a way of Christian life specially outside of the church services and activities.  All of life is seen as worship as an expression, a gift offered to God.

·Worship as the entire liturgy, the whole of the Pentecostal service.

·Worship as a specific portion, aspect or rite within the overall liturgy.

 All 3 contain the Pentecostal understanding of the symbol.  To the Postmodernist worship is mere technological symbolism over substance.  To a postmodernist, symbols are the substance.  Groothuis writes, “The image is everything because the essence has become unknown and unknowable.”[41] Because he sees reality and truth as being constructed at the moment, worship need not go beyond the worship act.  This amounts to, in the words of Albrecht, “Worshipping worship”.  The more ‘real’ the worship service seems, the less a postmodern person needs or wants anything beyond that.

 For some contemporary Pentecostals, worship refers to the encounter with the divine as mediated by a sense of the divine presence or power.  Pentecostals believe strongly in the manifest presence of God.  The heightened awareness of this presence often occurs within the dimension of worship.  Pentecostals practice worship as both the experiencing of God and as the techniques into the presence of God.  Forms of musical expressions including suggestive, symbolic worship, choruses and verbal praise practices serve to trigger a close sense of God’s presence.   

Pentecostals believe that worship is an encounter with God.  God will come and meet His people.  They can only prepare and wait for God’s actions among them and then respond to the flow of the Spirit.  Pentecostals also see worship as a kind of performance that attends closely to God.  God is the audience and the congregation is to perform the drama of praise.  For as they say, God inhabits the praises of His people.   This performance represents a way of ministry unto God.

However, David MacInnes in his article, Problems of Praise, points out two dangers which are infectious and can take one away from the true sense of worship.[42]  The first one he says is emotionalism and he is careful not to confuse it with the expression of emotion.  This can be seen in the preference of one form of emotional expression over another.  For some, noise is more spiritual than silence: for others, it is the reverse.  Perhaps, one of the most authentic marks of the work of the Spirit is that the whole of human emotions is released both God-wards and outwards towards others.  But emotionalism can easily creep in.  Emotionalism is a selfish indulgence in the sheer pleasure of emotion.  This can make singing, clapping and dancing instead of being an expression of worship, simply an indulgence in emotion. 

The second danger he mentions is escapism, which he distinguishes from the right kind of escape.  The sense of being in a totally evil world causes some to escape a religion of unreal dress, unreal liturgy and unreal activities.  Pentecostal worship offers such a way of escape to those who come to the church carrying heavy burdens, frustrations and depression.  The only difference being that the escape the Pentecostals offer is not an escape from a real world into unreality but into the ultimate reality.

Do Pentecostals create a world in which to express and experience their forms of worship?  Do we try to provide a pathway into the Holy of Holies?  Albrecht in his article, Pentecostal Spirituality: Looking through the Lens of Ritual, points out that Pentecostals make use of ritual sounds that surround the Pentecostal worshipper, ritual sights that stimulate the Pentecostal ritualist and kinesthetic dimensions.[43]  Walking into a Pentecostal service for the first time, one will be greeted by cacophony of sounds.  Sounds that surround, support and give a sense of security to Pentecostal worshippers.  They symbolize an entrance into the very presence of God. Among the Pentecostal ritual sounds, the main one is music.  The music of the Pentecostal song service usually called the worship service is often intended to help usher the congregation into the presence of God to help individuals taste a little bit of heaven or to bring down heaven to earth.  One imagines without the accompanying music how many Pentecostals can truly worship their God.   

Surrounding the different sounds of the Pentecostal service are also accompanying sights that stimulate worship.  Probably the most significant and influential visual symbol in Pentecostal worship is the sight of fellow-worshippers.  Pentecostals are encircled by fellow believers who stimulate each other in living an active way to be engrossed in worship.  From the worship leader on the platform to the musicians and to the brother or sister across the aisle, Pentecostals influence each other forms of worship, gestures and behaviors as they participate together in worship.  Through their fellow worshippers they look beyond, they see deeper, they see in each other their object of worship, their God. 

            In pursuit of higher experiences in Pentecostal worship services, there is an increasing tendency to add more simulating techniques, technologies, visuals and music, to take the worshipper from this world to another world.  The ‘experience of worship’ is superior to the exposition of the Scripture.  In some ranks, the exposition of the Scripture is filled with experiences of either the preacher or of somebody else.  All these and many more are aimed at bringing the childish delight that comes from being in the virtual reality.  Do we see an influence of postmodern thought here? Are Pentecostals trying to create an atmosphere of worship, the feeling other-worldliness, where the eternal becomes more real than the present?   

4.  CONCLUSION

                   This paper has probably raised far more questions than it has offered answers.  My hope and my prayer is that this paper will have managed to highlight the importance of seriously examining the importance we give to experience and worship in Pentecostal Spirituality.  

                  Do we then consider Postmodernism as a threat to Pentecostal Spirituality or do we see it as something that could be used to enhance and foster our experiences of spirituality?  Would we rather that we take people into a realm of virtual reality through worship and then let them plummet back into reality at the end of that ‘virtual worship’?  Would we choose to let experiences and external manifestations take control rather than seek to live lives that blend with those experiences without being completely devoid of them?  

                  We have to ask ourselves, “Do we demonstrate an authentic spirituality: a spirituality that can put people in touch with the divine in a tangible, experiential that makes sense of our experience of life, does the spirituality we offer answer the deep longing for a spirituality that provides authentic answers to the real questions people have?