Review of Cheryl Bridges Johns, Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Sheffield Academic Press, (1993). ISBN: 1850754381.
In his writing on religion and culture Freire presented three types of Church: the traditional, the modernising, and the prophetic Church. In her text Cheryl Bridges John shows how in Freire's view Pentecostalism is a traditional Church. The traditional church is in Freire's words
a missionary church, in the worst sense of the word - a necrophilic winner of souls, hence its masochistic emphasis on sin, hell-fire, and eternal damnation. The mundane, dichotomized from the transcendental, is the 'filth' in which humans have to pay for their sins. The more they suffer, the more they purify themselves, finally reaching heaven and eternal rest. (Freire, "Education, Liberation and the Church" cited on p 53).
The traditionalist church is a retreat from the misery of life (a "haven for the masses", or, as Marx would have it, an opiate). and as such is inhibits liberation. In is in the midst of such understandings that Cheryl Bridges Johns argues that Freire has simply got Pentecostalism wrong, properly understood Pentecostalism does represent a "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" and whilst Johns never spells this out in so many words Pentecostalism should presumably be understood a a prophetic church. Johns begins by offering a brief reading of Freire's educational theory and relationship to theology. In the process she criticises Freire for his historical and anthropocentric emphasis; an approach that leaves no room for God working in History. This then leads to John's central thesis, Pentecostalism is a movement of conscientisation. The Pentecostal mode of catechisis is, like Freire's model, one that is community driven. The centrality of narrative (orality), Holy Spirit, and experiential hermeneutics in Pentecostalism is central to the catechesis by which the Christian story in learnt and enacted. This catechesis is liberating. A key difference between the radical pedagogy of Freire and that of Pentecostalism is the focus on social change over individual conversion, it is a difference that strangely is not really commented on by Johns. Freire's vision of critical pedagogy of one in which one is one is aided to ascertain the true nature of reality that is hidden by the oppressive nature of the unjust system. John's criticism of Freire's approach is that it is an entirely materialistic one, that, it has not place for the Spirit and God's action in history. In point of fact, Johns argues that God is present in history in the Spirit-empowered conscientisation of the poor in Pentecostal praxis. Johns has produced a readable introduction to Freire and his application to Christian education. However, in the central assertion that Pentecostalism is a genuine movement of conscientisation and liberation Johns argument is less persuasive. The trouble is the conscientisation that Johns outlines is a very insular one; not just in terms of the emphasis on the local church over society (which I have some sympathy for) but the emphasis on Pentecostalism being a movement of liberation predominately for pentecostals alone. An example of this is John's argument that Pentecostalism can be seen as a liberating force by the fact of the upward mobility of new converts. Individuals who convert often come from severe poverty but often gain employment and enter the middle classes. Is this really liberation? Nothing has changed in the larger society, its just in many instances there are a new breed of mid-level oppressors. My point is not to criticise this protestant work ethic itself, it is no bad thing that some individuals are saved from a life of alcoholism, for example. However, it is simply not in any sense a Pedagogy of the Oppressed. There is no understanding of social injustice (Freire's conscientisation) with a view to overcoming it for a just society, rather it is a manipulation of the system for material benefit whilst others languish on poverty, possibly as a consequence of the Pentecostal's "liberation". Pentecostalism can and should do better than that!
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