This Sunday I went to church with Adina. Having never attended a Pentecostal service, before we left I ask her the difference between her church and a Baptist one. Her one word answer: “charisma.” Wanting clarification I ask if the prayers or service were different. Nope. Confused, I prepare myself the best I can for a very charismatic morning.
When we arrived I got the immediate impression of attending a concert rather than a religious service. Housed in a concrete building roughly the size of a basketball court, worshipers are inundated with echoing, low-fidelity sound from a band consisting of a preacher/lead-singer/rock-band frontman, 3 backup singers, a drum kit, a keyboard, and some variation on a bongo. The sound was of such poor quality that two songs in I realized they were actually singing in English. I was fortunate that the rest of the service was in English as well.
Adina is a deaconess and elder in her church and thus sat separately from me. As an elder, it seemed to be her responsibility to get up and lead the dancing in front of the pulpit. Why older people frenetically moving in front of the stage is supposed to inspire the congregation to join in dance is beyond me, but it seemed to be effective – for the first 30 minutes of the service the entire auditorium was out of their seats (plastic chairs arranged as pews), bouncing and shouting and singing and praising His Name.
After 30 minutes, a pastor returned everyone to their seats for a 5 minute responsive bible reading. Everyone had brought their own New Testament (funnily enough, I seemed to have forgotten to bring mine…). After the reading, there were 10 minutes of song. This pattern continued, with 5 minutes bible interrupted by 10 minutes of singing/dancing. Or perhaps the singing/dancing was interrupted by the bible? Regardless, the congregation had a very specific script to follow. Every time a pastor said, “Hallelujah” or “Praise God” we would immediately respond with an enthusiastic “Amen!” However, if he said, “Blessed be Jesus” we would reply with a “Hallelujah!”
I enjoyed the baby dedication ceremony, where newborns were brought to the altar to be blessed by the pastor. He blessed them with long life (the avg life expectancy in Ghana is 57) and sprinkled them with some holy water.
There was one particularly song that the pastor specially requested that the congregation “get into.” During the course of this song I counted five people who got down on their knees, arms raised, a look of pure agony on their faces. One woman danced around in front of the pulpit hunched over with her hands behind her back, resembling a five year old imitating an airplane running in circles. One of the elders went prone face down, arms outstretched in front of her, and shook violently. My EMS training immediately thought clonic phase of a grand-mal seizure and I wanted to clear the area around her and check vitals/pupils.
After this holy roof-raising, we sat down for the longest divar torah I’ve ever experienced. The eldest pastor took the pulpit, and everyone around me whipped out a notebook, making me feel much more comfortable since I’d been desperate to scribble some notes since the beginning of the service. The subject of his talk: spiritual healing. Needless to say, my attention was instantly captivated. This was before I discovered it would be an hour and a half lecture. He started out by explaining that just because everyone in the congregation has been saved by following the true faith didn’t mean we were guaranteed eternal life. You must fight to receive eternal life. “Faith is an arrowhead. It doesn’t miss its target, hits its enemy and leaves them dead. Praise God!” To which the congregation replied instantly, “Amen!” while I was left wondering who the enemy was and how they could be mortally wounded by an ideology. Remember, the talk was supposed to be about spiritual healing, not holy wars.
He seemed to return to the topic shortly by proclaiming (and repeating about 20 times), “healing comes from hearing the Word.” He explains that every sickness is caused by a malevolent spirit, and just as I start to worry that he’ll begin recommending his family witch doctor to treat your malaria and AIDS he clarifies that it is important to get professional medical care. “Medical science only tries to heal the body, but great physicians heal the mind…medicine heals, God cures.” Apparently, God-fearing physicians who dabble in psychology are acceptable by his standards…unfortunately I don’t think any of those exist. He quotes the bible as saying, “those who believe in My Name shall cast out devils” and “in the name of Jesus you cast out devils.” He describes the caduceus (the international symbol of medicine of snakes wrapped around a pole) as physicians saying, “Look up to God for healing, not us.” He concludes his shtick on healing by declaring, “Every sickness will die, and the bad people behind this sickness will die as well.” It’s interesting to see the public image of disease reconciled between the Christian/western views of viruses and pathogens and the traditional Ghanaian views of sinister spirits and witches causing illness.
It was an interesting take on faith and medicine, and it was a side of Christianity I’d never seen before. However, he would frequently shout so loud that my ears would hurt and my head would buzz. He would increase the volume of his voice and repeat his main points for emphasis, and at some points I just would try to shut him out for my head’s sake. He used several interesting metaphors, but at one point he used an obscure fishing metaphor for faith that was way over my head, but everyone else in the room seemed to understand.
He moved on from healing using the Good Word to other areas of medicine. “Faith is God’s sperm cell,” he proclaimed, “the Virgin Mary received faith. If you are a woman waiting for child, it isn’t your husband who isn’t giving you a child, it is God’s word.” Frankly, what with Africa’s population problems, I think it could use a little less faith (I know, I’m going to hell). He closed by restating that with faith you can cure anything, and that “in the name of the Lord, terminal disease is terminated!” Everyone cheered his catchy closer. It was a positive message, and I was probably the only skeptic in the auditorium.
Some upcoming events for the church:
- Wednesday prayer
- Thursday testaments: group meeting explaining when you saw the hand of God or fought against satanic influences
- If you so wish, you can request your workplace or business be blessed. I’m curious how this act is performed, but didn’t get the opportunity to ask.
One of the elders offered to baptize me next Sunday. I told her I’d think about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment