Revivalism: A misunderstood folk religion – Part 3

A REVIVAL worship session is a very active and energetic occasion. It is replete with loud supplications, ardent prayers, fervent preaching, fiery exaltation, personal testimonies, soulful singing, hypnotic drumming, spirited dancing (trumping, twirling, wheeling), and speaking in tongues.

Added to all of that are the non-verbal elements of costuming, facial expressions, humming, moaning, groaning, voice cadence, flailing of limbs, convulsions, etc. They make the sessions very intriguing, seemingly theatrical.

Thus, for non-practitioners and casual visitors, all of the above could be perceived as entertainment, but they really are not for entertainment purposes, even though entertainment may be the outcome for some. This unintended performative value of Revivalism is one of the reasons it is misunderstood in many quarters.

“It is performative, and theoretically … once you are doing something, and you have an audience, it is a performance,” Dr Kirt Henry, director at the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank (ACIJ/JMB), told Family and Religion. And the performance has to be “intentional” and “purposive”.

“Revivalism is spirit-led. So, a lot of the things [in Revivalism] you will not find in structured religions, where there is a structured liturgy. In Revivalism, the order of the service is very open-ended, and you will find a lot of high-energy rituals, or performative elements happening,” Dr Henry said.

Yet, Georgette McGlashen-Miller, research fellow at the ACIJ/JMB, chimed in, “It is not just anybody who is going to shout, not anybody who is going to grab oil, or is not just anybody who is going to ‘dash’ water. It is a person of a certain rank, a person that is in authority who does these things. So, it is not to create entertainment, to create excitement, but the fact that you don’t know when and how the spirit will do something, it seems to the audience, the onlooker, as drama.”

The audience goes away with that, but it really is not so, “A part of the audience that is not in line with the spirit that does that, and it does not surprise some people in the audience that are not members. It’s all about perception, it seems.

“And who determines what is drama, anyway, because whether you have onlookers or not, whether you have visitors or not, within a Revival church, the level of drama remains the same, the level of high-energy worship and authenticity with which one worships is always going to be like that,” Dr Henry added.

“People from the community go to the Revival church to hear people’s business, because the Revival space is a space where certain things will be revealed, and, therefore, they may be entertained by that revelation.”

COMMUNITY THEATRE

It is this performative nature why Revivalism’s impact on popular culture is more significant than other Christian denominations. There are elements of it in dancehall songs and movements. One of the best-known National Dance Theatre Company’s pieces is called ‘Revival’, which imitates a Revival session. In Jamaica’s annual National Festival of Arts, produced by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission(JCDC), there are a plethora of ‘Revival’ dances and, over the past several years, a man who goes by the name of Cuckodoo has recorded ‘Revival’ songs for entertainment/commercial purposes, especially at funerals.

Admittedly, the way in which worship is carried out is different from that of other denominations, thus giving the impression that it is ‘theatre’. “It is onstage because they are fascinated by difference, and Revivalism is different … they are fascinated by, but also wary of,” Dr Henry argued.

“And if we are going to be talking about Revivalism as theatre, Revivalism is community theatre. Revival is that freedom space that everyone from the community can come and feel a sense of belonging … you don’t have to be on the programme, and the scripting of that programme is done in worship, and therefore, anybody that comes along can be involved in that space … It is a flow and it can flow into any direction.”

It is the perhaps the only religion in Jamaica that is staged, and some Revivalists are not happy about that. They perceive such staged performances to be mockery, and are maintaining that no other Christian denomination is put up to such ridicule. But, it is not necessarily mockery. It is a cultural expression. Even people who are wary of it are involved in the staged performance of it.

“They are wary of it, and they fear it because of ignorance, lack of having enough information, but the entertainment, they can’t help themselves to get involved. That is African retention, that is something more than what we just see, but something you feel in your bones … even though they have myths and misconceptions about it, it is always a part of JCDC, always the best part. People are entertained, they keep moving towards it because of the African element, it is themselves that they see in it.” McGlashen-Miller surmised. And then there are the icons such as the clothes.

“The clothing is an instrumental part of the performative element of Revival. The clothing itself embodies spirit, and the body in the clothing brings spirit to life. Each colour tells what messenger that’s in the space, and, of course, what you wear says who you are, as an individual or a devotee within the religion … . The colourful gown is a part of the character of Revival, it’s a part the performance of spirit and sacredness within the space. There is a difference when you stand still in a gown, versus when you wheel in a gown, because the gown itself creates an energy within the space,” Dr Henry explained.

Behind the aesthetic and the performative value of Revivalism, there is serious worship, rife with symbolism, such as the colourful wheeling gowns. The twirling of such can be very enthralling. Yet, like Revivalism, it is not for entertainment; it is for worship.The icons of Revivalism are not to deliberately put on a show. They are peculiar mediums in this folk religion through which messages are sent to, and received from, unseen and visible entities – the godhead, the living and spirits.