Book Review: Latino Pentecostals in America: Faith and Politics in Action by Gastón Espinosa
Latino Pentecostals in America: Faith and Politics in Action, by Gastón Espinosa
(Harvard University Press, 2014) pp520/$35.00.
I believe it is exciting to have an extensive publication on Latino Pentecostalism, especially since a Latino scholar is the author and to some extent, is familiar with the movement. I should immediately point out, however, that the title of the book is somewhat misleading. The author himself points out that the book focuses mainly on the historical trajectory of Latino Pentecostalism within the Assemblies of God denomination. Despite the fact that recently there have been more publications on Latino Pentecostalism, there is still a dearth of information on one of the most powerful and fascinating religious movements of the 20th and early portion of the 21st centuries.
This publication offers a wealth of information of Latino Pentecostalism within the Assemblies of God denomination, and of the denomination in general. One major contribution of the book is Espinosa’s emphasis and his providing documentation of the important and often-neglected fact of the instrumental roles played by Latinas in the origins and formation of the Pentecostal movement. He breaks with the simplistic white/ black historical paradigm. This book offers a contribution to U.S. American studies, ethnic studies, and modern church history. This is especially important, since demographically Latinos are the fastest growing religious group in the United States. The recent Pew Study of Religion has demonstrated the Latina church is the only Christian religious practice that is growing while the Euro-American, and U.S. American churches decline. In contrast, the Asian, and African American churches grow or remain steady.
The twenty years of Espinosa’s accumulated research is evident and helpful for theologians, religious scholars, pastors, historian, political scientist and anyone interested in social/political and religious movements. If you are interested in social movements, you can find a wealth of demographic and often interpretative theoretical analysis of Latino Pentecostals. Some might argue that the Pentecostal Latina/o movement within the U.S. Latina community has been perhaps the most historic, consistent, and transformative institution responding directly to the needs of Latinas/os throughout urban centers in the United States. I assert that it would behoove those involved in the creation of social welfare policy making to read this book.
This book provides an extensive review of the styles, ideologies, and backgrounds of some of the more fecund leaders of Latino Pentecostal leadership within the Assemblies of God church. For those who have accepted the myth that Pentecostals are pie in the sky, a-political, and not engaged in civil and political life, this book will be an eye opener. If Espinosa is correct, Latino Pentecostalism is a force to be dealt with, as so many academic experts, practitioners, and third generation Pentecostals have declared, often unheard or silenced by the gatekeepers of power and information.
In an era when Latinos, to a great extent, can determine who is elected as president of the United States or Mayor of a city, political scientist, professional politicians, and everyday pollsters are challenged to understand the workings of the 12.5 million Latinos/as or so that self-identify as Protestant/Evangelical, and are mostly Pentecostal. Espinosa makes a good case for the relationship between Pentecostal faith and the motivation for faith based social action. Keeping in mind that Latino/a Pentecostal leaders are perhaps among the most successful leaders in the Latino/a communities throughout the United States, and at the same time are ignored by secular scholars, Espinosa’s analysis of these leaders becomes the all more important.
For example, how did Mexican leader Francisco Olazabal, and Puerto Rican indigenous Leader Juan Lugo approach and execute their organizing and church/organizational building? Organizing and leadership skills development are areas that are desperately needed in the curricula of seminaries. The study of Pentecostal Latino/a leadership can consequently be a tremendous resource. What role did race and racism play in their eventual departure from the Assemblies of God Church? This is an issue that is very much relevant today, as well as controversial in the Assemblies of God and beyond.
Another asset of Espinosa’s book is that it provides details (not readily found in other sources) regarding so many aspects related to the origins of Latino Pentecostalism. The section on Francisco Olazabal is perhaps one of the most comprehensive attempts at the history and analysis of Olazabal’s life and work. Unfortunately, the younger generations of Pentecostals have perhaps not even heard the name of this pioneering character in Latina/o and Anglo Pentecostalism.
I would add, however, that Espinosa seems to overstate Olazabal’s role in the development of Latino Pentecostalism. Secular and/or religious movements are never the sole results of individuals, but of groups of individuals that remain nameless. This includes latent and manifest socio-historical factors. Too much Latin@, Latin American, and other histories have been written that focus on “personalismo”, while ignoring or not understanding sufficiently the underlying forces and causes that birth, propel, shift, morph, and reconfigure very complex, and dynamic realities in various personal, psychological, political, economic, and cultural spheres of life.
I would signal that chapter 10 on the role of women in the movement is useful and needed in the study of Pentecostalism. How and what challenges of patriarchy/sexism did Leonecia Rosado Rouseau, and other pioneering women encounter in the 1940’s and beyond? What does the future hold for influential women in Pentecostal ministry? What contributions would the study of women in Pentecostalism offer feminist, womanist, and so-called Mujerista theologies and theory? These are critical questions of which Pentecostalism can offer real insight considering that some Latina Pentecostal denominations were ordaining and recognizing the ministry of women decades before liberal protestant denominations dared to do so. I would insist that Women studies programs and feminist theorist would be well served to examine the histories of women Pentecostal leaders.
There is more: If you are interested in the voting patterns of Latino Pentecostals and evangelicals, Espinosa provides a wealth of information that is rarely, if ever looked at in this manner by other scholars of Latino Pentecostalism. I would suggest that there is probably no other publication that provides the quantitative research on Latino Pentecostalism that Espinosa has provided his readers.
At the same time, we should be clear that no one book can be all encompassing for those seeking in-depth understanding of Pentecostal teachings, doctrines, and theology. Espinosa’s book obviously is not an encyclopedia, nor was this his intention. Although his work is more of a sociological and historical piece, I believe the author could have provided more substantial and nuanced theological references. One cannot truly understand Pentecostals outside of their theologies. This theological underpinning would have contributed enormously to the usefulness of the book for Pentecostal practitioners, clergy, and even academics familiar with the field.
I would also submit that one cannot understand Faith in Action within Pentecostalism without understanding its roots and historical formation in theological discourse and praxis. Religious faith that turns into action is quite often not even understood by its practitioners as political or civic engagement, but as a manner of simply living out one’s belief system.
A critique of Espinosa’s book is that it does not seem to follow a clear, logical, and internal disciplinary approach. Thus at times the reader may feel as if there is an incoherent and haphazard methodological style in the research agenda and written exposition. In fact, the title of the book is misleading. There is little sustained and insightful political analysis of the macro-political forces at work in the history of both Mexico and Puerto Rico. For instance, the mention of “annexation” for U.S. colonial control and exploitation, and the absence of denunciation of U.S. imperialism in the life of both Mexico and Puerto Rico, seems to reveal an apologetic, and at times docile analysis of the oppressive history in the life of Latin American and the Caribbean.
It might appear nit-picking but Rev. Leoncia Rosado was Rousseau, not Rosseau, and Don Pedro Albizu Campos was not a “socialist” as much as a revolutionary nationalist. The 1900 Foraker Act was not the Folkner Act of 1902, and U.S. citizenship was not “granted” by the 1917 Jones Act. U.S. imperial power forced U.S. citizenship down the throats of the Puerto Rican people, as the local legislation and its independentista spirit resisted and denounced the Empire’s bellicose agenda.
It appears that Puerto Rican history is not one Espinosa’s research portfolio strengths. These apparently small, yet significant errors support my initial assertion. In Puerto Rico there is a saying that “el que mucho abarca, poco aprieta” (the one who tries to do it all, does very little). Perhaps, a more focused, and less gargantuan (and at times overly sketchy) agenda might have been preferable for better understanding how the social, political, economic, cultural, and moral forces of the Empire and its subjects shape, limit, distort, reconfigure, and unleash both spiritual and material forces and helps produce what today we call “Pentecostalism.” The latter might also be understood as the subversive undercurrents of resistance and liberation from Empire that irrupts the underside of history.
