Glossolalia and Church Identity: The Role of Sound in the Making of a Chinese Pentecostal-Charismatic Church
作者 ｜ 蔡彥仁＿國立政治大學宗教研究所教授
第十六期 2026.05.15
專題主文
Glossolalia and Church Identity: The Role of Sound in the Making of a Chinese Pentecostal–Charismatic Church
Yen-zen Tsai
Introduction
When the relationship of music and religion is mentioned, we tend to understand the former as a harmonious or “humanly patterned sound” that usually accompanies the latter on occasions such as Sunday service, Christmas mass, weddings, funerals, and all types of festival celebrations. The music may be solemn, sad, or joyous, its pitch high or low, its tempo fast or slow, and its volume full or reduced, according to the different contexts in which a special atmosphere is to be created. In contrast, noise or discordant sound seems unfit for religious occasions. Voices that are harsh, screeching, and cacophonic are usually excluded from the realm that we consider sacred and ordered (Ellingson 1987).
This association of harmony with the sacred may be the prevailing view, but it is not universally maintained. Our aversion to noise and din might originate from a natural human propensity, but, as Ter Ellingson pointed out, this disinclination may also hinder us from understanding the role sound plays in a religious community. It could also reflect the researcher’s lack of sympathy with the believer who may express his or her religious emotions through diverse ways, including sounds that are acoustically jarring to the outsider (Ellingson 1987:167). On a ritual occasion, music or sound is used to construct a “sonic frame” whereby the believer distinguishes the sacred from the profane, both in the spatial and temporal senses (Ellingson 1987:169; Van der Leeuw 1967). It is a boundary marker that sets the religious group apart from the surrounding world. As a symbol, it imparts a specific identity to the group’s members, guides their spiritual journey, and functions to consolidate the community as a whole (Ellingson 1987; Béhague 1987).
To argue my point, I intend in this article to examine the role of sound, as manifested in the glossolalic phenomenon, in the making of a Chinese Pentecostal-charismatic church. I will first lay out the theoretical background against which current discussions of glossolalia are taking place and from which I derive my approach. I will then take the True Jesus Church 真耶穌教會 (TJC), an independent, indigenous Chinese Christian denomination, as an illustration. I will further strengthen my thesis by introducing theories advanced by Lawrence E. Sullivan and Alfred Schütz. In the end, I hope to proffer some observations that should shed light on our deeper understanding of glossolalia in relation to the fast spread of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity and, as well, on how an exploration of our present topic is relevant to the study of religion in general.
Data and Method
In this study, I adopt a qualitative approach, combining textual analysis, a questionnaire survey, and oral interviews. I draw on the TJC’s publications as primary written sources to expound its historical development, theological assertions, and experiential reports. To supplement my textual research, beginning in January 2011 I conducted five sessions of fieldwork investigating the current situation of the TJC in China.[1] In particular, I chose two local churches, one in Jiangsu, the other in Zhejiang, as sites for administering my survey and conducting interviews.[2]
My questionnaire was designed to be semi-structured. It consists of eight questions, two of which inquire about personal background; the remainder are three multiple choice questions and three open-ended questions. I collected twenty valid samples. All of my respondents are active church functionaries. They are either ministers, deaconesses, or full-time assistants. Based upon their responses, mostly general and brief, I initiated further interviews with them to secure more information. The survey results and interviews, in addition to my participant observations, constitute the data I explore here.
Glossolalia and Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity
Many scholars of religion have long taken a great interest in the Pentecostal-charismatic movements, regarding them as a worldwide phenomenon that has been rapidly changing our perception of Christianity as a world religion (Anderson and Tang 2005; Cox 1996; Hollenweger 1972; D. Martin 2002; Miller and Yamamori 2007; Synan 1997). Reviewing the history of this type of Christianity, which commenced with the Azusa Street event in 1906, one sees numerous proliferations of Pentecostal organizations taking place during its process of development. One also discovers multiple features that characterize these religious groups, including their special views on biblical interpretation, forms of worship, ascetic mores, social engagement, and polity and interchurch relations (Anderson 1987). One can, however, confidently single out glossolalia or speaking in tongues as the trait most widely shared by these groups. It is a powerful spiritual experience that almost all charismatic Christians have recognized and the defining feature that has congregated them into a group called Pentecostals (Cartledge 2006; Kelsey 1981).
When speaking in tongues first appeared in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was looked at with suspicion by society and treated with contempt by mainline Christianity. As the glossolalists came primarily from the less educated, the poor, and the marginal minorities, they received biased appellations such as “heretics,” “schizophrenes,” “hysterics,” and “psychotics.” It was not until the 1960s, when many Christians from orthodox folds engaged in charismatic prayer and glossolalia became a widespread movement, that scholars began to seriously examine the content and significance of tongue speech (D.B. Martin 1991; Poloma 2006). Opinions about or assessments of glossolalia varied, and the perspectives that scholars applied to it have ranged from the conventional—biblical, historical, and theological—to the innovative—linguistic, psychological, and sociological (Cartledge 2006). Among them, linguistic and sociological considerations are more relevant to our present concern.
Some linguists confronted glossolalia with the problem of intelligibility. Because tongue speech is not an ordinary human language, hence incomprehensible to us humans, they questioned whence it could be generated. Felicitas D. Goodman, for example, based on her empirical study on charismatic communities on the Yucatan peninsula, concluded that “the glossolalist speaks the way he does because his speech behavior is modified by the way the body acts in the particular mental state, often termed trance, into which he places himself” (Goodman 1972a:8; italics hers). She further elaborated:
I conceived of the glossolalia utterances as an artifact of a hyperaroused mental state or, in Chomskyan terms, as the surface structure of a nonlinguistic deep structure, of the altered state of consciousness. (8)
In this perspective she implicitly assigned at least two attributes to glossolalia. One is that it is a private product stemming from an abnormal mental state. The other is that due to its origin it is an isolated, nonsensical vocalization devoid of communicative effectiveness in the human world (Goodman 1987). Following Goodman’s approach, other linguists found that glossolalia was nonsyntactic and nonsemantic and that it was pseudo-linguistic or at most “remotely language-like” (Hilborn 2006:113). They similarly issued a negative evaluation of tongue speaking due to their insistence on the necessity of grammatical and semantic comprehensibility.
With the development of semiotics, however, some linguists started to see glossolalia as a series of signs to be interpreted rather than a nonlanguage that baffles the listener. This view was supplemented by speech act theory, which moves beyond the narrow confines of syntax and semantics to the broader “total speech situation” that links together the locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary effect. In this context, as William J. Samarin remarked, “glossolalia is not just sound produced in a certain way but sound used in socially meaningful ways” (Samarin 1972a:121; cited in Hilborn 2006:122). Henceforth linguists learned to treat glossolalia no longer as a lone voice but as a public discourse that concerns a church community. In a situation of tongue speaking, the glossolalists share their intersubjectivity, and their utterances constitute an “ostensive sacramental act” that involves all the participants. As a human patterned vocalization, glossolalia may be “ideationally deficient,” but it is “communicatively effective” (Hilborn 2006:139-140).
Social anthropologists who are interested in the glossolalic phenomenon tended to reject the behavioral science models that regarded tongue speaking as abnormal. Rather, they saw the manifestations of charismatics at prayer as a learned behavior resonant with social significance. Glossolalia in this connection is not activated by trance or induced by an altered state of consciousness. It may be a private act, but it exhibits its function more fully in a ritual context. When glossolalists gather, they personally regard their speaking in tongues “as a means of opening up one’s being to the supernatural ‘kingdom’ with a power to change lives” (Poloma 2006:161). On the communal level, this “expected and normative” ritual “helps to unite them emotionally and spiritually” (Poloma 2006:160, 170). Through the practice of glossolalia, the members of the Pentecostal-charismatic church obtain “a sense of unity with God, which in turn contributes to action that sustains and nurtures community life” (Poloma 2006:173; Dodson 2011).
The current linguistic and social anthropological approaches to glossolalia seem to converge at two points that are important to our present endeavor. First, they confirm the role of glossolalic sound and relate it to the constitution of a religious community. Second, they agree that ritual context should be the arena in which glossolalia exercises its power and has its effect and on which we should focus for our investigation. These two points help direct the following exposition.
The Case of the True Jesus Church
The True Jesus Church was established in 1917 in Beijing by “the Lord Jesus Christ,” as its official website states (True Jesus Church, United States General Assembly website 2017). Scholars of Chinese Christianity have designated it as one of the three indigenous churches, along with the Jesus Family 耶稣家庭 and Little Flock 小群, that appeared in China before 1949 (Bays 1995, 2003; Deng 2001; Lian 2008; Tang 2006; Wang 2005). Today, the TJC has a membership exceeding 1.5 million, the majority of whom live in China. It has been actively conducting evangelical ministry worldwide, and by now has reached fifty-eight countries on six continents (True Jesus Church, International Assembly website 2017; “True Jesus Church” 2017).
The TJC has a unique understanding of its own ecclesial status. According to its interpretation of the Bible, God sent down the Holy Spirit to some early Christians on the day of Pentecost, causing them to have a glossolalic experience, just as God had promised through the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible. This full manifestation of the Holy Spirit recorded in the book of Acts (2:1–4) was the “early rain” that led to the establishment of the apostolic church. Receiving the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that the recipient will enter the heavenly kingdom, a salvific event that marks the first climax of the divine economy. This early rain, unfortunately, did not last long due to the degeneration of the church. The Holy Spirit stopped descending in full scale after the apostles had passed away. What we witness in the following centuries are only some raindrops, merely representing the Holy Spirit’s lingering work (Hsieh 2008:136–175).
The TJC explains that just as the descent of the early rain had been prophesied long before it happened, the downpour of the “later rain” was also indicated in the Bible, particularly in the comforting prophetic oracles of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Micah, Zechariah, and Malachi. And if the early rain appeared in Judea, the later rain would “descend on humankind from the East” (Hsieh 2008:182). The TJC admits that the second wave of the Pentecostal movement started in the United States around 1900, but the movement’s ensuing denominational fractures and ramifications proved that it was incomplete. The spreading of the Pentecostal message to China, as conducted, for example, by the Apostolic Faith Union (later renamed the Assembly of God and then the Church of God), paved the way for the coming of a more perfect church. The TJC does not deny that its early workers had initial contacts with Western Pentecostal missionaries, hence its successor or recipient status. The church, however, insists that these TJC workers, notably Lingsheng Zhang 張靈生, Barnabas Zhang 張巴拿巴, and Paul Wei (Wei Baolo 魏保羅), aka Wei Enbo 魏恩博, received the truth directly through divine revelations. They were also affected by powerful glossolalic experiences and attended by all kinds of signs and wonders during their missionary journeys in different provinces of China. These extraordinary encounters confirmed, the TJC emphasizes, that it is the “later rain” church that was chosen by God and that, with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and complete truth, becomes the end-time ark that prepares for the advent of Christ (Hsieh 2008:175–203; Iap 2012).
The TJC has been ardently propagating its gospel throughout the whole world, summarizing its basic doctrines as the Ten Articles of Faith. These include the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ, salvation, water baptism, footwashing, Holy Communion, the Holy Spirit, the Sabbath day, the church, and the second coming of Christ (True Jesus Church 2007). Among them, the tenet of the Holy Spirit seems the most prominent. This is understandable because historically the TJC was generated from or related to the early twentieth-century Pentecostal movement. Further, the Holy Spirit is not only a theological concept that demands church members’ belief but also an experience to which the believer should physically and constantly devote himself or herself. The verses “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9) and “[The Holy Spirit] is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people” (Ephesians 1:14) are repeatedly underlined, highlighting the importance of receiving the Holy Spirit for one’s ultimate salvation, for it is a sine qua non in the TJC community (Hsieh 2008:103–119).
Two stages can be perceived in relation to receiving the Holy Spirit. The first may be termed “initial baptism.” It concerns how the individual member should discern the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and certify that he or she has received the Spirit. As Elder Sun Tao Hsieh, doctrinal spokesman for the TJC, puts it, both audible and visual signs should take place when the Holy Spirit descends. On the sonic side, receiving the Holy Spirit can never be a silent event. The praying individual always makes sound through his or her tongue, although the sound itself is unintelligible to the human mind. On the kinetic side, when the person praying is inspired by the Spirit, he or she always shows physical movement, such as a shaking of the body. These outer manifestations are not willful but natural, spontaneous acts. They function as powerful evidence of the Holy Spirit’s pervasiveness for the purpose of convincing both the praying believer and the observer (Hsieh 2008:204–222).
The TJC proceeds to instruct its members how to distinguish the Holy Spirit from the evil spirit in detail, and much of this instruction is related to the sonic dimension. Believers who have received the Holy Spirit always praise God by saying “Hallelujah,” besides speaking in tongues and, at times, singing spiritual songs. Their mind is clear and joyful, and the sound they utter is thoroughly pleasant and concordant. On the contrary, the evil spirit generates disturbing manifestations. Those who receive it speak of earthly things and display a recalcitrant attitude against the True Church. They often fall into unconsciousness, and when they do, they make whispering and muttering sounds, hardly intelligible to the onlooker. Some horrific ones shout, convulse, and foam at the mouth, which are all traits of the possessed. These strange noises are discordant and jarring, diametrically opposed to the sound of the Holy Spirit (Hsieh 2008:386–397). Based on its tradition of glossolalic experience, the TJC cautions its members by giving a piece of advice: “Alarmingly, these manifestations are sometimes witnessed in some charismatic churches, where people displaying such behaviour are mistakenly thought to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit” (Hsieh 2008:392). In other words, recognizing the contrast between the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit by discerning their different sonic manifestations is vitally important because it ensures that one has received the right spirit and, by implication, that one identifies oneself with the right church that was established by the Holy Spirit itself.
TJC members do take the aforementioned advice seriously. Many of them earnestly bear witness to how they received the Holy Spirit, considering their “initial baptism” in the spirit to be a new milestone in their life journey. According to My Experience of Receiving the Holy Spirit, a collection of twenty-six personal testimonies with a preface by Elder Hsieh published in 1976, recipients of the Holy Spirit were very conscious of the moment when it descended on them (True Jesus Church, n.d.). Their charismatic experiences were vivid and dramatic, although many of them had taken place a long time before. One can classify the content of their testimonies into the following categories on the basis of thematic and sequential consideration: bodily response, sound, emotional affect, and consequences (see Table 7.1).
| Bodily response | Sound | Emotional affect | Consequences |
| body shaking, ground or house shaken, arm swinging, jumping while kneeling, dancing, levitation, tears and sweating | powerful, unintelligible sound caused by rolling or vibrating tongue | warm, happy, joyful, clear-minded, peaceful, euphoric | receiving water baptism, healing of mental and physical diseases, quitting of bad habits, betterment of behavior |
The majority of the twenty-six recipients of the Holy Spirit whose experiences are collected in the book are Taiwanese; the rest are two Malaysians, one Japanese, one Korean, and one American. Overall, they report that when the Holy Spirit came, their body shook as though it had been galvanized by electricity or a hot wind. A few claim that the ground on which they knelt or the building within which they were praying was entirely shaken. Some body movements occurred, including arm swinging and jumping while in a kneeling position. A profuse flow of tears and sweat was very common among them. At the peak of their spirit-filled moment, some involuntarily stood up and danced. One even testifies that he was actually levitating and moving around in the air during his most earnest prayers and that this had happened seventeen times.
With respect to the glossolalia itself, most of the experients describe it as a kind of “tongue sound” without being able to articulate it precisely. It was, as expected, unintelligible to human ears. Often the tongue was rolling or vibrating, and the sound thus generated was mighty, sonorous, and, in some cases, thunderous.
When receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, all the experients express that they felt happy and joyful. Tongue speaking was automatic, but it was not generated in trance. Many of them emphasize that their consciousness was quite clear at the moment they were having the glossolalic experience. One mentions that his mind was without impurities and as lucid as a polished mirror. At that time feelings like peacefulness and euphoria usually emerged.
As a result of receiving the Holy Spirit, most of the experients underwent a dramatic change of life. This transformation was multifarious. Truth seekers or those who had not yet been baptized in the living water would then receive water baptism, a sacrament that initiated them into the saved community. Many experients testify that their physical illnesses, some of which were life-threatening, were completely healed. Other miraculous outcomes include the immediate cessation of smoking by an addict, correction of bad habits, betterment of ethical behavior, and enhancement of one’s body-and-mind condition.
The witnesses seem to have treated their charismatic experience as an integral event, focusing their narratives on the moment of tongue speaking. It was the moment and the sound that bestowed on them a taste of a new life, and a new identity as well. Admittedly, the collection and publication of these sharable, spiritual experiences was undertaken for evangelical purposes. They reveal the Pentecostal nature of the TJC and call on potential seekers to join the church. But within the church community, testimonies of this sort integrate TJC members more closely. They substantially elevate the doctrine of the Holy Spirit above the other articles of faith and highlight the importance of experiencing the Spirit personally. They serve as a template for the members to identify with. When—and only when—one speaks in tongues, one becomes a true member in and of the True Church.
These testimonies record glossolalic experiences that happened from the late 1920s to 1960s, but new data culled from my recent interactions with some of the TJC’s functionaries substantiates my arguments. In my semi-structured questionnaire, I asked the respondents: “How do you judge that your church members have received the Holy Spirit?” Of the twenty valid respondents, a few cited the stories of receiving the Holy Spirit or related examples directly from the book of Acts as the authoritative criteria (Acts 2:1–4; 8:14–18; 10:44–47; 19:1–7). Most, however, replied straightforwardly that one could tell by hearing the rolling tongue of the praying individual and the harmonious or melodious sound it generated, and checking to see if his or her body was shaking. These outer physical manifestations appeared very crucial. Some noted that happy and joyful facial expressions were important indicators. Others added that one should also take into account such traits as obedience, meekness, humility, and self-control, which are commonly assumed to be “the fruit of the Holy Spirit” (Galatians 5:22). One could judge the spirit’s authenticity by observing the recipient’s attitude just as one could determine the nature of a tree from the fruit it bears.
Concomitantly, I asked a related question: “Has your church been disturbed by the evil spirit? If yes, how do you distinguish the true glossolalic phenomenon from the false one?” Nine out of the twenty respondents reported that their church had experienced or was experiencing such “spiritual warfare.” Some of them pointed out that those possessed by the evil spirit also shook their body, but they did that in a violent and disorderly manner. Their spiritual language turned out to be muttered labial sounds and a guttural voice rather than tongue sound. In a few cases an individual burst out in painful shrieks. Others testified that the possessed always felt cold inside, shed uncontrollable tears, and appeared pale and depressed. A couple of the possessed fell down, foamed at the mouth, and lost consciousness. Four of my informants, fearing that their written information was insufficient, told me directly about the most recent cases of possession that were still a cause for concern in their local church. Their narratives were exciting and eerie, but the major points they brought out did not extend beyond the features listed here (see Table 7.2).[3]
| Holy spirit | Evil spirit |
| harmonious or melodious tongue sound | labial sounds or a guttural voice; painful shrieks |
| bodily shaking | violent bodily shaking |
| clear-mindedness | unconsciousness |
| happy and joyful in facial expression; gentle and humble attitude | pale and depressed in facial expression; coldness inside the body of the possessed |
| biblical references: Acts 2:1–4; 8:14–18; 10:44–47; 19:1–7; Galatians 5:22 | |
As the table suggests, the TJC is very careful about drawing a distinction between the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit. As it understands itself as the True Church of the “later rain,” the TJC has to make sure that the promised Spirit does descend upon it and remain with it. A strict demarcation line is necessary to make its identity clear. That explains why its members are anxious to set up criteria by which they can distinguish the true spirit from the false one. For this purpose, speaking in tongues occupies the central position. It is the pivot that generates all related spiritual phenomena. It is also the basis from which to assess these phenomena. Glossolalia as a theological awareness dwells in TJC members’ conceptual realm; it likewise materializes in their practical life. The spiritual battles in which they have been involved bespeak the factuality of the spirit. This in turn confirms their belief in the Holy Spirit all the more.
The second stage in relation to receiving the Holy Spirit can be observed in the ritual context in which it occurs. Speaking in tongues can be a private act, but by no means should it be limited to the personal sphere. When TJC members gather, they collectively pray in loud glossolalic sounds. Take the Sabbath day worship, for example.[4] There are two formal services, normally at 10–11 a.m. and 2–3 p.m., on this “Holy Day of Rest,” as the TJC calls this day in its basic doctrinal explanation (True Jesus Church 2007:121–135). Each service follows the prescribed pattern. Ten or fifteen minutes before the formal service starts, a member, usually a youth, goes to the front of the chapel, asks the congregation to pray in silence for a moment, and begins to lead the congregation in singing hymns in preparation for the service. Hymns are chosen from the official hymnal published by the TJC.[5] At the appointed hour, the preacher ascends to the pulpit, asks the congregation to pray silently once more, and commences the worship by calling out: “In the name of Jesus Christ, we begin our service.” The congregation stands up and sings a hymn in unison, with piano accompaniment. After the hymn singing ends, the preacher asks the congregation to kneel down and pray in one accord. Then the members place the cushions attached to the pew on the floor in front of them and kneel on them. After a few moments of silence, the preacher announces in a loud voice: “In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.” At that moment, all the attendees quickly burst into prayer. Those who have not yet received the Holy Spirit repeatedly say “Hallelujah,” a word understood by human ears. But those who have the Holy Spirit pray in tongues. The aural effect is impressive, due to the blending of different and magnified vocalizations. This collective prayer lasts about five minutes. Then the preacher rings the bell as a signal to end the prayer. The congregation stops in unison, creating a dramatic moment of silence. After some seconds, the worshipers stand up, replace the cushions in their original position, and seat themselves. The preacher begins his sermon, normally taking forty to fifty minutes to finish. To conclude the service, he asks the congregation to stand up and sing another hymn. Afterwards, the second and last collective prayer is conducted in the manner of the first one, with the worshipers kneeling on cushions, but this time the tongue speaking often lasts several minutes longer. The preacher rings the bell again and brings the loud sound of prayer to an abrupt stop. He then sings a line of verse that is usually chosen from the refrain of a familiar hymn, and the congregation joins in to finish the song. At the very end, all the participants chant “Amen” in chorus to complete the prayer. The members of the congregation stand up and seat themselves, and that concludes the formal service.
Speaking in tongues has something to do with one’s ultimate salvation, according to the TJC’s basic beliefs, hence the members’ earnest pursuit of it. But when it is practiced by the congregation in the service, it assumes a role beyond this individualistic understanding. At this stage, the task or concern is no longer to verify that the right spirit is present, because the evil spirit is supposed to have disappeared from the True Church. The horrific scene of shrieking and shouting does not exist anymore within the glossolalic group. The community now consists of spiritually homogeneous believers. The members praying during the service are conscious not only of themselves but also of others who have received the same spirit. They join together and raise their voices in unison. Their glossolalic prayer becomes an effective channel of intersubjective communication, and the sound they collectively produce is a multiplication of this sense of self-assuredness.
In my semi-structured questionnaire, I asked the church functionaries: “What do you think about the glossolalic sound in the Church?” Not one of them replied that it was discordant or disturbing. On the contrary, except for a few who mentioned that it sounded natural or that it did not cause them any qualms, almost all of them responded that it was soothing and pleasant to their ears. In the setting of the service, glossolalia seems to have been tamed to comply with the ritual. As the preacher is able to start as well as stop it by ringing his bell, it appears to have been incorporated into a mechanism that is indispensable to the shaping of the collective identity called the True Jesus Church.
Discussion
Glossolalia as manifested in the TJC poses many interesting questions for us to reflect upon. To the observer imbued with modernist rationality, collective trembling in prayer appears uncouth and distasteful, and the gibberish sounds uttered by the glossolalists easily remind him or her of shamanic invocations. What we moderns are wont to expect of a Christian church is deliberate words of prayer issuing from mannered believers, not unintelligible sounds produced by ecstatic enthusiasts. But if that is the case, why have so many people been drawn to Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity and taken glossolalia seriously? If tongue speech is beyond human understanding, is it therefore meaningless to those who practice it? What kind of function does glossolalia serve in establishing and sustaining a Pentecostal-charismatic church? Are there convincing explanations that may solve these perplexities?
In his study of the cosmogony and anthropology of South American Indians’ myths, Lawrence E. Sullivan offered admirable insights with respect to sound and language. He opined that sound is intimately related to the birth of every living being. As “each sound reveals the presence of a distinctive mode of being,” it actually represents a piece of an indivisible wholeness (Sullivan 1988:75). Each species of being has its own sound, based upon which it lives and with which it identifies itself. Excessive noise means an intrusion into others’ sonic order, hence generating a medley or “unbridled din.” However, the primordial chaos puts an end to it and replaces it with intelligible languages (94). Languages, in this sense, “are a controlled expression of the chaotic and deadly nature of bodily life” (95). They regulate human existence and dominate its mode of expression. In Sullivan’s (95) own words:
[Language] bespeaks division. Not only do the separate orders of animal and human speech arise after the tumultuous demise of pandemonium, but sentences separate into words, words divide into syllables (often ceremonially performed as such), and syllables fragment into phonetic bits of sound, invisible breath partly eaten by the tongue and teeth.
Sullivan thus sees a degenerative relationship between sound and language. Sound has its own unbroken meaningfulness, but language breaks its integrity by fragmenting it into ever diminishing, smaller units like sentences, words, syllables, and phonemes. This he considers a lamentable situation, as he sees that people often speak nonsense although they use humanly understandable languages to communicate. Language negates sound and suppresses it into a world of oblivion in our modern times. Sullivan (1988:287) calls us to re-examine our confused view about or prejudice against their relationship by tracing back to human mythic origins that may reveal more truth:
In the religious stances presented, sound is always significant because it originates in sacred beings. Particular sacred beings accompany the hearer. Their sound announces their presence. More than that, their sonic presence symbolically expresses their meaning in such a way that it summons the hearer to a new condition of existence.
This theoretical exposition well explains the subject we are dealing with. In Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity, glossolalic sound defines a particular mode of being. It is a special “gift” (1 Corinthians 12:10; 14:12–19), as it were, that the experients believe to be given by God. They now have it and use it to claim their special relationship with this God. When they are speaking in tongues, they feel that they ascend to a realm that is qualitatively different from their mundane existence. They leave behind human languages that are rational and intelligible but spiritually ineffectual. In the glossolalic world, they “talk” to God, conducting a two-way communication that is meaningful to their mind-and-heart. In doing so, they seem to retrieve their authentic identity, which may have been lost in their ordinary life. Here glossolalic sound functions to channel them to the realm of transcendence and connect them to the target they long for. If human languages divide and separate, glossolalic sound reconciles and unites. Again, my interviews with TJC functionaries provide concrete illustrations of this sentiment.
In my survey, I asked the respondents the question: “Some outsiders are bemused or startled by the glossolalic phenomenon of the TJC; how then do you explain it to them?” Some of my informants cited biblical references to show that the Holy Spirit is what God promised to bestow upon humanity, that early Christians had already received it, and that without it, we do not belong to Christ. But still many of them emphasized that it is a special “heavenly language” by which humans communicate with God. Speaking in tongues, evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit, attests to God’s presence. Although we do not understand the sound expressed, which remains a divine mystery, we are confident that it is the right way to reach God. It is unmistakable, therefore, that TJC members regard the Holy Spirit as a godsend, and the sound it produces they treat as a powerful link that confirms the relationship between God and humans. To TJC members, speaking in tongues is profoundly meaningful.
Religious sound or glossolalia, for that matter, not only relates humans to the realm of transcendence and affirms one’s authentic existence but also creates community. That is, sound is fundamentally social. As Sullivan (1988:279) notes, “Sound makes for company. To hear a sound is to be in the presence of another being.” He (1988:280) further expounds:
The copresence of beings through their sound allows for compositions of being, unions of opposites, calendars, and other complicated orchestrations of the forms of existence. The symphonic arrangement of existence allows human beings to approximate the fullness of being, that is, to bring the myriad forms of being close together in culture, the creative center of human existence.
In Sullivan’s understanding, sound is contagious. It spreads and reaches beings who listen and feel it with resonance. It summons people of like-mindedness together and forms a community with shared interests. But how is this “symphonic arrangement” possible, and how does it take place? Here sociologist Alfred Schütz’s (1964a) theory of communication with its emphasis on “tuning-in” and “inner time” is of help.
Schütz asserts that for a meaningful human communication to take place, it is absolutely crucial to first create a meaningful context. This cannot be understood more cogently than by adopting the analogy of “musical process,” which aims to establish “a mutual tuning-in relationship upon which alone all communication is founded” (Schütz 1964a:161). He explains that the spread of music is made possible by the concerted effort of three participating parties: composer, performer, and audience. The composer conceives his or her work out of creative imagination and transcribes it into a “system of musical notation” (Schütz 1964a:163). But this is still a “semantic system,” itself unable to convey any meaning. The performer, an intermediary, reads the notes and transforms them into sound by his or her musical instrument according to his or her own interpretation. The audience, listening to the player’s performance, enters into the “stream of consciousness” of both the composer and the performer by apprehending the sound that is in the air. That a piece of music can be appreciated depends on the “socially approved…musical knowledge” or “musical culture,” in which the three parties conduct a three-directional communication (Schütz 1964a:168). It demands that each of them transcend his or her “outer time,” time marked by countable or measurable tempo, and move into the “sharing of the other’s flux of experiences in inner time,” time that exists in the human stream of consciousness (Schütz 1964a:173). On the occasion of a music concert, the three parties construct a community of we-ness by “a mutual tuning-in relationship.” And here sound reveals its fullest meaning as it evokes “intrinsic relevances” from all the participants (Schütz 1964b:128).
As discussed above, prayer in tongues, as witnessed in the TJC, is not merely the indication of an individual’s salvation or a channel for his or her own communication with God. It also takes up the function of integrating all members of the same spirit and constructing the end-time True Church. This is evident because whenever the glossolalists gather together, they pray in and with the tongue sound first, as though this collective practice alone is able to effectively initiate the work they intend to take on. This happens at the beginning of almost any type of TJC activity, including administrative meetings and interchurch athletic competitions, besides the formal Sabbath service I described. Glossolalic sound has become a sign by which TJC members identify each other. Relinquishing human languages that are thought to be inadequate for spiritual communication, they opt for a sound they are all familiar with. They, in a sense, transcend the “outer-time” and enter into the “inner-time” for a deeper mutual understanding. Once they pray and tune in the right channel, they hear their own voice as well as those of others. They thus confirm the copresence of all the participants, which includes God, themselves, and their fellow members. Amplification of the prayer sound indicates that the church community is strong in faith and well-orchestrated in action. In this way they feel the symphonic effect of glossolalia all the more and confer upon it an incomparable value in the church. It is appropriate to conclude that, in view of the great endeavor the TJC has made to launch its world evangelism, what it intends to spread is a type of sound, sound that summons people to “a mutual tuning-in relationship.”
Conclusion
Sonic disorder and uncontrolled physical movements seem to be the popular impressions the observer gets from a Pentecostal-charismatic church. Linguists used to analyze them from syntactic and semantic perspectives, finding them incompatible with normal linguistic structure and hence dismissing them as nonsense. Psychophysiologists tended to see them pathologically, interpreting them as an expression of an altered state of consciousness. Although the merit of these approaches was fiercely disputed by their respective advocates, as William J. Samarin and Felicitas D. Goodman demonstrated in the 1970s and onward (Samarin 1972a, 1972b, 1973; Goodman 1969, 1972a, 1972b, 1987), both approaches judged the behavioral phenomena associated with glossolalia to be “aberrant, extraordinary, or anomalous” (Hutch 1980). In my view, the narrow focus of the linguistic and psychophysiological approaches on disciplinary technicalities did not do full justice to the Pentecostal-charismatic phenomenon. Instead, I proposed that a semiotic approach that treats glossolalia as sound that constitutes a series of meaningful signs and explores it as a public discourse, particularly in the context of ritual, should lead us to more fruitful results.
To buttress my position, I adopted the case of the True Jesus Church as a concrete illustration. Based on doctrinal literature published by the TJC, interview data I gathered from my fieldwork, and my participant observations, I found that one could view glossolalia on two levels: individual and communal. On the individual level, speaking in tongues is intimately related to one’s ultimate salvation, therefore each TJC member is strongly encouraged to pursue it. The emphasis here is on careful discernment between the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit, as they produce two contrastive spiritual manifestations and different theological consequences as well. On the communal level, speaking in tongues is incorporated into the ritual mechanism. It becomes an effective channel for TJC members’ intersubjective communication, and functions to consolidate the church as a whole.
To corroborate my argument and advance my discussion, I referred to the theories of Lawrence E. Sullivan and Alfred Schütz. Sullivan contrasts language with sound, regarding the former as fragmented and dividing, whereas the latter is ordered and holistic. He reminds us that for a religious group, sound defines a particular mode of being. Whatever the nature of a sound is perceived to be, harmonious or discordant, it always points to a modality in and against which the group finds its authentic existence. Members of the same religion, further, strengthen the ties among themselves by hearing and sharing the same sound. Thus sound makes a community. Schütz’s elaboration on “musical process” likewise contributes to our understanding of glossolalia. His analogy of “making music together” leads to insights when applied to our topic. Schütz asserts that for music to work, it requires the composer, the performer, and the audience to constitute a musical culture in which they interpret and share the same sounds. To achieve this, each party has to move beyond its “outer time” and enter into the corporate stream of consciousness. When this “inner time” is reached and “a mutual tuning-in relationship” is established, effective social communication spontaneously takes place.
The shift from a psycholinguistic focus on the intelligibility of language to a social-anthropological exploration of its sonic dimension is significant for the study of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity. It can broaden our understanding of how and why a religious group or movement of this type comes into being and, at the same time, it can deepen our understanding of the dynamic that propels the movement. It is a felicitous sign that some scholars have recently reevaluated early Pentecostal history by “listening” carefully to whatever sounds were generated when the worshipers gathered to preach, sing, pray, or simply remain silent (Daniels 2008; Dove 2009). Instead of being dismissed as a “weak, regressive, and marginal” language (Samarin 1973), glossolalia is now receiving the attention it deserves as a form of sound that encompasses the complete spiritual devotion of those who experience it. If Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity is “a religion made to travel,” as Harvey Cox (1996:102) aptly termed it, its sonic dimension becomes positively crucial. The function of glossolalia helps to explain why the TJC has developed so quickly and spread so widely in China and overseas Chinese communities in recent decades. It also explains why Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity has flourished in so many parts of the globe.
The exploration of the sonic dimension in the TJC should not be of interest merely to scholars of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity. It also provides an opportunity for scholars of religion in general to rethink their perception of religious studies. To be sure, religious experience, ranging from an individual’s mystical encounter to a religious group’s social engagement, is fundamental to our comprehension of religion as such. The importance of this subject has been highlighted by scholars from diverse disciplinary angles (Ammerman 2007; Hick 2006; Katz 1992; Proudfoot 1985; Taves 2009; Tsai 2013), yet it deserves more attention. The experience of sound, parallel to experiences through other sensory gateways—sight, mind, smell, and touch—is part and parcel of this experiential dimension (Campany 1993). An emphasis on how glossolalic sound is experienced reminds us of its value in our thematic repository, despite its earlier neglect or dismissal.
Moreover, it is important to note that, as Ninian Smart’s (1996) phenomenological approach suggests, religious phenomena are comprised of different dimensions, notably the doctrinal, ritual, mythic, experiential, ethical, social, material, and political dimensions. Very often these dimensions are interrelated and support one another. The function glossolalia plays and the effects it brings about, as our discussion of the TJC has indicated, requires consideration from diverse perspectives. An exploration of this special topic, then, cannot reach a satisfactory result simply by focusing on glossolalia exclusively as a form of sonic expression. Rather, it requires us to consider how the True Church conceives its own pneumatology and instructs its members accordingly. It also impels us to observe closely how this theological understanding is put into action in the setting of collective prayer. Speaking in tongues, after all, is not an isolated act or the work of a lone voice; it is generated in a context with experiential, doctrinal, and ritual dimensions. Perspectival expansion and correlative thinking of this kind may ensure that other “uncouth” or “distasteful” religious phenomena will be more fairly treated. The process and result of our investigation, I believe, should serve as a heuristic example for scholars of religion to reflect upon.
* I would like to express my gratitude to the Ministry of Science and Technology (most), Taiwan, for its grant supporting my research project titled “Contemporary Chinese Christians in the Currents of Globalization: An Exploration of Their Identity Consciousness and Community Construction” (NSC 101-2410-H-004-093). This article is one of the results of the research. An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Review of Religion and Chinese Society 2 (2015): 87-108.
[1] The most recent one took place from April 13 to May 19, 2013; it was during this period that I conducted my questionnaire survey and oral interviews.
[2] These two TJC local churches belong to what Fenggang Yang (2006) would call the “gray market,” according to his “triple-color market theory”; i.e., they are not affiliated with the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement, “the red,” nor are they targeted for suppression, “the black.” Nonetheless, I intentionally conceal their specific localities in order to protect their members’ relative freedom to engage in religious activities.
[3] The oral interview took place in a village chapel between 4 and 5 p.m. on April 27, 2013.
[4] The following description is derived from my participant observation over the past few years.
[5] The TJC has officially published different versions of hymnal since its establishment in 1917. The hymns included in them, however, are not its own compositions but the products of Western church musicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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