Michael Jones and Dr. John Hawkins, Anthropology
Among two Ki’che’ Pentecostal congregations, I examine conversion as a process for reconstructing one’s disrupted symbolic system or world view. This reconstruction is effected through rituals revealed in ritualized recitation of one’s conversion narrative and in the examination of group interaction. I explore three aspects of the conversion process—motive, mode, and choice of congregational affiliation after acceptance of “el evangelio”—and place conversions in historically and socially relevant contexts. I find that through conversion narratives individuals learn the proper form of conversion and socialization. The narratives reveal the proper way to reform and reconstruct a disrupted symbolic system.
In January of the 2000, a “traslado” (a mass movement of a group of people from one community to a new community) from the original Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan to the new Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, left only100 or so families in the village. As a result the Pentecostals of the community were left without any organized church. In the years that followed, two Pentecostal churches were founded. Those who remained in the town organized the first church, “Cordero de Dios” (Lamb of God), one month after the traslado. About a year later a group returned to the town and formed the other church, “Iglesia de Cristo” (Church of Christ).
As I interviewed the members of these two congregations I became aware of a ritualized conversion process. This process was revealed through the recitation of narratives that recount the events of the conversion. Members draw on and incorporate aspects of “los testimonios” (testimonies) of the other members to form their own story. A conversion story is shaped collectively as it is told and retold, until an appropriate narrative form is created, which in turn proscribes and describes the proper conversion rituals (Lawless 1988). Lawless (1988) claims that narrative accounts “constitute an important function in the complete conversion process” (3). In every conversion narrative I recorded, individuals described a crisis as the motive for conversion. These crises, which cause a “rupture of the normal symbolic order” (López Cortés 1990) lead the individual to seek a means of reordering that system. Many of the Pentecostals of Ixtahuacan utilized their religion to create a new symbolic order following a crisis. All of the individuals interviewed mentioned alcoholism and/or illness as the reason for conversion. Sixteen of the 25 adult evangelicos in the community mentioned alcohol as part of the reason they accepted “el evangelio.” Of the 16, six mentioned alcohol abuse as the primary motive for conversion. Eleven people also reported “la enfermidad” (sickness or illness) as the reason they became evangleicos.
While the motive of conversion causes the convert to change, the mode of conversion is the means by which that change is affected. I define the mode of conversion as the event the individual describes when asked how he or she converted. A typical narrative reveals that a spiritual experience follows the individual’s recognition, that his or her life is out of order. Most converts mentioned healing (spiritual or physical/ psychological) in their conversion narratives as the means of their conversion. Others recounted dreams in the description of their conversion. The socialization involved in the conversion process is continued in the particular congregation one chooses to join. Upon conversion the individual decides which culto (religious meeting) he or she will attend. One’s attendance in a certain group works to further the reestablishment of symbolic meaning that was lost prior to conversion (López Cortés 1990).
As is mentioned above the majority meet with those of their birth family unit or with the family unit into which they have married. Both congregations have a patriarch and matriarch from whom almost all members are descended. The congregations do not simply consist of extended relatives, i.e. distant cousins, but they represent four generations of a family group. Mothers and their married daughters, who live outside of the paternal home, commonly use the time before and after the culto to talk and be together. Even the location of each culto building in the paternal family complex demonstrates the central nature of the family group in each congregation.
The theme of testimonies emerged when individuals were question as to how someone should choose which culto to attend. “Testimonio” is defined by evangelicos in Ixtahuacan as how a person, or a congregation as a whole, behaves and acts. It is also understood as the act of testifying about el evangelio. An individual should decide which congregation has members whose testimonios seem good, by noting which individuals behave as the gospel or the Bible dictates.
All of the conversions stories I was able to gather contained the elements mentioned above. Alcoholism or illness are mentioned as the reasons why people changed, healings and dreams provided the means by which conversion take place, and the group one chooses to join places the individual in his or her new group. This ritualized telling of the conversion narratives of the Ki’che’ Mayan Pentecostals of Ixtahuacan reveals the proper way in which one is supposed to convert and subsequently behave as a newly socialized member of the organization. The narrative, in demonstrating the proper way for new converts to act, forms solidarity and cements the individual in the group, thus reconstructing the formerly disrupted world view.