Paper short abstract:

We tend to think of attention as a way of observing and focusing our intention, yet for charismatic evangelicals who speak in tongues, the trick is to follow passionatte attention with release and then to hold onto that disattention. This paper explores their play between focus, intent and release.

Paper long abstract:

We tend to think of attention as a way of observing and focusing our intention, yet for evangelicals who speak in tongues, the trick is to release focus and then to hold onto that feeling. This paper explores this play between focus, intent and release.

For the past 15 years, I have been observing Assemblies of God churches in Northern California where people are trained in charismatic evangelical worship, which means many speak in tongues (a form of prayer characterized by nonesense syllables, a feeling of releasing control to God and often accompanied by strong sensory experiences), and are slain in the spirit (which involves falling to the ground in an altered state). Each of these practices serves as a physical manifestation of the evangelical value of submission; concrete rituals attune the body to the experience of awe (the feeling that something is far bigger than us) and the resulting experience of a small self.

This submission-small self pattern not only emerges out of the passionate roar of focused attention in worship, but also is made stable through the continued practice of releasing attention (disattention, perhaps?). This paper uses participant observation and phenomenological interviews to trace a complementary relationship between focus and release and its effects within charismatic evangelical worship.