Paper long abstract:

My main aim in this paper is to show how the emotions experienced in prayer rituals of conversion and "spiritual renewal" are a mechanism that contributes to a genuine and real Christian spiritual experience and opens the way to acquire an axial Christian-Pentecostal virtue: the broken spirit. Through my fieldwork, with Nazarene Church, I will illustrate how the theological postulates of Richard Baxter are still very current. In the seventeenth century, Baxter argued that feelings of grief and shedding of tears are fundamental to conversion and spiritual development. I will explore how, together with the idea of suffering and shedding of tears, comes a strong rhetoric of sincerity and authenticity in the relationship of the believer with his divinity, as well as occurs in social relations. Through the anthropological literature on emotions and religion, I will discuss the tenuous relationship between suffering, emotion, embodiment and experience in liturgical services.