Finding meaning in the meaningless : the language of faith surrounding pentecostal glossolalia in Singapore

Abstract

Christians do not always agree on what “speaking in tongues” is. Pentecostals believe that it is a heavenly language that humans do not understand. Presbyterians, on the other hand, believe that it must be a natural language foreign to the speaker. In order to find out how these differences in faith and opinion are expressed through religious language, participants from two Singaporean churches, City Harvest Church and Bukit Batok Presbyterian Church, are interviewed. City Harvest is a Pentecostal church and the other Presbyterian, thus, their members differ in their experiences with, and opinions of, glossolalia. Through the ensuing analysis, the discursive strategies, and lexical choices that speakers use become clear. Presbyterians and Pentecostals frame their arguments and experiences by engaging differently with biblical text, agency, and story-telling narratives to convey their points. This paper critically compares these two religious experiences and how speakers express their different versions of faith and reality.