glossolalia would become codifi ed into the doctrine of initial evidence,
ranking as the defi ning feature of white Pentecostal theology and experi-
ence. Paraphrasing Apostle Paul, it is the message of fools or lunatics to
the educated. Pentecostals could be “fools for Christ.” 12
How might one construe where an interracial Pentecostal photograph
of the uncanny fi ts within the theological world of early Pentecostalism? A
theology of fools for Christ affi rms certain practices that are judged foolish
and abnormal by societal norms; yet, for Pentecostalism this foolishness is
the power of the gospel; by defi nition, a theology of fools for Christ makes
little or no sense to the reigning racial way of thinking. With the church as
a baptized community of fools for Christ, interracial Pentecostal fools for
Christ horrify the society to its core, violating the racial laws and hierarchy.
Is the Bible to be read as foolish to the world? Theologically, in this para-
digm, is the canon within the canon to accent the uncanny in Scripture
such as the ecstasy of the prophets, “extraordinary” charisms, and the
angelic interchanges? Is it this focus on this activity in Scripture which the
disenchanted, empirical modern mind fi nds unintelligible?
According to Ann Taves, Pentecostal pioneers prompted “involuntary
experiences” that could be judged as lunacy; these “involuntary expe-
riences” are akin to frenzies that were noted as being characteristic of
African American Christianity. Taves quotes Charles Parham, a Pentecostal
pioneer yet critic of certain trajectories of the emerging Pentecostal move-
ment. Parham described the Azusa Street Revival as a fanatical place
where “chattering, jabbering and sputtering, speaking in no language
at all” along with “awful fi ts” as well as “spells, spasms, and falling in
trances” occurred. According to Vinson Synan, H. A. Ironside, a critic of
Pentecostalism, in 1912 deemed early Pentecostals as marked by ”lunacy”
and “insanities.” And Douglas Jacobsen surmised that the Pentecostal
critique of “orthodox theologians” would be interpreted as “theological
lunacy” by Fundamentalists. 13
To employ the hermeneutic of the uncanny in interpreting the 1917
photograph of early Pentecostal interracialism points Pentecostal Studies
to a congruent theological focus of “fools for Christ” and a historiograph-
ical trajectory of Pentecostalism as a lunatic movement. A hermeneutic of
the fantastic will shift to another trope and, consequently, suggest alterna-
tive theological focus and historiographic trajectory.
218 D.D DANIELS III