To employ the hermeneutic of the marvelous in interpreting the 1917
photograph of early Pentecostal interracialism points Pentecostal Studies
to a congruent theological focus on a subversive ecclesiology and a histo-
riographical trajectory of Pentecostalism as an anarchic movement. A her-
meneutic of the miraculous will shift to another trope and, consequently,
suggest alternative theological focus and historiographic trajectory.
A P ENTECOSTAL PHOTOGRAPH AND THE HERMENEUTIC
OF THE MIRACULOUS
Instead of the uncanny, the fantastic, or marvelous, the photograph might
register as miraculous because the miraculous glimpses transcendence. In a
hermeneutic of the miraculous, an artifact, event, or text transcends known
racial laws and the racial order. According to Bonnie Honig, “a miracle is
neither purely exceptional or purely temporal. It occurs in time but also
out of time.” The photograph of a miraculous event offers a glimpse of the
horizon, a reality envisioning religious exchanges that escape the marks
of the racial order; this organizational feat is more than an engagement
of imaginaries. The photograph depicts an alternative organizational life
where people interact in ways that exceed how their respective races oper-
ate according to the dominant racial norms, laws, and expectations. The
religious order might engage race as one of various social markers such as
it would engage doctrine, gender, language, diaspora, etc. Race, then, is
among the ensemble of religious markers. Or the religious order might
substitute other markers such as language or doctrine in the place of race
to constitute peoplehood. For instance, a Pentecostal peoplehood might
be in contrast to a Baptist or Catholic peoplehood. 23
By transcending the racial order, early interracial Pentecostalism circum-
navigates the racial norms, laws, and expectations. The Pentecostal order
might be constructed around, as noted above, a Pentecostal peoplehood
that is neither post-racial nor nonracial; it is polyvalent and ambivalent. By
transcending the racial order, early interracial Pentecostalism exposes the
racial norms, laws, and expectations by demonstrating an alternative. This
alternative is not the opposite of the white-dominated racial order since
a black-dominant racial order would be the one that merely mirrors the
white racial order; it cannot be another type of racial order because, in that
case, race would still be the defi ning factor. The interracial Pentecostal
alternative is one of among many possible worlds against the segregated
places. 24
VINTAGE PHOTO, VISUAL EXEGESIS, AND 1917 INTERRACIAL... 223