encapsulate and fulfi ll that of which Heidegger speaks in any totalizing
sense. Rather, I will argue that one way in which pentecostal spirituality
might be theorized philosophically is to think of it as situated in a quasi-
Heideggerian posture phenomenologically.
The starting point for this chapter is a claim made by philosopher
James K.A. Smith, whose own Christian conversion occurred among
pentecostals. In his book Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions
to Christian Philosophy , Smith writes that pentecostal spirituality has a
peculiar way of positioning pentecostals in the world that is different
from other Christian spiritualities. For Smith, pentecost is a hermeneu-
tic and a way of being. 2 What this means is that the being of pentecos-
tals is shaped by the way they dwell in the world. 3 Fascinating as it may
be to think the ways in which one is situated in the world informs lived
hermeneutics and interpretation, the focus of this chapter is not to
investigate the entire process of interpretation, but rather an attempt
to think through the initial moment of interpretation, the moment of
revelation.
This chapter will focus on several key concepts of Heidegger’s: the
self-revealing nature of truth, language, being, and dwelling, or what it
means for a being to dwell. Through the process of thinking through
these concepts, a way will be revealed through which we can journey to
a thinking of pentecostalism in a manner that will demonstrate that pen-
tecostalism implicitly contains language, so to speak, that allows one to
think Heidegger through the affective experiences of the body. In other
words, pentecostalism allows us to think Heidegger through a privileg-
ing of what our bodies tell us about what is true about our being. But
to think about glossolalia is not only to think about the role of the lin-
guistic, or even quasi-linguistic, in the nature of being. It is also to think
about the Acts 2 event, that is, the arrival of the Spirit, the agent who
is present at the moment of revelation. Indeed, it is in the arrival that
revelation occurs. In an attempt to explore philosophically the moment
of the Sprit’s arrival, I will employ as interlocutors Jacques Derrida, and
by extension, Emmanuel Levinas, and their ideas about the moment
of encounter and relation between oneself and others will be included
in this discussion with Heidegger as a way of nuancing the relational
aspect of Being. I should note that while I will attempt to work through
these questions from a quasi-religio/theological perspective, this is not
an apologetic nor a chapter about the legitimate or illegitimate nature
of the phenomenon of glossolalia.
52 J. VAZQUEZ