In/dividuality and charisma among Pentecostal Gypsies

Abstract

This text reflects on the constitution of the Gypsy Pentecostal person, thus inserting itself in the debates on the continuity or rupture that motivate conversions to Christianity. The moral obligations generated by kinship relations among the Gypsies and the links with the Holy Spirit make it difficult to find gaps for the deployment of individuality by evangelical Gypsies. However, the materialization of God’s desire is embedded in the dynamics of leadership, which in the context of the religious organization causes the charisma to avoid its routinization.

Introduction

There are two discussions about the social scientific approach to religion that, although they have generated many pages of reflection, continue to be very productive for thinking about religious dynamics: on one hand, and in relation to the broader field of religious studies, the question of charismatic leadership; on the other, and this is comparatively more recent, the debate about the in/dividuality involved in conversions to Christianity. This text is inserted in both discussions based on the analysis of Gypsy ¹ Pentecostalism and its expression in the Evangelical Church Philadelphia (ECP; Iglesia Evangélica Filadelfia, IEF).

Just as family and spiritual relationships are intertwined in the daily life of the faithful of the ECP, it is not possible to maintain that the Roma conversions are motivating the constitution of an individual subject in the liberal sense of the term. Both sets of relationships, which in this context are often inseparable, are also involved in the dynamics of religious leadership, which is why reflections on the charisma are very appropriate to think about human relationality and the formation of the Pentecostal subject (Reinhardt, 2015: 421). In this sense, the very organizational deployment of the religious denomination questions that the end of the charisma is inevitably its routinization.

This article is written from my ethnographic fieldwork developed to obtain a PhD degree. I carried out a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 2001) in southern Spain and Argentina between 2014 and 2016. The fragments from the unstructured interviews that I use in this text were mostly recorded with a voice recorder, although others were recorded by hand.

Next I will explore some contributions about the debates on the in/dividual character of the Christian person. Second, I will introduce the organizational model of the ECP and the way in which kinship relationships are articulated in local congregations and in the spiritual life of converts. Third, I will illustrate an exercise in religious reflexivity by a leader from the ECP that will serve as an introduction to what follows, also showing how the tensions between in/individual models are experienced. I will continue trying to show the way in which the constitution of the person is resolved within but also outside the context of the ECP. To the extent that both family and spiritual ties intervene in the constitution of the self and in leadership, I will refer to the elusive nature of charisma in the face of its supposed institutionalization.

In/individualism in Christian conversions

One of the debates that surround the anthropology dedicated to Christianity, although it is not limited to it, is that of the conceptualization of personhood. Regarding Christianity in general, this debate arises from the hand of questions about the continuities or ruptures that occur with Christian conversions. It is not my interest to go back to the roots of this other controversy, but I believe that it is essential to know its basic assumptions in order to know the implications of reflection on the Christian subject.

In his famous ethnography among the Urapmin in Papua New Guinea, Joel Robbins (2004) noted that Christian conversions were characterized by ruptures – individual and social – in the lives of converts. If this was ignored by researchers, according to Robbins, he was due to ‘continuity thinking’ as an inherent trait of anthropology (Robbins, 2007). At the individual level, he observed that the adoption of Christianity among the Urapmin was a way to transform them into individuals. In another no less popular article, Mark Mosko (2010) reviews the contributions of visions similar to those of Robbins and those of the so-called ‘New Melanesian Ethnography’. On one hand, he points out that despite the conversions, the Melanesians have to be seen as dividuals, as had been pointed out mainly by Marilyn Strathern. On the other hand, he wants to enhance the ability of Melanesian ethnography to address social transformation. After the conversions, the Melanesians would continue to constitute divisive people, they continued to be shaped by their relationships with others, although now exchanges with spiritual entities had to be taken into account (Mosko, 2010).

Bielo (2007) has pointed out that the project of the Anthropology of Christianity can be developed through the cross-cultural comparison of the person. Paloma Gay y Blasco (1999) has reflected on the relational character of the Gypsy person outside of Pentecostalism. My proposal intends to be the first related to the Christian Gypsy personhood directly linked to the debate on in/individualism. I try to avoid an evolutionary and homogenizing trend in this alternation (Coleman, 2011), so I recognize from the human being’s ability to transition between different forms of subjectivity (Bialecki and Daswani, 2015: 272–273).

Despite the fact that there are different approaches to the construction of the Christian personhood, such as those that have to do with the elusive argument of freedom (Mafra, 2000, 2014), I am interested in those that they focus on the alternation or simultaneity of individual and dividual − relational or permeable − constitution of personhood. More than dwelling on the ritual practice (see Elisha, 2015; Haynes, 2016; Werbner, 2011) I am interested above all in the involvement of the Pentecostal Gypsies in their family relationships accredited by the same religious organization. As Reinhardt (2021) writes, ‘Relationality and kinship are admitted within Pentecostalism, but as a persistent return of the repressed’ (p. 67). In the case of Pentecostal Roma, the moral obligations that family relationships give rise to are important before and after Christianity. Likewise, as Daswani (2011) has pointed out, the construction of the person becomes revealing in the decision-making processes of people or, as in the case that I will show, in the operations of religious reflexivity (see Højbjerg, 2002). From this point of view, sometimes these distinctions between individualism and dividualism become very blurred (Coleman, 2011).

For the analysis of Christian in/dividualism, most texts seem to methodologically distinguish followers (see Daswani, 2011; Elisha, 2015; Haynes, 2016) from charismatic leaders (see Bielo, 2007; Werbner, 2011). In the ECP charisma is shared (see Blanes, 2010; Campos, 2011, 2014), so the distinctions between leaders and lay converts are less relevant here. However, and to the extent that I am interested in referring to the issue of charisma, it is important to note that Mosko (2015) has contrasted Crawford Macpherson’s ‘possessive individualism’ with the individual as conceptualized by Louis Dumont, Kenelm Burridge and Max Weber. According to Mosko, many of the academics who have come to underline the individualistic character of conversions to Christianity have based themselves on the works of Dumont, Burridge and Weber, who were actually defining dividual entities (Mosko, 2015). Macpherson points out that the basic implications of ‘possessive individualism’ are the freedom and humanity of the person, which is determined by the property of oneself, and that society would fundamentally consist of market exchange relations (Macpherson, 1964: 270). This conceptualization supposes, first, the distinction between the subject, which possesses itself, and the object, possessed by the subject. Second, Macpherson’s individual is separate from other individuals and is alien, in this sense, to a larger social group (Mosko, 2015: 372–373). Mosko’s review of Max Weber’s work is especially relevant, as I will explain later.

From the perspective of Mark Mosko, it is untenable to suppose that the evangelical conversions among the Gypsies have motivated a kind of individualism in the modern sense of the term. Charismatic leadership itself, as Weber (1978) thought, implies a moral duty and exchanges with the divine that make the person a dividual entity. But to the extent that charisma is transferred by inciting reciprocity, the person can be understood as an individual although understood in relational terms. Finally, the routinization of charisma, which can crystallize both in traditional organizations and in rationalist organizations, would imply ‘possessive individualism’ in the case of materializing in the latter, since then the position is owned and is potentially an object of exchange in market terms (Mosko, 2015: 379–381). What makes it impossible for the Gypsy Pentecostal subject to be understood in terms of ‘possessive individualism’ is not only the fact that in the ECP the charisma evades its domestication, an aspect that will be addressed in the second part of this text, but also the intensity of the links relatives among the Gitanos who, despite the conversions, interfere in the daily life of the converts, in their relationships in the cultic context and in their spiritual relationships.

The organizational movements of the ECP

The ECP is a Spanish Pentecostal religious organization composed and led by Gypsies and has its origins in the sixties of the twentieth century. The numbers offered on the Spanish Gitanos are very disparate, sometimes including intervals of more than 500,000 people (Laparra and Pozo, 2007). The European Union indicates that Spain is the community country with the largest number of Roma within its borders, thus reaching a figure of 750 thousand people (European Commission, 2019: 65). The leaders of the religious organization estimate that at least 200,000 Spanish Gitanos frequently attend the services of the denomination, although 600,000 more would be involved in one way or another in the dynamics of the local congregations (Cantón-Delgado, 2017: 79–80). According to its leaders, there are more than a thousand local congregations in Spain, making it ‘the largest Roma church in the world’ (Anderson 2007: 120) and ‘the most important ethnically-based social and religious movement that Spanish Gypsies have ever produced’ (Cantón-Delgado et al., 2020: 227).

The conversions among the Spanish Gypsies suppose processes of ethnogenesis (Cantón-Delgado et al., 2004, 2020). Congregational dynamics allow the extension of ties between Gitanos, who before the conversions limited their sociability within the group of relatives (Gay y Blasco, 2002: 178), which allows us to characterize the social landscape of the minority in Spain as fragmentary (Gay y Blasco, 1999: 40–41; San Román, 1997: 210). However, family relationships continue to be of great importance for converts, something that is fundamental in my argument, as I will show later. These are concentrated around what Teresa San Román, basing herself on Murdock’s classificatory categories, called ‘patrigroups’, frequently formed by three generations of filiatively linked men and their partners (San Román, 1997, 94–96; see Cantón-Delgado et al., 2004; Gay y Blasco, 1999).

The conversions have given a new meaning to the moral superiority that Gypsies claim over payos, or non-Gypsies (Gay y Blasco, 2002). The ECP motivates a discourse that comes to point out the Gitanos as el pueblo elegido de Dios (God’s chosen people), although this is not the basis of permanent or continuous subjectivation processes. As I have pointed out elsewhere (pending publication), local congregations result more in processes of differentiation among Roma believers than in a way to build a cohesive community. The ECP organization itself facilitates these movements mainly through the continuous rotation of its pastors and democratic access to the charisma.

Unlike most Pentecostal organizations, the pastors of the ECP are subject to rotations that, rather than predefined guidelines, are indeterminate. Pastors hardly administer a local congregation for more than 2 years, although there are exceptions that I will assess later. However, any believer potentially has access to the grace or gifts of the Holy Spirit, yet only men hold leadership positions in the churches. In her research among Travellers in Scotland (2012), first, and among the Kalderash ² in Romania, later (2017), Cerasela Voiculescu has pointed out that the personal relationship with divine authority reinforces a sense of their emancipation in relation to institutionalized forms of authority. In the case that concerns me, these conditions obstruct the possibilities of the shepherds to limit movements in different directions, thus favoring the dynamics of differentiation among the Roma at the local level.

Next I will show some key aspects about the constitution of the Christian Gypsy person in the problematic experience of a Gypsy religious leader. This experience will be better understood through the development of the text, where I will show how Christian Gypsies solve the constitution personhood.

Religious reflexivity, charisma and personhood

Daswani (2011) has privileged the decision-making of believers as a process in which the interaction between the in/dividual constitution of the Christian person emerges. Pentecostal Gypsies are no unrelated to exercises in religious reflexivity. Højbjerg (2002) points out that religious reflexivity, based on doubt, excepticism, uncertainty, and so on. it is inherent to religious belief and practice. Reesink (2010) points out that these doubts can occur at various levels of intensity. In the case that I present, religious reflexivity becomes relevant in some situations, such as when evaluating the ethnic component of the denomination, which has a clear connection with family and congregational networks.

Gypsies frequently pointed out to me that the gospel is not only typical of the Roma, but that it is appropriate and desirable for everyone. However, this assumption generates conflicts in some of them due to the idea that perhaps they are not complying with the theological precepts. Some leaders find that their families limit their work by obstructing their ability to move to other churches in the organization. In some cases, these limits and those found in the ethnic character of the congregation emotionally affect some converts.

One of my interlocutors, Manuel, ³ used to establish some contacts with non-Gypsy evangelicals to exchange ideas and knowledge about the Bible. Sometimes, as a leader, he would even invite these people to the ECP congregation. But he hoped that one day he would be reprimanded by Gypsy converts if he continued to attend the service accompanied by non-Roma. From their point of view, the Bible should not be limited only to the Gypsy world and this circumstance also restricted their possibilities of evangelization. He told me that if he could, he would open his own church among payos and take the gospel to thousands of people. But just thinking about it seemed to afflict him, as he knew that if he made the decision to herd among non-Roma, then his extended family would not forgive him and his Roma identity would be undermined.

This brief approach to the dilemma that Manuel experiences justifies the exploration of the concept of person among Christian Gypsies (see Werbner, 2011: 193). It cannot be said that it is a generalized experience among all Roma converts, but it does show that, in certain cases there is a search for a balance between individual obligations and the dividual condition (Daswani, 2011).

Gypsy Pentecostal personhood

Contrary to Western theories of identity, Paloma Gay y Blasco (1999) have pointed out that Gitanos identify themselves as such by performing a moral behavior. From their point of view, their behavior is morally superior to that of non-Gypsies, but also to that of other patrigroup groups. In her own words:

[T]he Gitanos of Jarana stress links to others as constitutive of who person are. Identities are interdependent and each person is thought to bear the worth of ‘the Gitanos’ as a whole: there is a metonymic link between each Gitano and ‘the Gitano people’. (Gay y Blasco, 1999: 49)

The Roma person, in this way, is constituted by their ties, which are mainly the relationships they maintain within the patrigroup. The moral obligations, different for men than for women (see Gay y Blasco, 1999), toward the members of the family make it difficult to even find contexts in which they can embody a certain individualism.

However, there are practices that show, if not the emergence of individual decisions, at least the complexity of determining the individual or dividual character of the Gypsies also outside of Pentecostalism. Examples like these are found in mixed marriages or in the elopement of couples. With the exception of some localities where marriages between Roma and non-Roma have been relatively frequent, there are many situations where the decision to marry a non-Gypsy woman − the opposite is comparatively very small cases − goes against the opinion of the family group. This can bring disrepute on the man, and sometimes to their relatives. The second example, also linked to marriage, refers to situations where a couple decides to get married even without the permission of their relatives (see Gay y Blasco, 1999: 104–106). These situations are also samples of individual decisions by Gypsies, although when making them they are aware that these episodes sometimes give rise to confrontations between the couple’s families.

Taking into consideration that evangelical converts conceptualize their spiritual practice as a personal relationship with God and that in Pentecostal theology salvation is individual, it is worth asking whether the person for the Gypsies includes individual aspects and when does it include it.

In strictly religious practice, and according to the analysis of Naomi Haynes (2016), there is a simultaneous constitution of both the in/dividual personhood that is observed in prayers. This is because converts learn to pray in a common language that leaves limited space for individual desires. In ECP congregations it is not unusual for entire services to be dedicated to collective prayer, with each person talking to God privately but out loud. At these times, it is also not uncommon for pastors to encourage certain converts to speak aloud in the face of possible embarrassment. It is thus evident that the partly public character of the prayers influences the relationship the faithful have with God at these times.

However, in the case of ECP it is the family that is most immediately involved in the converts’ decisions. The patrigroups have been fundamental in the expansion of the ECP itself (Cantón-Delgado et al., 2004; Cantón-Delgado, 2017, 2018) and their importance has not been less after the conversions (Cantón-Delgado et al., 2004). The ECP materializes Pentecostal theology without the intensity of family ties being an obstacle to access to grace, although that does not mean that there are no exceptions. In this sense, and based on the previous quote by Paloma Gay y Blasco, it can be said that the obligations that the Roma acquire with their own families, forming part of their own constitution as Roma, do not lose their validity in the religious context. In this sense, more than the existence of clear limits between people and between them and objects, which would thus become alienable, the Conversos are constituted by actions that respond to an exercise of moral solidarity in the face of kinship where ‘each partakes of the life of the other’ (Werbner, 2011: 193).

Cantón-Delgado et al. (2004) have seen how kinship ties can take precedence over religious affiliations among Gitanos and, for their part, Gay y Blasco (2000: 12) point out that conversions have to some extent undermined loyalty to families, in relation to non-converted Gypsies. It is clear that religious affiliation has extended the social relationships of the Roma beyond kinship ties, to a greater degree in the case of religious leaders, although the strength they have in the lives of the evangelical Roma depends to a large extent of the participation of relatives in the cults. This circumstance partially responds to the fact that the ECP condemns clashes between patrigroups, and the solidarity that they generate is frequently determined by the possibility of generating hostilities (Gay y Blasco, 1999: 142–143). In the ECP it is understood that the ideal is for converts to attend churches where their relatives attend, even when this could be problematic for some of its members. There are examples where a conflict in one church leads all members of the family to congregate in another church of the same ECP. In fact, the leaders of some towns in southern Spain point out that, although there are areas where the number of active congregations can be interpreted as a symptom of division, it also makes it possible to welcome families that may come into conflict with the leaders or other patrigroups. In this sense, the possibility of conflict and its potential to promote the mobility of entire families is foreseen at the local level by religious leaders.

Although in the context of the ECP it is thought that the ideal is to congregate where the convert’s family does, there are cases where relatives gladly accept the separation of one of their members if this responds to the will of God. In families where the members are converts, if a man is called by God to occupy a leadership position, the group of relatives does not hinder the development of the gift that the person receives. In fact, this is received as a blessing within the family, even when the implications go through the relative distance from the patrigroup. But there are also cases where not all members of the patrigroup participate in the congregations. In these circumstances, some relatives may limit the potential exercise of leadership by the evangelical Gypsies due to the possibility that they may leave the family residence. In Buenos Aires I asked a convert if he would be willing to work as a pastor in the ECP of a nearby town and he told me: ‘if I go there to pastor with my wife, my father tells me: what happens to you? Are you crazy or what’s wrong? Let another pastor go!’.

Although some Gitano converts may prioritize their religious affiliation over their family ties, the ECP emphasizes the idea that men and women are naturally different people, something that is present among the non-converted. The relationships between men and women are hierarchical and relational, something that differentiates them from the payo world (Gay y Blasco, 1999: 122). The control of the behavior of women and unmarried sons and daughters is often emphasized during preaching. At the beginning of my fieldwork, the leaders of the ECP of Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz, Andalusia) received a visit from a well-known national leader in the religious organization. The elderly pastor complained about the dress of the young women, blaming their mothers or their husbands for these circumstances. The latter deserved, according to the pastor’s opinion, to be recognized as calzonazos, that is, men who are condescending to their wives or who yield more than expected to their wishes. In the same preaching, however, the religious leader called for concern for the responsibility of each person in the face of the personal nature of salvation.

Some organizational aspects of the ECP cults are consistent with the control that the man exercises over the behavior of the woman. Church spaces are divided according to gender. It is certainly unusual for men and women from different family groups to greet each other in churches, which can prevent, in addition to potential conflicts between patrigroups, the representation of the idea of friendship between men and women, which is denied as a possibility among Gypsies (Gay y Blasco, 1999: 113–114). These possibilities are also denied to pastors: it is their wives who are responsible for addressing the women of the local congregation if this is necessary.

The control over the reproduction of the patrigroup that is exercised from the family environment is also manifested in marital dynamics. Even in the context of Gitano evangelism, marriages between Roma have to be approved by the parents of the Gypsies. Young Gitanos generally get married at younger ages than non-Gypsies, and it is common for them to do so before reaching the age of majority, especially in the case of women. Some leaders of recognized prestige at the national level of the ECP pointed out that the pastors tried to persuade the young people to delay their marriage commitments, but that this ultimately depended on the will of the parents of the couples. Likewise, the rite that the Gypsies carry out to prove the virginity of the woman before contracting marriage is maintained in the evangelical context. For the Gitanos, what a woman proves is her honra (honor), which affects the public image of the family (see Gay y Blasco, 1999).

Family responsibilities determine something as central to this text as leadership. The implications of the rotations of the shepherds are varied (Cantón-Delgado, 2017: 82–83), one of them is that they allow interspersing their spiritual work with economic activity. In some congregations, pastors receive a modest salary, in others this possibility does not exist, so the periods of inactivity allow them to increase the time dedicated to work activities, which affects the family group, and the relationships within it. It is precisely in the case of economic activities where Pentecostal converts display actions that constitute them as rational individuals. Many Roma converts are dedicated to the itinerant sale of products of all kinds, generally in markets that are established once a week in a town near their usual residences. It is in the strict market relationship, circumstances in which Gypsies and non-Gypsies interact most frequently, the former display capacities that refer us to a modern liberal individualism. As Macpherson (1964: 271–272) writes in relation to the morality of the market, a person’s humanity ‘depend on his freedom from any but self-interested contractual and relationship with others’.

Until now it would seem that family relationships have pre-eminence in the lives of converts, however, in the context of Gypsy evangelism, actions also respond to the relationships that Roma maintain with spiritual entities. Pentecostal leaders are called by God (llamados por Dios) to carry out their duties in the congregations. These calls, like any intervention of God or the Holy Spirit in the lives of Pentecostals, can be seen as affects, ⁴ material insofar as they are experienced in the body. These signs are sometimes expressed as a ‘sense of peace’, an involuntary bodily reaction, the mental projection of words for no identifiable reason, images and speech produced in dreams, and so on. Accompanied by the ability to discern the sources and purposes of these affects, something that is acquired through theological knowledge and its crystallization in the present, these indices are part of the probative regimen of divinity, so it can be said that the Pentecostal theology materializes in ‘politics of affect’ (Marshall, 2010: 200). The life of the Pentecostal Gypsies is densely charged with affects that refer to the relationship with the divinity and many times determine the actions and decisions of the converts, who behave following the Word or the desire of God (la Palabra o la voluntad de Dios). An ECP pastor from a town in the south of Spain told me when I asked him if he would like to occupy the position of ‘zone secretaries’ (responsables de zona): ‘It’s not what I want, but what God wants. What good is what I want if God doesn’t want it? That is a question [the one I asked him] that the Lord has to answer’.

The Gitano convert is constituted through two types of relationships: on one hand, the moral solidarity aroused by family ties, and on the other, exchanges with spiritual entities. Both types of relationships generate obligations that reveal different forms of agency. Dishonorable conduct for the family group can generate a transformation of the person, or of the group itself, which undermines it as such. In the case of the Gitanos, this means that their Roma identity is questioned, and may have repercussions on spiritual relationships insofar as the family is an important institution in Pentecostal theology. Sin does not have consequences on family relationships, on which Gypsyness depends, but rather on the project of personal salvation. In short, although in practice Roma is subject to processes of legitimation and delegitimization in relation to people’s behavior; at the discursive level, Gypsyness is something naturally given, while the relationship with God, as they conceptualize their religious practice, is something that depends on behavior. This makes, in theory, relationships with kin groups appear to precede religious affiliation. However, the Pentecostal Roma person must maintain an ethical balance between their family ties and their spiritual relationships, something that also varies depending on the degree of belonging and participation of relatives in the ECP.

The intimate relationships that the Pentecostal Gypsies maintain with God are in themselves of interest to understand the dynamics of leadership and the revitalization of the charisma in the ECP. This will be the focus of my reflection in the next section.

The revitalization of the charisma in the ECP

One of the most recurring topics in the sociology or anthropology of religion is that of charismatic leadership. The charismatic person ‘is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary’ (Weber, 1978: 241; Emphasis in original). As established by Max Weber, the fate of charisma would be its institutionalization, which fundamentally responds to the problem of leadership succession and, by extension, the reproduction of the organization.

It is convenient to make some nuances regarding the Weberian conception of charisma. In the first place, some authors have pointed out the contradiction that Weber incurs in presenting two forms of charismatic authority that would seem to be in conflict with each other. On one hand, he presents the original form of the charisma, as if it were a more authentic charisma, which would be the individual charisma, not institutionalized, generating a revolutionary force. On the other hand, there would be institutionalized charisma, hereditary or associated with roles, rather than people, whose force would be somewhat less powerful and would work by legitimizing institutions and people (Lindholm, 1992: 44–45, 2013: 8; Shils, 1975: 257; Turner, 2003: 9–10). The idea of the dissolution of charisma in modernity that Weber promulgated is untenable (see Giner, 2003; Lindholm, 1992, 2013; Shils, 1975), and the routinization of charisma inevitably leads to conceptualizing religious leadership from an evolutionary approach (Bialecki, 2014: 201).

Second, if when referring to charisma, Weber based himself on the separation between the leader and his followers, the way in which charisma is conceived in Pentecostal churches challenges this separation (Reinhardt, 2017: 75). Blanes (2010) and Campos (2011, 2014) have pointed to the possibility of a shared charisma. However, if Blanes refers rather to a democratization of charisma among leaders, Campos points out that, once the charismatic leader has been invested as such, his legitimacy depends on his or her ability to circulate charisma among followers. In addition to followers, family ties are forms of transmission of charisma (Campos, 2011, 2014) and even shape it. In Argentina and Brazil, it is common for the leadership of Roma Kalderash congregations to be passed down from parents to sons. In the ECP, rather than automatic succession, what I find is that family members − even unconverted family members − count in some decisions that leaders face, as I illustrated above.

Third, and in relation to the exploration of the Pentecostal Gypsy person carried out in the previous section, Mosko points out that the charisma is incorporated or adhered to a person; can be transferred between the leader and the followers of him; and finally it provokes exchanges as it motivates the loyalty of the latter (Mosko, 2015: 380–381). The composition of the person in the context of charismatic churches is thus subject to transformations. If one can speak of individuality in these contexts, it is evidenced in the transitions that emerge in the transference of the charisma; however, it is an individualism that differs from the ‘possessive individualism’ thought by Macpherson (Mosko, 2015: 365).

With these premises in mind, it is worth asking how the charisma is transmitted and renewed in a religious organization made up of people whose sociability was fundamentally deployed within their patrigroups, avoiding any form of centralized power, and whose leaders submit to rotations.

In the expansion of the religious organization, the transfer of traditional authority from the ‘old Gitanos of respect’ (gitanos viejos de respeto) to the religious leaders has been fundamental (Cantón-Delgado, 2017; Gay y Blasco, 2000). The policy of opening congregations carried out by the ECP throughout Spain was based on the permission of the elders with greater authority in the different territories, without which the religious leaders refrained from beginning their preaching. Second, the ECP, through the Bible schools of the same organization (Escuela Bíblica Evangelica Filadelfia, EBEF), controls the training of pastors through study programs and exams. Although the leadership of the Gitano pastors is based in part on tradition and on a meritocratic and rational system, it is understood that religious leaders are first called by God. Below, I transcribe a fragment of a conversation about leadership that I had with a convert in the town of Linares (Jaén, Andalusia):

Antonio:

‘Pastors are appointed by God, they are instruments of God, but they are the same as all other Christians’.

Me:

‘So, you trust all the pastors that Philadelphia puts … ’.

Antonio:

‘No, we cannot trust man, we trust God’.

Me:

‘But you obey the pastors when they ask you for something … ’.

Antonio:

‘Sure! Because they are set by God’.

The words of the convert claim the intervention of God in the authority and in the appointment of the pastors, ruling out in turn that the charisma can crystallize in fixed roles. The calls of God generate the obligation of people to take charge of leadership, thus responding to the will of God. However, sometimes a person receives God’s call through another, usually a denominational leader. If this occurs through the figure of a leader of great recognition in the religious organization, it is understood that the potential of the charisma is of greater intensity. As I mentioned above, the pastors of the Roma evangelical organization are subject to rotation, which is why the leaders minister to the churches between 6 months and 2 years approximately, although there are exceptions that can threaten the continuity of the churches. At first glance, the pastors are chosen by those ‘zone secretaries’, leaders in charge of controlling and managing the group of congregations of a given Spanish region, generally made up of two provinces. However, in the words of a young pastor in charge of a congregation in southern Spain: ‘We have a person in charge and that person in charge, since he has an intimate communion with God, is the man of God. Then God puts that man in his heart’.

Although on the discourse it is God who makes the decisions regarding the occupation of leadership positions, the converts know that those ‘zone secretaries’ are aware of the personal situations of the candidates, that is, of the men qualified to act as pastors and, however, of the concrete circumstances that the local congregations may go through. It is common for the most inexperienced pastors to take charge of the administration of smaller churches, which generally do not reach a hundred people. In addition, decisions about the people selected for leadership sometimes have to do with the interethnic relationships of converts from different geographic areas. During my fieldwork apparently opposite circumstances occurred: there were leaders called to congregations in favor of appeasing conflicts between leaders from different areas and, other times, the appointment of pastors outside the locality where the congregations are located was avoided, this with a view to avoid possible conflicts. However, the movements in leadership positions in the ECP do not obey fixed guidelines, they are considered the results of God’s purpose (el propósito de Dios) in specific situations, although this is often indeterminate.

It is precisely through the affective interactions between those responsible for the zone and God that a decision regarding leadership is made. Those responsible expect God to intervene in their daily lives, whether in the course of tasks that may seem the most inconsequential, during their prayers or in their dreams. God’s operations are often materialized through affects that leadership managers interpret to reach a decision about the most suitable people to occupy the position of pastor in certain churches. These affects frequently appear in the form of bodily reactions, in the imagination, in dreams or in contingent external events, but they are detached from the will of the person who receives said signs and are attributed to spiritual agency. Any of these materializations can be interpreted as the will of God, also when making a decision related to leadership.

To the extent that leaders rotate, God’s interventions revitalize the charisma, thus preventing its institutionalization. Some examples show that the routinization of the charisma in the context of the ECPs is interpreted as the desacralization of leadership. In Buenos Aires (Argentina), the ECP supported a pastor for more than a decade, which according to some converts ended up becoming a pastor-centric regime, characterized by its secrecy when it came to spreading the charisma among its faithful and, therefore, due to the poor training of leaders. This circumstance had repercussions on the congregation, which eventually split in 2014.

Charismatic leadership is not only based on the call of God or the ability to transfer charismatic gifts to converts. Leaders have to perform a moral behavior according to their interpretation of the Bible. To the extent that the conduct of the converts is assimilated to the moral precepts, they are recognized as a testimony (testimonio), which also functions as proof of God’s intervention in the lives of believers. For the faithful, testimony implies a certain knowledge of both the Bible and the ways in which God and the Holy Spirit intervene in everyday life. In the context of the ECP, in addition, the testimony of the pastors goes through expressing the ability to take responsibility for the congregation, ensuring control of what the faithful may understand as personal interests.

When I was doing field work in the church of Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz, Andalusia), a change of leader occurred just 2 months after starting his work. One of the faithful criticized this change, pointing out that some pastors get tired very quickly (se cansan muy rápido), which showed little responsibility toward the congregation, although he qualified his criticism by recalling the sacrifices that pastors make in the face of their family life. A few weeks later, when a new pastor took over, some converts complained that the new leader’s decisions were not put to a vote, as previous pastors had been. To the extent that charisma circulates among pastors and followers, leaders are also beholden to the desires of converts so as not to be the object of suspicion.

In the ECP of the Madrid neighborhood where she carried out her ethnography, Paloma Gay y Blasco notes the administration of three pastors over a period of a year and a half, and writes: ‘a congregation is enthusiastic about the new minister and his wife for 3 or 4 months before they begin to develop grudges and make it clear that they want them to leave’ (Gay y Blasco, 1999: 166). In this sense, one can also speak of changes in the intensity of charisma (Bialecki, 2014: S202) in the ECP. Situations like these are usually accompanied by the suspicion of the converts about the origin of desire in the decisions of the leaders, who begin to attribute to the individual will more than to the Word of God.

Leadership in the Roma organization is precarious. Charisma, once it circulates among the faithful, something that, as we have seen, is understood to be necessary, resists its monopolization (Marshall, 2010: 209). The rotations and the way in which human and spiritual relationships are involved in them evade the institutionalization of the charisma. In turn, the fact that pastors have to live according to the will of God above their individual wills, underpins the idea that the Christian Gypsy person refers more to a divided concept of personhood than to modern Western individualism.

Conclusion

In this article I have tried to challenge some assumptions about in/dividualism and charisma based on the case of Gypsy Pentecostalism. Gypsies were not immune to individualism before converting to Pentecostalism, nor are they free from relational dynamics after conversions. These categories are not without ambiguity (Coleman, 2011; Daswani, 2011). In this text I have focused primarily on such kin and spiritual relationships among Pentecostal Gypsies. Beyond spiritual kinship (see Reinhardt, 2021), extended families are not an impediment to the realization of Gypsy Christian personhood, unlike what Meyer (1998) noted in the case of Ghanaian converts. ECP leaders legitimize the family organization and its authority as a path to individual salvation. In this context, it is difficult to agree with Bialecki et al. (2008: 1148) ⁵ that the recognition of divine authority helps women to subvert traditional masculine authority. In the case of Pentecostal Gypsies, there has been a transfer of authority from older Gypsies of respect to younger Gypsy pastors. However, the circulating and shared charism in local congregations sometimes means that pastors have to respond to the demands and desires of the elders and also of other members. It is in the case of Gypsy pastors that a flexibility around family demands can be observed.

The extension of new ties beyond the extended family is evidence of one of the transformations that Pentecostalism has brought about among the Gypsies. This argument avoids emptying Christianity of its cultural content, which was a concern of Joel Robbins (2007), although Roma are far from being conceptualized simply as individuals. Nevertheless, Manuel’s reflexive act shows that there are indeed Roma who see contradictions between the Word and the way it is actualized in the ECP. Exercises such as this one make the person imagine himself or herself as embracing a dyadic relationship, centered on God, and distanced from his or her relatives.

Kinship ties also influence religious leadership. Sometimes family obligations determine the exercise of leadership, even when the traditional authority has no links to Pentecostalism. This means that while there are cases among Roma where charisma is transmitted through the family (Campos, 2011, 2014), sometimes the family also influences charismatic authority without having to exercise leadership positions. Among the leaders, the exchanges they have with the Holy Spirit become more relevant and family ties become more flexible. However, the decisions of Roma pastors are constantly shaped by the desire of lay converts. This circumstance directs our gaze to the shared character of the charisma (Blanes, 2010; Campos, 2011, 2014). Religious leadership in the ECP is subject to rotation, it rarely lasts longer than 2 years, and decisions about it are taken in an intimate dialogue between those in charge of the area and God in an affective dynamic. In this way, routinization of the charism is avoided. In fact, some cases show that the institutionalization of the charisma can be the beginning of conflicting experiences in congregations. In cases like this, as in others where pastors lose the trust of the congregation, religious leaders are seen as responding more to personal interests than to God’s purpose.