Of Men and Angels
… I hear victory, victory, victory in the corridors of heaven, victory [repeated] for angels are being […] dispatched right now, ha-manda, akka atta ratta te de baka sanda atta ambo ossa katta ree-te eke banda akka ree-te tee-di asha-ta for angels have even been dispatched from Africa right now. […] They’re coming here, [repeated] from Africa, from South America, angelic reinforcement tee-ka hatta anda atta houro batta ratta an-de eke eke manda rassa ta for I hear the sound of victory.
In the dark crucible of last week’s drama, Paula White - a pugnacious character with a tough back story, now President Trump’s spiritual advisor - led prayers in support of his re-election. In her impassioned oration she began to speak in tongues. (See here)
Pentacostalist Christians, including a significant charismatic strand within more mainstream Protestant and Catholic congregations, place great emphasis on the practise. It’s hard to find exact numbers on the Pentacostalists, but President Trump’s adoption of one suggests their creed has considerable relevance to tens of millions. A very great deal of Americans regularly pray in tongues.
Proponents explain the practise with reference to scripture. Acts 2 is quoted “They [the apostles] saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” And Corinthians 14, which suggests that the phenomenon reveals the Spirit talking: “… God will understand what you are saying, though no one else will know what you mean. You will be talking about mysteries that only the Spirit understands.”
Scientists take other perspectives.
Linguisticians refer to it as glossolalia - a compound of the Greek words for language and prattle. They argue that the words of these tongues invariably reflect patterns of phonology, rhythm and intonation of the speaker’s native language. There’s quite a body of research on the speaking of tongues in North America, Europe and the Caribbean, and on comparisons between Christian tongues and other languages of ritual observed in Africa, South East Asia and Japan. Neuroimages taken during glossolalia do not reveal activity in the language centres of the brain.
A 2010 study in the American Journal of Human Biology, on the other hand, found that speaking in tongues is associated with a reduction in circulatory cortisol and enhancements in alpha-amylase enzyme activity. Both of these physiological responses drive stress reduction. Anthropological studies have identified social benefits, notably an increase in self-confidence.
Are these biological and sociological analyses true?
If so, they go a long way to explaining why men and women in communities beset by high stress and low self-confidence, by prescription drug abuse, financial precarity and poor employment stability might take some occasional comfort from speaking the tongues of angels.