Work as a Sense of Intra-Prison Community Insertion: The Social and Symbolic Resources That Pentecostal Communities Provide to Converts inside Prisons (1950–1970)

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the social and symbolic resources that intra-prison Pentecostalism provides to converted inmates for their intra- and then extra-prison community reintegration. To conduct this analysis, we present two sections. Firstly, we present a characterization of two prison spaces between 1950 and 1970: the Public Prison and the Santiago Penitentiary, both located in the city of Santiago de Chile. In them, Pentecostal communities developed and adjusted to the prison contexts with different proposals. Secondly, we see religious work as an organizer of meaning based on the three most important religious rituals of prison spaces: the invocation ritual, which is prayer as sacred work; music, which is sung work; and preaching, which is the work that makes the community grow. The theoretical framework we employ is that of structuralism, to adapt to the era explored in this article, complemented by the phenomenological proposal of René Girard. Methodologically, this study is a qualitative vision focused on the autobiography of a religious leader, to which two autobiographical novels of the time are added, in addition to institutional magazines (Pentecostal) and a magazine of journalistic reportage, to contextualize the information provided by the autobiography.

1. Introduction

Methodist Pentecostalism began its intra-prison religious assistance early, in 1925. However, in 1952, a new stage began. Due to the institutionalization process that the Pentecostal Methodist Church started, when pastor Manuel Umaña was named bishop of the denomination, a suprapastoral authority was simultaneously created, in a mimetic relationship with the Catholic Church. This relationship also deepened competition with the Evangelical Pentecostal Church, which was considered the Pentecostal Methodist Church’s nemesis: this bifurcation took place in 1932. However, while the Evangelical Pentecostal Church strengthened its growth by sending missionaries to Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru, pastor Umaña, as bishop, consolidated the Pentecostal Methodist Church’s power by institutionalizing its work in prisons, in politics, and extending its name to the national level.

Prison work began to bring a lot of political and social profit to Bishop Umaña, and at the same time, he faced competition from other Pentecostal leaders who sought to compete in this new missionary field. Among them, Guillermo Villanueva, who, “… left the Methodists because he did not find in it the living faith that he desired, and who had begun his work in prisons: after 40 days of fasting offered to the Lord and 40 nights of prayer, to obtain government authorization to work in prisons [sic]” (Vergara 1962, p. 168). This story is also highlighted by the Catholic priest Alberto Hurtado, who for his part adds, “… among the acts of charity that the [evangelical] brothers practice, they take those they have converted in prison to their own home and keep them there for free until they have found work” (Hurtado 1995, p. 85). In this way, although other Pentecostal leaders appeared, seeking to enter the prisons, they did so under the approval of Bishop Umaña.

Currently, intra-prison religious work goes beyond Pentecostal work, especially with the religious equality law of 1999, the creation of the Asociación de Protección y Asistencia Carcelaria (APAC, Prison Protection and Assistance Association)1 in 2001, and the formalization of evangelical chaplaincies in 2005. As a form of manifestation of religious equality, the effectiveness of intra-prison religious work has been shown: the evangelical world builds a strong intra- and extra-prison bond.

So, today it is estimated that 40% of inmates self-identify as evangelical (INDH 2013, p. 147), and in some prisons, this percentage can reach up to 60% (Sanhueza 2015). Several investigations have been carried out, which take the year 2001 as a reference (Concha 2009; Marín 2013; Marín Alarcón and Bahamondes González 2017; Bahamondes González and Marín Alarcon 2019; Vergara 2021; Mansilla and Vergara 2023), that is, since the creation of APAC. However, these investigations leave a great historical gap in this regard, from the year 1925 onwards, which is when the record of intra-prison Pentecostal work began.

Therefore, our research investigates intra-prison Pentecostal work beginning in 1925 for the following reasons: (a) Journalists, priests, and writers show, with some frequency, the intra-prison religious assistance of evangelicals, especially Pentecostals, at this time. (b) Prison assistance was considered by Pentecostals as part of the eschatological mission of their religion since it is considered a divine mandate: as soon as you visited, you visited me, says Jesus (Matt. 25:36-40;). This is why Pentecostal leaders placed political pressure on governments to have the opportunity for free prison attendance. (c) As prison sociology has stated, prisons are designed to confine the poor, in addition to being true factories and schools of crime; this has been confirmed by the inmates themselves. In this last sense, intra-prison religious assistance supports the founding myth of Pentecostalism, that of being the religion of the poor (Mansilla 2014); in fact, those in prisons are among the poorest people (Chile Pentecostal 1925, p. 5).

Consequently, our objective in this article is to analyze the social and symbolic resources that Pentecostalism provided to converted inmates during the period of intra-prison Pentecostal work beginning in 1925, primarily for their intra-prison community reintegration, with extra-prison reintegration as the goal. One of the most significant elements that Pentecostalism contributed was to redefine religious rituals (prayer, singing, and preaching) by transforming them into work, which gave the converts a horizon of meaning while confined, integrating them into the Pentecostal community, but also providing a biographical resignification, whose purpose was reintegration into the community. These ritual and community resignifications are not exempt from contradictions, violence, and failures; even so, the Pentecostal leaders made an effort and persevered in assisting their fellow inmates.

Firstly, the most important religious work is prayer. Since it is an activity that requires effort and dedication, transforming it into a work activity was not difficult because prayer fulfilled one of the fundamental characteristics of work at this time: sacrifice. Sacrifice required an almost superhuman effort and was only performed out of community obligation. Those who wanted to stand out and have access to community social mobility combined prayer with other sacrifices, such as vigil and fasting. We turn here to Marcel Mauss (1970), a classic anthropologist who addressed prayer as a social, ritual, and sacred phenomenon with an expectation of effectiveness; that is, not only is prayer a pure sacred act but it also requires seeking and waiting for results, projecting the transcendent to individual or social daily life. For this author “... prayer is, first of all, a social phenomenon, insofar as it is part of a religion, and in effect, a religion is an organic system, common to a human group, of notions and collective practices, referred to the sacred beings it recognizes” (Mauss 1970, p. 114).

The second religious work, more playful and liberating, is singing. Music is the central activity in Pentecostal cults and a topic that is not much addressed in its area of study, with only a few publications. In recent years, however, such works have become more frequent (Leitao 2006; Mansilla 2014; Mansilla 2016; Guerra 2009; Ramírez 2015), the rarest are those referring to the leaders of the evangelical movement, who transformed evangelical music in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world, which is a fundamental pillar of their work (Vélez-Caro and Mansilla Agüero 2019, 2021; Mansilla 2023). Indeed, singing was a desired work, in which the converted recluse felt fulfilled; furthermore, it was considered a valued and desired activity. Although everyone recognized the importance of prayer, they rather wanted to avoid it and spend as little time as possible praying; on the contrary, everyone wanted to sing.

The third work is preaching, which was not only associated with work, but the temple was also called a “working site”, and the preacher was called a worker (d’Epinay 1968; Tennekes 1985; Galilea 1990; Ossa 1991). The metaphors associated with preaching and church are sometimes contextualized to a specific place. For example, one story highlights the following: “My pastor had selected me to be presented to the Annual Conference, as a worker available to create a new vineyard” (d’Epinay 1968, p. 108). In this way, preaching and preaching space were associated with the working class of the time: peasants (shepherds and sheep); fishers (fish and boats); workshops (teachers and crafts); bakeries (bakers and bread), etc. In effect, preaching was free, vocational, autonomous, and self-sustaining work. Thus, the one who preached did not receive a salary, but rather food, clothing, and other belongings to survive, until he became a pastor and passed the different positions leading to this position. A pastor is like an older brother; more than a boss, father, or boss, as d’Epinay (1968) highlighted. On some occasions, as happened with Umaña and others, a more developed stage of the pastorate was reached, where there was an established church that managed to financially support the pastor with offerings. However, in the beginning, the pastor was the brother–pastor. This long and auspicious career was known inside the prison and, therefore, a “construction manager” or worker knew that he could become a pastor little by little; later, his autonomy would be assured, as a master craftsman of the word.

We will carry out our theoretical approach from the framework of structuralism (Mauss 1970; Foucault 2003) since it seems to us that in the period we address in this article, it can be recognized as a structure beyond the individual that conditions and shapes them. Furthermore, the same individuals recognize this structure that limits and determines them, or even crushes them, as long as they obey (or not) its rules and laws. However, and also, to highlight human and community agency we will consider René Girard (2005), who linked prison to a phenomenology of resentment (Belmonte 2020) and a phenomenology of uprooting (2012): although it is true that prison is an institution that encloses the individual more than physically, cutting off his will; even there, in those spaces that seem decisive, human agency emerges. So, activities such as prayer and singing constitute social and symbolic resources provided by the religious institution, even with hereditary vestiges. These allow the subject to resist repetition and determination, managing to free themselves from condemnation and social destiny (of being a criminal who lives and dies as such), and becoming reintegrated into the community and society.

We also refer to the investigation work of the professionals who worked in rehabilitation programs in 38 countries around the world, supported by the Prison Fellowship International programs. Jang et al. (2022a, p. 29) present the results of a study based on a faith-based program, “The Prisoner’s Journey”2. The study consisted of a quasi-experiment, with experimental and control groups including pre-test and post-test surveys, conducted with 255 male prisoners from two prisons in Colombia. This country has the longest experience with this program, showing that participation increases religiosity and fosters motivation for prosocial identity change, creating new biographical narratives from criminal to conservative identities (see also Hallett et al. 2017; Maruna et al. 2006) while also simultaneously providing a perception of meaning of life, conceptualized as an intrinsic human need (Jang et al. 2022a, pp. 9, 39; 2022b, p. 282), and encourages the virtues of forgiveness, empathy, gratitude, and self-control (Jang et al. 2022a, p. 30; 2024, pp. 280, 282). In this way, the program has diminished the risk of internal violence between inmates in prisons. Jang et al. (2024, p. 280) and Koenig et al. (2012) also relate religious practices in both the public (service attendance) and the private sphere (reading a sacred book, praying, and performing rituals) to the emotional well-being and mental health of offenders, and the decrease in negative emotions, such as depression, anxiety, despair, or anger.3 However, the results of this research are not representative of all types of populations. Jang et al. (2024, p. 21) conceive the nature of all human beings as sensitive in the moral sphere, and therefore incarceration must be oriented towards moral reformation instead of punitive or retributive tendencies (Braithwaite 1989).

The authors cite Cullen (2013) to confirm that religion has played a long-lasting role in the history of the American correctional system and in the actual situation of global economic crisis and shortage of state funding for rehabilitation programs, in which religion is contributing without cost to rehabilitation goals (Jang et al. 2022a, p. 38, 2024, p. 293; Hallett et al. 2017, p. introduction). Although the authors rely on data from the Colombian penitentiary state organization, El Instituto Nacional Penitenciario de Colombia (INPEC, National Penitentiary and Prison Institute of Colombia), there is a great probability of similar financial problems in other countries after the pandemic and following the economic crisis and recession as a consequence of, for instance, the war between Russia and Ukraine4. Jang, Johnson, and Anderson also base their research on the Good Lives Model of Ward and Maruna (2007), stating that crime is a product of both a lack of internal capabilities (social skills) and external (job opportunities), which are requisites for a human being to pursue primary human goods that are beneficial to humankind and therefore sought after. They emphasize that crises like imprisonment lead to a process of re-evaluation of one’s former identities, as “hooks” for cognitive identity transformation (Giordano et al. 2002). Also, imprisonment leads to the need to construct new identities due to a recognition of failure in life based on the former criminal identity and its negative consequence for the offender (Ward 2010; Paternoster and Bushway 2009), and also as a result of a possible threat to self-esteem caused by the effects of imprisonment (O’Donnell 2014; Jang et al. 2024, p. 10), which finally result in desistance of crime. Paternoster and Bushway (2009) and Baumeister (1994) describe this process of identity re-evaluation as a result of the crystallization of discontent about one’s former life. Offenders recreate a new identity, changing their sense of powerlessness to one of control and agency (“agent of God”) in their lives (Jang et al. (2022a, p. 31). The author states that before entering jail, the prisoners have already experienced a lack of meaning in their lives, a sense that is aggravated by social isolation as a consequence of their confinement (Jang et al. 2022a, p. 32).

Jang et al. (2018) and Johnson et al. (2021) perceive the relevance of prisons to be restorative institutions that contribute to the rehabilitation of the offender and at the same time reduce internal violence. They see religion as a means for identity change of offenders in the effectiveness of The Prisoners Journey program in one of the largest maximum-security prisons, nicknamed “Angola”, in Louisiana, Southern California. This prison has a total of 2.249 inmates, with a high proportion of men condemned to real-life confinement or even death sentences for violent and sex crimes5 and in conditions with scarce possibilities to leave on parole or even receive visits from families or friends. In summary, a great number of the interviewed would not experiment with real social rehabilitation because they could only leave prison after death.

The authors conceive desistance from crime not as a product of a sudden conversion but see religion serving as one of the sources of social capital that can change the lives of offenders and prevent them from re-offending (Hallett et al. 2017. p. 10). The authors recognize that other needs of the inmate are not religious, which should also be attended to in prison to enforce rehabilitation (drug addiction and therapeutics to increase self-control (Hallett et al. 2017, p. xiii). The authors criticize (American) society for trying to resolve social problems, such as school dropout and lack of job opportunities, through justice measures, which only contribute to weakening the family structures of disadvantaged people even more. They perceive educational and vocational skills as helpful in desistance from crime but not enough, by themselves, to lead the inmates to a prosocial life (Hallett et al. 2017, p. 7).

The model of “The Prisoner’s Journey” has been criticized or self-criticized by the authors as focusing only on searching for solutions at the individual level when facing the issue of delinquency, and ignoring the social and environmental factors of the inmates as citizens at “risk of offending” and their origin from socially disadvantaged backgrounds (Johnson et al. 2021 p. 13). The latter problems have also been demonstrated in other studies referring to religion and responsibility-taking among offenders in Colombia and South Africa (Anderson et al. 2023, affirming that participation in the “The Prisoner’s Journey” program increases, in some cases, responsibility for, and resistance to, crime, and very religious inmates scored high on taking the blame for their social wrongdoings. The interviewed inmates, in general, presented a pattern of acknowledging their agency in committing crime, but also referred to other factors like the hardships of their lives related to poverty since childhood and gang influences. Others stated that the sense of being rightless, confinement, deprivation, and suffering that had accompanied them throughout their life just continued after imprisonment (Anderson et al. 2023, p. 84). This study challenges the view that religious inmates attribute the responsibility for their criminal actions to external factors (God, the devil, and destiny) (Saradijan and Nobus 2003; Topalli et al. 2013) and so religion would not facilitate rehabilitation.

2. Methodological Strategy

Foremost, we rely on two autobiographical books. (a) Los presos dobles, by pastor Julio Paredes, published in 1978, with the sponsorship of the Gendarmerie of Chile, which covers his time in the Public Prison for three years and his time in the Santiago Penitentiary, where he served his sentence for another ten years. He describes the prison, his conversion, and the Pentecostal communities of the Public Prison and the Penitentiary, until his release at the beginning of the 1970s. (b) The second book is Sermons by pastor Julio Assad, who began his intra-prison work in 1951. In it, he also describes prison conditions and the role of Pentecostal communities.

In addition, we turn to a third non-religious book called El Puente, whose author is Alfredo Gómez, which describes the conditions of the underworld, both on the street and inside the prison. Although it is set in the 1930s (it was published in 1967), the descriptions of the social misery of Chilean society, of the street, and the horrible prison conditions, complemented by violence, torture, and death, are similar to those presented by pastor Paredes. Furthermore, Gómez also describes the presence of Pentecostals inside the Public Prison as early as the 1930s.

Likewise, we reviewed some institutional magazines, such as the Chile Pentecostal magazine, from which we were able to extract certain information. The scarce data that appeared at the time on prison work are striking considering the importance that the pastors assigned to it. In fact, it was the main social work of the evangelical churches in Chile, and thus perhaps the identity and anonymity of the ex-converts were protected in this way. However, it does provide quite a bit of information from between the years 1925 and 1945; afterward, information from this period tends to disappear, except for some brief references.

This section is divided into two parts: (a) characterization of the prison; (b) and religious work as a sense-making organizer. In the first part, we highlight two Pentecostal communities, one located in the Public Prison and the other in the Santiago Penitentiary. The first part describes how the relationship between Pentecostalism and converts depends on the type of prison space. In summary, the results of conversion depend on the expectation of release; if inmates receive long sentences, conversions become more difficult. However, as the release process approaches, conversion becomes possible and converts exhibit good behavior to expedite their release. In the second part, we explore the three types of work that appear in the narratives: prayer, music, and preaching. Of them, prayer receives the most community appreciation, as it allows for greater bodily discipline; followed by music, which helps to reframe routine and tedium; and preaching, which enables the social existence of Pentecostal communities within the prisons.

3. Prison Characterization

We describe two prisons: the Public Prison and the Santiago Penitentiary. We distinguish the two types of Pentecostal communities located inside these prison spaces, where Pentecostals do not seek to transform prisoners but rather promote adaptation. Although the founding myth of Pentecostalism (we must remember that it was founded in Chile in 1909) was to transform Chile for Christ, it was never considered to be about transforming the prison for Christ. In this way, prison work consisted more of attracting individuals to the community, and not of transforming the prison into a Pentecostal community.

3.1. The Pentecostal Community in the Public Prison

The Public Prison of Santiago, founded in 1892, was the main prison facility in Santiago de Chile in the 20th century, until its closure in 1990 (it was demolished in 1994); it is worth differentiating it from the (former) Santiago Penitentiary, founded in 1848, and which is still in operation. Both prisons appear in Pentecostal and other accounts. In the Public Prison, the prisoners were temporary, and in the (former) Penitentiary some had already received a sentence. Thus, while 4.02% of the Chilean population was evangelical in 1952, 10% of the prison population was evangelical as well. According to the number presented by pastor Paredes, the intra-prison Pentecostal community represented 10% of the Public Prison. Commentary: it is not so that more evangelicals go to prison, but rather that they convert after going to prison.

Pastor Julio Paredes describes what the Public Prison was like in the 1960s:

… the number of prisoners in the jail was of thousand people who lived crowded together with up to 10 people in each cell, although these were made for four people and there were four wooden cabins attached to the wall with straw mats and with two blankets per person. Apart from the stench, you had to put up with the chinches6 that came out of the cabins and the walls, it was terrible … [sic].

(Paredes 1978, p. 13)

The terrible prison conditions were not so different from the housing misery in which the majority of the Chilean population lived. Different authors describe it, such as Salvador Allende in his book La realidad médico-social chilena (Allende 1939); the Catholic priest Alberto Hurtado in ¿Es Chile un país Católico? (Hurtado 1995); Julio Jobet in Ensayo crítico del desarrollo económico y social de Chile (Jobet 1951); and Jorge Ahumada with En vez de la miseria (Ahumada 1958) and Aníbal Pinto in his work Chile. Un caso de desarrollo frustrado (Pinto 1958). All of them showed Chile as a country with a stable democracy, but with a large majority of the population mired in misery, hunger, malnutrition, and illiteracy. In this way, “physical suffering, the pain of the body itself, are no longer the constitutive elements of punishment” (Foucault 2003, p. 13) because, deep down, Chilean society itself was a kind of big prison for the poor. Even punishment was not different because at that time the family, the school, and even religion were institutions of punishment. Really, the greatest “… punishment was having gone from an art of unbearable sensations to an economy of suspended rights” (Foucault 2003, p. 13). Indeed, if Chilean society was this miserable, how much more so were its prisons? For this reason, the novelist Alfredo Gómez highlighted that in the Public Prison “… day and night, the inmates lived crammed into large collective dungeons. There we ate, slept and did our bodily needs” (Gómez 2017, p. 204). However, what worsened the misery in prisons was the indifference to violence. The one who suffered this violence was the one who was alone, the one who did not come from a criminal career. If misery was already a punishment and worsened with confinement, once confined, another punishment was suffered, becoming the most hidden part of the criminal process (Foucault 2003, p. 11) inflicted by the inmates themselves. In fact, the prison police themselves did not prevent it but rather promoted intra-prison violence, under the principle that “… if they kill each other, it means one less social scourge in society” (Gómez 2017, p. 247). Pastor Paredes points out the following: “… how many young people I saw die; some lasted a few months, and since they did not know how to live, because they did not have experience, they faced each other in a fight with knives and then became corpses” (Paredes 1978, p. 13). Thus, the prison was characterized by misery, violence, recidivism, and death; it was the place of “… social sacrifice, whose function was to appease internal violence, and prevent social conflicts from breaking out” (Girard 2005, p. 13).

Under these prison conditions, the intra-prison Pentecostal community appeared, founded in 1925 (Chile Pentecostal 1925, p. 5). By decree of the Ministry of Justice No. 438, dated April 7, 1938, this authorization was renewed, granting the president of the board of the Pentecostal Methodist Church and the pastors broad authorization to visit the country’s prisons (Chile Pentecostal 1938, p. 1). This situation was also described in the book El Río by Alfredo Gómez Morel, set in the early 1930s (Gómez 2017, p. 285). In turn, this was corroborated by pastor Julio Paredes, who said “… I remember Brother Quintana, an old preacher that my bishop Umaña sent to us on Thursdays” (Paredes 1978, p. 29). The latter means that the intra-prison Pentecostal communities were articulated with the communities of the same denomination outside the prison by the pastor–bishop Umaña.

The intra-prison Pentecostal community was “… the place that the brothers have in prison, and it is very humble and welcoming; it is a room located at the entrance to the prison population; they always have the place well waxed, with texts from the Holy Scriptures on the walls. Every day there are meetings for worshiping God” (Paredes 1978, p. 16). Hygiene, self-care, and self-regulation have been similarly described by current researchers (Marín Alarcón and Bahamondes González 2017; Vergara 2021; Mansilla and Vergara 2023). It was a shelter community, in which inmates, hidden from the prison population, could be themselves: giving free rein to their emotions and feelings and showing their human weaknesses, amid an institution that generally punished and repressed the poor. It was a place where they could abandon the values of masculinity exalted at that time.

Upon entering the church … when my knees touched that wooden floor, I began to cry uncontrollably, I couldn’t speak, I just cried and cried, while I did, passages of my life passed through my mind like in a movie, I couldn’t contain myself. The brothers finished praying, and continued with the service until it was over, and I was still there, crying. After a moment, the brothers, who had surrounded me, lifted me by the arms and told me: you have to keep coming every day, because the Lord has forgiven you … I was soaked in tears.

(Paredes 1978, p. 17)

Although children were taught from a young age that “they should not cry” (Gómez 2017, p. 89), except in the tavern and churches, “… people cry when they discover themselves, a man discovers that he feels infinite pity for himself” (Gómez 2017, p. 90). The prohibition of crying in male children was valid for all contexts: the family, the school, and even more so the street, the anteroom of prison. Especially on the street and in prison “… even if you feel like crying, out of mutual sympathy, you cannot do it, because acceptance consists of behaving as indicated by the laws [norms of the place]” (Gómez 2017, p. 130). This is because “… penal torture is a differentiated production of suffering, an organized ritual for the marking of the victims and the manifestation of the power that punishes” (Foucault 2003, p. 33). In contrast, according to the unwritten expectations of the Pentecostal community, crying is the ultimate manifestation of someone becoming a man of God: crying is divine. Generally, “… the criminal does not have the right to cry or make mistakes while he is committing a crime. If he sobs, his group despises him” (Gómez 2017, p. 350). On the other hand, in the Pentecostal community, you can cry, because the commitment is to abandon crime. Perhaps this is the reason why some inmates always fluctuated between two worlds: being Pentecostal or not, because on one side they could cry and on the other side they had to be men hardened by their life experiences.

In these intra-prison spaces, both in the general population and in the Pentecostal community, the question of what it means to be a man is raised. Both writers, Pastor Julio Paredes (converted) and Alfredo Gómez Morel (the author who narrates about his own origin in the underworld) allude to ideas such as “true men”: while children are urged to be “boy-men”, adolescents to be “almost men”, and young people to be “full-fledged men” or “a real man”, there are still adults who are “poor men” (Paredes 1978; Gómez 2017). In the case of the Pentecostal community, other ideas stand out, such as those of the “old man” and “new man”: “… I began to meditate on how mistaken I was in my old life; I believed myself to be brave and very much a man, because I was bold to commit my crimes … Now, I believed and understood that being a man does not imply cowardly trampling on someone” (Paredes 1978, p. 23). Instead, now I could be “… a real man with my responsibilities” (Paredes 1978, p. 23).

The intra-prison Pentecostal community is similar to other communities, with its initiation, transition, and termination rituals and also its hierarchies and requirements for promotion and descent in leadership: “… I went up the spiritual ladder. Without intending to, I was occupying positions of responsibility in the congregation. I went through all of them, until one day the total responsibility for the congregation fell on my shoulders. During the three years I was in process I acted as a guide for the public prison congregation” (Paredes 1978, p. 25). The prison is populated by criminal communities that have their rituals, leadership, promotion requirements, care, protection, and services. Likewise, the Pentecostal community must also emphasize the different ritual processes to distinguish the old man from the new man. And by gradually granting him social promotions, from simple cleaning tasks to being in charge of the work (pastor worker) and reaching to assume other responsibilities of the church, let us remember here that at that time and in general, the worker remained a worker throughout his life.

… the prison congregation, at that time, was more or less a hundred brothers, divided into young and old men. New people were coming to us every day; Some came touched by the message of the preaching that we did in the different patios, others came invited by a brother, and others looking for a way to escape the state of boredom and emptiness, due to the sadness and overwhelm they felt, and others, finally, out of curiosity, attracted by the manifestations of joy of the brothers who in the meetings danced to the Lord and gave glories to God, blessed from heaven.

(Paredes 1978, p. 27)

3.2. The Pentecostal Community in the Santiago Penitentiary

A very significant fact that Pastor Julio Paredes shows is the difference between the intra-prison Pentecostal community of the Public Prison and that of the (former) Penitentiary. This is interesting because at that time Pentecostalism was considered a sect (d’Epinay 1968) rather than a community (Tennekes 1985). The people held in the (former) Penitentiary were those who had received sentences of over five years. As Pastor Julio Paredes highlights, “… the two congregations are different and those who arrive transferred from prison to the ‘Peni’ (Penitentiary) immediately notice this difference; the situation of uncertainty of the brothers in the [Public] Prison greatly influences this, since the one who is in the Prison is a defendant, that is, during the time he is there he is waiting for the sentence that justice is going to dictate” (Paredes 1978, p. 45). Indeed, surveillance and punishment are different: “… society does not see in the punishments it inflicts on the prisoner its enjoyment of making a human being suffer; sees in them the necessary precaution to prevent similar crimes” (Foucault 2003, p. 86). The Pentecostal community considers the recluse as reformable; on the other hand, the prison system sees him as a criminal who will continue to be so. That is why it would not matter how long he has been imprisoned, whether he is guilty or not: a guilty or innocent prisoner would be better than a free criminal, because “… criminal punishment is, therefore, a generalized function, coextensive with the social body and each of its elements” (Foucault 2003, p. 83).

One of the aspects that differentiate both institutions is that in the Public Prison, the intra-prison Pentecostal community is used for “weathering”, where prisoners merely await the results of the judicial processes. On the other hand, in the Penitentiary, since the sentence periods are known, the time is structured in terms of thinking about how to face the years of confinement, whether studying, working, or giving way to leisure in some way, and time is planned according to prison rituals more than according to the Pentecostal community. In the Public Prison, although “… it is ugly to be worthy of punishment, but not glorious to punish” (Foucault 2003, p. 12); it is a temporary confinement. On the other hand, in the Penitentiary, permanent confinement is the punishment that glorifies society.

The way the church works in the Penitentiary could be compared to that outside, where the many personal and material obligations leave very little time for God. As a consequence of this, it is a church without tears in its eyes, with very little spiritual strength and almost without love, since each one is worried about his own thing and serves as a ‘career’ for God.

(Paredes 1978, p. 45)

The pastor describes three types of Pentecostal communities: (a) the Pentecostal community of the Public Prison; (b) the Pentecostal community of the Penitentiary; and (c) the extra-prison Pentecostal community, mentioning their social differentiations, according to the social and spatial contexts. The great differentiation is given by the time dedicated to the rituals (praying, crying, and (ad) orating). The interesting thing is that within Pentecostal communities, “… punishments have ceased to be theater and spectacle” (Foucault 2003, p. 11). The difference is that the spectacle is transferred to hell, and eternal punishment to other non-believers, regardless of whether they are inmates or not.

Pastor Paredes highlights the following: “… since the brothers in the prison live separately in cells only for evangelicals … the work in the Prison is more evangelical and missionary since the people are passing through that place; every day they come and go, and the meeting place is always full and there are new faces” (Paredes 1978, p. 46). Because they were awaiting sentencing, and they could spend several years, even up to five, in that state (according to the pastor himself) since it was a transit prison, there were no work or study programs, but rather complete leisure. So, what to do with this excess leisure time? There was the possibility of attending the Pentecostal community. This involved participating in Pentecostal rituals and prayers to have access to God’s justice. This was presented as compassionate towards the poor, contrasting with the justice of men, conceived as imprisoning the poor. What makes “punishment” in the heart of the punished is not the sensation of suffering, but the idea of “pain” (Foucault 2003, p. 88). The Pentecostal community offers to eradicate that sorrow, that pain.

In this regard, he highlights that “… the ‘Peni’ congregation is stable … the only possibility of leaving sooner is through pardon or conditional, the prisoner is concerned with meeting the requirements that the law demands of him: conduct, work, and study. The Christian also has, like others, to take on these obligations, and only attends meetings and preaching points when he can” (Paredes 1978, p. 46). In this way, religion is one more activity among others, like work and study; we see that “… the penitentiary regime also links work to punishment” (Foucault 2003, p. 221). At this time, for Pentecostalism, like almost all religious groups of the time, work was a kind of punishment. This was understandable under the exploitative and oppressive conditions of work at that time, for which, in fact, the demands of the union movements arose.

Daily life inside the prison in the Penitentiary was very complex and challenging for an inmate: in the “Peni, man becomes brutalized, because there are all kinds of perversions that it is impossible to explain in great detail, all the moral and physical filth of that place in the time I was in is very difficult to enumerate” (Paredes 1978, p. 47). Violence and death surrounded every life; it was a very difficult space for the authorities to control since there were crimes almost every day. The disciplinary measures were severe and terrible. With “… the word punishment, we must understand everything that is capable of humiliating them” (Foucault 2003, p. 166), whether in a physical, psychological, or symbolic dimension.

However, even so, the Penitentiary was not the most violent and deadly in the region.

… the most fearsome were the famous transfers to the disciplinary prisons of Victoria7 and La Serena8. That’s where the rebels of bad behavior ended up, and no one wasn’t afraid of them. Things there were terrible, there was a lot of punishment, from the moment the prisoner arrived they began to be punished and the punishment to which he was subjected was terribly inhuman; there man lost his name and only identified himself with a number that he had to memorize, since he could no longer have a name.

(Paredes 1978, p. 48)

Once people were imprisoned, especially those who came from a criminal career, they remained in an environment of violence. For those who as children were abandoned by their mothers and fathers, or fled to the streets due to violence or misery at home, violence became flesh in them. They were aware that death was besieging them at every moment. Indeed, “… death—for a true criminal—is a simple spectacle. A thief dies a little every time he commits a crime. The inexorable departure does not interest him; he becomes such a friend of death that he lives every moment as if it were the last of his life” (Gómez 2017, p. 283). Therefore, if he was violated in confession processes or inside prisons, this only continued what he had experienced since he was a child. It should be noted that, in addition, the violence used to extract information sometimes led to death: “… adults were martyred. They hung them from a beam, with their arms tied behind their backs, and electricity was applied to their testicles” (Gómez 2017, p. 261). Violence as a spectacle inside the prison among the inmates was transformed into a “pedagogical” and instructive time-space: “… the prison authorities took special care so that the entire population, especially the novice would see what kind of a hell prison was like and what awaits them if they continue screwing with society. [It was the] Therapeutics of terror” (Gómez 2017, p. 283). Thus, “… the punishments were a school, with the book always open for the ceremony” (Foucault 2003, p. 103).

In this way, the intra-prison Pentecostal community was a refuge from extreme violence, but also a space to keep death at bay. The violence had been incarnated in the inmate before arriving at the prison. In effect, converting to Pentecostalism did not mean that the man stopped being violent, but rather that he locked the violence inside him and used it again if he left the Pentecostal community. But, as long as he was part of the community, he used symbolic violence against himself: now he fought against himself and put his body at the service of his own decision (and that of God).

4. Religious Work as an Organizer of Meaning

One of the most innovative aspects of Pentecostal religious assistance during the period explored in this article was that it transformed religious rituals—prayer, singing, and preaching—into work. In prison, time–space was surrounded by violence, and the meaning of life was lost. Pentecostalism provided the proposal of a community, which was not entirely new, because other groups, including criminal ones, also offered it. However, what Pentecostalism offered was horizons of meaning through work; even more so, Pentecostalism transformed religious rites into work. Prayer implied sacrifice, singing was enjoyment, and preaching was what made the community grow. The most significant thing was that all types of work were the responsibility of each and every one.

4.1. Invocation Ritual: Prayer as Sacred Work

Prayer as a ritual has never been a relevant object of study for sociology or anthropology, as it has been in the history of religions or the philosophy of religions. In modern Pentecostalism, it achieved a very significant social and cultural status. As Marcel Mauss maintained, prayer is not purely individual and contemplative, but social, and it is also work (Mauss 1970). It was conceived that all work at the time (in industrial and post-industrial society) implied sacrifice; prayer, for Pentecostalism, is work, and as such, sacred and sacrificial (Girard 2005). Prayer is considered a sacrifice or a duty among specialists and consecrated persons of different religions; however, what distinguishes Pentecostalism is that it transforms prayer into a religious specialty, as the story that follows highlights.

We got up at 6:30 a.m. and at 7 a.m. we were praying until 8 a.m.; then we dedicated ourselves to reading the scriptures. While we had breakfast, we commented on what we had read. Afterward, each one dedicated themselves to their work or chores of cleaning and preparing for the midday service. The brothers who came daily to preach the message of hope and eternal life were: 3/4 of an hour of preaching in the different courtyards of the prison and 1/2 h of adoration of God and worship. I, who before was always rebellious and hard, in all the meetings I lacked tears to cry, humiliated at the feet of Jesus Christ.

(Paredes 1978, p. 20)

The prison space was transformed into a monastery, in which confinement was sacralized, and prayer was transformed into an individual and community work of great responsibility, which helped to structure leisure. This was conceived as the mother of crimes. Prayer made it possible to transfer violence, directed and produced by people, towards the devil. From this perspective, “… the game of violence is hidden” (Girard 2005, p. 253). It is not denied that violence is something inherent to people, it is stated that it is the devil who promotes and encourages people to be violent. In effect, a converted inmate is one who does not allow himself to be overcome by violence, but now “binds the violence within him.” (Assad 1986, p. 71). That is to say, violence does not disappear but rather manages to control it, as the story says, keep the violence tied up and thus manage to control it. Now he no longer fights with people but with the devil in prayer. Consequently, prayer is also a work that channels violence.

In this way, through the work of prayer, leisure was diminished and violence itself was confined. Like all work, prayer requires effort and bodily sacrifice. Praying meant, firstly, working to domesticate violence, and in this way, when being a victim of violence, acquiring the temperance to endure it, without showing cowardice, but rather courage to endure the violence. That is why working in prayer and praying while working meant prestige in the community. One of the requirements to be a leader of the Pentecostal community was to spend most of the time praying, especially at night and at dawn, because they were the hours of greatest sacrifice: sleep was sacrificed. In this way, prayer was joined with vigil, but also with fasting. In fact, prayer also implied the modeling of the body. Valid prayer in Pentecostalism was on one’s knees: synonymous with humiliation and sacrifice. Spending hours kneeling on the rough cement produced calluses on the knees; this callus was the hallmark of permanently working on prayer. In this way “… prayer [was] one of the central phenomena of religious life” (Mauss 1970, p. 96). The Pentecostals transformed it into the most important social resource for the community. As already mentioned, the best prayer was the one performed on one’s knees and crying; for this reason, the pastor, referring to the Pentecostal community of the Penitentiary, said it is “… a church without tears in its eyes” (Paredes 1978, p. 45). On the other hand, the Public Prison community was a church “with tears,” that is, committed to fellow prisoners, as this story points out:

I have not seen anywhere else other gatherings more fervent and fuller of the presence of the power of God. All prayers have tears in their eyes. Because the congregation is made up of only male brothers, the messages are strong, direct, and based on the word of God; things are said by their name and preachers are employed by God to deliver sound doctrine.

(Paredes 1978, p. 28)

Prayer represents the life of the poor, just as the Pentecostal religion does: life is a valley of tears and is lived on one’s knees, that is, humiliated and plundered. Prayer “… like a myth, is loaded with meaning; it is often as rich in ideas and images as a religious narrative” (Mauss 1970, p. 96). For this reason, prayer was loaded with mythical images: while fighting with the devil and his legion of demons, the imprisoned Pentecostal conceived and imagined a world in his favor with angels fighting on his side. The time spent in prayer—which was always performed out loud—implied prestige and even power. To be a religious leader meant that one could preach with direct and strong messages, which, if said by others, external ones, for example, would be offensive. Prayer also implied a cathartic process, crying over one’s biography, and a reflection on one’s life. This also entailed a process of raising awareness and assuming responsibility for their criminal acts. Thus, “… the individual does nothing other than adjust to his personal feelings a language in which he has not intervened at all. The very root of any prayer, no matter how individual it may be, is the ritual” (Mauss 1970, p. 116), and it is through this ritual that the imprisoned Pentecostal assigns meaning to his confinement, which despite self-conceiving as despised, they also see themselves doing significant work for their family:

Those men who were worthless in the eyes of the world and who lived only to harm their neighbors, in these prayers to God, bathed their eyes in tears for everyone, without exception of people, they prayed for the authorities and all who are in eminence, as the word of God commands. We prayed for our relatives and for all those who suffer because of sin.

(Paredes 1978, p. 30)

Even “… when the prayer is individual and free, even [so] the devoted chooses for himself the terms and the moment, in everything he says there is nothing other than consecrated phrases and what he speaks are also consecrated things, that is, social” (Mauss 1970, p. 114). The individual nuances and transforms the codes, language, and rituality of the evocative work. As the story shows, individual prayer also acquires a community (family), social (for the penitentiary and judicial authorities), and political (for those in positions of responsibility) responsibility. In this way, the converted inmate also became part of the change and social and political transformation of the country, although Pentecostalism was presented at this time as apolitical. Through prayer, you can think about your individual, community, social, and political well-being, with codes and representations provided by the institution (Mauss 1970, p. 116) but filtered by the language of the poor. In effect, the only meaningful work to which they could aspire was prayer, which is why they conceive themselves as “men of prayer” (individual) or “people of prayer” (intra-prison church).

The public jail congregation is people of prayer; when God had me in charge, we had a prayer plan, which, thank God, we rigorously followed, apart from the general services of worship and prayed to God. We prayed from the beginning of the day: in the morning, from seven to eight, from eleven thirty to twelve, in the afternoon prayer chain, from three to four, at night from nine to ten o’clock and at three in the morning, All of us with a blanket on our backs, on the cement floor of our cell, we were praying to God until four in the morning.

(Paredes 1978, p. 30)

Prayer is “… a rite performed in view of sacred things. It addresses divinity and influences it” (Mauss 1970, p. 96). It is a ritualized work, which has its prescriptions and proscriptions, but above all has social and symbolic rewards. This is because “… it is full of strength and effectiveness; it is often as powerfully creative as a sympathetic ceremony” (Mauss 1970, p. 96). We consider what a Chilean communist intellectual wrote: “… for the canutos … it is very easy to pray on a silk cushion, when the belly is happy” (Sabella 1997, p. 229). On the contrary, for an imprisoned Pentecostal, that is to say, a poor person, nothing was easy for him. Sabella’s imagination of prayer was a caricature of a person who mumbled a few words so food was assured; on the other hand, the imprisoned Pentecostal prayed on his knees in the dirt or cement and with an empty stomach. It was a sacrifice, a work with a human and social meaning: he cried while fasting because his help could only come from above. This would be a miracle because the family, society, and the State had abandoned him to his fate. For this reason, the expression “… the public prison is a town of prayer” refers to the intra-prison Pentecostal community, in which men work praying.

Curiously, in extra-prison Pentecostal communities, those who pray are rather women, performing, like the “men in prison,” intercessory prayers and chains of prayers, which are the most frequent. These rituals help the convert acquire, through intercessory prayer, awareness of the other. Thinking about helping the needs of other people and making chains of prayers creates awareness that the inmate can only be transformed and socially inserted into the community: he will never be able to achieve it alone. Hence the idea of a chain: the individual is a link, part of a chain (community) that serves to connect, resist, and transport loads. This is why “… the effectiveness attributed to prayer is similar to that of work or the mechanical arts” (Mauss 1970, p. 119), and like work, prayer is a community service, and like in the story that follows, prayer–work also benefits others.

That afternoon when a guard called me, I rushed to greet him and at the same time put myself at his command … he told me: ’Brother, I am a sympathizer of the gospel; my wife is seriously ill, I took her to church to be anointed, and when I can I go to the meetings; there, then, a brother advised me to ask you to pray for my wife so that the Lord would heal her. That’s why I had called her, would you do me the favor of praying for her?’ This afternoon we are going to pray—I responded—only because of his request and I believe that the Lord, in his infinite mercy, will once again answer our prayer.

(Paredes 1978, p. 32)

As Marcel Mauss highlighted, “… prayer is social not only because of its content but also because of its forms, which are of exclusively social origin” (Mauss 1970, p. 115). While the prison population considers a police guard as an enemy, for a converted inmate he is another person who requires support and accompaniment. Although many consider him as an enemy, an adversary, the guard is the person who facilitates or hinders community rituals. Let us consider that prayer is “… speaking, it is acting and thinking: that is why prayer depends on both belief and worship” (Mauss 1970, p. 96). It is then necessary to show the guard not only the effectiveness of prayer; it is also about making him see the solidarity of the Pentecostal community. And that is why “… the brothers were joyful and we knelt ready to cry, to moan humiliated at the feet of the Lord, until we received the testimony in our hearts that the prayer had been answered” (Paredes 1978, p. 33). Crying for the needs of the other is what allowed the converted inmate to understand the suffering of the other, for example, when he was assaulted or violated. Therefore, prayer is not just another job, it is not pure contemplation or mnemonic repetition, but it is empathy with the pain of others, with the need of the other: it is social consciousness. Praying meant working for others and with others. A prayer “… is not reduced to the outpouring of a soul or the cry of a feeling. It is the result of the accumulated effort of men and generations” (Mauss 1970, p. 114). It is constantly updated, contextualized, and historicized, but above all, it becomes flesh in those who transform prayer into work. Indeed, “… it was an intense and sincere prayer, asking for mercy and the healing of the wife of the major Quezada. That is why when we stood up after an hour of prayer when I looked at the faces of my brothers, I understood that the Lord had answered us” (Paredes 1978, p. 33). Let us remember here that every prayer is “… a series of words whose meaning is determined and organized according to the order that the group recognizes as orthodox” (Mauss 1970, p. 115). Indeed, its intensity and length vary depending on the group and the need. After “… a few days I was called to the internal headquarters and the major Quezada [guard] received me smiling, and in a more affectionate way, he told me: brother, I want to thank all the brothers who prayed for my wife, since the Lord has healed her completely” (Paredes 1978, p. 33). Thus, the consequence of the prayer “… is what the community attributes to it. It is effective to the extent that religion declares it effective” (Mauss 1970, p. 115). That is why “… at night, after all these things, I dedicated myself to prayer, there I was crying in my favorite prayer at three in the morning, I have never had so much joy feeling the presence of the Lord, as in these prayers” (Paredes 1978, p. 47)

4.2. Music: The Sung Work

Music plays a central role in the process of religious and doctrinal literacy in Pentecostalism (Garma 2000). Pentecostalism is music, it is singing: everything fundamental is sung, over and over again. The writer Andrés Sabella says “the canutos spend their time singing. They are going to enter heaven with a guitar in tow!” (Sabella 1997, p. 229). Guillermo Cáceres, who later became an evangelical chaplain of the Chilean Gendarmerie, in June 1971, points to this date as the beginning of a new life. They had invited him to visit the prison temple, and he went more out of courtesy than conviction. He says that, as he was arriving, something happened. He heard a song: “I wandered in the darkness” and felt something inside him. On 31 December 1975, without understanding why, they told him that he was amnestied and that he could leave. Only seven years of his twenty-year sentence had passed (Alonso 2014). Listening to that hymn was the fuse that lit the spark of a new life.

I wandered in the darkness,

until I saw my Jesus

who, through His love and kindness,

brought light to my dawn.

I wandered far from the fold,

far from my good shepherd,

like a sheep on the mountains,

wandering, that was me.

 

Chorus

Joy and light I have in my soul today,

joy and light today, now that I am saved,

since I saw my Jesus

I have felt the joy of His love in me,

joy and light I have in my soul today.

Joy and light today, now that I am saved.

The clouds and the storm

do not hide my Savior,

and in the midst of darkness

I will rejoice in His love.

Walking in the light of God

I find full and sweet peace,

I move forward without fear,

leaving the world behind.

I will soon see Him as He is:

a fountain of pure and beautiful light,

and I will eternally rejoice

because of His love.

He will soon return to gather

the souls He won on the cross,

shedding His blood to save

the vilest sinner.

Jesus invites you today, sinner,

to follow His footsteps now,

to follow the paths

He marked out on the cross.

Come now, sinner,

do not err in error any longer,

for tomorrow there may no longer be

forgiveness for you.

Music is an important resource for the socialization of Pentecostal culture (Orellana 2008; Mansilla 2016; Orellana and Mansilla 2022) and a resource for protest (Corpus 2016a, 2016b). Along with the melody, the linguistic codes allow us to illuminate an interiority cobbled by a life story of pain. Regarding this, Pastor Paredes points out the following: “… when I entered the room, the brothers were singing … I felt so vile and so dirty, and at the same time, ashamed because I was walking barefoot. The brothers were clean and dressed with ties, they looked different and I knew that they were prisoners and that they were prisoners just like me, but there was a difference between them and me” (Paredes 1978, p. 17). Most of the stories highlighted that along with the interest that the devoted showed in the visits, what had attracted them most to a Pentecostal cult was the music, which was often accompanied by wind instruments. Above all, they refer to the vehemence with which it was sung, the emotion of which increased in a larger group. Furthermore, the lyrics appealed to the interiority of the believer. Although they were hymns inherited from missionary Protestantism, the use of voices and instruments transported them to a kind of secular space. In fact, visitors spent most of their time in these cult activities. You could pray alone, but you sang with the community.

Rodrigo Moulian highlights Pentecostal music as being a manifestation of the spirit, inducing cathartic states, and signs of the supernatural power of God (Moulian 2012a; 2012b). This is fundamentally manifested when music, voices, and instruments are combined, as Pastor Julio Paredes points out in the following: “… Every Thursday and Sunday we went out to preach in the patios and the Lord. The visiting brothers came in singing with all kinds of instruments and in the patios, a large number of us gathered and the party was great [sic]” (Paredes 1978, p. 52). Music is also work, but unlike sacrificial prayer, music is liberating, therapeutic, proclaiming, acclaiming, and invigorating work. For this reason, as José Severa highlights, there are multiple musical artists who throughout history have dedicated a topic or have made mention of prison, alluding to it as a symbol, or included an evident autobiographical tone exposed in the lyrics of the songs in a more or less explicit way (Severa 2012).

Perhaps the most famous no-prison or post-prison evangelical song is “El preso” (1974) by Colombian Álvaro Velásquez9, a paradoxical song because it is as pessimistic in its lyrics as it is happy in its music, as its genre is salsa. The song says the following: “In the world in which I live/there are always four corners/but between corner and corner/there will always be the same/for me there is no sky/neither moon nor stars/for me, the sun does not shine/for me everything is darkness …” In the case of Pentecostal prison music, it is pessimistic when it refers to the past, but it is full of hope when it comes to the present and the future.

Music inside prisons, as a social and symbolic resource, affects several aspects: it provides a favorable base so that inmates can integrate into other learning processes and formal teaching models; seeks greater sensitivity in the acceptance of the other as a principle of coexistence; improves behavior within the prison by facilitating new links between the prison population; and contributes to reducing recidivism factors (Pastor 2013, p. 49). Above all, “… it is the language of those who do not have language, the means of expressing the lived experience, the encounter with something that surpasses them” (d’Epinay 1968, p. 84).

The importance of music in prison spaces has been given since the very birth of Pentecostal prison work. Regarding this, a pastoral agent who visited the Santiago Penitentiary tells us the following: “… Brother Luís Alberto Morales gave me a printed copy of two hymns that he had written and they reflect the firmness of his new steps and the gratitude he feels towards who called him out of darkness into his admirable light” (Fuego de Pentecostés 1934, p. 6). We also found another hymn created by an imprisoned person, described as “… the lyrics of a hymn that the Lord has given me during my time in prison” (Ortiz 1943).

In this humble cell,

In this sad prison,

My Blessed Jesus came

To grant me forgiveness

… Because this poor sinner

Strayed from the Savior,

Today he suffers the consequences,

In this sad prison.

Music contributes to generating different therapeutic effects: relief, catharsis, mediation, etc. However, this does not mean that singing or music, even though they deeply appeal to people’s feelings and emotions, in themselves contribute to the social transformation of the believer: “… there are the real and sincere ones and also those who want shorten their time in prison; There are those who believed that by being in church and reading the Bible or singing some hymns, God was going to take them out of that place, those who very soon realized their mistake” (Paredes 1978, p. 28). “Every worship service and meeting, every song of praise to my Christ … everything was so beautiful, I felt such great joy that I could only reciprocate by crying at the feet of the Lord and giving thanks for his infinite mercy. We were at the noon meeting; the place was full of people and we sang beautiful praises to the Lord” (Paredes 1978, p. 31).

Singing is considered a fundamental element for reintegration. Festivals of evangelical and unpublished prison songs and praise services were held, and musical groups from other evangelical churches were invited (La Unidad Cristiana 1986, p. 7). A hymn that is frequently sung inside prisons is “Libre ahora soy” (“Free Now I Am”) by Pastor Juan Carlos Mejías, which says the following:

… Christ gave me freedom

He broke the chains

He parted the bars

And now like the wind, I am free …

They deprived me of my freedom

And behind bars, I had to cry

And the prison my companion was.10

These lyrics, sung inside prisons, have allowed many people to identify with them and convert to the evangelical world.

4.3. Preaching: Work That Makes the Community Grow

Different classical authors have highlighted that Pentecostalism emphasizes the dichotomy of “working for the world” or “working for the Lord” (Willems 1967; d’Epinay 1968; Tennekes 1985). Although “secular work”, for the world, is secondary or little appreciated among pastors, it is work with care, responsibility, and commitment, to give a good testimony (Mansilla and Orellana 2022).

Among all, preaching is the work par excellence: “… the next day, and at the indicated time, we were beginning the work of preaching” (Paredes 1978, p. 24). Work is a concept whose sense and meaning change historically, culturally, and socially (Hopenhayn 2001), and in any case, it is essential as a means of subsistence. It acquires overtones of necessity and obligation from the Bible itself when the apostle Paul points out that whoever does not want to work should not eat (Thess. 3:10); There have been various reflections, especially philosophical, political, and social, on work, and questions have been raised such as: what is work? What happens when work is a moral and social imperative, but there is no work? Is there freedom to work or not? For the poor, work is an imperative necessity: work or starve. Work has distinctive connotations because what is work for one group is not work for another. For an imprisoned Pentecostal, the job par excellence is preaching, which is considered a service to God and neighbor: “… one day, after finishing a preaching service” (Paredes 1978, p. 61). Still, for others, it is a non-job.

D’Epinay highlights the following in relation to Pentecostal pastors: a) working in a secular activity means losing time; b) when working, there is a danger of losing the “spiritual vision” of things; and c) finally, the Bible requires total dedication to the ministry (d’Epinay 1968, p. 133). This Pentecostal vision of work was carried into prison. Although not everyone could be a pastor or pulpit preacher, everyone should and had to be a preacher outside of the congregation. And the pastor had to be dedicated to the church: “… a pastor works for the Church and not for the world” (d’Epinay 1968, p. 152). He had to preach individually and in groups: “… new people were coming to us daily; some came touched by the message of the preaching that we did in the different patios, others came invited by a brother” (Paredes 1978, p. 27).

Just as in the Middle Ages work in the monastery and convent was especially appreciated (Cohn 1998), with Pentecostalism that appreciation returned (Ossa 1991). However, in the Pentecostal case, it was possible to understand this return because the working conditions were so miserable that, far from being an activity of achievement, it became a plunder. In the words of Marxism, work had ceased to be a source of dignity and had become an activity of alienation (Hopenhayn 2001). Consequently, as in any other job, the preacher had to go to work among his fellow men, in his homeland, with his people. Unlike prayer, which was a fundamentally individual work, and singing, which was a cultic work, preaching was the work of expansion because it was what made the community grow: without preaching there was no community. Therefore, everyone was called to preach: the growth of the community was everyone’s responsibility.

In the prison context, the good performance of the intra-Pentecostal community depended on the goodwill of the guards: not all of them were conducive. However, many guards already considered that religion was a resource that, at least, contributed to reducing violence among prisoners, at least in those who assigned value to religion. In the case of the Pentecostals, they were gaining more prestige because the psychosocial transformations that occurred in the converts were observed, no matter how few they were. However, their religious community was the most vehement inside the prison, and some inmates were willing to cooperate with the guards. Between them and the person in charge of the work there was, in fact, a symbiosis of collaboration as Paredes highlights: “… this authority was very kind to the Christians and was always willing to give us all kinds of facilities to carry out the preaching of the gospel” (Paredes 1978, p. 32). That is, working conditions were also negotiated with the local authorities, the same as secular spaces.

So, Pentecostalism at this time was a community because there was work for everyone; everyone could and should work, and all work was considered relevant.

The community distributed the spaces, times, and responsibilities of each person at work: “… every Thursday and Sunday we went out to preach in the patios” (Paredes 1978, p. 52). The testimonies highlight that, precisely, despite the internal violence, the sermons were heard, although in an atmosphere of bustle and verbal violence. But that was also the space of the reclusive converts and they were the ones who knew the codes. For example, at times when there was a settling of scores between inmates, they stopped preaching (Gómez 2017). The support of the extra-prison Pentecostal community was just that, support. The extra-prison Pentecostal community also supported the work by sending preachers from outside, especially ex-prisoners, that is, those who knew the codes of the place, and the land where they were going to work and were not in unnecessary danger. For this reason, “… at the indicated time, there are the preachers, the choristers with their instruments ready to enter the prison with the message of salvation” (Paredes 1978, p. 59). If the work of prayer is sacrifice, that of preaching can be arid, and the Pentecostals knew it. For this reason, they accompanied him with musical instruments to smooth out the work of preaching and make the public more inclined to listen.

As in any job, to preach it was necessary to meet certain conditions: “The one who preached had to have a very good testimony so that the other prisoners would receive him, therefore, the person in charge of the work knew whom he could put to preach and who doesn’t” (Paredes 1978, p. 52).

… according to the regulations [a Protestant pastor from a denomination that Pastor Paredes does not explain] tells him you cannot enter the prison because you are a former inmate and I do not want and we do not want you to continue just preaching and shouting in the prisons patios since we intend to change the system of preaching in prisons for a formal type of work which must be done by men who have graduated from seminaries with their respective degrees.

(Paredes 1978, p. 66)

That is the difference in prison work: while the Pentecostals highlighted the “manager of the work” and the preacher as a “worker of the word”, the Protestants (Baptists, Methodists, Adventists) considered the one who entered to care for the inmates as a professional of the word, and above all, he should not and could not be a former prisoner. The logic was “once a prisoner, always a prisoner”. On the other hand, Pentecostalism considered that the ex-prisoner was the most relevant person to carry out the preaching, because he was knowledgeable about the prison culture, the linguistic codes, explicit and tacit, especially the latter (all the unspoken codes).

5. Conclusions

The period of Methodist Pentecostalism beginning in 1925 provided two very significant social and symbolic dimensions that had a certain efficiency in the prison environment because they were consistent with its founding myth. These dimensions were the offer of a community as a social resource for the first stage of reintegration and, secondly, that of social and symbolic resources such as traditional religious rituals and resources transformed into work, highlighting the value affinity between these rituals and work (which imply sacrifice, freedom, and social mobility).

The intra-prison Pentecostal community was a significant offering inside the prisons. It is quite evident that a former prisoner cannot reintegrate socially alone: he needs a community, and this was what Pentecostalism offered. First, there was an intra-prison community insertion and then it was connected with the extra-prison Pentecostal community; in this way, a true social reintegration was produced. But the first stage was fundamental, community insertion, where the inmate participated and belonged, working on the smallest activities (such as cleaning) to the most important ones (such as directives). Every job was sacred and was for God; God was represented in the community, and the Holy Spirit was in pastoral authority. The community developed different hierarchical processes, which promoted social mobility and the resignification of work. Working for the community was the ultimate privilege.

A second significant element for social reintegration was work, as without work, social reintegration is not possible. However, it was not about the work itself, but about meaningful work. At this time, working conditions were execrable, and so were the salaries; work was needed only to eat. So, the work was not stimulating, but on the contrary, intimidating. If this applied to workers without criminal records, how much more did it apply to those who did have a history? Indeed, work acquires connotations of punishment, sorrow, and tears; in this sense, work was a prison without bars. Thus, in fact, and frequently, work did not help that much in the process of social reintegration. Consequently, what Pentecostalism did was give it transcendental meaning (God wants humankind to work), inherent meaning (work has moral value), and instrumental meaning (work generates resources). What differentiated Pentecostalism was its transcendental value: God loves the worker; he helps him look for work; and he provides you with skills and motivation to work. The Pentecostal community also provided social and symbolic resources so that the worker received the motivation and enthusiasm to face his work every day, through prayer, singing, and preaching. This had to be performed daily and at every moment if necessary, and at the end of the day, the community was assisted in revitalizing itself and the believer.