This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library]On: 12 November 2014, At: 05:52Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

ReligionPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrel20

The time and place for prayer:evangelical urbanism and citywideprayer movementsOmri Elisha aa Department of Anthropology , Queens College , CUNY, 314Powdermaker Hall, 65–30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing , NY , 11367 ,USAPublished online: 08 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Omri Elisha (2013) The time and place for prayer: evangelical urbanism andcitywide prayer movements, Religion, 43:3, 312-330, DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2013.798162

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2013.798162

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

The time and place for prayer: evangelical urbanismand citywide prayer movements

Omri Elisha*

Department of Anthropology, Queens College, CUNY, 314 Powdermaker Hall, 65–30 KissenaBlvd., Flushing, NY 11367, USA

ABSTRACT This article explores a recent trend in evangelical revivalism knownas ‘citywide prayer,’a movement organized around prayer networks and publicrituals that highlight religious concerns deemed specific to cities and metropo-litan regions. Building on research that includes ethnographic fieldwork inKnoxville, Tennessee, and focusing on the discourse and practical strategies ofcitywide prayer, the article argues that advocates of this movement promote astyle of evangelical urbanism in which prayer serves as a key medium for reim-agining one’s sense of place, against the disorientation and alienation associatedwith urban life. Moreover, prayer is presented as a medium for marking time innon-secular terms, as is demonstrated in the use of technologies of religious dis-cipline such as annotated prayer calendars, which invite participants to inhabitmultiple coexisting temporalities. It is further suggested that when enacted thisevangelical urbanism constitutes a form of urban praxis, enabling projects ofemplacement that respond to larger forces that are seen otherwise to limit grass-roots agency. Among the wider implications of this discussion is the observationthat evangelical revivals, despite their well-known emphasis on individual sal-vation and millennialist fervor, are oriented toward and engaged with situatedsocial realities of the ‘here and now,’ including the rhythms of daily life inmodern cities.

KEY WORDS evangelicals; prayer; urban; revivalism; time; Christianity; U.S.

‘Tonight, when you sing praises to God, and you say the word I,’ the worship leaderinstructed the small crowd, ‘try to think of that I as representing not you, but all ofus together who represent what we call “the Church of Knoxville.”’ The prayerservice in the chapel of a local megachurch was advertised as ‘Bringing Back theProdigals,’ an invitation to churchgoing evangelicals to gather in prayer onbehalf of ‘unchurched’ friends and relatives, especially those who strayed fromthe faith. Yet for many participants, the gathering had an even more excitingpurpose. It was the first in a series of planned events that were part of a citywide‘Month of Prayer’ in Knoxville, Tennessee, promoted by local pastors and revival-ists to enhance networks of organized prayer across the city. As the evening of inter-cessory prayer progressed, one of the organizers revisited the theme of a unitedevangelical front when he announced: ‘Lord we pray tonight that the Church of

Religion, 2013Vol. 43, No. 3, 312–330, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2013.798162

*Email: omri.elisha@qc.cuny.edu

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Knoxville will walk in the light, and that the prodigals in the city will see that light.’Another organizer distributed printed prayer calendars, with dedicated prayertopics for each day of the month of October, and encouraged those in attendanceto circulate them as widely as possible.Evangelical revivalism in the modern city has always involved more than the

conversion of individual souls. Like so many reformers and visionaries, urban reli-gious revivalists are aspiring social engineers. They aspire not only to change thevalues and lifestyles of a city’s inhabitants, but also to redefine the spaces and quo-tidian rhythms where urban values and lifestyles take form. For all the images ofsin and vice that the modern city evokes in the evangelical imagination, it isoften represented more as an opportunity than a problem, a ready stage for enact-ments of spiritual redemption and millennial optimism. For evangelicals, urbanismis an open invitation to strategic intentionality, a site of action restricted only by thecity’s already existing structures, networks, and boundaries. It is a field of potentialin which frameworks of secular order are ‘re-inscribed’ for religious use, appro-priated rather than simply renounced (see Rajagopalan 2011). Such frameworksinclude structures of spatial orientation (e.g., ‘the street,’ ‘the public square’), aswell as structures of temporal orientation, or ‘the rhythmed organization of every-day time’ (Lefebvre 2004).This article focuses on a recent trend in evangelical revivalism known as ‘city-

wide prayer,’ a movement organized around prayer networks and public ritualsthat highlight religious concerns deemed specific to cities and metropolitanregions. I argue that advocates of citywide prayer promote a style of evangelicalurbanism in which prayer (along with fasting, evangelism, and service) becomesa medium for reimagining one’s sense of place, against the disorientation and alien-ation associated with urban life. Rituals promoting Christian unity, social aware-ness, and guided prayer serve crucially in this regard. Moreover, prayer ispresented as a medium for marking time in non-secular terms. This does notmean that the ‘here and now’ of everyday life is necessarily overlooked ordenied in favor of the ‘not yet’ of a millennial future. While citywide prayeraffirms the deferred temporality of messianic time – the sense of inhabiting ‘thetime that time takes to come to an end’ (Agamben 2005) – it is also tied to mooringsof situated time and place, accentuating rather than obscuring historical and socialrealities.Focusing mainly on the U.S., and building on fieldwork in Knoxville, Tennessee,

I further suggest that when enacted this style of evangelical urbanism constitutes aform of urban praxis: a deliberate application of abstract principles to agentive pro-jects of place-making in response to larger forces that are seen otherwise to limitgrassroots agency. For evangelical revivalists this entails ‘converting the urbansecular to sacred use’ (Coleman 2009: 37) and thus reforming the ways that Chris-tians perceive and inhabit their surroundings. While refining methods of revivalthat go back centuries, advocates of citywide prayer distinguish the current move-ment for its emphasis on coordinated disciplines that reinforce the emplacement ofparticular cities and the people who live in them. As prayer leaders across localdenominations come together to promote regular gatherings, such as pastors’prayer summits, ‘concerts of prayer’ and a host of other public assemblies, alongwith annual events such as the March for Jesus and National Day of Prayer, ‘thecity’ becomes not merely the site but the object of concerted, collective acts ofprayer, as evangelicals believe the prophets intended. Such gatherings are

Religion 313

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

distinguished from conventional religious and civic holidays or assemblies thatmark secular time, yet they exist as symbolic parallels, representing an alternativetemporality dedicated to charismatic interventions and spiritual conquests (seeDawson 2001).To be sure, citywide prayer is but one recent example of a longstanding tradition

of Christian engagement and ambivalence with regard to urban centers of power.The tendency to view the city as a place of theological significance and moral ambi-guity has been strong in Christianity from early on. Augustine’s City of God standsout for its explicit reliance on the city as a master trope. The central dualism of thatwork (i.e., the notion of ‘two cities’: one heavenly, one of the world) reveals theextent to which such loaded, ambivalent symbolism animates Christian thought.For many evangelicals, cities represent redemptive potential on a grand scale,but they are also places of worldly temptation and spiritual darkness.It is no wonder then that citywide prayer initiatives reproduce tactics of urban

engagement that emphasize notions of spiritual warfare as well as utopian idealsof justice, harmony, and reconciliation. In both respects, prayer is mobilized as asocially transformative public practice, not merely an act of private devotion. Tech-niques of citywide prayer offer urban evangelicals spiritual and social resourceswith which to resist what they perceive as the displacing rhythms of modernitywhile embracing new disciplines of Christian piety and citizenship (O’Neill2010). At the same time, the extent to which the churchgoing masses choose toperform the cultural scripts put forward by citywide prayer leaders is far from pre-dictable or guaranteed, a reminder of the diffuse and contingent nature of pastoralauthority in evangelicalism’s post-denominational age.

A ‘fervent pursuit of God’

As T.M. Luhrmann has shown in her study of Vineyard Christians (2012), evange-licals devote considerable time and energy to prayer, on the belief that it is throughprayer that one experiences God’s presence as real and immediate. With the rise ofneo-Pentecostalism and cultural influences such as the 1970s Jesus People move-ment, evangelicals increasingly turn to prayer as an experiential phenomenon,actualized in sensory and cognitive events as well as personal epiphanies andrelationships. On top of being highly effective means of recruitment, new genresof worship with charismatic prayer at their core reinforce a popular image ofprayer as an expression of collective piety and group identity. In an age when tra-ditional denominational and doctrinal distinctions are gradually breaking down(Miller 1997; Watt 1991), and when megachurches and parachurch movementsproject visions of unity across racial, ethnic, and national lines, the seeminglycommon and ‘authentic’ language of prayer has retained its aura as an attractivetool for bringing diverse believers together through organized means.When studying any form of organized prayer, it is crucial to understand why and

how prayer rituals are orchestrated in particular ways. The contexts in whichprayers acquire meaning are as important as the sentiments they are meant toconvey. Evangelicals view prayer as an act of personal devotion and a core disci-pline of faith, yet they also recognize prayer as a social discourse, a medium ofindoctrination, communication, and consensus among confessing Christians.This normally implicit understanding of the social dimension of prayer, not tomention the power of ‘social prayer,’ is one that citywide prayer leaders bring to

314 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

the fore. Coordinated events and prayer cycles are guided by the belief that specialworks of God take place when Christians come together to pray, or pray simul-taneously. This is a fundamental concept in citywide prayer, which drawsheavily on the sacred value that evangelicals attach to everyday practices ofprayer.1

There are virtually no reliable statistics on how widespread the ideas andmethods associated with citywide prayer are in the world today, although advo-cates insist that they are pervasive and catching like wildfire. Of course, justabout anywhere there are evangelical Christians in the world, there are prayer revi-vals of one kind or another. But what tend to fall under the heading of ‘citywideprayer’ are ritual forms influenced by a broad constellation of ministries associatedwith the ‘global prayer movement.’ In the U.S., these include the National PrayerCommittee, the Lighthouse Movement, Concerts of Prayer International, the Senti-nel Group, International Renewal Ministries, and the International House ofPrayer, to name a few, in addition to countless local organizations.2 Many ofthese groups are known to infuse prayer ministry with politics, and they oftenespouse the worldview of spiritual warfare, though with varying degrees of inten-sity. Many draw inspiration and guidance from neo-Pentecostal/charismatic move-ments that emerged on the world scene in the early 1980s (the so-called ThirdWave), such as the controversial New Apostolic Reformation.3

At the local level, citywide prayer movements are fairly amorphous. Prayer net-works are largely decentralized but tend to coalesce around churches or para-church organizations that plan and facilitate citywide events involving areacongregations. Public events are meant to project a unified front of Bible-believingChristians across evangelical traditions. Whether or not they succeed in this variesfrom place to place, depending on existing social and institutional dynamics. Insome cities, citywide prayer takes off with enthusiasm and active participationthroughout the faith community; in other places it may be more modest, perhapslittle more than a commitment undertaken by a few dozen pastors and

1 According to recent survey data from the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of evangelical Protestants inthe U.S. pray at least once every day, a rate that exceeds that of the general population by 20 percent. Thecentrality of prayer in evangelical life is routinely emphasized in evangelical churches and popularmedia. Churchgoing evangelicals will often pray several times a day, or at least stress the need to doso, and promote acts of prayer in private as well as public contexts, such as schools, restaurants, work-places, and athletic events.2 Local parachurch groups provide channels through which the ideas and practices of larger organiz-ations are interpreted on the ground. Whether they are church programs or campus ministries, orother faith-based networks, such groups rely on training andmobilization resources provided by organ-izations led by internationally active pastors and revivalists. These resources include books, instructionaland devotional manuals, newsletters, and DVDs that teach local leaders to implement prayer-basedrevival strategies in their communities. The Sentinel Group, led by George Otis Jr., for example, isknown internationally for its controversial Transformations video series, in which cities from aroundthe world are shown to have been radically ‘transformed’ through tactics of spiritual warfare such as‘spiritual mapping.’ Such videos are widely consumed and distributed by proponents of citywideprayer.3 The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is a conservative Protestant movement founded by C. PeterWagner, dedicated to aggressive church growth and spiritual warfare, and often associated with contro-versial forms of Dominionist theology. Its leadership, made up of anointed ‘Apostles’ and ‘Prophets’ sta-tioned in cities around the world (especially the global South), oversees the staging of charismaticrevivals and conferences, and the circulation of evangelical media promoting citywide prayer.

Religion 315

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

churchgoers. Either way, activities associated with citywide prayer are defined byrevivalist sensibilities and high hopes.For proponents like Tom White, founder of Frontline Ministries, the main objec-

tive of citywide prayer is ‘to promote a fervent pursuit of God that attracts his favorand results in loving unity and a revival of the Body of Christ across denomina-tional, ethnic, and cultural lines, such that out of the unity and frequent worshipfulprayer will emerge God-breathed strategies that minister his grace and mercy tothe city’ (White 2001: 78). Citywide prayer is portrayed as having multiple func-tions and benefits; it is a form of religious devotion, a vehicle for solidarity, anda catalyst for ‘God-breathed strategies’ of urban ministry and evangelism. Theidea that prayer has a unique capacity to bring Christians of different backgroundstogether in ‘fellowship,’ overcoming cultural differences and enmities, is a domi-nant theme that dovetails closely with the stress on evangelism. Indeed, boththemes demonstrate that while prayer is a medium for communing with God,there is also a sense in which (to borrow a familiar axiom) the medium is themessage. Mac Pier, the founder of Concerts of Prayer Greater New York, expressesthis idea in no uncertain terms:

Whether you are praying from the mountaintop or walking down the streets ofChinatown, whether you pray with five others or five hundred others, God isglorified when his children unite in prayer. A united church at prayer is themost powerful demonstration of the reality of God in the world. When Christiansthroughout a city pray in unity, we declare our dual citizenship: in the body ofChrist, and in the city or town where God has placed us. (Pier and Sweeting2002: 163)

Collective prayer rituals are believed by their very performance to generatespiritual powers: the power of witness, the power of repentance and reconcilia-tion, the power to reduce crime and poverty, the power to defeat Satan, etc.These are regarded as essentially divine attributes, but unleashing those powersrequires no small measure of human effort. Prayer leaders spend time andenergy orchestrating prayer gatherings, from intimate services to public specta-cles like the March for Jesus or stadium prayer rallies. Worship formats andprayer themes are carefully programmed to foster an atmosphere of collectiveeffervescence and spiritual breakthrough. They are also meant to produce asense of ritual simultaneity, with prayer events and activities often scheduled totake place simultaneously in multiple locations – even multiple cities – in orderto convey the sense that right now (a specific or extended period of time) faithfulChristians are setting themselves apart from nonbelievers, pagans, and nominalChristians by pursuing God in ways usually precluded by the hectic, busyrhythms of modern city life.Another aim of citywide prayer is to help cities overcome obstacles that prevent

them from achieving their potential to advance the Kingdom of God. Instead ofportraying cities as inherently sinful and depraved, prayer leaders insist thatcities have a divine purpose. Evangelical author John Dawson writes: ‘Many Chris-tians think cities are by nature evil places… they would say the city is a curse, not ablessing. However, that is not God’s view. After all, the human story begins in agarden and ends in a city’ (2001: 19). At the same time, cities are seen to beespecially susceptible to negative moral and spiritual influences, including whatspiritual warriors call ‘demonic strongholds,’ which hinder the mission of the

316 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

church and effectively disorient, deceive, and oppress urban populations, alienat-ing them further from God. Dawson again:

The city is supposedly developed for our benefit. The city is a giant architecturalmachine commissioned to shelter, transport, empower and enrich its inhabitants;yet individual men andwomen increasingly feel like victims of their own creation… Because of the disorientation they experience, urban dwellers are extremelyvulnerable to both sweeping revival and mass deception through false hope.The city dweller is often an idolater. The city intensifies everything, and thisincludes devotions to false gods. (2001: 28–29)

While such commentaries characterize cities in a manner somewhat specific tomodernity (for example, the idea that cities exist to ‘empower and enrich’ theirinhabitants), they are based on a generalized image of ‘the city’ as a timeless, uni-versal paradigm with cosmic relevance. Indeed, evangelicals cite numerous pas-sages from a range of biblical scriptures, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah,the Psalms, and Revelations, to support their assertions that cities have figured cru-cially, albeit ambiguously, in God’s plans from the beginning. They similarly usescriptures to support their claims that cities can be radically transformed andtheir spiritual potential unlocked through the Spirit-led implementation of city-wide prayer.References to the early church are routine, as a means of validating the primacy

of prayer. As one leader in Knoxville told me, ‘Prayer is the one thing all evange-licals have in common,’ and social prayer is ‘all about pursuing the face of Godtogether as the early Christians instructed us to.’ Citywide prayer advocatesacknowledge that their methods build on centuries of precedent, including themany Protestant revivals and sects that flourished in Europe and North Americain the early-modern period. But the primary model of group prayer that theyseek to emulate is that of the 1st-century Apostles, as recorded in the Book ofActs.4 By recreating the charismatic, interactive, and missionary style of prayerthat summoned the presence of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, evangelicals believethey can usher that same presence into their cities, not only changing individuallives in the process but reforming the entire urban ethos in a manner more suitableto the dictates of biblical orthodoxy.It is common for evangelical revivalists to claim religious affinities with a distant

apostolic past while simultaneously preparing believers for an inevitable millennialfuture. As multifaceted speech genres, revival preaching, testimony, and prayerappeal to human faculties of memory, attentiveness, and expectation all at once,often in a single thread (Ricoeur 1984). This multiperspectival orientation contrib-utes to patterns of ritual engagement that encourage participants to imagine thatthey are approaching the edge of a temporal breakthrough, a benchmark in thegrand scheme of messianic time (in the sense conveyed by Walter Benjamin).Such breakthroughs are periodic and preordained interruptions in history thatpromise the fulfillment or ‘consummation’ of history through divinely sanctioned

4 The spiritual and cultural genealogy that evangelicals trace from the early church to the presentrarely calls attention to intervening eras in church history. Evangelical prayer leaders claim virtuallyno antecedents from late antique or medieval church history, thus effectively ignoring major eccle-sial and ritual influences from the many centuries between Pentecost and the ProtestantReformation.

Religion 317

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

means enacted by people of faith, once they willingly repent, convert, and pray enmasse.It is tempting to regard the temporality of evangelical revivalism as one that

necessarily overlooks or excludes active considerations of place. Evangelical world-views are profoundly shaped by premillennial eschatology, which reinforces a tem-poral consciousness in which the near future is, as one scholar puts it, ‘evacuated’by a tendency to view time as a ‘punctuated’ continuum of preordained events inthe past, present, and distant future (Guyer 2007).5 In this teleological frame, con-cerns of immediate time and place are presumably given over to sweeping declen-sion narratives and deferred expectations for ‘the world to come.’ Moreover,Protestant theology generally tends to favor time over space, and by extensionplace, as the locus of the sacred (Morgan 1998). Without holy temples or shrinesto differentiate one place of encountering God from any other, Protestant religiosityis traditionally rendered through an ideology of dematerialization (Keane 2007),stressing the interiority of individual faith over and above the effects of mediatingforms in the physical world.6

We would be remiss, however, to ignore patterns of revivalist activity that delib-erately focus the attention of participants on situated locations as sites of spiritualrevelation and/or intervention. Evangelical revivals, rather than rejecting or down-playing notions of place as antithetical, engage with projects of emplacement incomplex and intriguing ways (Coleman 2009).7 Despite what is often assumed tobe the inherently individualistic, spontaneous, and transitory nature of revival,not to mention its capacity to transcend boundaries of space and time, the citywideprayer movement reminds us that revivalists can be equally concerned to nurturelong-term processes of cultural sanctification, articulated in geographic terms.Rituals and regimens of citywide prayer are predicated on a logic akin to whaturban-ministry leader Ray Bakke has called a ‘conscious theology of place’(Bakke 1997: 60). They are understood to reveal the work of divine providence incities, and to encourage local churches and prayer networks to take part in pro-grammatic efforts to promote Christian unity, spiritual renewal, and other indi-cators of urban revitalization and prosperity.For leaders and facilitators of citywide prayer, part of the task of advancing a

‘theology of place’ requires that participants become attuned to the historical andsocial circumstances of the cities where they live. Among participants in Knoxville,for example, problems such as the city’s history of racial tensions, a weak down-town economy, inner-city crime, and a general lack of socio-economic integrationwere cited frequently, alongside other moral and global concerns, as areas of life

5 See Harding (2000) for a thorough discussion of conservative Protestant perspectives on time andhistory as seen through lenses of biblical prophecy. For an interesting ethnographic application ofGuyer’s concept of punctuated time, see McGovern (2012).6 For an excellent discussion that problematizes the anti-aestheticism of Protestant forms on theoreticaland empirical grounds, see Meyer (2010).7 Urban revivals were vital to the cultural ascendance of evangelicalism in the 20th century (Carpenter1997). Celebrity preachers from Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson to Billy Graham used majorcities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, not only as platforms to draw national attention but alsoas model sites of imminent redemption. Even while demonizing the trappings of secular modernity,which cities ostensibly represented, modern revivalists did not hesitate to tap into the abundant culturaland institutional resources of illustrious cities to promote new awakenings, especially among the urbanmiddle class.

318 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

that needed to be better understood and targeted for prayerful intervention.Writing on the requirements of effective prayer, Mac Pier urges prayer leaders torecognize the needs of each urban environment: ‘How concerned are we withthe plight of the people of God in our cities? How concerned are we with the con-dition of the city we live in? Do we care enough to ask? We cannot pray until weknow how to ask’ (Pier and Sweeting 2002: 107). The imperatives to care, to ask,and to know, as bases from which to pray, inform evangelical efforts to constructcoherent notions of place out of what are otherwise perceived as the messy, frac-tured realities of secular society.The knowledge and experience needed to enhance citywide prayer, then, go

beyond individual devotional exercises, and they are pursued through a varietyof means. One of those, as I discuss in a later section, is the use of prayer guidesthat encourage users to become attentive to aspects of urban life they don’tusually think let alone pray about. Another approach is the formation of prayergroups that purposely bring together representatives from different denomina-tions, communities, and racial and ethnic groups that otherwise struggle to findcommon ground or opportunities to express solidarity. In most cases (includingKnoxville, to which I now turn), initial efforts to build momentum rely heavilyon the investments of local pastors, who often constitute the critical mass ofwhat may or may not become a viable prayer movement in a given location.

Praying like puzzle pieces

Church pastors and ministers wield enormous influence in evangelical congrega-tions, both as spiritual leaders and as figures of moral authority who validate thecauses and commitments that people of faith choose to embrace. It is thereforeonly to be expected that when it comes to citywide prayer initiatives, the seedsof mobilization are planted at the top (see White 2001). This was certainly true inKnoxville in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when local church leaders started net-working and collaborating at nearly unprecedented levels to achieve a moreunified and impactful Christian culture. During that time I became aware oflocal prayer initiatives through a group of evangelical pastors who met for anhour every week to pray together. They were part of a network of so-called‘pastors’ prayer groups,’ some 20 to 30 in all, loosely supervised by two itinerantpreachers named Mike Byrd and Cody Ross (pseudonyms) with assistance fromother local pastors and volunteers. The network includes participants frommainly evangelical, Pentecostal, and neo-Pentecostal churches, most of whom aremale church pastors and ministry staff. Women are present in some groups,either because they are wives of pastors or hold important church positions inareas of ministry such as education or administration. Although the groups areconceived ideally as ‘multiracial,’ the extent to which each group features anyethnic diversity hinges on situational factors such as the particular church or neigh-borhood where meetings take place, the success of a group’s outreach efforts, andthe existing social networks that individual pastors bring with them to begin with.A typical pastors’ prayer meeting convenes on Thursday morning, as a dozen or

so pastors and ministry leaders gather in a classroom or chapel of a participatingchurch, with coffee and danishes supplied by volunteers. After a round ofannouncements and individual prayer requests, a moderator – perhaps someone

Religion 319

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

directly involved in citywide prayer efforts – initiates the prayer session with aninvocation, something along the following lines:

Dear Father God, we’re honored to gather here in your presence as brothers inChrist, to worship you and share in your merciful saving grace. We are so thank-ful, Lord, that you have made it possible for us to experience your glory and thelove of your Son, Jesus Christ, and we pray that you will enter our hearts and helpus to know your will for our churches and for the city of Knoxville.

For the remaining hour or so, pastors pray aloud, each in turn, focusing on avariety of themes, from the momentous to the mundane. They include the spiritualhealth of the church community, the physical health and wellbeing of individualmembers, local social concerns, such as race relations and political controversiesand the urgent need for repentance and revival, both locally and in the widernational culture. Though pastors’ prayers tend to be personal and idiosyncratic,at times dwelling on life struggles or problems in the ministry, the overall thematicscope of the prayer meetings I attended was decidedly regional, focusing on Knox-ville’s diverse and highly fragmented Christian culture, andwhat many felt was thestartling inability of local churches to make any discernible impact on the region’smost pressing problems. The solution, they repeatedly suggested, was right in frontof them: unity, amidst difference, through prayer. One pastor explained to me thatwhen pastors pray together they are ‘like puzzle pieces,’ representing seeminglyincompatible and disjointed parts that, from God’s perspective, are actuallymeant to fit together as an unblemished whole. Prayer centered on ‘the Churchof Knoxville,’ and oriented toward long-term visions of interdenominational,cross-cultural fellowship, is a cherished performative resource for pastors whoare eager to imagine those puzzle pieces arranged in a more perfect state ofintegration.Pastors who attend weekly prayer meetings describe them as extraordinary

opportunities for communion and contemplation: a chance to be ‘refreshed’and ‘regenerated’ by the Holy Spirit in the company of other pastors. The timeis valued as sacred time set apart from their busy, stress-inducing schedules,making it easier for them to perform their pastoral duties during the rest ofthe week and allowing them to see how the responsibilities and demands of con-gregational leadership affect the lives of others who share the same vocation.Organizers and moderators work hard to preserve the air of social intimacy,emotional transparency, and piety that is meant to characterize these meetings.Most participants are happy for the chance to pray concertedly for an uninter-rupted period, and they enjoy the rare privilege of hearing and focusing onthe prayers of others.Several of the pastors I spoke to also saw their participation in pastors’ prayer

groups as an opportunity to step back and take in a larger perspective on thesocial and spiritual issues affecting the greater Knoxville area. This aspect isfurther enhanced in regional gatherings known as ‘pastors’ prayer summits.’These annual or semi-annual retreats occur in metropolitan areas throughout theU.S. and are designed to bring together church leaders from across local prayer net-works to convene for several days of intensive group prayer. Pastors’ prayersummits are highly anticipated and programmed with help from national organiz-ations such as International Renewal Ministries, who provide consulting and train-ing for participants who serve as prayer moderators, a role that requires equal

320 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

measures of thoughtful facilitation, sensitive time-keeping, and skillful diplomacy.Ideally, the summits help evangelical leaders from diverse communities buildbridges, forge new bonds of cooperation, and when necessary, resolve lingeringtensions based on congregational rivalries, schisms, and personality conflicts.The organizers of Knoxville’s early prayer summits were eager to inspire a strong

sense of shared religious and social concern that could then be used to generatenew strategies of urban social and spiritual engagement. In a city where denomina-tional factionalism and competition are seen as the norm rather than the exception,overcoming divisive tendencies was an especially difficult task in the early stages ofthe prayer movement. The more the pastors’ prayer network was formalized – thatis, the more it became necessary to clarify the guidelines of group prayer and estab-lish a unifying mission statement – the more obstacles appeared, stemming fromlingering problems such as doctrinal disagreements, racial tensions, and conflictsof style. This in turn clearly affected the ability of pastors and organizers topromote large-scale prayer initiatives that targeted churches in the urban core aswell as outlying suburbs and neighboring counties included in the Knoxvillemetropolitan area.In spite of the obstacles, organizers like Mike Byrd and Cody Ross promoted the

movement’s broad aims with relentless drive. They attended many of the differentprayer groups, as well as local church revivals, worship services, and communityevents in efforts to incorporate more pastors and congregations and therebyexpand the local prayer network. They also drew on the existing prayer networkto implement new initiatives and assemblies. Many of those involved in the move-ment were active in publicizing local gatherings connected to large-scale events likethe National Day of Prayer. In short, movement participants became key figures inthe staging of public rituals and ceremonies where prayer, civil religion, and thesacralization of public space were vital components. Other initiatives of a lesspublic but equally ambitious nature were conceived by leaders of the prayer move-ment as well. These included attempts to implement uniform schedules of prayer,and, as I discuss later, the circulation of citywide prayer calendars. Such methodsemploy calendar time as an ordering mechanism designed to produce disciplines ofpiety, performed in conditions of simultaneity, in the name of proliferating God’sglory in the city and bringing praying Christians closer together in time as wellas space.

Making space for time

There are myriad ways that religious groups stake their claims on the urban land-scape, impressing their rituals, values, and identities onto the matrix of publicspace, and fashioning ‘urban religious topographies’ (Orsi 1999: 52) as adherentslearn to see and experience the city in a new light. For some, especially in sociallymarginalized communities, efforts to remake urban spaces as sites of religiouswork through public performances, such as processions and rallies, go hand inhand with struggles for cultural legitimacy (e.g., Slymovics 1995; Werbner 1996)as well as political resistance and protest (e.g., Galvez 2009; McAlister 2002). Forproselytizing religions, city streets represent a battlefield of spiritual engagementas well as a mission field in waiting. The Salvation Army in its early years regardedthe city as a ready stage for ‘open-air’ evangelism, and the movement’s missionary

Religion 321

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

strategies reflected an impulse to appropriate and simultaneously ‘convert’ variouselements of urban popular and commercial culture (Winston 1999).Religious appropriations of public space offer paths of visibility and legitimacy,

but these are not the only paths by which religious themes are introduced into theorders of the everyday. Time itself is mobilized as a resource as well; that is to say,structures and intervals of quotidian time are employed as vehicles to reform urbanlifestyles, enhance religious commitments and, in the case of revivals, link the fateof those commitments to the fate of entire cities, and beyond. In light of the manyworldly and wayward distractions that modern cities present in the lives of believ-ers, revivalists try to redefine people’s moral priorities while broadening the scopeof religion’s influence. The re-inscription of time as well as space, through schedulesand timetables of ritual action (like prayer), is one of the methods intended toachieve this.8

Protestant history is full of intriguing cases of reformers and revivalists lookingto maximize the potential of urban cityscapes and ‘timescapes’ (Adam 1998, citedin Birth 2012) as social laboratories for cultivating religiosity. Consider Genevaunder Calvin, an experiment in theocratic urbanism where the virtues of punctual-ity and rigorous timekeeping, in secular and especially religious affairs, weredeemed so crucial that they were enforced by ordinances and disciplinary fines(Engammare 2010). Precise, uniform scheduling of public and private devotionsensured that Reformed citizens made proper use of the time God had giventhem. The integration of these virtues into the rhythms of daily (non-monastic)life was aided by the ubiquity of bells and clock towers, representing a temporalregimen that reinforced the city’s reputation as a haven of Protestant idealism.9

Or take the peculiar case of Zion City, Illinois, founded in 1902 by faith-healingevangelist John Alexander Dowie (Cook 1996). Zion City was a Christian city forthe progressive era, established to glorify God and capitalist entrepreneurshipunder the rule of theocratic governance. In his pursuit of urbanist and millennialistideals, cast innocuously as ‘holy living,’ Dowie left little to chance. ‘No area of lifewas without religious emphasis, or orderly procedure, even to the naming of theavenues and the numbering of the streets’ (1996: 61). The integration of sacredand secular time was of utmost importance in Zion City. On top of regularchurch services and meetings, every citizen was obliged to follow a daily prayer

8 This is true across religious traditions. Islamic piety movements, for example, in Cairo (Hirschkind2006; Mahmood 2005) and Beirut (Deeb 2006; Harb 2011) actively appropriate urban aesthetics and cul-tural forms in order to revitalize religious commitments and incorporate them into rhythms of everydaylife. As urban Muslims embrace disciplines of charity, religious education, and prayer, they organizetheir time in ways that reinforce distinctly modern articulations of piety. Moreover, the cityscapeswhere Islamic piety movements take root are imbued with visual and aural elements, from images ofsaints and martyrs to daily calls to prayer and sermons, that reinforce religious messages while offeringalternative temporalities that followers embody through processes of religious ‘authentication’ andemplacement (Deeb 2006).9 Protestant reformers in the 16th century were keen to establish new civic and church authority struc-tures in burgeoning cities of central Europe, especially in Zurich, Strasbourg, and Geneva. In their zeal to‘restore’ biblical Christianity and expunge Catholicism from emerging centers of power, urban reformersrelied on ecclesial reforms but also closely regulated and monitored the religious and moral conduct ofcitizens. Methods of social control were implemented not only to encourage individual piety and disci-pline, but also to create a transformed urban citizenry, free of idolatry and nominal belief and whollydedicated to the reformation of society as a whole. For more on the ‘Urban Reformation,’ see Hendrix(2004).

322 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

schedule, signaled by whistles and bells, and the town paper published weeklyBible lessons that households were meant to study uniformly (1996: 116–117).Time in Zion City was organized around conformity, both in terms of religiousexercise and industrial labor, and this confluence of millennialist and capitalist tem-poralities contributed to the city’s projected self-image as a place of extraordinarycultural and cosmological significance.Such examples seem a far cry from evangelical communities of today, where

mechanisms of authoritarian control are rarely as severe or elaborate as theseearlier social experiments. However, they instantiate an aspect of evangelicalurbanism, of which there can be many forms, that I want to highlight in thepresent analysis. I refer to the fact that ambitious reformers and revivalists oftenutilize the organizing principles and rhythms of urban life – and for that matter,secular modernity – as the raw material from which to create and refine new tem-plates of religious experience. In the process, they reinforce conditions of situatedemplacement while at the same time invoking wider temporal frames, conveyedin ideas of progress, liberation, and imagined community (the hallmarks of moder-nity), as well as apocalyptic narratives of salvation.

‘Preparing the way’

Around the turn of the newmillennium, the organizers of Knoxville’s prayer move-ment decided to establish a regional ‘Month of Prayer.’ They chose October as thedesignated month. Aside from having no coinciding major Christian holidays,October was a logical choice because it occurs right in the middle of the college foot-ball season. In Knoxville, home to the state’s beloved University of Tennessee Vol-unteers, autumn is a season of high enthusiasm and hometown pride. Throughoutthe city, awash in the team colors of white and orange, residents give themselvesover to waves of anticipation and communitas, with a devotional commitmentthat leads some to suggest that football is the ‘real’ religion of East Tennessee.Not surprisingly, October is also a time when Knoxvillians are very unlikely totake long trips out of town.In the weeks leading up to the initiative, which was entitled ‘Preparing the Way:

A Call to United Prayer For Our Community,’10 promoters recruited church pastorsand ministry leaders from the prayer network to spend the month (actually aperiod of 35 days) preaching on the importance of prayer and persuading othersto join the effort. Mike Byrd and Cody Ross, both itinerant preachers held inhigh esteem among the city’s evangelical elite, visited local congregations offeringguest sermons and workshops on the theology and logistics of citywide prayer.Other organizers drafted publicity letters, sermon outlines, and prayer guides tobe sent out to hundreds of churches in the area. Their aim was to generate excite-ment and momentumwithout alienating churchgoers with too much of a hard sell.Given the ethos of autonomy that pervades many local congregations, the leadersbehind the Month of Prayer were conscious to avoid looking as if they were tryingto tell Knoxville’s disparate Christian communities what to do, or how to pray.

10 The phrase ‘preparing the way’ is taken from the Book of Isaiah: ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, andproclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she hasreceived from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: “In the desert preparethe way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God”’ (Isaiah 40: 2–3, NIV).

Religion 323

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

According to promotional materials, the stated purpose of the Month of Prayerwas ‘to ask God to send revival to this entire region… [and] to collectively cry outfor His Spirit to invade our region with His power and presence.’ Some supportersstated the intent in even more ambitious terms, insisting that through such initiat-ives Knoxville could finally become more than just a city full of churches, butinstead what some pastors referred to as ‘the Church of Knoxville,’ or a ‘citychurch.’ Preaching on this concept, the senior pastor of a prominent suburbanmegachurch described it in these words:

The ‘city church’ expresses oneness by focusing on one church in the city. The citychurch expresses diversity by celebrating the many different congregations in thecity. There is one church with many congregations, these many congregationsmutually submit to one another in love and a network of servant leaders serveas the connective tissue bringing the different parts of the Body of Christ together.

Several community events were scheduled to take place during the Month ofPrayer, including Knoxville’s annual March For Jesus and a series of eveningprayer services held in churches with sanctuaries big enough to hold large audi-ences. The cornerstone of the initiative was a locally produced, annotated prayercalendar, put together by a committee of roughly a dozen representatives. Oncedrafted, the pocket-sized calendar (really more of a pamphlet) was printed for dis-tribution in Knox County and at least four neighboring counties. Over 150,000copies were reportedly sent out to church and ministry leaders, who were askedto encourage churchgoers to set aside time for prayer each day in October usingthe citywide prayer calendar as a guide. If properly followed, the instructionsclaimed, the calendar would ensure that ‘thousands of believers throughout ourregion will simultaneously be seeking God for the same requests every day foran entire month!’The prayer calendar was formatted in the familiar style of a rectilinear grid, repre-

senting a total of five seven-day weeks. Each week highlighted a general theme,which was then broken down into daily subthemes. The five weekly themes werelisted sequentially as follows: (1) The Church; (2) The Area; (3) The Hurting; (4)Reconciliation; and (5) The Lost. The days of each week were assigned specific cor-responding subthemes, and every subtheme was accompanied by instructions forguided prayer, along with a short list of relevant passages from the Bible.So for example, during week two (The Area), the prayer focus for the second day

was Repentance. The day’s first instructional point was standard fare: ‘Pray that wewould repent of our pride, our prejudice, and our independent spirit.’ This wasimmediately followed by a second exhortation that pinpointed a specific area ofsocial concern: ‘Pray for repentance & reconciliation regarding ill-treatment ofNative Americans and African Americans in our area.’ In week four (Reconcilia-tion), the subtheme for day five was listed as ‘Reconciliation between Socio-Economic Groups’; the accompanying text read: ‘Pray that God will bring togetherthose of every socio-economic environment in our region…Ask God to tear downthe walls of social class and make us one… Pray that God would unite those whohave needs with those who have resources, that rich and poor alike would betouched by the power of His Gospel.’ Day four of week five (The Lost) was entitledLabors for the Harvest, calling for participants to ‘Pray for the Lord of the harvest tosend evangelists into every people group in our region: youth, ethnic communities,the elderly, the poor, etc.’ And so on.

324 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

As a religious artifact, the Knoxville Month of Prayer calendar is rich with theo-logical meaning and cultural relevance. It represents an array of perennial concernsfor evangelicals, from personal faith to public morality, while reproducing an idiomof intervention consistent with Bakke’s ‘conscious theology of place.’ Through itsrepeated emphasis on repentance and reconciliation across lines of race, class,and ethnicity, the calendar especially gave voice to the sentiments of white subur-ban evangelicals, who are increasingly self-conscious of their distance and alien-ation from the social worlds of underprivileged minorities and underservedinner-city communities (Elisha 2011). Although white evangelicals are known topromote relationalist ideals that favor moral rather than political forms ofredress, thereby limiting the extent to which programs of reconciliation getlinked to social justice, the increasing salience of social critique among evangelicalsparticularly since the 1990s is a significant cultural development, and one that isrepeatedly invoked in citywide prayer movements.A thorough deconstruction of the prayer calendar’s content is undoubtedly

worthwhile, but for the moment I want to highlight its significance as a kind of tem-plate, an almost liturgical structure orienting acts of devotion and intentionalitywithin parameters of disciplinary time (Foucault 1979). The calendar appropriatedand re-inscribed secular time – normally assigned to serve the functions of state andindustry – in order to inspire religious awakening, trigger social reflexivity, andenhance evangelical authority. It offered its users a schedule of themes and vari-ations, designed to synchronize devotional and intercessory prayers across theregion, while establishing the regional cultural context as the necessary and idealobject of those prayers. By calling upon believers to pray uniformly each day, it pro-vided ‘a means of maintaining religious identity across space through the temporalcoordination of ritual activity’ (Birth, forthcoming).The extent to which any of this was achieved by the Knoxville prayer calendar is

difficult to say, as I was not able to track its reception beyond a fairly limited range.The circulation was widespread, and many local pastors were happy to take part intheMonth of Prayer, even if only through offers of free publicity andmoral support,but organizers received little feedback from participating churches. They could notaccurately assess how widely or consistently the prayer calendars were actuallybeing used. In congregationswherememberswere directly involved in or connectedto citywide prayer initiatives, the level of enthusiasm was fairly high. Membersshared their prayer calendars with friends, brought them to their Bible studies,carried them around for personal edification, or simply hung them on their refriger-ators, alongside grocery lists, family photos, and children’s drawings. Some weremore recalcitrant, including one churchgoer who told me he thought it was agood enough idea but he was just ‘too busy to add more items to my prayer list.’A number of organizers I spoke to expressed measured disappointment with

how the Month of Prayer turned out overall, at least from a movement perspective.They were frustrated that scheduled public events were not better publicized andbetter attended, and felt that this was due to lackluster commitments from churchleaders. When asked to explain why this was the case, organizers would say thattoo many churches are stuck in a ‘fortress mentality’ and thus remain unwillingto get involved in parachurch initiatives. Others pointed to the fact that Knoxville’scitywide prayer movement relied heavily on institutional support from a handfulof affluent megachurches, where indeed most of the special events took place.This presented a problem insofar as representatives from smaller congregations

Religion 325

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

and churches in the inner city were suspicious that the movement was yet anothervehicle for institutional expansion on the part of suburban megachurches and theirpublicity-seeking pastors. For these and other reasons, including its intrinsicallyvoluntary nature and the relative absence of a central authority structure, theprayer movement in its early stages was curtailed in its ability to generate momen-tum to the extent that organizers had hoped.Notwithstanding these limitations, local evangelicals regarded Knoxville’s first

attempt at a citywide Month of Prayer as an important development, a sign of rein-vigorated interest in prayer as a catalyst for religious unity, racial reconciliation,and regional revival. It was also consistent with increasingly popular trends inAmerican evangelicalism, including the mobilization of urban prayer networksand the implementation of novel prayer schedules and cycles of ritual action, setapart from conventional holiday seasons yet embedded within secular time. InNew York City, for example, the group Concerts of Prayer Greater New York(COPGNY) coordinates an ongoing prayer program known as ‘The Lord’sWatch,’ inspired by a practice attributed to 18th-century Moravian Christians.Hundreds of participating churches throughout the city ‘adopt’ one day of everymonth that they will dedicate to organized intercessory prayer. On their designateddays (multiple churches are assigned to a single day, but pray at different times ofthe day), prayer teams at each church focus their intercession on specific requestsand issues listed in a monthly prayer guide distributed by COPGNY (see Pierand Sweeting 2002). Although the guide includes a number of prayer topics thatextend well beyond the confines of the New York tri-state area, the regionalistpurview of the initiative – i.e., the effort to regulate patterns of common prayeramong churches across a wide and extremely diverse metropolitan area – is vitalto its overall conceptualization, and to the ability of its organizers to substantiatetheir claims that a work of God is manifesting in their city.In sum, citywide prayer calendars and guides are technologies of urban revival,

produced in order to facilitate religious discipline, expressivity, authority, andspontaneity at once, in a single framework. Much as urban street grids provide acity’s inhabitants with a planned, predictable matrix that both orients and delimitstheir movement in space, prayer calendars organize quotidian rhythms and recastthem as structures of opportunity as well as normative assent. As such, they seek toredefine the parameters of urban dwelling in scriptural and spiritual terms. Tem-poral regimens of religiosity, including time-tested examples such as the AnglicanBook of Common Prayer or Catholic Lenten cycles, are known to reinforce the auth-ority and constancy of ecclesial traditions, but this aspect is downplayed in city-wide prayer. In its place we find an emphasis on place, and on the authority ofpopular revivals and missionary movements of the past, from the Apostles toAzusa Street, to provide models of urban engagement that prayer leaders activelydraw upon. By extension, participating pastors and prayer leaders elevate theirown public profiles, as well as that of an increasingly prominent style of evangelicalreligion that treats cities as mission fields, and sees the saeculum (i.e., the presentage) as a time of embattled yet imminent Christian revitalization.

Concluding remarks

Writing on the anthropology of Christianity, Jon Bialecki (2010) proposes that theterm revival, as a category of ethnographic analysis, should highlight the ‘situated

326 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

particularity’ of the social phenomena it seeks to describe, rather than merely refer-ring to phases of transcendence and rupture that the term ostensibly entails (whichBialecki suggests are better glossed by the term church). ‘Although revival has itsown relationship with the global and the pan-Christian, here it is not a space of uni-versalizing ethics but rather a warren of connections, often with particular individ-uals as nodes, that gives the global its contours and shapes’ (2010: 705). Sinceconversions and charismatic breakthroughs associated with revival are alwayslocated within grounded temporal circumstances – that is, in the lives of actualpeople in actual places in time – they reinforce qualities of immanence that inturn allow Christian communities to ‘see their situated particularity as theirpoint of entry to the universal’ (2010: 704). This approach resonates with my analy-sis of citywide prayer revivals, in which strategies of emplacement assume crucialsignificance by accentuating local histories, institutions, and social networks, whileat the same time promoting pathways to otherworldly salvation.Citywide prayer is a religious and social enterprise that relies on ritualized

measures to bring together Christians and potential converts alike, both spatially(in unity) and temporally (in unison), in a manner that reinforces tenets of biblicalorthodoxy that are no longer strictly tied to any one Protestant tradition or denomi-nation. Together with other tactical interventions such as ‘spiritual mapping’(McAlister 2012; O’Neill 2010), the ministries I have described contribute, or atleast are meant to contribute to the larger work of Christianizing cities and theirinhabitants. Such efforts, together with programs of social outreach and organizedbenevolence (Bielo 2011; Elisha 2011; Lichterman 2005), are about more than‘winning souls for Christ.’ They are part of the cultural production of evangelicalurbanism, a project to redirect the bodies and minds of urban dwellers; which isto say, to orient them differently in time and space and thereby redefine thenature of the urban experience, overcoming challenges that are believed toprevent cities from reaching their destiny to glorify the Kingdom of God.Put differently, citywide prayer practices are strategies of emplacement that

instruct evangelicals in how to engage the heterogeneous and socially stratifiedurban environments that they sometimes ambivalently call home. The power ofprayer is valorized for the spiritual enthusiasm it inspires, yet that power isadditionally put to the service of a style of urban revivalism that takes as its startingpoint the need for believers to practice social awareness and reflexivity in theirimmediate geographic surroundings. Exercises in moral and spiritual discernmentare meant to help evangelicals identify what they believe to be the over-determina-tive, life-dominating factors of urban existence – factors such as immorality, racialand ethnic strife, social segregation, and poverty – and turn them into targets ofintercessory prayer. Citywide prayer is thus conceived as a way for evangelicalsto assert agency in the face of circumstances that are otherwise assumed to prefi-gure or resist their agency.It is for this reason that I regard citywide prayer as a project of urban praxis, one

guided by the application of specific ideological commitments to urban social con-cerns. Indeed, we might even go so far as to suggest that the moral imperatives ofcitywide prayer share certain similarities with what urban theorists and activistshave called ‘the right to the city,’ if only in the degree to which both imperativesdraw attention to matters of power and agency, broadly understood. A precariouscomparison such as this must be duly qualified of course. Given the prevalence ofneoliberal and rightwing convictions in the cultural politics of the evangelical

Religion 327

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

mainstream, we can be sure that most conservative evangelicals would conceptu-alize a ‘right to the city’ very differently from the progressive, materialist herme-neutics normally associated with the phrase (Harvey 2008). It is also true, as wehave seen again in recent years, that revivalist ferment corresponds all too oftenwith reactionary and xenophobic sentiments, reinforcing strikingly undemocraticinclinations that conservative evangelicals defend on the grounds of spiritualwarfare.Nonetheless, the parallel is worth considering at least insofar as evangelical

urbanism in contemporary America is increasingly predicated on principles ofgrassroots empowerment and the mobilization of local communities againstpowers and principalities (to quote Ephesians) that otherwise define and constrainthe self-determination of urban citizens. Whereas a movement like Occupy WallStreet resignified city streets and sites of capital accumulation with the imprintof ‘people-power,’ evangelicals involved in citywide prayer pursue the ambitiousif admittedly less public agenda of exorcizing, sacralizing, and reanimating thecity with the collective force of common prayer. Despite their many obvious differ-ences, both movements are motivated by a sense of urgency, and by an abiding con-fidence that their best efforts are capable not only of identifying the symptoms ofsocial inequality and instability but ultimately targeting their root causes – bothseen and unseen – with penetrating efficiency. Tellingly, both movements alsoshare in the recognition that achieving success through direct action is seldom aneasy or straightforward proposition.As my discussion of Knoxville illustrates, the work of advancing citywide prayer

is full of optimism but also frustrations and setbacks. Yet my aim has not been toassess when or how citywide prayer initiatives ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’ with regard totheir desired outcomes (which generally defy empirical verification in any case),but rather to consider what it is that makes those initiatives identifiably, if notuniquely urban. As I have argued, citywide prayer is all about the planning andcoordination of active prayer networks and frameworks of religiosity that corre-spond to visions of large-scale sanctification, and not just individual conversion.By subsuming quotidian rhythms and categories under the umbrella of revival,prayer leaders extend the scope of revival beyond fleeting moments of enthusiasmor crisis, hoping thereby to engineer novel programs for ‘holy living’ that willelevate the city to great new levels of magnitude and permanence.If it can be said, as Simon Coleman has observed, that there is ‘a resonance – even

an affinity – between urbanism and revivalism’ (2009: 33), then perhaps part of thatresonance is reflected in the fact that they both involve meticulously conceivedchoreographies of being. They are intentional albeit historically contingent pro-ductions of time and space in which social actors negotiate the tensions betweenthe desirable, the possible, and the inevitable. The resonance may also stem froman implicit recognition among revivalists that cities, not unlike revivals themselves,are sites ‘where multiple spatialities and temporalities collide’ (Simonsen 2004: 45).For evangelicals, the eternal, celestial Kingdom of God may be the only time andplace that ultimately matters, but this does not preclude or hinder their efforts tomap the sacred unto the very order of creation. And so it is in that spirit ofworldly intervention that evangelicals bide their time in prayer, believing that itis prayer, more than buildings, boulevards, and freeways, which really bringsthe modern city back to life.

328 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Adam Becker, James Bielo, Kevin Birth, FrancescaBregoli, and Religion’s anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and sug-gestions on various aspects of this article.

Omri Elisha is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Queens College, CUNY. Heis the author ofMoral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Mega-churches (University of California Press, 2011).

References

Adam, Barbara. 1998. Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. London: Routledge.Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Stanford: Stan-

ford University Press.Bakke, Ray. 1997. A Theology as Big as the City. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.Bialecki, Jon. 2010. Angels and Grass: Church, Revival, and the Neo-Pauline Turn. South Atlantic Quar-

terly 109/4: 695–717.Bielo, James S. 2011. Purity, Danger, and Redemption: Notes on UrbanMissional Evangelicals. American

Ethnologist 38/2: 267–280.Birth, Kevin. Forthcoming. Calendars: Representational Homogeneity and Heterogenous Time. Time

and Society.————. 2012. Objects of Time: How Things Shape Temporality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Carpenter, Joel A. 1997. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford

University Press.Coleman, Simon. 2009. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Urbanism. InWhen God Comes to Town: Reli-

gious Traditions in Urban Contexts, eds. R. Pinxten and L. Dikomitis. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 33–44.Cook, Philip L. 1996. Zion City, Illinois: Twentieth-Century Utopia. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Dawson, John. 2001. Taking Our Cities for God: How to Break Spiritual Strongholds. Lake Mary: Charisma

House.Deeb, Lara. 2006.An EnchantedModern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon. Princeton: Princeton Uni-

versity Press.Elisha, Omri. 2011.Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches. Berkeley:

University of California Press.Engammare, Max. 2010.On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism. Cambridge: Cam-

bridge University Press.Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.Galvez, Alyshia. 2009. Guadalupe in New York: Devotion and the Struggle for Citizenship Rights. New York:

New York University Press.Guyer, Jane I. 2007. Prophecy and the Near Future: Thoughts on Macroeconomic, Evangelical, and

Punctuated Time. American Ethnologist 34/3: 409–421.Harb, Mona. 2011. On Religiosity and Spatiality: Lessons fromHezbollah in Beirut. In The Fundamentalist

City?: Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space, ed. N. AlSayyad and M. Massoumi. New York:Routledge, 125–154.

Harding, Susan F. 2000. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton: Prince-ton University Press.

Harvey, David. 2008. The Right to the City. New Left Review 53/Sept-Oct: 23–40.Hendrix, Scott. 2004. Recultivating the Vineyard: The Reformation Agendas of Christianization. Louisville, KY:

Westminster John Knox Press.Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York:

Columbia University Press.Keane, Webb. 2007. ChristianModerns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley: University of

California Press.Lefebvre, Henri. 2004. Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life. London: Continuum.Lichterman, Paul. 2005. Elusive Togetherness: Church Groups Trying to Bridge America’s Divisions. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Religion 329

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Luhrmann, T.M. 2012.When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God.New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

McAlister, Elizabeth A. 2002. Rara!: Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora. Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press.

McAlister, Elizabeth A. 2012. From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting ofHaitian History. Studies in Religion 41/2: 187–215.

————. 2012. Turning the Clock Back or Breaking with the Past?: Charismatic Temporality and ElitePolitics in Cote d’Ivoire and the United States. Cultural Anthropology 27/2: 239–260.

Meyer, Birgit. 2010. Aesthetics of Persuasion: Global Christianity and Pentecostalism’s SensationalForms. South Atlantic Quarterly 109/4: 741–763.

Miller, Donald E. 1997. Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium. Berkeley:University of California Press.

Morgan, David. 1998. Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

O’Neill, Kevin Lewis. 2010. City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

Orsi, Robert A. 1999. Introduction: Crossing the City Line. In Gods of the City: Religion and the AmericanUrban Landscape, ed. Robert A. Orsi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1–78.

Pier, Mac, Katie Sweeting. 2002. The Power of a City at Prayer. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.Rajagopalan, Mrinalini. 2011. Postsecular Urbanisms: Situating Delhi within the Rhetorical Landscape of

Hindutva. In The Fundamentalist City?: Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space, eds N. AlSayyadand M. Massoumi. New York: Routledge, 257–282.

Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and Narrative: Volume 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Simonsen, Kirsten. 2004. Spatiality, Temporality, and the Construction of the City. In Space Odysseys: Spa-

tiality and Social Relations in the 21st Century, eds J.O. Baerenholdt and K. Simonsen. Aldershot:Ashgate Publishing, 43–61.

Slymovics, Susan. 1995. New York City’s World Muslim Day Parade. InNation and Migration: The Politicsof Space in the South Asian Diaspora, ed. P. van der Veer. Philadelphia: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 157–177.

Watt, DavidH. 1991.ATransforming Faith: Explorations of Twentieth-Century American Evangelicalism. NewBrunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Werbner, Pnina. 1996. Stamping the Earth with the Name of Allah: Zikr and the Sacralizing of Spaceamong British Muslims. Cultural Anthropology 11/3: 309–338.

White, Tom. 2001. City-Wide Prayer Movements: One Church, Many Congregations. Ann Arbor: Vine Books.Winston, Diane. 1999. Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press.

Initial submission: April 23, 2012Revised submission: December 24, 2012

Final submission: March 31, 2013Acceptance: March 31, 2013

330 O. Elisha

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

05:

52 1

2 N

ovem

ber

2014