This episode is part of a new series I'll be releasing to revisit conversations that have stuck with me over the course of my time making heaven bent.

Enjoy.

A Sean Crawley grew up in New Jersey, where the Pentecostal church was a huge part of his young adult life.

Both his mother and father were pastors,

and the family spent three to five days a week worshipping. Ashan and his brother played active

roles in the church choir and in the band, and eventually became preachers just like their parents.

Today, he's agnostic, teaching religious studies and African-American and African-Americans

Studies at the University of Virginia.

In 2016, Ashon wrote Black Pentecostal Breath.

It's a book examining the practices of whooping and shouting and speaking in tongues, things that are

commonly found in black Pentecostalism. It's a Christian sect of the church that stems from

the events of the Azusa Street Revival in the early 20th century. Ashon reveals how the practices

of black Pentecostalism created space for people from different races and genders to socialize at a time when it was simply not allowed.

I reached Ashon in Virginia in 2022 while I was still working on season three.

I wanted to know if he thought the Christian churches of, let's say, Northern Canada,

where I grew up in the Pentecostal Church and Prince Rupert,

were we appropriating black culture?

But that's a heavy first question.

So instead, I asked him to start by explaining Black

Pentecostalism. For me, Black Pentecostalism is a portmanteau or the putting together of two

words to create a different concept based on those two words. And so I put together the words black

and Pentecostal because for me, the way that I think about Pentecostalism is through the 1906

...