Performing piety in Singapore and Hong Kong: An ethnohistorical analysis of El Shaddai Prayer Movement

• Main Author: Tallara, Mark Iñigo M.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Prayer groups—Singapore—Catholic Church; Prayer groups—Hong Kong—Catholic Church; El Shaddai Prayer Movement (Philippines); Piety; Religion
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/6340
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper is about Filipino charismatic prayer groups, highlighting the El Shaddai DWXI Prayer Partners Fellowship International, popularly known as El Shaddai. From a historical angle, this paper seeks to document the growth and development of El Shaddai’s overseas chapters, particularly the Sunday prayer group in Singapore and Hong Kong. Although the origin of El Shaddai and how the group’s religious practices has changed overtime are central to the arguments of this paper, the discussion also takes a broader consideration of Singapore and Hong Kong as places and spaces for performing piety. Sharing spaces in paper means three things: (1) the Catholic Church’s reaction as well as the support given to El Shaddai prayer groups; (2) how Singaporean and Hong Kong local Catholics are sharing the spaces for performing piety with El Shaddai members; and (3) how El Shaddai members are using their loob or inner self to account for their religious experience and social interaction. In order to examine and contextualize the discussion on how El Shaddai members are performing their pious and other religious practices in Singapore and Hong Kong, this paper considers the different ideas on the study of place and space but focuses on the theory of religion in the works of Thomas A. Tweed and the conceptual and methodical approach of Kim Knott to the study of religion. The discussion relies on three connected questions: (1) How El Shaddai Prayer Movement or particular El Shaddai prayer group in Singapore and Hong Kong act like a confluence of organic flows? (2) How the different religious practices of El Shaddai Prayer Movement intensify jo and confront suffering? (3) How do the members of El Shaddai in Singapore and Hong Kong make homes and cross boundaries? By using the interview materials and other documents collected from El Shaddai preachers, council members, and elders in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as field observation and semi-structured interviews of elected members of El Shaddai, this paper offers an ethnohistorical analysis of Filipino charismatic prayer groups and how they are performing piety in shred spapes for religious practices.