The ideology of idoneousness: Mary Anne Hilton and Mercedes Gutierrez as symbols of women’s exclusion from spaces of power in Chilean Pentecostalism

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article describes the ideology of idoneousness as one of the Pentecostal principles that explain the forms taken by the integration of women in structures of religious power. Their access to and exclusions from power in Chilean Pentecostalism is concealed through the sexualisation of roles based on the stronger masculine/weaker feminine (virile/mulieris) duality, underpinned by the head/hand organic frame. This conceptual proposal was complemented with Pierre Bourdieu’s constructivist structuralism, and focuses on two women who formed part of the foundational myth of Pentecostalism: Mary Anne Hilton and Mercedes Gutierrez. In our methodology we included the analysis of the two institutional journals from the early history of the Pentecostal church history in Chile, namely: Chile Pentecostal (1910–1927 and from (1933–1979), and Fuego de Pentecostés (1928–2019).KEYWORDS: PentecostalismChilewomenidoneousnesschurch leadership Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Hereinafter Mary Hilton.2. We will not resort to the sociological tradition to define the concept of ideology, so widely developed and discussed, but which, at the same time, has lost relevance over other concepts such as Vattino’s weak thought or Derrida’s deconstruction. But for our case, the concept of ideology seems more appropriate, although anachronistic, to strengthen the concept of idoneousness.3. Laura Ester Contreras. ‘A los jóvenes evangélicos’. Chile Evangélico, 1909, nº 12, pp. 3–4; Laura Ester Contreras. ‘La anchura del amor del Padre’. Chile Evangélico. Concepción, 1909, nº 18, p. 1; Laura Ester Contreras. “¿Por qué buscáis entre los muertos al que vive? Chile Evangélico. 1910, nº 22, pp. 1–2; Laura Ester Contreras. ‘Ecos de la Conferencia Metodista’. Chile Evangélico, 1910, nº 24, pp. 1–2; Laura Ester Contreras. ‘Alfa y Omega’. Chile Evangélico. 1910, nº 30, p. 2; Laura Ester Contreras. ‘La pesca milagrosa’. Chile Evangélico. 1910, nº 33, pp. 1–2; Laura Ester Contreras. ‘Hojas de sanidad para las naciones’. Chile Evangélico. 1910, nº 35, p. 2; Laura Ester Contreras. ‘No temáis’. Chile Evangélico. 1910, nº 45, p. 19.4. Chile Evangélico. 1909, nº 9, p. 1; Chile Evangélico. 1909, nº 10, p. 3; Chile Evangélico. 1909, nº 10, p. 3.5. Chile Evangélico, 1909, nº 12, p. 4; Chile Evangélico. 1909 nº. 13; Chile Evangélico.1909, nº, 14, p. 3; Chile Evangélico, 1910, nº. 3; Chile Evangélico. 1909, nº. 16, p. 3.6. See trip of Mary Hilton to the United States of North America in: Chile Pentecostal, 1913, 40: 7.7. ‘Teachers and volunteers of the Civic Literacy Corps were yesterday awarded with honourable distinctions for their labours’. (La Mañana, June 14, 1948, 2).8. This was an independent newspaper published in the city of Concepción by a Presbyterian pastor (prone to the Pentecostal movement) between September 1909 and November 1910. During its short existence, this newspaper covered the details of the nascent Chilean Pentecostal movement and its rupture especially with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Chile.Additional informationFundingThis article was prepared within the framework of the Fondecyt Regular project n° 1211321 financed by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) whose lead researcher is Professor Dr. Miguel Mansilla Agüero and the Fondecyt Initiation project n° 11181150 of Professor Dr. Luis Orellana Urtubia.