African Pentecostalism Research Articles

Pan-Africanism and Pentecostalism in Africa

The author of this article argues for a blending of Pan-Africanism and African Pentecostalism so as to produce a new political theology. While lauding the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Pan-African Black scholars, thinkers, and theologians for their efforts and accomplishments, the author lays bare their Western enlightenment worldview which, he argues, crippled their ability to speak to and empower Africans at the grassroots of society. The solution to this problem is to re-contextualize Pan-Africanism. The author argues that the perfect vehicle for this renewal is African Pentecostalism, which is already suited to the African worldview and has been appropriated by masses of Afri-cans at the grassroots. As Pan-Africanism’s political agenda and theology is redeveloped through the use of the African-Pentecostal language, images, idioms, and tools, then this political theology can be transformed in such a way so as to empower the African people.

The making of the Pentecostal melodrama: religion, media, and gender in Kinshasa

Theoretically literate, based on superb ethnography, this book provides one of the best studies of television we have yet in African studies...[that] promises to open up a new field of analysis and define the standards for how this research is to be conducted...a landmark that will make a significant contribution to some of the main fields in African studies and anthropology. * Brian Larkin, Columbia University [A] tour de force. This very elegantly and evocatively written ethnography of Congolese television drama is a path-breaking example of what it means to conduct and construct a thick description of a culture of media production. * Debra Spitulnik Vidali, Emory University This book is beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated, nuanced in its analysis and empirically rich. Given that so much has already been written on African Pentecostalism, coming up with something original and new to say on the topic is quite a challenge, but Pype pulls it off and deserves a lot of credit for that. * Martin Lindhardt, University of Copenhagen The author deserves great praise for the original way in which she moves her analysis beyond a mere observation of African Pentecostalism. This ethnographically grounded book not only captures the heterogeneity that marks Kinshasa in a beautiful way, but it also innovatively combines three currently burgeoning fields within anthropology: the anthropology of urban settings, the anthropology of youth, and the anthropology of media. * Filip De Boeck, University of Leuven How religion, gender, and urban sociality are expressed in and mediated via television drama in Kinshasa is the focus of this ethnographic study. Influenced by Nigerian films and intimately related to the emergence of a charismatic Christian scene, these teleserials integrate melodrama, conversion narratives, Christian songs, sermons, testimonies, and deliverance rituals to produce commentaries on what it means to be an inhabitant of Kinshasa. Katrien Pype currently holds a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship. She is working at MIT and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven on social media and old age in Kinshasa.

Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal revolution in Nigeria

Ruth Marshall's study of Pentecostalism in Nigeria is part of a growing body of literature about the significant rise of West African Pentecostalism, and yet it is a unique contribution to the field, for Marshall offers nothing less than a reconceptualization of religion and politics. Arguing that religion is best understood as an irreducible practice, she shows that functionalist assumptions, modernist teleologies, the secularist dichotomy between faith and reason, and nativist representations of religious contextualization are altogether unsuitable social scientific concepts for understanding the success of the Pentecostal movement, or the relationship between religion and politics as a whole. The first chapter accordingly begins with what the introduction laid out as the task of clearing ‘an analytical space’ (p. 3) for understanding religious practices. Marshall deconstructs scholarly conceptualizations of Pentecostalism as signification of something else – be it as a restoration of African identity or the appropriation of neo-liberal capitalism – and proposes that religious change is neither a sign nor an effect of other developments, but ‘in and of itself a mode of historical and political transformation’ (p. 34). With a Foucauldian approach, the Born Again movement (as Marshall also calls Pentecostalism) need not be analysed in terms of its function or the truth of its beliefs, but can be understood as a specific set of practices aimed at subjectivation and governmentality, and constituted in a specific historical constellation. Yet, drawing from Foucault's rediscovery of a ‘political spirituality’ in the Iranian revolution, Marshall also seeks to identify an irreducible element to religion which is related to desire and the original capacity to act: to redeem the past and to begin again. This double understanding of religion as a political practice, but of a unique type, guides Marshall's detailed analyses for the remainder of the book.

Black fire: one hundred years of African American Pentecostalism

Black fire: one hundred years of African American Pentecostalism

Book Review: Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism

Book Review: Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism

The Protestant Ethic and African Pentecostalism: A Case Study

In 2008 South Africa’s Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) produced a report on Pentecostalism, Under the Radar: Pentecostalism in South Africa and its Potential Social and Economic Role, which makes great claims for the public effects of Pentecostalism, proposing that Pentecostalism will do for South Africa what Max Weber argued Calvinism did for eighteenth-century Europe. The report is influenced by “the claims of sociologists of religion that Pentecostalism has a special affinity with market-based development, and a kinship with what historians call the “Protestant ethic”: a cluster of beliefs, attitudes and habits that underpinned the spectacular economic growth of north-west Europe during the industrial revolution.” This article will review the results published by the CDE visa- vis the construction of a “Pentecostal Ethic” and present a case study of an African Pentecostal church, Winners’ Chapel, which challenges the assertions made by the CDE. As an example of the prevalence of “victorious living” within African Pentecostalism, Winners’ Chapel does not conform to the Weberian model of the Protestant Ethic.

Prosperity and Prophecy in African Pentecostalism

AbstractThis essay discusses how prosperity is understood and articulated in Ghanaian Pentecostal prophetic circles. It seeks to show that in the peripheral prophetism of Pentecostalism, prosperity is perceived as the good life Christ offers those who believe in him. The good life is a religious and social quest of Ghanaians. The bad life is a privation of goodness in this life. Coping with the bad life has necessitated the patronage of Ghanaian prophetic services where rituals of transformation are employed to negotiate evil and suffering in the life of the faithful. Critical in the discussion is the role of the 'Other' who creates conditions of impoverishment for people and who justifies the necessity of prophetic negotiation. The paper also analyses the content of the bad life and finally attempts to show that Christ's parables in Luke 16 propose a guiding paradigm for conceiving prosperity as a tool for harmonious interhuman relations.

African Pentecostalism: An Introduction, by Ogbu Kalu

African Pentecostalism: An Introduction, by Ogbu Kalu

Marketing a new African God: Pentecostalism and material salvation in Ghana

AbstractPentecostalism is an American creation that has been exported to various parts of the world. Its message of hope is produced and promoted by churches that are led by religious entrepreneurial salespeople who create value for customers through the use of marketing techniques that facilitate the blending of the local and the global; the sacred and the profane. Its success in Africa has been attributed to the African penchant for connecting every human experience to the religious. Using the marketing strategic framework of target market and four Ps as an organization tool, we draw on a year‐long ethnography in Kumasi, Ghana, to suggest that Pentecostalism in Ghana is marketed as an effective route to material success without risk to postmortem salvation. While the effective blend of the sacred and the profane allows for open public discourse, it fails to deliver on its promise of economic salvation for the poor. In fact, it causes the condition of the poor to deteriorate even further through application of its fundamental requirement: give and God will bless you according to the extent of your giving. We conclude that the new African Pentecostalism and its open embrace of contemporary consumption and materialism have arrested local religiosity and imposed an “economic imperialism” that impregnates every human experience with a commercial character.Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

African Pentecostalism in Diaspora

This article is an attempt to survey the field of African immigrant Christianity so as to put the specifically Pentecostal factor in proper perspective. It points to where scholars have been, are and should be going, and who are the chief conversation partners. It examines the various discourses, arguing that reverse flow is broader than a description of Africans doing mission in the northern globe; it is better grasped from a global missiological perspective. African immigrant Christianity is beyond the religious performances of suffering communities in Europe; the discourses on modernity and globalization are useful but harbour internal contradictions; and the profiles of mega churches are not adequate representations. We are confronted with complex matters about religious experiences and expressions catalyzed by the complex patterns of African migration and the changing character of the destinations. The question to be raised is: what is the Pentecostal dimension?

Modern African Pentecostal Discourse: A Textual Analysis of Prayer Texts of a Word of Life Church Senior Pastor

As the rampant forces of global capitalism relentlessly turn the world into a global village where the socio-economically weak are mercilessly marginalised, Southern Africa experiences a return to spiritualism as a strategy to ensure a sense of security and prosperity despite a gloomy material prognosis. Modern African Pentecostalism flourishes in Lesotho thanks to a discourse that seeks to portray the spirit world as real, tangible and controllable by the ‘anointed’ human being. This paper looks at the prayer text of a Word of Life Church Senior Pastor and co-founder from a perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis. The paper finds that her text depends heavily on contextualisation through the use of indexical meanings to “naturalise” Modern African Pentecostal discourse.

‘If you are saved you cannot forget your parents’: Agency, Power, and Social Repositioning in Tanzanian born-again Christianity

AbstractIn much of the literature on African Pentecostalism, conversion has been associated with a striving for modernist individualist identities and a strategy for legitimising social, generational rupture. This article contributes to the existing scholarly field by shedding light on the ways in which urban Tanzanian born-again Christians address generational antagonisms and position themselves in relation to elder generations. Drawing on anthropological discussions of the concept of agency and focusing particular attention on the ways in which a specific kind of agency is cultivated through participation in ritual, I argue against a narrow association of born-again Christianity with modernist individualism. While an assertion of individual autonomy is implied in conversion, Tanzanian born-again Christians do not cease to be social beings, deeply embedded in family relationships. I demonstrate how born-again religious practice enables urban Tanzanians to actively rephrase and sometimes even improve their relationships with unconverted family elders.

Holy Praiseco: Negotiating Sacred and Popular Music and Dance in African Pentecostalism

AbstractIn post-colonial Africa, Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity has slowly emerged as an influential shaper of culture and identity through its use of music, media, and dance. This article gives an overview of the transitions that have occurred in African politics, identity awareness, and culture, especially as it relates to the indigenous village public and it’s interface with the external Western public, and how the emergent cultural public has become the most influential player in shaping the African moral universe. Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity has navigated the shift from a missionary-driven avoidance of indigenous music and dance to the incorporation of indigenous elements, leading in turn to the popularization of Pentecostal music and dance that blends indigenous forms and concepts, Christian symbolism, and popular cultural expressions. The resulting forms have not only shaped Christianity, but also the surrounding culture and its political environment.

Ogbu Kalu and Africa’s Christianity: A Tribute

AbstractIn this review article some of the key ideas presented in the scholarship of Ogbu Kalu on African Christianity generally, and African Pentecostalism specifically, are discussed. The review commends Professor Kalu for broadening the historiography of Pentecostalism beyond North America and Europe to global phenomena with multiple access points. It further praises Kalu for pioneering the role of cultural moorings upon the shape of African Christianity. The review however highlights the limitations of a purely contextual and historiographical approach, and invites the discourse to participate in the broader global historical and theological Pentecostal conversation.

African Pentecostalism

The diversity of African Pentecostalism, its early colonial and missionary history and its current characteristics are described and analysed. Reference is made to methods of training and forms of leadership, and suggestions are made about the reasons for its growth and persistence.

A Brief History and Typology of the African Reformation

This introductory essay elucidates the three phases of new African Christianity: Ethiopian churches, Zionist churches, and African Pentecostalism. In so doing, it provides a basic typology and history of the African Reformation, while simultaneously contextualizing the articles in this collection. Articles in this special issue, unlike much previous scholarship, explains African churches on their own internal terms, rather than external Western ones.

African pentecostalism: an introduction

1. Oriki: Genealogy and Identity in Pentecostal Historiography 2. Bakuzufu: Contested Identities and the Quest for Power in African Christianity 3. Moya: African Charismatic Initiatives and Classical Pentecostal Missionaries 4. Mademoni: African Instituted Churches in Pentecostal Rhetoric 5. Aliliki: Charismatic Resurgence in the 1970s: A Regional Comparison 6. The Big Man of the Big God: Pentecostalism, Media, and Popular Culture in the 1980s 7. Elijah's Mantle: Pentecostal Re-evangelization of Africa in the 1990s 8. Gendered Charisma: Charisma and Women in African Pentecostalism 9. Sankofa: Pentecostalism in the African Map of the Universe 10. Masters on Horses: The Roots of Pentecostal Public Ethics 11. Tembisa: Pentecostal Political Theology and Practices 12. Child of the Bondwoman: Islam and Sharia In Pentecostal Rhetoric: A Nigerian Case Study 13. Standing on the Word: Pentecostal Theologies 14. Reverse Flow: Pentecostalism and Immigrant African Christianity

‘Our Enemies are God's Enemies’: The Religion and Politics of Bishop Margaret Wanjiru, MP

Margaret Wanjiru is the leader of one of Kenya's largest independent Pentecostal churches and now the Member of Parliament for Starehe, a central Nairobi constituency. This paper analyses her successful campaign, which began on the basis of a prophecy made by a visiting American minister and was imbued with Pentecostalist imagery and rhetoric throughout. She was anointed in God's name for electoral victory at a Christmas Day service at her church; claimed that she was ‘taking this seat for Jesus’ after being violently attacked on the campaign trail; and after the election depicted her success as a sign that God materially rewards His believers. Yet Wanjiru simultaneously proved able to appeal to an audience wider than Pentecostals. She made concrete pledges on development issues and wielded to great effect her identity as a single mother, a consummate urbanite, a self-made businessman, and a rare Kikuyu member of ODM. Wanjiru's religious and political speech aligned in a mutually reinforcing rhetoric premised on the material rewards promised by both. Her election provides strong evidence against the assumption that African Pentecostalism and politics do not mix.

HIV/AIDS Support and African Pentecostalism

International and African discourses on the HIV/AIDS pandemic and intervention neglect the role of religion and religious organizations. Social science perspectives in tackling health and disease neglect religious doctrines and faith central to worldviews and praxis of religious groups. Both aspects are important for religious groups and individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. Informed by a religious studies paradigm and through the religious ethnography of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Nigeria and the Diaspora, this article demonstrates mechanisms employed by African Pentecostals to combat the epidemic and provide support for infected members. The RCCG conceptualization of disease and healing is central to understanding responses and measures in combating HIV/AIDS.

An African Pentecostal on Mission in Eastern Europe: The Church of the "Embassy of God" in the Ukraine

An African Pentecostal on Mission in Eastern Europe: The Church of the "Embassy of God" in the Ukraine