Pentecostal Migrants Research Articles

Gathered by the Word: Latin Pentecostal Migrant Congregations in the Nordic Countries

Abstract Migration from Portuguese and Spanish-speaking countries has produced over two hundred Evangelical/Pentecostal congregations in the Nordic region during the early twenty-first century. These churches attract people of diverse backgrounds, demanding ongoing negotiations to keep their distinctive existence. I argue that their existence is owed to shared interpretative practices of the Bible and migration experiences, shaping each other, and forming interpretive communities. Based on an ethnographic investigation, five significant themes characterize Latin congregations in the Nordics as interpretive communities, 1) family worship, 2) incubating churches, 3) intercultural families, 4) transnational connection, and 5) hermeneutics of prophecy. These close-knit, connected, and family-like congregations represent a form of migrant self-theologizing for a Christian witness in a pluralistic Nordic region.

African Pentecostal Churches and Racialized Xenophobia: International Migrants as Agents of Transformational Development?

Scholarship on Pentecostal potential and practice forms a significant part of the debate on religion and development, not least when the focus is on sub-Saharan Africa. Yet in this debate African Pentecostal migrant communities have scarcely been represented. The article focuses on two such communities in South Africa, arguing that they may be regarded as developmental agents in the context of racialized xenophobia, even if they do not portray themselves as such. The argument is based on ethnographic fieldwork and shaped through employing the concept of transformational development that centers on restoring relationships. The article concludes that the two communities – living in a context affected by racialized xenophobia – contribute meaningfully towards restoring relationships between people and God, one's relationship with oneself, relationships within the church community as well as relationships between the church community and the neighborhood.

Lusophony Pentecostal Churches in Berlin: Religious Identities Between Integration and Transatlantic Boundaries

Although migration is a constant in human history, current trajectories have new quantitative and qualitative features with religious implications, which are addressed in this article. What is new and paradoxical about what is commonly referred to as globalization is the diffuse nature of worldwide migration and the mobility of people, ideas, and goods. This article therefore explores how members of Brazilian Pentecostal congregations in Berlin use specific functions and patterns of interpretation communicated or generated by discourses of the churches to cope with the lack of social capital in a new social and cultural environment and how their interpretations and orientations shape everyday actions. This article is an attempt to capture the ambiguous role of religious resources in the process of migration and social integration as well as the actions of community members. Although a growing body of literature explores the influence of migrant organizations on its members, new church actors of Christian migrants in Germany are rarely considered as drivers of religious pluralization. Therefore, this article reflects on the different functions of Brazilian Pentecostal congregations for the integration of Lusophone Pentecostal migrants in Berlin. In order to identify the functions of Pentecostal organizations, a theoretical framework is determined and related to the statements of the interview partners and to findings from observations. To answer the research question, this article draws on field research conducted between November 2019 and June 2020. The empirical analysis uses data from four narrative interviews and over 40 participant observations in four different transnational congregations belonging to a Brazilian Pentecostal network of churches. The results show that individual religiosity and belonging to a particular religious group not only provide social relationships and a network of solidarity for individuals, but also reinterpret the social exclusion and marginalization of migrants.

Everyday Migrant Pentecostalism: Changing Contexts for Life and Faith for Migrants and Migrant Churches in Norway

This article looks at migrant Pentecostalism in Norway and how a lived religion approach can help study how Pentecostal migrants’ personal and communal everyday lives intersect with religion. Based on a study of a cross-section of Pentecostal migrant congregations in Norway, the article focuses on how Pentecostal transnational networks and local migrant congregations provide key theological frameworks for interpreting migratory trajectories, life challenges, and faith experiences. More concretely, I ask what differences the migratory context plays for the understanding and practice of religion for Pentecostal migrants in Norway. As a part of this, attention is given to everyday contexts of migrant and their faith communities as well as how lived forms of religion can challenge and broaden our understanding of how and where (migrant) religion is practised today. I also ask how we need theological perspectives to understand these migrant contexts from a lived religion perspective. By mending perspectives from lived religion and lived theology, I ask how migrant theologies can relate and contribute to religious and societal challenges relative to migration. More generally, these perspectives can help nuance our understanding of what constitutes migrant Norwegian and European Pentecostalism today and shed contextual light on religion’s role in understanding migration.

The Anthropology of Christianity and the Dividual Self: Spiritual Flow, Physical Mobility, and Embodied Callings

In Quebec (Canada), the plural religious landscape has strengthened a rhetoric that structures time, space, and morality dichotomously. In local Pentecostal congregations, identity narratives echo this national discourse as they frame religious trajectories within a paradigm of discontinuity that distinguish before and after being Christian, sin and grace, perdition and salvation. By examining Pentecostal migrants’ narratives that have been collected in ethnographic fieldworks among churches located in Montreal (Quebec, Canada), I question the construction of such a binary view in local migratory landscape and propose that we think of the various mobilities of Christian believers and ideology in terms of continuity, fluidity, and dividuality. Drawing on the concept of gendered dividuality, I understand Pentecostals’ charismatic experiences with the Holy Spirit as exchanges that constitute their personhood at the intersection with Quebecois collective debates focused on gender and migration issues. I argue that Pentecostalism’s ontological fluidity is part of a hermeneutics of the dividual self that features religious actors in a postmodern setting.

GENDER BARGAINS IN A PENTECOSTAL (BORN-AGAIN) MARRIAGE: DIVORCE AS A SOCIO-RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE IN THE GLORIOUS VESSELS INTERNATIONAL CHAT GROUP

The rise of the Pentecostal movement in the last three decades is one of the most striking features in the global topography of contemporary religion. In Switzerland, the Pentecostal or charismatic movement is the most popular strand of migrant Christianity. This article is based on a three-year online ethnographic participant observation of different Nigerian-led online Pente-costal groups. The use of diverse interactive spaces seems to be of particular significance to both mega and non-mega Nigerian-led Pentecostal migrant churches in the country. By exploring the social practices of online commu-nities such as the Glorious Vessels International WhatsApp chat group, the article shows how different forms of biblical patriarchy shape conversations that “recognise” or “repress” the rights and roles of women – their economic status and sexuality in born-again movements. The exchange of ideas that ensued on the issues of divorce among members of Glorious Vessels International shows how bargaining in the physical (real) world is transferred into the online environment. I analyse this phenomenon by understanding the ideal online religious community as an assemblage that promotes a certain gendered image of the prosperous family.

Migration Policies and Uncertainty

Abstract This article addresses the role of migrant congregations as civil society players through the practice of prayer. By combining the notion of political activism and the theory of subjectivation, it offers a new perspective on Pentecostal practice and migrant congregations in Europe as a way of addressing uncertainty linked to migration policies and mobility regimes. In Switzerland, where conditions for migrants have become increasingly restrictive, political and social forms of exclusion are challenged by African Pentecostal migrants who engage in prayer that contests restrictions on mobility, assignation to subaltern positions, as well as other forms of discrimination. Yet, this ritual resistance rarely takes the form of a political action; neither does it formulate concrete claims towards immigration procedures and policies. Rather, it is expressed through prayer in the protective space of a religious community, allowing the migrants to reassess subjectivations and to imagine new subjectivities.

Accompanied Self: Debating Pentecostal Individual and Japanese Relational Selves in Transnational Japan

AbstractWhile the notion of the individual figures prominently in the debate about Christian personhood, the concept of relational selves has shaped the existing literature on Japanese selfhood. I take this seeming divergence between “individual Christian” and “interdependent Japanese” as the point of departure to probe how Japanese‐Brazilian Pentecostal migrants in contemporary Japan understand and experience their sense of self. The article is based on 14 months of fieldwork in Toyota, Japan, which consisted of participant observation, interviews, and surveys among Brazilian and Japanese residents there. The discourses about the category of religion serve as a major source of data to tease out cultural understandings about “the authentic self.” I will argue that Pentecostal personhood does not fit within either the “individual” or the “relational.” The concept of “accompanied self” will then be proposed to accurately capture the kind of self that many migrant converts strive to embody.

With Jesus in Paradise?

This article explores the quest among contemporary pentecostal migrants from mainland Tanzania in Zanzibar to become “saved” Christians. The analysis of a set of techniques and processes applied in developing and keeping faith reveals high levels of suspicion and doubt connected to the perceived presence of evil in the Zanzibari environment, which, in turn, is linked to a fear of losing salvation. With Christian minorities recently having their premises attacked in connection with sociopolitical hostilities in the predominantly Muslim setting of Zanzibar, the case in this article highlights how the context of violence is negotiated in pentecostal modes of suspicion toward the other while, at the same time, it bolsters spiritual growth. This illustrates how a pentecostal ethos intermingles with and provides migrants with ways of interpreting the contemporary setting in which religious belonging is at the fore in present-day calls for Zanzibari political sovereignty and inclusive Union politics.

Mermaids and Spirit Spouses: Rituals as Technologies of Gender in Transnational African Pentecostal Spaces

This article aims to approach the construction of gender in transnational spacesby focusing on the ritual practice of African Pentecostal migrants in Europeand in Africa. One dimension of African Pentecostalism is its insistence on thepractice of exorcism called ‘deliverance’ where malevolent spirits are expelledfrom one’s body. Within the Pentecostal demonology, several categories ofspirits carry implications for how gender is constructed. This article will analyseeffects of the appearance of these spirits on the construction of genderamong Ghanaian and Congolese Pentecostal churches in Geneva and in Accra.It will show that variations in the appearance of spirits within rituals can beinterpreted as a negotiation of gender roles in a migratory context. Shifts inPentecostal demonology can therefore be interpreted as a response to thereconfiguration of gender roles associated with the broader gender contextand work opportunities in Europe.

African Pentecostal Migrants in China: Marginalization and the Alternative Geography of a Mission Theology

Abstract:The city of Guangzhou, China, hosts a diverse and growing population of foreign Christians. The religious needs of investors and professionals have been accommodated through government approval of a nondenominational church for foreigners. By contrast, African Pentecostal churches operate out of anonymous buildings under informal and fragile agreements with law-enforcement officers. The marginality of the churches is mirrored by the daily lives of the church-goers: Many are undocumented immigrants who restrain their movements to avoid police interception. In contrast to these experiences, the churches present alternative geographies where the migrants take center stage. First, Africans are given responsibility for evangelizing the Gospel, as Europeans are seen to have abandoned their mission. Second, China is presented as a pivotal battlefield for Christianity. And finally, Guangzhou is heralded for its potential to deliver divine promises of prosperity. This geographical imagery assigns meaning to the migration experience, but also reinforces ethnic isolation. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews, participant observation, and video recordings of sermons in a Pentecostal church in Guangzhou with a predominately Nigerian congregation.

Mermaids and Spirit Spouses: Rituals as Technologies of Gender in Transnational African Pentecostal Spaces

This article aims to approach the construction of gender in transnational spaces by focusing on the ritual practice of African Pentecostal migrants in Europe and in Africa. One dimension of African Pentecostalism is its insistence on the practice of exorcism called ‘deliverance’ where malevolent spirits are expelled from one’s body. Within the Pentecostal demonology, several categories of spirits carry implications for how gender is constructed. This article will analyse effects of the appearance of these spirits on the construction of gender among Ghanaian and Congolese Pentecostal churches in Geneva and in Accra. It will show that variations in the appearance of spirits within rituals can be interpreted as a negotiation of gender roles in a migratory context. Shifts in Pentecostal demonology can therefore be interpreted as a response to the reconfiguration of gender roles associated with the broader gender context and work opportunities in Europe.

African Pentecostal Migrants in China: Marginalization and the Alternative Geography of a Mission Theology

African Pentecostal Migrants in China: Marginalization and the Alternative Geography of a Mission Theology

Le traitement de la virginité chez les migrants pentecôtistes à Bruxelles

Cette contribution porte sur le cadrage particulier des conduites sexuelles des migrants africains ou latino-americains opere par l’affiliation pentecotiste a Bruxelles. Cette identification religieuse permet aux fideles de se reconnaitre comme les derniers detenteurs de la moralite dans une Europe percue comme « decadente », le domaine des pratiques sexuelles etant alors l’objet des plus vives critiques. Dans ce contexte religieux, les fideles pentecotistes construisent leur difference d’abord dans le registre de la sexualite. Tâchant de realiser l’injonction a la transformation et poursuivant un ideal de distinction, ces acteurs religieux (et principalement les femmes) se doivent de ne pas ressembler aux locaux dont les pasteurs denoncent la « permissivite ». Dans leur discours, ce « laxisme » en matiere sexuelle prend des formes variables : prostitution partiellement legale, manque de « pudeur » dans l’espace public, legalite du mariage entre personnes de meme sexe, pornographie accessible aux jeunes ou encore campagne de prevention des MST dans les ecoles. Apres avoir analyse les ressorts argumentaires de la voix pastorale et du registre du religieux officiel en matiere de sexualite, cet article entend analyser la creativite et l’inventivite dont font montre les fideles pour habiter les normes religieuses, et plus particulierement la maniere dont ils se reapproprient l’injonction a la chastete preconjugale. Dans ce contexte, nous verrons comment les jeunes filles de l’assemblee constituent le « capital de purete » de nombreuses Eglises et sont donc la cible privilegiee des predications dominicales selon une logique qui associe feminite et « tentation » coupable.

The Past in Angolan Migrants' Conversion Narratives

This article aims to explore how space and time are involved in Angolan migrants’ conversion narratives in two different Pentecostal migrant churches in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. A comparison between two strategies of pastoral care and the decisive role they play in the church adherents’ way of dealing with their past is analyzed through a theoretical framework of memory and trauma, memory and conversion and implicit social knowledge.

The Global Context of Transnational Pentecostalism in Europe

The article contrasts the burgeoning Pentecostal movement of the global South with the relative secularity of the European context, both Western and Eastern, into which Pentecostal migrants move. It examines processes of globalization and theories, notably that of Eisenstadt, that relate recent religious revitalizations to globalization. It suggests that the negative characterizations of Pentecostalism in such theories stem in part from Eurocentric evolutionary conceptions of modernity built into Western secularization theory, and in part from a failure to appreciate the centrality of certain constitutive antinomies in Pentecostalism. The argument stresses the global and hybrid character of Pentecostalism, its combination of European and indigenous spirituality, and its paradoxical ability to be both traditional and hyper-modern, local and global. It relates these to other Pentecostal antinomies, and outlines the debates about how these paradoxes operate in Pentecostalism’s relation to capitalism, politics and modern identity. The secularization processes of the West are contrasted with the continuing “enchantment” of the global South. The distinctive patterns of religion and secularity of Western and Eastern Europe are outlined and contrasted with the non-territorial nature of the transnational diaspora Pentecostal churches in Europe.

The role of refugee-established churches in integrating forced migrants: A case study of Word of Life Assembly in Yeoville, Johannesburg

The increasing embeddedness of religious issues within contemporary global phenomena has increased the role religion plays in migrants’ spiritual, social, and economic lives. Drawing on the findings of the study, conducted within one of the Pentecostal migrant churches in Johannesburg, this paper explored ways in which a (migrant) church shapes a refugee’s motivation to integrate and his resultant quest for a transient alternative belonging and inclusion within diasporic communities through church affiliation. Through interviews with members of the Word of Life Assembly (WOLA), one of the independent churches established by forced migrants in Yeoville, the study revealed that refugees tend to integrate themselves within their own churches, while the refugee church itself – labelled a ‘foreign’ entity by South African community members – works to garner approval and acceptance from South Africans and faith-based institutions. Cultural and linguistic problems were identified as major barriers to a refugee’s attempts to integrate into local churches, thereby becoming important issues that need to be considered in the establishment of migrant churches within the South African host community.

Pentecostal Adaptations in Rural and Urban Mexico: An Anthropological Assessment

Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing form of Protestant religion in rural and urban Mexico. Anthropological studies have shown that high church-formation rates are related to Pentecostal asceticism and organizational flexibility. Rural Pentecostal migrants in Mexican cities retain a worldview that is largely centered on the work ethic and proscriptions of costly worldly behaviors. A comparison of findings from urban and rural settings shows how Pentecostal ideology allows for a pragmatic stance toward prosperity and community structure. Thus, Mexican Pentecostalism has emerged as a promoter of autochthonous adaptations to diverse socioeconomic environments.