Reminder: Conference on the Christian Right (22 and 23th of oct, 2021)

British Protestant Missions, Europe and "imaginary colonialism"

"This (excellent!) 2021 book is the first account of British Protestant conversion initiatives directed towards continental Europe between 1600 and 1900.

Continental Europe was considered a missionary land—another periphery of the world, whose centre was imperial Britain. British missions to Europe were informed by religious experiments in America, Africa, and Asia, rendering these offensives against Europe a true form of "imaginary colonialism".

British Protestant missionaries often understood themselves to be at the forefront of a civilising project directed at Catholics (and sometimes even at other Protestants). Their mission was further reinforced by Britain becoming a land of compassionate refuge for European dissenters and exiles. This book engages with the myth of International Protestantism, questioning its early origins and its narrative of transnational belonging, while also interrogating Britain as an imagined Protestant land of hope and glory."

Link.

"God needs no defense": Evangelicals and Muslims share views

Yes, Evangelicals and Muslims compete, but they also do talk.

In April of 2020, leaders of the World Evangelical Alliance and Nahdlatul Ulama — including Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher, Dr. Christine Schirrmacher, Dr. Thomas K. Johnson, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf and C. Holland Taylor — established the Humanitarian Islam/WEA Joint Working Group. This volume is a product of the Joint Working Group’s Subcommittee on Jurisprudence, Human Rights and Ethics.

Founded in 1846, the World Evangelical Alliance is the largest international organization of evangelical churches, representing over 600 million Protestants and national evangelical alliances in 140 countries. It refers to the Gospel of Jesus-Christ as the main teaching, and promotes faith and evangelism through local communities.

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) federates 90 millions of Indonesian Muslims, and develops within its ranks a movement called Humanitarian Islam, rooted in the principle of rahmah — stressing the need to contextualize and adapting Islamic teachings, while presenting Islam not as a supremacist ideology or vehicle for conquest, but rather, as one of many paths through which humans may attain spiritual perfection. Link

"The Christian Right: What Convergences today?"

An international conference not to be missed! Research on evangelicals being at the heart of current events, the objective of this international conference will be to broaden the field by crossing analyses and observations in order to better identify the dynamics at work in the Christian world on the level of interactions between religion and politics.

The conference intends to put forward early career researchers. Papers will be in French or in English, to be followed by ensuing publications.

Link

Transatlantic Charismatic Renewal, c.1950-2000, a MUST READ

In Transatlantic Charismatic Renewal, c.1950-2000, Andrew Atherstone, Mark Hutchinson and John Maiden bring together leading researchers to examine one of the globally most important religious movements of the twentieth century. Variously referred to as the charismatic ‘renewal’ or ‘revival’, it was a key Christian response to globalization, modernity and secularization. Unlike other accounts (which focus either on denominational pentecostalism or charismatic phenomena outside the West), this volume describes transatlantic Christianity drawing deeply on its pneumatic roots to bring about renewal. New research in archives and overlooked journals illuminate key figures from David du Plessis to John Wimber, providing insights which challenge the standard interpretations of the charismatic movement’s origins and influence. 

Link.

Faith in Flux, Pentecostalism and Mobility in Rural Mozambique

Anthropologist Devaka Premawardhana arrived in Africa to study the much reported "explosion" of Pentecostalism, the spread of which has indeed been massive. It is the continent's fastest growing form of Christianity and one of the world's fastest growing religious movements.

Yet Premawardhana found no evidence for this in the province of Mozambique where he worked. His research suggests that much can be gained by including such places in the story of global Christianity, by shifting attention from the well-known places where Pentecostal churches flourish to the unfamiliar places where they fail.

A must-read book (link)

The History of Evangelicals and Religious Freedom (Baylor)

An international online conference from the Evangelical Studies Program at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and co-sponsored by Baylor’s Truett Seminary

After a successful conference last year on the history of Evangelicals in Latin America, the Evangelical Studies Program at Baylor ISR will hold a conference on the history of Evangelicals and religious freedom. It will range over the period from the eighteenth century to the present and will have papers on many parts of the globe.

Link

Church & Land in Basutoland: the Paris Evangelical Mission

Thanks to Ntabanyane S. K. Tseuoa (University of KwaZulu-Natal), a new light is shed on the interactions between the Paris Evangelical Mission and the people of the Basutoland (now in South Africa).

This paper (2020) investigates how the Paris Mission acquired land in Basutoland upon the arrival of its missionaries in 1833 and in subsequent years. It also looks at changing notions of land and the missionaries' utilisation of it throughout their tenure in Basutoland. It explores how the Basuto as a people understood the possession of land vis-â-vis the European notion of buying and selling land as a commodity.

Grateful for the full-text access! Good work! But disappointed by the total lack of french-speaking research. A great deal of quality work has been done, particularly by Historian Jean-François Zorn, world-wide specialist of the Paris Evangelical Mission. None of this research is used here. Hey, English-speaking friends, using a bit of french should not be an option if you work on French missions!

Link

Evangelicals in the Latino political arena: Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay

The advance of evangelical congregations in the Latin American religious scene is one of the most significant cultural transformations of the last decades.

It is so because of the speed with which it has occurred, because of the important number of people involved and because of the depth with which it challenges the Catholic Church, one of the most emblematic institutions of the continent since the conquest.

In this paper, the authors analyze one of the areas in which this religious revolution is manifesting itself in three different countries: Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

 

Link.

Baptist Churches and War in Eastern Congo between 1990 and 2011

Langham is one ot the major publishers providing today fresh quality content from skilled African authors.

Social science researchers would greatly benefit from paying closer attention to the many good books released each year, including this one: written by Eraston Kambale Kighoma  from a Christian scholarly point of view, this missiology study is worth reading.

It provides a deep insight into the way Baptist churches in Congo dealt with the war in Eastern Congo between 1990 and 2011.

 

Link.

After the Revival Pentecostalism and the Making of a Canadian Church

Early Pentecostal revivals swept through Canadian communities, big and small, in the early 1900s. .. Following these revival meetings, Pentecostals organized, built churches, and expanded across the country, while many churches were beginning to decline. How did these Pentecostal "holy rollers" move from the fringe to take centre stage in Canada's religious landscape? 

After the Revival offers a state-of-the-art review of the academic study of Canadian Pentecostalism.

Link

Innovation and Competition in Zimbabwean Pentecostalism

"Using the concept of a “religious market”, this volume explores how African Traditional Religions and churches within Prophetic Pentecostalism in Zimbabwe seek to attract and retain members and clients.

Chapters provide extensive coverage of two of the leading churches, namely, Emmanuel Makandiwa's United Family International Church (UFIC) and Walter Magaya's Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries (PHD)"

Innovation and Competition in Zimbabwean Pentecostalism is an important contribution to understanding the marketization of religion.

 

Link

Christian Zionist religiouscapes in Brazil (Social Compass)

he increasing appropriation by Charismatic Evangelicals of Jewish narratives, rituals, and even Zionist anxieties is now evident in many parts of the globe. Drawing on two cases, one based on a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal church and another based on an ethnographic investigation of a ‘Judaizing Evangelical’ community in Brazil this study interrogates to what extent we can comprehend this emerging tendency within Brazilian Charismatic Evangelicalism...

 

Link

"Evangelicalism & Religious Experience in Black Women’s Activism"

This article centers Black religious women’s activist memoirs, including Mamie Till Mobley’s Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America (2003) and Rep. Lucia Kay McBath’s Standing Our Ground: The Triumph of Faith over Gun Violence: A Mother’s Story (2018), to refocus the narrative of American Evangelicalism and politics around Black women’s authoritative narratives of religious experience, expression, mourning, and activism.

Available in full access here (link)

Island Gospel Pentecostal Music and Identity in Jamaica and the US

Pentecostals throughout Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora use music to declare what they believe and where they stand in relation to religious and cultural outsiders. Yet the inclusion of secular music forms like ska, reggae, and dancehall complicates music's place in social and ritual practice, challenging Jamaican Pentecostals to reconcile their religious and cultural identities.

Melvin L. Butler journeys into this crossing of boundaries and its impact on Jamaican congregations and the music they make. Using the concept of flow, Butler's ethnography evokes both the experience of Spirit-influenced performance and the transmigrations that fuel the controversial sharing of musical and ritual resources between Jamaica and the United States.

A rare and important research ! Link

Prosperity Gospel : at least 5 varieties

Who did not hear about Prosperity Gospel ? However, even if it's easy and simple to remember, the label misleading.

The more I read (for example, Blessed, from Kate Bowler, and Coleman, The Globalization of Charismatic Christianity) and the more I do field research (In France, Congo, Madagascar Burkina Faso etc), the more I come to realize that there is at least FIVE distinct theologies behind the "Prosperity Gospel" label. In a nutshell, let me share these varieties with you:

-A magico-religious variety

-A performative variety (Word of Faith)

- A gift /countergift version (Mauss)

-A contract variety (Covenant, Laws of the Kingdom)

-A postcolonial version

To be followed....

Nationalism, American evangelicals, and conservatism

Historians Anthea Butler and Heather J. Sharkey (picture) and political scientist Michele Margolis share their thoughts on the history of American evangelicals in politics, Trump’s appeal, and what it means for the future of the GOP.

Thank you University of Pennsylvania for sharing these bright analysis.

 

Link.

British Evangelicals, German Pietists & Revival in Hungary

This article demonstrates how British evangelicals, German pietists, and Hungarian Protestants sought to ‘educate’ the masses outside the educational framework of ecclesiastical and state structures within the Hungarian Kingdom in the nineteenth century. More specifically the study intends to offer a concise overview of the history of Protestants who spread the gospel through the distribution of affordable Bibles, New Testaments and Christian tracts. 

To read more, click here (link)

 

White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America

The American political scene today is poisonously divided, and the vast majority of white evangelicals play a strikingly unified, powerful role in the disunion. These evangelicals raise a starkly consequential question for electoral politics: Why do they claim morality while supporting politicians who act immorally by most Christian measures? In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power.

A very much needed scholarly book to put in historical perspective White Evangelical's contemporary positioning.

Link.

Christian Right today: International Conference in Paris (October 2021)

This is a very exciting news ! Thanks to the great work already completed by  Karina Wendling, a bright French PhD. candidate from the GSRL research team, a GSRL-CNRS International Conference will be held in Paris next october 2021, with Prof. Paul Freston, Prof André Gagné and PhD. Tobias Kremer as keynote speakers.

Research on Evangelicalism being at the heart of current events, the goal of this international conference will be to broaden the field by crossing analysis and observations in order to better identify the dynamics at work in the Christian world. Religion and politics will be the main focus, through the particular lense of the Christian Right.

The preliminary program is already available here: link

European Evangelicals in Egypt (1900-1956), Brill

This scholarly book is the published version of a PhD dissertation submitted by Dr Samir Boulos in 2013 at the University of Zurich.

It is a well-researched attempt at understanding the interactions of three European Evangelical missions (two of them British, and one German) active in Egypt in colonial, late colonial and post colonial contexts, from a cultural studies perspective. Here are these missionary institutions :the German Sudan Pioneer-Mission, the English Mission College in Cairo (dependent on the Church of England), and the (British) Egypt General Mission.

These institutions were committed to diverse forms of missionary actions. The main aspects were education through schools, and health, both through hospitals and family health advice intended for mothers. The full book's review from Philippe Bourmaud is available here (Social Sciences and Missions, link).

Link to the book

Law against "separatism": French freedoms at stake

The French national motto is Freedom, Equality, Fraternity.

Will the current French government remember its first word, "Freedom"?

As it is heading toward a new law targeting "separatism", concerns rise.

Evangelicals in the word: around 665 million (2021)

Evangelical Protestants are approximately 665 million in the world at the beginning of the year 2021, according to this annual global statistical overview I am glad to share with you.

This release also gives the opportunity to highlight some of recent published research. Books have been slightly  less numerous in 2020 ("Covid19 effect" was felt on the the last semester).

The data in PDF are available here (link) and they are presented in video below via Youtube.

This one is in french but I'd love some day to do one in english. To be followed....

 

French Baptist Bicentenary

Did you know that there were Baptist churches in France before Baptist churches started in Texas ?

Baptist beginnings trace back to 1820, with several Believer's baptisms in Nomain (North of France). One year after (1821), the first French Baptist congregation started in Aix, a very small village near Nomain.

Due to the current pandemia, French Baptists could not really mark this 200th Anniversary properly. However, this French Baptist bicentenary remains a significant step towards a more diverse French religious landscape.

As I did study this particular French Baptist history for my Ph.D (defended in Sorbonne EPHE in 1998), I've decided to review (and improve) an old Powerpoint presentation which explains the four steps of French Baptist implantation, from 1800s to 1950s.

Although this presentation is in french, the many pictures and sources may be of some interest to English-speaking lovers of Protestant History.

Link to download (the PDF file is BIG)

Evangelicals in Brazil and in USA : a comparative study

Debates do NER is a Brazilian biannual journal, created in 1997 on the initiative of the Center for the Study of Religion (NER), of the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).

Debates do NER is currently one of the most important vehicles for disseminating research related to the Social Sciences of Religion in Mercosur. Thanks to my Brazilian colleagues Marcelo Camurça and Emerson Giumbelli, whom I warmly thank, I had the opportunity to publish in 2020 a comparative historical study on Evangelicalism, USA vs Brazil.

French Evangelicals celebrate 10 years of CNEF

Do you know the CNEF ? In French, it is Conseil National des Evangéliques de France (National Council of French Evangelicals).

Created 10 years ago after merging previous French Evangelical networks, this body represents at least 60% of the One Million French Evangelicals. It just celebrated its 10th Anniversary last tuesday.

From all France, more than 500 connected and registered. The French Interior Minister, Mr Gerald Darmanin, whished a "happy birthday" to all, through a taped video message.  

 

Diffamation and reply : French pastor Samuel Peterschmitt strikes back

50 years ago, French Evangelicals were still shy sideliners. Today, as they reach 1 million of believers, it is not the case anymore. They have somehow become "mainline", not within French global socieyty, but at least within French protestantism.

An example among many is the open way French world champion Olivier Giroud (who already scored 44 goals for the French football national team) speaks about his Evangelical faith in many mainstream media.

This new visibility of French Evangelicals explains also why they do not hesitate to engage in public debate when they feel wrongly accused. A recent example can be found with Pastor Samuel Peterschmitt, leader of one of the 6 megachurches of continental France (the "Porte Ouverte Chrétienne" in Mulhouse, East of France).

Last february, his church became the scapegoat of Covid19 propagation. Many diffamatory comments lead this church, and his pastor, to be targeted.

Pastor Samuel Peterschmitt did not hide. After having received substantial backing from various circles (including the mainstream weekly Paris Match), Samuel Peterschmitt replied on solid ground, deconstructing the diffamatory accusations through a book which has just been released. Written with a mainstream journalist (from the weekly Marianne), the title is "La déferlante" (the flood), ed. Première Partie, 2020.

French documentaries on Billy Graham

Billy Graham, "America's pastor", is a global figure. The example of France is revealing. Although France can't claim more than 3% of protestants (including 1 million of Evangelicals), Billy Graham has strongly impacted the country. 

This is why the French National TV Network "France 2" has devoted a very detailed documentary to Billy Graham. The first part has been released last sunday and can still be viewed for free here : 

Link

Genders, Sexualities, and Spiritualities in African Pentecostalism

In the last three decades, African Pentecostalism has emerged as one the most visible and profound aspects of religious change on the continent, and is a social force that straddles cultural, economic, and political spheres. Its conventional and selective literal interpretations of the Bible with respect to gender and sexualities are increasingly perceived as exhibiting a strong influence on many aspects of social and public institutions and their moral orientations.

This collection published in Chammah J. Kaunda, Genders, Sexualities, and Spiritualities in African Pentecostalism, Palgrave, 2020, features articles which examine sexualities and genders in African Pentecostalism using interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical approaches grounded within traditional African thought systems, with the goal of enabling a broader understanding of Pentecostalism and sexualities in Africa.

As usual in English-speaking synthesis, French-speaking Africa is rarely mentioned, except a chapter devoted to Congo.

Link.

Sunday schools movement in France: read Anne Ruolt

Sunday schools were first set up in the 18th century in Protestant England to provide education to working children. Since then, the movement spread worldwide. Some very insightful researches have been conducted.

For England, let's mention Stephen Orchard, John H. Y. Briggs, The Sunday School Movement : Studies in the Growth and Decline of Sunday Schools, Londres, Paternoster, 2007.

For the United-States, see (among others) Bergler, Thomas E. The Juvenilization of American Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2012.  

The French Protestant landscape has been also impacted early on by the Sunday school movement. Thanks to  (picture), who conducted several researches on Education and Protestantism, a very complete synthesis is available: Anne Ruolt, L’École du Dimanche en France au XIXe siècle, pour croître en sagesse et en grâce, collection religion – sciences humaines, Paris, l’Harmattan, 2012.

This book would largely deserve a translation. Dr Anne Ruolt, who recently defended successfully her habilitation thesis to supervise research,  is currently part of the GSRL research team (Paris, France).