French Windows - globalization

The new Evangelical Power

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:55:00 +0100

"Evangelicals or evangelists? Those discussed in this book are not the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but rather the evangelicals, the believers who identify with this branch of Protestantism.

A vibrant branch, very vibrant indeed. We see them in our streets singing with fervor, we read their graffiti “Jesus saves” in our cities. Who are they?

Where do they come from? What do they want?"

In 504 pages, this book offers an in-depth historical and sociological analysis of the “evangelical phenomenon,” questioning the nature of the “new power” they represent:

City of God, or God in the city?

Theocratic temptation, or democratic ingredient?

BIG THANKS to GRASSET publishers for their trust.

Link to the publisher

History of the FATEB, "an African Dream" (book)

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:05:00 +0100

Historical studies on theological training sites for Evangelicals in the vast Francophone Africa ?

There are very few.

All the more reason to highlight this book by John F. Robinson (PhD, University of Strasbourg), published in May 2025. It is titled *An African Dream: The History of an Evangelical Seminary for French-Speaking Africa*.

This seminary is the renowned FATEB, Faculté de Théologie Evangélique de Bangui (in French), one of the first university-level evangelical seminary in the area.

Founded in 1974, it is still based in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

Congratulations to John F. Robinson for this book.

Link to learn more.

SISR 2025 Conference

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:55:00 +0200

The ISSR (INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION), founded in 1948, is a worldwide scientific organization devoted to understanding the relationship between religion and society.
The Society holds bilingual (French & English) conferences every two years. Though it does not publish its own journal, the SISR fill one issue of the international journal Social Compass annually with papers from its conferences.

The 2025 Conférence (June 30, July 4) will be held in Lithuania. Its theme :

Religion, Migration, and Conflicts

in Polarized Societies (link)

Evangelicalism and religious freedom

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 22:09:00 +0200

Religious freedom as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains a perennial concern across the globe. Over the centuries many evangelicals have not enjoyed this right in practice, but they have generally advocated its acceptance, especially to allow the spread of the gospel. Not always, however, have they supported freedom for religious groups besides themselves, and sometimes they have endorsed discrimination against other bodies.

To know much more about these key issues, here comes this reference book, edited by David W. Bebbington, The Gospel and Religious Freedom, Historical Studies in Evangelicalism and Political Engagement, Baylor University Press, 2023.

Link.

Pan-African encounter

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:39:00 +0100

The current social, cultural, and political mutations in Africa combine two dimensions.

On one hand, there is a rise in postcolonial sovereigntism. On the other hand, new pan-African dynamics are emerging, which could be described as a "pan-Africanism of nations."

This provides an opportunity to recommend the following book:

Adekeye Adebajo, The Pan-African Pantheon: Prophets, Poets, and Philosophers, Manchester University Press, 2021 (680 pages).

This book is a significant academic anthology that explores Pan-Africanism through the contributions of 36 key figures, spanning from pioneers like Edward Wilmot Blyden and Marcus Garvey to contemporary thinkers such as Wangari Maathai and Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Adebajo, a professor and former director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in South Africa, brings together scholars and writers to offer a multidimensional analysis of the movement, encompassing its historical, intellectual, cultural, and political aspects. Recently published, it provides an updated and comprehensive approach, making it a valuable resource.

Based in Addis-Abeba, the institution at the heart of these pan-African dynamics remains the African Union.

This is an opportunity for me to warmly thank Ms. Paska Nyaboth for her visit to the GSRL earlier this month, and the great discussion provided. I also extend my gratitude to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which supported her visit as part of the PIPA program (Program for Inviting Future Leaders).

With Ms Nyaboth Paska (African Union, PIPA program)

A South Sudanese national, Ms. Paska Nyaboth is one of the very bright minds shaping the pan-African Africa of today and tomorrow. She seeks solutions, informed by the experiences of peoples and nations, including French-speaking ways (in Africa and in France) to deal with religious diversity and secularism.

To be continued!

Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 15:36:00 +0200

Just released : Edited by Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, this Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions offers...

Comprehensively details a multitude of Caribbean religions in one volume
Geographic chapters focus on religious practices in complex nations
Thematic chapters explore a large number of religious traditions

A must-have ! Link

Megachurch Christianity Reconsidered Millennials and Social Change in African Perspective

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 22:08:00 +0100

Building from a behind-the-scenes case study of Kenya's Nairobi Chapel and its "daughter" Mavuno Church, Dr. Wanjiru M. Gitau's book expands their story into a narrative that offers analysis of the rise, growth, and place of megachurches worldwide in the new millennium.

The author helps us rethink what African megachurches can be – and what we can learn out of the American framework. Gitau shows that recognizing the psychological, spiritual, and social destabilization of modernizing societies is the first step to valuing the place of megachurches in contemporary Christianity. The book won the 2019 Christianity Today’s book of the year award in the Global Missions category.

A must-read.

Link

Missionaries and US Diplomacy in the Nineteenth Century

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 18:15:36 +0100

Missionary Diplomacy illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East.

Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power. Were missionaries serving the interests of American diplomacy? Or were they creating unnecessary problems?

To know more, read Emily Conroy-Krutz ,Missionary Diplomacy Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024).

Congrats Emily!

Link

Decolonization and the Remaking of Christianity

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0100

"In the decades following the era of decolonization, global Christianity experienced a seismic shift.

While Catholicism and Protestantism have declined in their historic European strongholds, they have sustained explosive growth in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

This demographic change has established Christians from the Global South as an increasingly dominant presence in modern Christian thought, culture, and politics. (...)

Contributors argue that the collapse of colonialism and broader cultural challenges to Western power fostered new organizations, theologies, and political engagements across the world, ultimately setting Christianity on its current trajectory away from its colonial heritage."

Thank you Elizabeth A. Foster and Udi Greenberg for this major collective work.

Link

Religion and Francophonie (French speaking world)

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 16:54:34 +0200

A GSRL program led by Pascal Bourdeaux and Sebastien Fath (GSRL)

321 million people worldwide are able to express themselves in French (OIF data 2023).

From a social sciences perspective, these French-speaking spaces lead us to think differently about religious interaction and dynamics. The French-speaking global framework (including Africa, Americas, Asia, Carribean isles, Pacific islands....) invites to reshape analysis beyond a hexagonal prism (French-centered) that remained hegemonic for long.

Deploying the analysis of religion in society in this French-speaking and postcolonial space-time, such is the purpose of this program “Religion and Francophonie (French-speaking world)”.

MISTIC, a research program to discover

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:39:00 +0200

This blog gathers information related to the MISTIC research program (Migrations of religious specialists and transnational construction of competence) financed by the French Collaborative Institute on Migrations (CNRS).

This research program focuses on the migration and transnational circulation of religious specialists of various faiths.

Link

Studies in World Christianity, 9.2

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 19:56:00 +0200

This issue of Studies in World Christianity includes a look at some of the papers from the 2022 Yale–Edinburgh Conference on ‘World Christianity: Legacy and the State of the Field’.

Kyama Mugambi, ‘The Gospel beyond the West: The Sanneh–Walls Legacy and Emerging Conversation Partners in World Christianity Studies’
Jackie Jia Chyi Hwang, ‘Longing for Belonging: Forwarding Andrew Walls’ Thoughts on Migration and Mission through an Ethnographic Study on Diasporic Chinese in Singapore’s Christian Communities’
John Sampson, ‘Unearthing Treasure in Clay Jars: T. C. Chao and the Formation of Chinese Dogmatic Theology

Together, these articles very much pay tribute to the pioneering work of Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh and the Yale–Edinburgh Group. But they also demonstrate the ways in which the ideas which gave birth to the field of World Christianity have been generative across a multiplicity of disciplines to open up new ways of understanding Christianity.

Link

Caught in the Current

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 22:35:38 +0200

Caught in the Current

British and Canadian Evangelicals in an Age of Self-Spirituality

Evangelical Christianity is known for its defence of traditional Christian teachings and resistance to liberalizing trends. Many Western evangelicals themselves do not yet realize how their faith is being reshaped by the modern zeitgeist.

Caught in the Current explores how and why Western evangelicals are changing. Church attendance is declining, conservative moral positions are unpopular, and young people are drifting away from the faith. Evangelism is avoided, so few are joining congregations. Yet these surface changes are only symptoms of a more profound shift that church leaders have not fully apprehended.

Link

Africa: towards the World's biggest megalopolis

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 23:04:00 +0200

According to a vast global study published in The Guardian,

"By 2100, the Lagos- Abidjan stretch is projected to be the largest zone of continuous, dense habitation on earth, with something in the order of half a billion people".

Among these people living in the World's biggest megalopolis, millions and millions of young French-speaking African citizens impacted by post-colonial Christianity and revivalism....in a context of massive Global warming, which is directly threatening the megalopolis, boosting people to leave.

Cf. Howard W. French, "Megalopolis: how coastal west Africa will shape the coming century"

Link

World Vision: God's Internationalists

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 04 May 2023 23:40:00 +0200

As the amount of research on Christian Nationalism is growing rapidly (for good reasons), let's not forget that Evangelicalism per se can't be simply coined as a whole as "nationalist". A very robust internationalist and transnational trend can be noticed all over its contemporary history, including on the US ground.

Time to remind readers of this highly valuable piece of research published by David P. King in 2019 on one of the World's biggest humanitarian NGO today : World Vision.

"Chronicling the evolution of World Vision's practices, theology, rhetoric, and organizational structure, King demonstrates how the organization rearticulated and retained its Christian identity even as it expanded beyond a narrow American evangelical subculture".

Link

Imaginer la libération, des femmes noires face à l'Empire

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 17:58:00 +0200

Good news! Annette Joseph-Gabriel's landmark book entitled Reimagining Liberation: how Black women transformed citizenship in the French Empire, (Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 2019, 262 p) has now been translated in French. And will be available as soon as the beginning of May, 2023.

"Black women living in the French empire played a key role in the decolonial movements of the mid-twentieth century. Thinkers and activists, these women lived lives of commitment and risk that landed them in war zones and concentration camps and saw them declared enemies of the state. Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel mines published writings and untapped archives to reveal the anticolonialist endeavors of seven women. Though often overlooked today, Suzanne Césaire, Paulette Nardal, Eugénie Éboué-Tell, Jane Vialle, Andrée Blouin, Aoua Kéita, and Eslanda Robeson took part in a forceful transnational movement. Their activism and thought challenged France's imperial system by shaping forms of citizenship that encouraged multiple cultural and racial identities. Expanding the possibilities of belonging beyond national and even Francophone borders, these women imagined new pan-African and pan-Caribbean identities informed by black feminist intellectual frameworks and practices. The visions they articulated also shifted the idea of citizenship itself, replacing a single form of collective identity and political participation with an expansive plurality of forms of belonging".

Link

White US Evangelicals and Politics: a documentary to watch

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 19:06:00 +0200

From the Cold War to the present day, the rise of white Evangelical Christianity in America has brought religion clearly into the public sphere. A must-watch: this three-part documentary (from ARTE Channel) on how the politico-religious machine of US white evangelicalism is determined to reshape USA.... and the world (with the participation of the sociologist Philippe Gonzalez).

(Un)believing in modern society

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 22:04:04 +0100

Professor at Lausanne University (Switzerland), Jörg Stolz was invited today for the GSRL monthly seminar.

He spoke about the secularization process from an international perspective.

An occasion to remind that he was among the editors of this important book:

Stolz, J., Könemann, J., Schneuwly Purdie, M., Englberger, T. and Krüggeler, M. (2016). (Un)Believing in modern society. Religion, spirituality, and religious-secular competition. London: Routledge.

Lien

Secularism in Comparative Perspective

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:55:00 +0100

Edited by Jonathan Laurence, this new book on Secularism in Comparative perspective

Brings new texts on the critical issue of Secularism in comparative political contexts

Includes many non-Western experiences and viewpoints on how secularism is theorized and lived
Featuring the writing of preeminent scholars – such as Michael Walzer, Asma Afsaruddin, Sudipta Kaviraj AND Carol Ferrara, who wrote an essay on France, which provides a thorough history of the 1789 French Revolution, Church-state relations, colonialism, and education, and how the intersection of these elements with the evolution of French secularism led to modern-day laïcité

Link

Women in Christianity in the Age of Empire (1800-1920)

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 11:03:00 +0100

Edited by Janet Wootton, "Women in Christianity in the Age of Empire (1800-1920)" offers a broad view of the nineteenth century as a time of dramatic change, particularly for women, critiqued in the light of postcolonial theory.

This edited volume includes important contributions from academics in the field.

Overarching themes include the cult of domesticity, the changing impact of Christianity on views of women's nature in an age of scientific thinking, conflation of 'gospel' and 'civilization' in global mission, and the exclusion of women from public spheres of life."

Link

GLOPENT, European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:19:00 +0100

As Alexandre Antoine (EPHE-PSL) is going to defend tomorrow his PhD Thesis on the History of the Assemblies of God in France (1909-1968), it's time to highlight this stimulating European research network on Pentecostalism:

The European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism (GloPent) is an interdisciplinary academic networking initiative coordinated by experts on Pentecostal and Charismatic movements at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Basel, the University of Birmingham, the University of Cambridge, the University of Heidelberg, SOAS University of London, and the University of Uppsala.

We are interested in:

Networking active research about Pentecostal and Charismatic movements worldwide, with a special focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America
Promoting scientific exchange through our conferences, our journal PentecoStudies, our mailing list, and our website
Giving scholars a wider platform to introduce their work in Pentecostal Studies by providing bibliographies, papers, news, and links
Providing academic information about global Pentecostalism to the European academia
Providing study resources for the scholarly community, such as our dedicated GloPent Web Search Engine on Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements
Facilitating discussion on theory and method in Pentecostal Studies
Stimulating academic publications in Pentecostal Studies

Link

Asia and the secular

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 23:01:42 +0100

This afternoon, I was fortunate enough to attend the GSRL's monthly research seminar at Campus Condorcet.

We enjoyed a remarkable presentation of this book :

Asia and the Secular, Francophone Perspectives in a Global Age

Edited by: Pascal Bourdeaux , Eddy Dufourmont , André Laliberté and Rémy Madinier

This volume looks at the secular state in the context of contemporary Asia and investigates whether there existed before modernity antecedents to the condition of secularity, understood as the differentiation of the sphere of the religious from other spheres of social life. The chapters presented in this book examine this issue in national contexts by looking at the historical formation of lexicons that defined the "secular", the "secular state," and "secularism". This approach requires paying attention to modern vernacular languages and their precedents in written traditions with often a very long tradition. This book presents three interpretive frameworks: multiple modernities, variety of secularisms, and typologies of post-colonial secular states.

Link

Prayer and the Political Praxis of Spiritual Warfare in Nigeria

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 11:35:40 +0200

Combining religious studies with ethnography, Powerful Devices (forthcoming) explores Nigerian Pentecostals and US Evangelicals’ praxis of transnational spiritual warfare.

By closely studying spiritual warfare prayers as a “device,” Powerful Devices shows how the rituals of prayer enable an apprehension of time, paradigms of self-enhancement, and the subversion of politics and authority.

Abimbola Adunni Adelakun explores charismatic Christianity’s relationship to science and secular authority, technology and temporality, neoliberalism, and reactionary ideology.

Link.

Center for Afro-European and Religious Studies (CARES)

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 23:19:00 +0200

To be noticed !

The Center for Afro-European and Religious Studies (or CARES) is born.

The CARES is a Center for Afro-European Studies and Religious Sciences attached to the University Faculty of Protestant Theology of Brussels (FUTP).

Congratulations to Dr and Dean Bernard Coyault for this new -and much needed- research center.

Link.

Professor Andrew Walls (1928-2021), legacy of a baobab

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 14:03:00 +0200

At the beginning of the 19th century, more than 90% of Christians lived in Europe and North America. By the end of the 20th century, over 60% lived in Asia, Africa, South America and the Pacific.

The historian and missiologist Andrew Walls was among the first to highlight and study this shift in the Christian centre of gravity. Professor Andrew Walls (1928-2021) passed away in Aberdeen less than one year ago, on the 12th of August, 2021. This prominent Scottish historian of missions left for us groundbreaking research, re-centering Christianity from West to South. Author of many insightful books, he has taught in universities in Africa (Sierra Leone, Nigeria), Europe and North America, and has also lectured in Asia and the Pacific region.

Founder of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity located at the University of Edinburgh, Andew Walls was considered by many as a "Baobab", rooted, mighty and generous.

The news came today that the Andrew Walls Fellowships have been established in honour of jim. It will provide visiting Fellowships for African scholars at the University of Edinburgh, to further research into African Christianity.

Madeleine Albright (1937-2022)

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 13:23:00 +0100

Former secretary of State (USA), Madeleine Albright (1937- 2022)i s gone.

She left a mixed legacy of strong committment to Democracy worldwide, but also of ambiguous global interventionism (including strong support for embargo on Irak, indirectly leading to DAESH's birth).

Smart and well-trained, interested by the role of Faith on Geopolitics, she published a significant book in 2006.

Its title : The Mighty and the Almighty. Introduced by President Bill Clinton.

In that book, she argued that politics and religious values can work together to promote peace. In her seventeenth chapter about Africa, she pleaded for a better training for diplomats, who should take faith seriously. A good lesson that applies to French diplomats too.

Link.

The forgotten history of Black Europeans

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 12:15:00 +0100

The presence of people of African descent in Europe is generally viewed through the prism of slavery and colonization, obscuring a much older shared history.

In her new book African Europeans, An Untold Story, Professor Olivette Otele uncovers a forgotten past, from Emperor Septimius Severus, to enslaved Africans living in Europe during the Renaissance, and all the way to present-day migrants moving to Europe’s cities.

With a forthcoming translation in French. A must-read book !

Link

Postcolonial revival in the French-speaking world

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 23:53:00 +0200

Just a few days ago, Yvan Castanou, a prominent megachurch pastor (IMpact Centre Chrétien, ICC) based in the Paris' suburbs, met in Lagos Bishop David Oyedepo, Nigeria's most powerful Evangelical pastor.

The go-between was pastor Matthew Ashimolowo, megachurch pastor based in London (Kingsway International church).

This kind of connection doesn't come by accident. It is a testimony of a much larger movement going on: Evangelical/Neopentecostal Revival is on the way in the global French-speaking world, connecting more than ever before the strongest English-speaking and French-speaking networks.

To know more about African Evangelical networks in Europe from a French-speaking persoective, read Fancello and Mary (link).

Faith, nationalism and the future of liberal democracy

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 10:34:00 +0200

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

noreply@hautetfort.com (A lire) — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 09:25:00 +0200