Pentecostalism in Africa: Pneumatic Christianity in Postcolonial Societies

During recent decades, Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity (pc/c) has moved from an initially peripheral position to become a force to be reckoned with within African Christianity and sub-Saharan African societies in general...

Bringing together prominent Africanist scholars from a variety of disciplines (theology and church history, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, political science, developmental studies) this Brill volume published in 2014 offers an elaborate treatment of the social, cultural and political impact of pc/c in sub-Saharan Africa. A must-read book for whoever wants to study today's Postcolonial Christianity in Africa.

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Updated Sebastien Fath's CV (2022)

Ten year after the previous posting, it was more than time to display an updated 2022 CV.

Here it is !

 

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The TV Serie THE CHOSEN launched in France on National TV

"The Chosen" is the first-ever multi-season TV show about the life of Jesus. Three years after its premiere episode, the series now hits television screens for the first time across France airing on one of this country's top TV channels.

"To be on a major network is a first," said Katherine Warnock, one of the show's producers. "We love our platform, we love having a free app that's available to the whole world, but to be embraced by Canal + has been such an honor."

Read how the Christian TV network CBN, based in USA, has reported about the launching of THE CHOSEN in France for Christmas 2021 (C8 Channel, national TV, dubbed in French language).

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Orthodoxy & Evangelicalism: Contemporary Issues in Global Perspective

Since the 1990s, the Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Evangelical communities have had more direct contact with each other than at any other time. A small but growing number of dialogues have occurred around the globe along with significant comparative studies in history, doctrine, worship, and spiritual life. Few regional studies, however, have examined areas outside the Anglophone world, or the political and legal aspects of relationships between these traditions. Therefore, this volume breaks fresh ground.

This volume is a collection of scholarly essays on current issues and/or developments in Orthodox-Evangelical relations, at both global and national levels, which will inform the ongoing dialogue.

Available in open access here ! Link

Muslims in Latin American and the Caribbean (ebook)

Muslims have been shaping the Americas and the Caribbean for more than five hundred years, yet this interplay is frequently overlooked or misconstrued. Brimming with revelations that synthesize area and ethnic studies, Crescent over Another Horizon offers a great Latino American perspective on a wider Islamic world.

Already published in 2015, it is now available in ebook format.

This excellent volume includes a chapter on Martinique written by French scholar Liliane Kuczynski  (with also elements on Evangelicals, as part of the religious diversification of the isle).

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A book to read: Pentecostalism and Cultism in South Africa

Pentecostalism is a growing movement in world Christianity. However, the growth of Pentecostalism in South Africa has faced some challenges, including the abuse of religion by some prophets. This book first names these prophets and the churches they lead in South Africa, and then makes use of literary and media analysis to analyse the religious practices by the prophets in relation to cultism. Additionally, the book analyses the “celebrity cult” and how it helps promote the prophets in South Africa.

The purpose of this book is threefold: First, to draw parallels between the abuse of religion and cultism. Second, to illustrate that it is cultic tendencies, including the celebrity cult, that has given rise to many prophets in South Africa. Last, to showcase that the challenge for many of these prophets is that the Pentecostal tradition is actually anti-cultism, and thus there is a need for them to rethink their cultic tendencies in order for them to be truly relevant in a South African context.

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Open Door Ministries, World Watch Research: methodology explained

Rooted in the Evangelical world, but aiming global audience, Open Doors Ministries started in 1955 from a Dutch founder.

Its department World Watch Research was set up to carry out research into the persecution of Christians on a solid foundation that aims to withstand scholarly scrutiny and accepts academic guidance. WWR has been gathering and publishing detailed data on the persecution of Christians since 1992. One of their main tools for tracking and measuring the extent of persecution in the world is the World Watch List (WWL). WWL methodology has gradually evolved since the 1990s. In 2012, the methodology was comprehensively revised in order to provide greater credibility, transparency, objectivity and academic quality. In 2013 and 2016, further refinement of the methodology took place.

Here is an uptade of the methodology they use. Link.

See it to believe it - Photographing religion

See it to believe it - Photographing religion

The photography exhibition 'Pluralities of Belief', conceived by teacher-researchers from the CNRS and the EPHE, intends to show the activities of the GSRL laboratory, which studies religion in contemporary societies throughout the world. The distinctiveness of the selected photographs is to associate aesthetic qualities and scientific relevance. The resulting publication is an attempt to respond to the growing and unanimous interest in religious issues. It takes up the narrative unfolding of an exhibition conceived around several themes : gestures of belief, writings of belief rituals of belief, architectures of belief symbolisms of belief and secularism and convictions. The book focuses mainly on the plurality of beliefs and non-beliefs, considered in equal parts and forming the same common whole, which only find their real significance when they are themselves subjected to a plurality of views.

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Gills Teulié on South Africa and religion : the French scholar to read

FW de Klerk (1936-2021), the former president of South Africa and the last white person to lead the country, has died (link). This is the occasion to remember how difficult has been the path to peace in South Africa.

Protestant Faith has played an ambiguous role, torn apart between the temptation to legitimize Apartheid, and the emphasis on Grace and Freedom for all.  In the French-speaking world, no one more than Dr Gilles Teulié has analyzed South Africa's religious challenges. His brilliant studies on the religious roots of Apartheid are a must-read.

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Political Pentecostalism: 4 Synoptic Surveys (Asia Africa Latin America)

With volume 17 the series Weltkirche und Mission takes up again the topic of Pentecostal religiosity which made the start in the research projects conducted at the Institute for Global Church and Mission since 2010. The renewed engage- ment is motivated by the focus on the perception of an increasingly political and public activity of actors with Pentecostal background. Since 2016 there has been a project position “Pentecostalism” at the Institute that underlines the importance of scholarly discussion about the phenomenon.

This new 2021 volume is addressing the challenge in a comparative perspective. Local developments and ethnographic studies are for the first time reflected upon from a global perspective.

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Postcolonial revival in the French-speaking world

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

French report: 330,000 children victims of church sex abuse

Victims of abuse within France’s Catholic Church welcomed a historic turning point on Tuesday, 5th of October 2021 after a new report  ("Rapport Sauvé") estimated that 330,000 children in France were sexually abused over the past 70 years, providing the country’s first accounting of the worldwide phenomenon. The figure includes abuses committed by some 3,000 priests

To be continued (Religion News Service Website)

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."

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"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.

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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. 

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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)

Why the world is becoming more French

From industrial policy and nuclear power to "strategic autonomy" and the 35-hour week, the 2020s are popularising many French instincts about world affairs and the state.

Thank you Jeremy Cliffe for this stimulating analysis (NewStatesman)

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.

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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!

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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.

 

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French Secularism in Crisis ?

François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), buried in the Paris Pantheon, remarked: “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.” Voltaire, invoking his chronic sense of absurdity, would be smirking at the new social harmony in France as hardcore French secularists and Muslim women in public places conceal their faces (noses, mouths, and eyes) to protect themselves from Covid-19.

Thnak you L. Ali Khan for this interesting piece boosting debate. 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.

 

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French mainstream press covering a Hollywood pacifist war drama

This article outlines and discusses two aspects of the French mediatization of Tu ne tueras point (Hacksaw Ridge) film: the relationship between media, normative secularism and religion in the context of the hegemony of mediatization as ‘media and communication-centered’ phenomenon.

Based on the content analysis and discursive strategies of the biographical war drama chronicles, the contribution points out less developed empirical aspects in France regarding the relation between religion and media:

(a) the media discourse is dependent on a normative narrative of secularism,

(b) the media discourse represents and expresses a confusion between the sacred, religion and faith, deliberately created and maintained by the journalists, and (c) the media discourse is based on a conception of violence with modern origins.

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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.

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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.

 

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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...

 

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"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)