"Die Anpassungsdynamik, die Verankerung in der brasilianischen traditionellen Kultur und dem Ethos, und andererseits die Durchlässigkeit für die Globalisierung, die Fähigkeit, auf individuelle Bedürfnisse direkt zu reagieren, all dies trug dazu bei, dass sich der Pentekostalismus neu formte und
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eine wichtige Rolle in der Öffentlichkeit eroberte. Die Pfingstbewegung bietet heute in Brasilien eine breite Palette von Stilen, Theologien, Liturgien und Angeboten, die zu den unterschiedlichsten sozioökonomischen, kulturellen, geschlechtsspezifischen und ethnischen Gruppen in der Gesellschaft passen [...] Religiöse Pluralisierung, Expansion der Pfingstkirchen und die Intensivierung des interreligiösen Wettbewerbs stimulierten die Gemeinschaft und führten zu einer Neubelebung des Katholizismus vor allem durch die Charismatische Erneuerung. Diese Strömung innerhalb der katholischen Kirche hat die Evangelisationstätigkeit der Katholiken mithilfe von elektronischen Medien verstärkt, führte zu einem größeren Engagement in der Parteipolitik und zu Investitionen in die Verlags- und Musikbranche. Diese katholische Reaktion trug nur mäßig dazu bei, den sozialen und religiösen Handlungsspielraum der Pfingstler sowie die Intensität und Geschwindigkeit ihres Wachstums zu reduzieren. Die Ausbreitung der Pfingstbewegung setzt sich in der Tat fort, vor allem bei den ärmeren Schichten, die daran interessiert sind, die Prekarität und soziale Gefährdung, die sie sowohl religiös als auch gemeinschaftlich erfahren, zu überwinden." (Seite 195-196)
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"Religion, Media, and Marginality in Modern Africa is one of the first volumes to put new media and old media into significant conversation with one another, and also offers a rare comparison between Christianity and Islam in Africa. The contributors find many previously unacknowledged correspondenc
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es among different media and between the two faiths. In the process they challenge the technological determinism-the notion that certain types of media generate particular forms of religious expression-that haunts many studies. In evaluating how media usage and religious commitment intersect in the social, cultural, and political landscapes of modern Africa, this collection will contribute to the development of new paradigms for media and religious studies." (Publisher description)
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"Scholars of Pentecostalism have usually studied people who embrace it, but rarely those who do not. I suggest that the study of global Pentecostalism should not limit itself to Pentecostal churches and movements and people who consider themselves Pentecostal. It should include the repercussions of
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Pentecostal ideas and forms outside Pentecostalism: on non-Pentecostal and non-Christian religions, on popular cultural forms, and on what counts as ‘religion’ or ‘being religious’. Based on my ethnographic study of a charismatic-Pentecostal mega-church and a neo-traditional African religious movement in Ghana, I argue that neo-Pentecostalism, due to its strong and mass-mediated public presence, provides a powerful model for the public representation of religion in general, and some of its forms are being adopted by non-Pentecostal and non-Christian groups, including the militantly anti-Pentecostal Afrikania Mission. Instead of treating neo-Pentecostal and neo-traditionalist revival as distinct religious phenomena, I propose to take seriously their intertwinement in a single religious field and argue that one cannot sufficiently understand the rise of new religious movements without understanding how they influence each other, borrow from each other, and define themselves vis-à-vis each other. This has consequences for how we conceive of the study of Pentecostalism and how we define its object." (Abstract)
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"Este artigo dedica-se ao fenômeno da ampliação da ocupação de espaço pelos evangélicos na política nacional, com ênfase no lugar das mídias nesse processo. Destina-se atenção a um fenômeno em particular: a emergência do ativismo político evangélico. O objetivo é demonstrar como a m
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idiatização das religiões, especificamente o processo que envolve a fé evangélica no Brasil, é potencializadora desse fenômeno, provocando o surgimento do ativismo político digital evangélico. O estudo é desenvolvido em perspectiva interdisciplinar com base em abordagens teóricas da comunicação (estudos sobre midiatização social) e das ciências da religião (evangélicos na política no Brasil) e em trabalhos da autora que relacionam mídia, religião e política. Resulta deste estudo a constatação de que o ativismo político digital evangélico emerge dos processos de midiatização vividos por esse segmento religioso no Brasil." (Resumo)
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"Le présent article traite de pratiques virtuelles néo-pentecôtistes au Cameroun. L’analyse des changements sociaux ne prend pas suffisamment en compte la place de la communication religieuse. « Nous changeons le monde… à partir d’ici », telle est l'affirmation du pasteur Dieunedort Kamd
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em (Kanodi), fondateur de la Cathédrale de la Foi à Yaoundé. Dans ses pratiques de cultes à distance, Temitope Balogun Joshua déclare quant à lui sur Emmanuel TV, chaîne largement suivie au Cameroun : « just touch the screen and be in accord with us here ». Nous sommes donc dans un contexte où les figures religieuses ambitionnent de « changer » la société à partir des églises. Si l’analyse des changements sociaux ne prend pas suffisamment en compte la place de la communication religieuse, nous voudrions ici analyser ce changement de fréquence sur fond de medial turn comme une «modernité» impulsée par les pentecôtismes camerounais." (Résumé)
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"La diffusion progressive d’Internet au Burkina Faso a entraîné récemment un foisonnement de l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux, principalement Facebook, par les Églises catholique et évangéliques. Cette utilisation est toutefois fortement conditionnée par un nombre restreint de gatekeepe
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rs qui exercent un contrôle souvent strict sur l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux. S’en dégage ainsi une diffusion fortement uniformisée par laquelle les organisations néo-pentecôtistes et charismatiques urbains tirent le plus grand profit en faisant circuler des contenus susceptibles de favoriser les conversions ou de souder virtuellement la communauté des adhérents. Les hiérarchies des Églises tendent plutôt, quant à elles, à utiliser ces médias comme relais de leur communication officielle sans investir dans le potentiel interactif des médias sociaux. Cette dynamique favorise également l’insertion des chrétiens burkinabè dans les réseaux chrétiens transnationaux, surtout pour certains pasteurs évangéliques inscrits dans les réseaux francophones internationaux." (Résumé)
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"Social media as a new phenomenon has become a tool used by many televangelists and pastors all over the world. It is against this background that this research sought to explore the Facebook activities of some Ghanaian Pentecostal pastors from a missional perspective. The article deals with the con
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cept of social media, Facebook and its potential for mission purposes, the Facebook phenomenon among Ghanaians and how Ghanaian Pentecostal Pastors are using Facebook for missional purposes, as well as some of concerns on the negative uses of social media. The study revealed that Ghanaian pastors are followed by people from different religious and societal backgrounds. It has also offered the pastors and their congregations the opportunity to form relationships with a wide and diverse range of people without being bound by geographical space." (Abstract)
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"The UCKG’s phenomenal success in post-apartheid South Africa had been a source of much speculation. Scholars generally attributed the church’s growth to new political and economic processes while the South African media and the church’s critics suspected that the UCKG’s attraction was caref
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ully manipulated by a predatory multinational business. Beyond the structural reasons why the UCKG might be attractive to South Africans, I have paid attention in this chapter to local “cultural” reasons why the church had such wide appeal. I showed that the church’s prosperity gospel and its spiritual warfare provided “answers” that were almost immediately grasped by people in search of religious efficacy. The UCKG’s “answers” were also contingent in ways that converged with local ideas about witchcraft and the flow of prosperity from the spiritual to the material world. Unlike other Christian churches then, the uckg did not offer attendees at its services an escape from the work of evil in the world. Instead, the church depicted Christians as fundamentally constrained because of their situatedness in the world and their fallibility as transactors with their spiritual benefactor. In the UCKG then, people were often told that their blessings would not materialise unless they tithed and sacrificed to God. Although this version of Christianity was arguably less poetic or hopeful than the millenarian promises of other Pentecostal Charismatic Churches, it rang true for many South Africans who remained poor, ill and unhappy despite political liberation. As one of my friends in the church remarked, “They are not new but their message is very strong.”
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"In 1905, Weber contended that uncertainty about their eternal fate forced Protestants to find secular signs of their destiny in their vocations, their frugality and in their ability to work hard and accumulate capital. More than a century later, the ‘Protestant ethic’ has changed irrevocably. T
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oday, the phenomenal rise of Pentecostal–Charismatic Churches has largely displaced the doctrine of predestination and firmly entrenched the prosperity gospel at the very heart of popular Protestantism. In many African PCCs, the pursuit of ‘blessings’ now trumps older concerns over secular vocations and hard work. Indeed, in churches such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), Christians are urged to demand ‘miracle jobs’ from God and to reject humble vocations and small salaries, regardless of their qualifications, skills or experience. Based on long-term fieldwork with members of the UCKG in South Africa, this paper examines the work of luck (good and bad) in the lives of ordinary believers, how this new ‘work’ attempts to regulate the flow of money and how it participates in older notions of prosperity, fate and good fortune." (Abstract)
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"A Moving Faith captures the dynamic shift of Christianity to the South and portrays a global movement that promises prosperity, healing, empowerment, and gender equality by invoking neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic resources. It postulates that neither North America nor Europe is the current center
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of the Christian faith. The book provides a detailed overview of how migration of Christians from the South enriches the North, for instance, Pope Francis brings newness, freshness, and the vigor characteristic of the South. While describing Christianity’s growth in the South, it suggests that, in fact, there is no center for this global faith. It explores this great move of Christianity by focusing on representative mega churches in South Korea, Brazil, Peru, Ghana, Nigeria, Australia, India, and the Philippines." (Publisher description)
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"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
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narratives, Christian songs, sermons, testimonies, and deliverance rituals to produce commentaries on what it means to be an inhabitant of Kinshasa." (Publisher description)
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"Tracing the rise and development of the Ghanaian video film industry between 1985 and 2010, Sensational Movies examines video movies as seismographic devices recording a culture in turmoil. Birgit Meyer captures the dynamic process of popular filmmaking in Ghana as a new medium for the imagination
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and tracks its interlacing of technological, economic, social, cultural, and religious elements. Filling the void left by the defunct state film industry, video movies negotiate the imaginaries deployed by state cinema on the one hand and Christianity on the other. Exploring the format of "film as revelation"—and the debt these films owe to religious notions of divination and revelation—Meyer elucidates the affinity between cinematic and popular Christian modes of looking and demonstrates the transgressive potential that haunts images of the occult." (Back cover)
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"Primarily and immediately these churches are not aimed at development or politics; they are not NGOs or elements of civil society promoting the rights of a particular group, so it would be a mistake to judge them exclusively on criteria appropriate to such bodies. They are religious bodies, with re
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ligion understood in a traditional African as opposed to a “disenchanted” Western way. However, as I have shown, that does not mean they have no public effects, even considerable effects in the realms of development and politics. Among the enormous variety of Africa’s Pentecostal churches, those that stress motivation, entrepreneurship and life-skills undoubtedly contribute to Africa’s development. There are many such on the continent. However, even many of these churches combine those elements with a stress on the faith gospel, the anointing of the special man of God, and an understanding of the world as pervaded by malignant spiritual forces. And most have these latter emphases predominant or at least not far below the surface. To the extent that these Pentecostal churches promote the faith gospel, the spiritual Big Man, and our subjection to malign spiritual forces, their roles are far less positive." (Conclusion, page 94)
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"New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa casts a critical look at Africa's rapidly evolving religious media scene. Following political liberalization, media deregulation, and the proliferation of new media technologies, many African religious leaders and activists have appropriated such me
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dia to strengthen and expand their communities and gain public recognition. Media have also been used to marginalize and restrict the activities of other groups, which has sometimes led to tension, conflict, and even violence. Showing how media are rarely neutral vehicles of expression, the contributors to this multidisciplinary volume analyze the mutual imbrications of media and religion during times of rapid technological and social change in various places throughout Africa." (Publisher description)
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