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... The fact that most Latin American Pentecostals still stay clear of formal institutional politics does not necessarily testify to a continuation of classical isolationist and world-renouncing stances or to a lack of commitment to national life. Research from different countries such as Chile (Fediakova 2010(Fediakova , 2012Fediakova and Parker 2006;Gallardo Pinto & Figueroa 2012), Brazil (Birman 2006) and Guatemala (O´neil 2009) has shown that many Pentecostals are strikingly conscious of their own roles as citizens who ought to participate in and make positive contributions to the wider national society in which they live. Such participation and contribution can take various forms other than involvement in formal politics. ...
... On the contrary many see their own religious practice such as praying and performing exorcisms as linked to the faith of their nations. In different Latin American countries, Pentecostals have organized public prayers, marches for Jesus, big rallies in soccer stadiums and other kinds of public spectacles (see Birman 2006;Wightman 2007;Smilde 1999;. In large part the purpose of such activities is to assert a public and visible presence and to claim a voice in society. ...
... In the neo-Pentecostal denomination, The Universal Church of Kingdom of God deliverance is not merely intended to cast out the demons that cause problems in the lives of believers 4 . It is also intended to clean public spaces from the demonic forces that are responsible for violence and other kinds of social misery (Birman 2006). As Patricia Birman explains (ibid), many Brazilian neo-Pentecostals understand their own religious practices as contributions to the building of social wellbeing and peace in a conflict laden society. ...
... The controversies in the relationship between religion and public sphere in Brazil have been discussed, among others, by Miranda (1999), Birman andLehmann (1999), Figueiredo Filho (2005), Montero (2006), Birman (2006), and Martino (2012aMartino ( , 2012bMartino ( , 2016. All the authors, in spite of the several differences among them concerning the themes and approaches, identify a fluid relationship between politics and religion as an indicator that the public sphere seems to be permeable to religion. ...
... The controversies in the relationship between religion and public sphere in Brazil have been discussed, among others, by Miranda (1999), Birman andLehmann (1999), Figueiredo Filho (2005), Montero (2006), Birman (2006), and Martino (2012aMartino ( , 2012bMartino ( , 2016. All the authors, in spite of the several differences among them concerning the themes and approaches, identify a fluid relationship between politics and religion as an indicator that the public sphere seems to be permeable to religion. ...
Research on the mediatization of religion seems to have become a major issue both for Social Sciences and Media Studies, although some core questions concerning its definitions and characteristics are still open to debate. This paper addresses some of these interrogations from a Latin American/Brazilian perspective, taking into the account some of the particular perspectives of the region. It draws on previous studies, combined with contemporary cases, to outline an overview of mediatization, as it has been studied by some Latin American scholars, in three dimensions: (1) Theoretical: Mediatization as an alternative path to ‘media and religion’ studies by focusing on the articulation between the media environment and religious practices, both institutional and individual; (2) cultural: Mediatization has drawn religion closer to media culture and entertainment, which has allowed churches and denominations to reach a wider audience; and (3) political: Mediatization has enabled religion to get a broader visibility in the public space and to have a say in social matters. These elements lead to the suggestion that mediatization of religion is a new way of living the religious experience in everyday life.
... The family and the church are utilised as spaces of purity in an otherwise corrupt world: 'the rhetoric of patriarchy and submission serves primarily as a normative counterweight to the individualistic and hedonistic ways of the larger society' (Ammerman, 1994: 157; see also Ammerman, 2010). Objectification also emerges as an important factor, among others, in the description by Birman (2006) and Meyer (2006) of the growth of Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America and Africa, particularly among those members of the working class a degree up from the lumpenproletariat, who find a response to the ambiguities and uncertainties of modernity in an organisation run by modern management techniques and marketing itself as 'global' using sophisticated new media. ...
... To explore this boundary-breaking feature of contemporary fundamentalism I shall re-visit two of our previous case studies. Birman (2006) depicts Pentecostalism in Brazil as transgressing the country's national symbolic conventions in four ways. First, it breaks national religious norms by declaring as demonic Brazil's idiosyncratic religious culture, which in its combination of Afro-Brazilian cults and Catholicism is an important part of the country's imagery. ...
Drawing on sources from across the sociology of religion, this article argues that processes associated with modernisation have facilitated the emergence of fundamentalist movements by transforming the religious field. First, an increase in certain forms of reflexivity has disrupted the close fit between the field and the disposition of individuals, causing them to look for new narratives that can give authenticity to their lives. Second, in every religion there exists to some extent a plurality of sites of authority, but the intensification of this plurality has resulted in the emergence of new strategies in the religious field and the formation of new social organisations. Third, the failure of national institutions to provide economic and social certainties and security has made these new organisations attractive to individuals seeking a source of social and symbolic order.
... Gerou polêmica por estabelecer práticas rituais nas quais o dinheiro assume um papel central (Kramer 2001) e por buscar inserir-se na esfera pública a partir de uma declarada disputa com a Igreja Católica (cf. Campos 1997;Mafra 2002;Gomes 2004;Birman 2006). ...
... Dessa forma, a Universal passou a estabelecer contato com novos públicos, dar sustento aos já convertidos e buscar inserção e legitimidade no espaço público (cf. Birman 2006). ...
A partir do livro Os mistérios da fé, de autoria da principal liderança da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, Edir Macedo, procuro refletir sobre a noção de fé e sobre as características do discurso do autor. Considero que, a partir do texto de Macedo, é possível falar sobre estratégias discursivas reproduzidas no interior da denominação, assim como caracterizar as investidas proselististas que se realizam a partir delas. Ao examinar a tradução que Macedo faz sobre a noção de fé nessa publicação, destaco o emprego das idéias de "fé natural" e "fé sobrenatural", sublinhando continuidades e descontinuidades entre mundo secularizado e universo religioso dentro da proposta do autor.Based on the book "The mysteries of the faith", written by the main leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Edir Macedo, I reflect about the notion of faith and about the characteristics of the author's discourse. I consider that, by focusing Macedo's text, it's possible to talk about discursive strategies reproduced in the denomination routine and also characterize the proselytists activities that take place from them. By analyzing Macedo's translation of the notion of faith in this publication, I point out the use of the ideas of "natural faith" and "supernatural faith", reinforcing the continuities and discontinuities between secularized world and religious universe in the author's propose.
... Bollywood films give Hindu communities the same kind of sensational experience of the sacred that Mel Gibson's the Passion of the Christ did for many Catholics and Pentecostals alike (Morgan 2004;Dwyer 2006;Klaver 2012). Similarly, television is seen by many Pentecostals as the most appropriate medium to spread the faith (Hackett 1998;Birman 2006;de Witte 2003), royal portraits are central to Thai Buddhist practices (Morris 2000), and the list goes on in the case of pictures (Morgan 1993;Meyer 2010), lithographs (Pinney 2004), and let's not forget: holy books such as the Bible and Qur'an. ...
Religious icons and representations increasingly appear, in the West, as cultural heritage rather than active subjects of religious practice. While churches become tourist landmarks rather than places of worship; religions’ stories and characters – their intangible cultural heritage – survive as rich bases for popular media alongside their traditional use of mediating divinity. This paper studies one form of such popular media – Japanese videogames, using the Final Fantasy series as a case study – to ask: Which religions, folklores, cultures and their divinities are represented in videogames? (All of them, flattened non-hierarchically.) How are these divinities mediated in videogames? (Together, juxtaposed eclectically.) And what are the implications for including what are normally mutually exclusive mediations of divine worship into popular media together? (It re-introduces them to a practice common outside of Abrahamic, protestant conceptions of world religion, by freely combining cultural heritages and religious practices in what are called ‘multiple religious belongings’). While these representations of eclectic religion may seem to trivialise traditions by making them interchangeable, it also manages to de-objectivate them and reveal their fictional, artefactual origin as cultural heritage, while leaving them intact as contemporary practices.
... Public and scholarly interest in the intersection between religion and media dates back to the 20 th century when religion began to play a prominent role in both national and international politics (Hoover & Clark, 2002). Globally, the influence of social networking sites on the continuous expansion of evangelical religiosity and the church as an instrument for pacification with the complicity of media have also been widely documented (de Vries, 2001;Birman, 2006;. In many countries such as Brazil, which is host to the world's largest Catholic society, and even in the greater part of post-colonial Africa, new media has been associated with the emergence of Pentecostal churches, which are often branded as disruptive and provoking conflict and disorder. ...
This chapter explores the interconnections between cyber-sociality and religiosity with a focus on the Christian community in Zimbabwe. It integrates ideas drawn from Castells’ theory of the “networked society” and Boyd’s “context collapse” and supports these notions with evidence gathered through a combination of documentary evidence and a multi-case study of purposively selected individuals belonging to different Christian denominations or ministries.
Through this research, the chapter advances the argument that while the interface
between the digitally-mediated sociality and religiosity is experienced differently its overall impact has resulted in congregants being pushed to the margins and beyond their traditional denominational boundaries. It concludes that the interweaving of digitalised religious practices and social connectivity is both beneficial and problematic to both individuals and the church community at large. While new media’s ability to influence communication is not in doubt, the reaction of individuals to these new ‘technological architectures’ has been agential and intersubjective.
... Public and scholarly interest in the intersection between religion and media dates back to the 20 th century when religion began to play a prominent role in both national and international politics (Hoover & Clark, 2002). Globally, the influence of social networking sites on the continuous expansion of evangelical religiosity and the church as an instrument for pacification with the complicity of media have also been widely documented (de Vries, 2001;Birman, 2006;. In many countries such as Brazil, which is host to the world's largest Catholic society, and even in the greater part of post-colonial Africa, new media has been associated with the emergence of Pentecostal churches, which are often branded as disruptive and provoking conflict and disorder. ...
While democracy is perceived to have opened up opportunities for more women participation in the political arena in the sub-Saharan Africa region over the years, the rise of the internet, much as it may bring about multiple media platforms for audiences, could in some cases be used to promote patriarchal religious and cultural beliefs that assert dominance over women in political leadership positions.
This chapter examines ways in which online news media could be used to reinforce gender stereotypes by promoting patriarchal religious rhetoric and how this may have huge implications on women empowerment with regard to political leadership roles in developing democracies. Through Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, the chapter examines a YouTube campaign slogan – Sesa Joyce Sesa – created by the then opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and promoted by the online news media platforms, to attack the then Malawi President Joyce Banda during the country’s 2014 elections. The chapter argues that in deeply entrenched religious societies such as Malawi, male politicians may manipulate religious texts as symbols of violence to promote gender disparities, albeit embracing the principles of democracy, good governance and human rights. It is further suggested that through an affirmative media policy, the media have a critical role to demystify such misogynistic beliefs in view of the consolidation of democracy and human rights.
... u.a. Oosterbaan 2006;Birman 2006;Vital da Cunha 2009), den irregulären Siedlungen der Stadt, in denen ca. ein Viertel der Einwohner von Rio leben. ...
... In their broadcasts and journals, Pentecostal politicians offer utopian visions of a better society, based on Christian moral values. They propose concrete practices such as church services, collective prayers, and the exorcism of evil spirits, which, according to adherents, counter the socioeconomic and personal problems of Brazilian citizens (Birman 2006). ...
... u.a. Oosterbaan 2006;Birman 2006;Vital da Cunha 2009), den irregulären Siedlungen der Stadt, in denen ca. ein Viertel der Einwohner von Rio leben. ...
Schlüsselwörter: Pfingstbewegung, Rio de Janeiro, Favela, Kongolesische Diaspora, worlding
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Religious “worlding from below”. Global Pentecostalism in Rio de Janeiro.
Abstract
Urban studies regard the increasing importance of new religious movements as extremely problematic or they interpret them by using monocausal logics. The urban booms of the Pentecostal movement or political Islam are often one-dimensionally linked with increasing urban poverty and immiserization. Drawing on the concept of “worlding” advanced by Aihwa Ong and Ananya Roy, this article examines the complex practices of the believers, focusing on the interrelations between religion, globality, and urban daily life. Using the example of different Pentecostal churches which are assembled under the umbrella of the Assembléia de Deus in Rio de Janeiro, the article compares local and Congolese migrant churches and discusses three aspects of the urban confi guration of the Pentecostal movement: the location of the parishes, with reference to their relationship to urban space in general and especially to daily life in the favela, their interaction with urban everyday cultures, particularly the music culture, and, finally, their transitory character.
Keywords: pentecostal movement, Rio de Janeiro, favela, Congolese diaspora, worlding
... Of particular interest here is the collection of essays on religion, media and the public sphere (Meyer and Moors 2006). Critical of Habermas' eurocentric, rationalist, universalistic and normative account of the transformation of the public sphere, contributors to this volume examine how processes of media liberalization and practices of religious mediation join to transform public spheres into arenas in which religious organizations seek to capture new audiences with spectacular images (Birman 2006;Meyer 2006), compelling sounds (Hirschkind 2006;Schulz 2006) and novel markers of religious authority and authenticity (Stolow 2006; see also Van de Port 2005). The question is how changes in the institutions, economics, technologies and practices of media have changed access to the public sphere, inform strategies of exclusion and inclusion, and contribute to specific ways of being a 'public' and specific notions of personhood (see also Warner 1992). ...
This article takes a critical look at Ghana's rapidly evolving broadcasting scene and in particular at the expansion and popularity of religious broadcasting. Sketching the developments of the Ghanaian media landscape, it analyses the changing politics of representing religion in this field. The much-celebrated processes of media deregulation and democratization, and the new opportunities for ownership, production, and participation they entail, have led to a dominance of Pentecostalism in the public sphere. While this development has been analysed from the perspective of churches and pastors, this article explores the intertwinement of commercial media and Pentecostalism from the perspective of a number of private media owners and producers in Accra. Whether these media entrepreneurs are themselves Pentecostal or not, they all have to deal with, and commercially exploit, the power and attraction of Pentecostalism. Their experience that commercial success is hardly possible without Pentecostalism makes clear that the influence of Pentecostalism in the Ghanaian public sphere reaches way beyond media-active pastors and born-again
... Anthropologists tend to analyse media as intrinsic to religion (de Vries 2001), and ask how the use of media technology articulates with the mediation of the transcendental (Hirschkind 2006;Meyer 2006a;Oosterbaan 2008;Schulz 2006;van de Port 2006). An important issue is also the creation of new publics and forms of religious authority through the use of new media technology, such as audiovisual media in Ghana (Meyer 2006a), audiocassette sermons in Egypt (Hirschkind 2006), and televangelism in the Americas (Birman 2006). Anthropologists pay attention to the 'remediation' or reframing of already established media that authenticate religious experience and authority through new media (Meyer 2005). ...
In an inaugural lecture for a chair of ethnicity and conflict in comparative perspective it is probably a timely question to ask how media influence ethnic and religious belonging, the formation of ethnic and religious networks and communities, and how more generally, uses of media technology shape the relationships between people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Do media not profoundly shape our impressions of the ethnic and religious other? After all, trends of intensified globalization in the last three decades appear to have brought about a global media-sustained imaginary in which such representations are produced and circulated.And can media not also appear as fearful agents of separation, purism, and ethnic and religious antagonism, as most chillingly exemplified in the radio broadcasts in 1994 that called on Rwandans to engage in genocidal murder of their neighbors?
This chapter presents a global overview of the current condition of pentecostal higher education by describing what types of institutions exist today in different parts of the world, namely (1) Africa, (2) Asia and Australia, (3) Latin America, (4) Europe, and (5) North America. Africa has the largest number of pentecostal universities, a phenomenon that is particularly obvious in Nigeria. Second is the region of North America, mostly because of the educational landscape in the United States, which also has a large number of pentecostal institutions of higher education. By contrast, only a few such institutions can currently be found in Asian and Latin American countries, while Europe is the clear tale light in this regard, due to its high levels of secularization.
This study explores a facet of the construction of a new worldwide religious tradition that fuses the beliefs, rituals, and identity claims of both Judaism and Christianity. The Brazilian ‘Messianic Anussim’ comprise former Charismatic Evangelicals that adhere to a variety of Jewish practices. Unlike Messianic Judaism, where Jewish-born people identify themselves as believers in Jesus, or Christian Zionism, where Evangelicals emphasise the eschatological importance of the Jews and Israel this particular community maintains the veneration of Jesus and calls for a purification of Charismatic Evangelicalism while observing Jewish laws. Their calls for a ‘pious restoration’ are guided by a recovered Jewish identity that is inspired by the historical figure of the Bnei Anussim. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2013 and 2015, this study explores the formation of a new hybrid religious group.
This text will analyse how the secular/religious binarism came to operate in the context of the recent rise in Evangelical dominance among the urban poor in Rio de Janeiro. By focusing my interest on this social sector, I take it to be constituted through specific religious policies relating to distinctions and associations between practices identified as secular and religious. I suggest, therefore, that the relations between religion, violence and governance of the poor feed back one upon the other. Policies promoting the death of ‘society’s enemies’ are linked to policies of religious, social and moral protection, on these uncertain and slippery boundaries between good and evil, the religious and the secular, morality and sin, and marginality and citizenship.
Les images du mal et les concepts afro-brésiliens qui lui sont associés constituent une clé pour étudier les activités des pentecôtistes brésiliens installés en Afrique australe. Lors de mes recherches sur ce pentecôtisme au Mozambique (2005-2011), j'ai régulièrement entendu des pasteurs brésiliens employer les termes de « macumba » et de « pomba-gira ». Les convertis mozambicains au pentecôtisme assimilaient volontiers ce vocable étranger et parlaient de son influence dans leurs vies (Van de Kamp 2013). « Macumba », le mot le plus utilisé, est un terme péjoratif dans le jargon pentecôtiste brésilien. Il est souvent employé pour dénoncer les religions afro-brésiliennes en les assimilant à la sorcellerie ou à la magie noire. Étant donné que les religions des africains, déportés au Brésil en tant qu'esclaves lors du commerce transatlantique, structu-rent tous les cultes afro-brésiliens, les pasteurs pentecôtistes considèrent que la source du mal se trouve en afrique (Macedo 2000 ; Birman 2006 : 65 ; Freston 2005 : 46-47). En effet, les pentecôtistes brésiliens relient les deux rives de l'atlantique en associant leurs histoires au sein d'un cadre spirituel particulier : l'afrique est le foyer originel des « mauvais esprits » – qui s'y trouvent toujours – venus au Brésil via le commerce des esclaves. Et c'est ce Mal qu'ils sont venus combattre en Afrique. Ainsi, pour les pentecôtistes, les esprits afro-brésiliens et africains sont des démons qui opèrent sous les auspices du Diable chrétien
Why does Islam play a larger role in contemporary politics than other religions? Is there something about the Islamic heritage that makes Muslims more likely than adherents of other faiths to invoke it in their political life? If so, what is it? Ancient Religions, Modern Politics seeks to answer these questions by examining the roles of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity in modern political life, placing special emphasis on the relevance-or irrelevance-of their heritages to today's social and political concerns. Michael Cook takes an in-depth, comparative look at political identity, social values, attitudes to warfare, views about the role of religion in various cultural domains, and conceptions of the polity. In all these fields he finds that the Islamic heritage offers richer resources for those engaged in current politics than either the Hindu or the Christian heritages. He uses this finding to explain the fact that, despite the existence of Hindu and Christian counterparts to some aspects of Islamism, the phenomenon as a whole is unique in the world today. The book also shows that fundamentalism-in the sense of a determination to return to the original sources of the religion-is politically more adaptive for Muslims than it is for Hindus or Christians. A sweeping comparative analysis by one of the world's leading scholars of premodern Islam, Ancient Religions, Modern Politics sheds important light on the relationship between the foundational texts of these three great religious traditions and the politics of their followers today.
The essays in this volume explore how two domains of human experience and action--religion and technology--are implicated in each other. Contrary to commonsense understandings of both religion (as an "otherworldly" orientation) and technology (as the name for tools, techniques, and expert knowledges oriented to "this" world), the contributors to this volume challenge the grounds on which this division has been erected in the first place. What sorts of things come to light when one allows religion and technology to mingle freely? In an effort to answer that question, Deus in Machina embarks upon an interdisciplinary voyage across diverse traditions and contexts where religion and technology meet: from the design of clocks in medieval Christian Europe, to the healing power of prayer in premodern Buddhist Japan, to 19th-century Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead, to Islamic debates about kidney dialysis in contemporary Egypt, to the work of disability activists using documentary film to reimagine Jewish kinship, to the representation of Haitian Vodou on the Internet, among other case studies. Combining rich historical and ethnographic detail with extended theoretical reflection, Deus in Machina outlines new directions for the study of religion and/as technology that will resonate across the human sciences, including religious studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, history, anthropology, and philosophy.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a church of Brazilian origin, has been enormously successful in establishing branches and attracting followers in post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike other Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCC), the UCKG insists that relationships with God be devoid of “emotions", that socialisation between members be kept to a minimum and that charity and fellowship are “useless" in materialising God’s blessings. Instead, the UCKG urges members to sacrifice large sums of money to God for delivering wealth, health, social harmony and happiness. While outsiders condemn these rituals as empty or manipulative, this book shows that they are locally meaningful, demand sincerity to work, have limits and are informed by local ideas about human bodies, agency and ontological balance. As an ethnography of people rather than of institutions, this book offers fresh insights into the mass PCC movement that has swept across Africa since the early 1990s.
The Mediatization of Religion presents data which suggests that the presence and influence of religion in public affairs around the world has been strongly supported by the use of media communication, and highlights the way some religions have adopted media communication and drawn on popular culture to build their message. The book offers a number of case studies and contemporary examples to illustrate the theory, and will be essential reading for all students and scholars of media, politics and all those interested in the part religion plays in our society.
In the small town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recruited by local Muslim leaders to denounce the practices of reformist Muslims. Malam Awal's message has been viewed as a mixed blessing by Muslim women who have seen new definitions of Islam and Muslim practice impact their place and role in society. This study follows the career of Malam Awal and documents the engagement of women in the religious debates that are refashioning their everyday lives. Adeline Masquelier reveals how these women have had to define Islam on their own terms, especially as a practice that governs education, participation in prayer, domestic activities, wedding customs, and who wears the veil and how. Masquelier's richly detailed narrative presents new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Africa today.
Throughout Brazil, Afro-Brazilians face widespread racial prejudice. Many turn to religion, with Afro-Brazilians disproportionately represented among Protestants, the fastest-growing religious group in the country. Officially, Brazilian Protestants do not involve themselves in racial politics. Behind the scenes, however, the community is deeply involved in the formation of different kinds of blackness-and its engagement in racial politics is rooted in the major new cultural movement of black music. In this highly original account, anthropologist John Burdick explores the complex ideas about race, racism, and racial identity that have grown up among Afro-Brazilians in the black music scene. By immersing himself for nearly a year in the vibrant worlds of black gospel, gospel rap, and gospel samba, Burdick pushes our understanding of racial identity and the social effects of music in new directions. Delving into the everyday music-making practices of these scenes, Burdick shows how the creative process itself shapes how Afro-Brazilian artists experience and understand their racial identities. This deeply detailed, engaging portrait challenges much of what we thought we knew about Brazil's Protestants,provoking us to think in new ways about their role in their country's struggle to combat racism.
Through their everyday references to witchcraft, allegedly emanating from Afro-Brazilian cults, Evangelical pastors denounce heinous crimes and acts of barbarity that provoke horror and terror in their listeners in church and on radio and television. I describe two allegations of witchcraft by Pentecostal groups, which connect marginality, crime and the presence of diabolical evil in two communities. Witchcraft provides an entry point to examine some of the problems faced by those living in 'communities:' the 'demonization' of peripheral territories provoked by the state's identification of their populations with criminality, on one hand, and the Evangelical battle against diabolical evil, on the other. I look to show that in the community of believers and the favela alike the Evangelicals' battle with the devil is a response to the State's interpellations associated with its modalities of identifying peripheral spaces. In the process, I analyze the meaning assumed by witchcraft within the wider Evangelical project of salvation and the social future it aims to build.
This article argues that a combination of the rapid development and dissemination of media technologies, the liberalization of national media economies and the growth of transnational media spheres is transforming the relationship between religion, popular culture and politics in contemporary societies in ways not adequately accounted for in existing sociological theories of religion (secularization, neo-secularization and rational choice) and still largely neglected in sociological theories of media and culture. In particular, it points to a series of media enabled social processes (de-differentiation, diasporic intensification and re-enchantment) which mirror and counter processes identified with the declining social significance of religion in secularization theory (differentiation, societalization and rationalization), interrupting their secularizing effects and tending to increase the public presence or distribution of religious symbols and discourses, a process described as religious ‘publicization’. These processes have implications for religious authority, which is reconfigured in a more distributed form but not necessarily diminished, contrary to neo-secularization theory. Furthermore, contrary to rational choice theory, the increased public presence of religion depends not only on competition between religious ‘suppliers’, but also on the work done by religions beyond the narrow religious sphere ascribed by secular modernity to religion, in supposedly secular spheres such as entertainment, politics, law, health and welfare and hence has implications for the relationship between politics and popular culture central to cultural studies.
Religious cinematics is concerned with the “moving picture,” and with its impact on the “moving body.” Particularly utilizing Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological descriptions of the “aesthesiological body,” this article briefly outlines a movement of the film viewer’s body that is pre-conscious, before rational awareness, in front of the film screen. Ultimately, it turns to Stan Brakhage’s unwatchable film, The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes, to make the case for moments of “cinematic mysticism,” when the categorizing functions of film and the senses break down. In this way, a renewing function of filmic ritual emerges, not from a transcendental otherworldliness but from a grounding in the human sensing body.
This article addresses the interface of video-films and Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. This interface, it is argued, needs to be examined from a position that transcends the confines of film studies and religious studies and leaves behind a secularist perspective on the relationship between religion and film. On the basis of detailed ethnographic research, it is shown that, far from standing apart from the realm of religious beliefs, video-films call upon audio-visual technologies so as to remediate Pentecostal views of the invisible world around which Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity evolves. Video-films invoke a “techno-religious realism” that addresses spectators in such a way that they authorize video representations as authentic. Transcending facile oppositions of technology and belief, media and authenticity, and entertainment and religion, video-films are shown to achieve immediacy and authenticity not at the expense of, but thanks to, media technologies and practices of remediation.
Since the liberalization of the Ghanaian media in 1992, audiovisual representation has become crucial in the struggle over religion and culture. This article examines the neo-traditionalist Afrikania Mission’s struggles with audiovisual media in the context of a strong Pentecostal dominance in Ghana’s religious and media landscape. It argues that the study of religion in an era of mass media cannot be limited to religious doctrine and content. One must also take into account matters of style and format associated with audiovisual representation. This article shows how new media opportunities and constraints have pushed Afrikania to adapt its strategies of accessing the media and its styles of representation. Adopting dominant media formats such as the documentary, the news item, and the spectacle involves a constant struggle over revelation and concealment. It also entails the neglect of much of the spiritual power that constitutes African religious traditions. The question of how to represent spiritual power through audiovisual media occupies many religious groups, but the question of its very representability seems to be especially pressing for Afrikania.
As public discussion of racial politics and affirmative action heats up in Brazil, it becomes increasingly important to ask what black Evangelical Protestants have to contribute to the debate. This paper argues that two recent variants of black music increasingly performed in São Paulo's Evangelical churches–black gospel and gospel rap–exert a significant influence over how their artists think about their own blackness. Black gospel, by placing their musicians’ racial and class experience into the context of North American black churches, encourages a strong collective black identity; while gospel rap, in placing race and class experience into the context of Brazil's poor peripheral neighborhoods, dilutes the racial content of subjectivity, replacing it with a strong class identity.
In December 2000 the government of Kano State in Muslim northern Nigeria reintroduced shari’a and established a new board for film and video censorship charged with the responsibility to “sanitize” the video industry and enforce the compliance of video films with moral standards of Islam. Stakeholders of the industry took up the challenge and responded by inserting religious issues into their narratives, and by adding a new feature genre focusing on conversion to Islam. This genre is characterized by violent Muslim/pagan encounters, usually set in a mythical past, culminating in the conversion of the pagans. This article will first outline northern Nigerian video culture and then go on to explore local debates about the religious legitimacy of film and video and their influence upon recent developments within the video industry. By taking a closer look at video films propagating Islam it will focus on three points: first, videomakers’ negotiation between the opposing notions of religious education and secular escapism; second, inter-textual relations with other (film)cultures; and third, political subtexts to the narratives, which relate such figures as Muslim martyrs and pagan vampires to the current project of cultural and religious revitalization.
The idea that religious practice leads to material prosperity forms the basis of a branch of Pentecostalism that has spread rapidly across the globe. Known as the “health and wealth movement,” it has been popularized by multinational churches through mass broadcasting. However, little is known about how the health and wealth message might differ across countries. This paper examines the issue by analyzing the television programs produced by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, for Rio de Janeiro and New York City audiences. Comparing six months of programming, I find that shows in both cities share similar representations about the material and physical rewards that can be obtained through religious adherence, but communicate different causal narratives about how religious practice leads to prosperity. The Rio programs emphasize that prayer, the ritualistic use of sacred objects, and miracles bring about prosperity. In contrast, the NYC programs emphasize that prayer, in conjunction with perseverance and struggle, lead to such gains. The findings indicate the nuanced ways that global and local institutional contexts shape the diffusion of the health and wealth gospel, and suggest that multinational churches navigate these contexts by adapting key elements of their messages.
This review addresses recent work on media practices in situations of religious diversity. I hereby distinguish three approaches in this literature: the media politics of diversity, religious diversity and the public sphere, and the diversity of religious mediations. Whereas the first focuses on the control of representations of religious diversity and difference, the second strand of research looks at the interaction of religious difference and the public circulation of discourse and images. The third approach takes built-in links between media and religious practices as a starting point to investigate the diversity of modes of interaction between religious practitioners and religious otherworlds and the consequences these modes have for sociocultural life. This article argues that a perspective mindful of the intrinsic relationships of religion and media is best positioned to do justice to the questions provoked by the intersection of media practices and religious difference.
This paper deals with the visual culture of Pentecostalism as it is produced and broadcast on TV by the numerous and very successful Charismatic-Pentecostal "media ministries" in Ghana. It argues that a transnationally circulating Pentecostal program format has become paradigmatic not only for local Pentecostal groups but also for other religions seeking media access. Comparing Charismatic-Pentecostal and African traditionalist media use, it further examines the specific relationship between the visual and the spiritual in both religions. Conceiving of religion as a practice of mediation, creating links between the visible world and the invisible, spiritual world, the paper looks at how older forms of religious mediation relate to newer forms of technological mediation. It traces the success of the televisual culture of Charismatic-Pentecostalism to the similarity between the dominant formats, styles, and modes of address of the medium of television and those of mediating the spirit in Charismatic religious practice. Traditional practices of spiritual communication, on the other hand, are closely linked to secrecy and seclusion with little emphasis on visuality and esthetics and do not easily translate into public spectacle. The alternative, neo-traditionalist spectacles created for public consumption, then, lack the charisma and spiritual power that characterize Charismatic television.
Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian spirit-possession cult, whose splendid performance of “African tradition” and “secrecy” has long prohibited the reproduction of religious activity by modern media technology. Authoritative voices within candomblé have explicitly stated that modern media technology is incongruous with authentic traditional religion, claiming that the body in ritual action is (and should remain) the only medium through which an understanding of the sacred can be reached. Nonetheless, more and more cult adepts seek to portray their religious life through video technology, challenging priestly as well as anthropological discourses on the cult. A discussion of some of the very first video productions made by and for the candomblé community reveals that community members are modern media consumers, taught by TV what is aesthetically desirable and stylistically correct and keen to upgrade the importance of a religious event by “making it look like TV.” My analysis reveals just how much TV has become an authenticating and authorizing agent in the religious field: Endowed with the power to make spirit worship part of the contemporary media society that is Brazil (rather than locate that worship in an imagined “Africa”) and allowing the significance of embodied “deep knowledge” to be articulated in a style that is universally understood and appreciated by media consumers, TV is nothing less than constitutive of the very values people attribute to their religious experiences.
This article explores the ways in which Pentecostal media, especially electro-acoustic media, are integrated in the everyday life of a favela in Rio de Janeiro. It argues that the popularity of Pentecostal radio has to be understood in relation to the sociocultural meaning of sound, the architecture of the favela, and the ways in which sound is employed to mark off space and express identity and alterity. Pentecostal broadcasts acquire their meaning against the background of sound that evangelicals define as “worldly” instead of Godly, and the cacophony of sounds in the dense urban space reflects the power struggles that are going on and the position that evangelicals try to maintain. People are inclined to listen to evangelical radio because it signals their “sanctified” position in the harsh and complex social conditions of the favela. By way of a discussion of the qualities of sound in relation to the built environment--its appearance as an extension of material and social boundaries and its manifestation as an immediate presence that defies boundaries--this article also explores some of the more intricate transformations that the use of electro-acoustic technology brings about in the nexus of religion, technology, and bodily dispositions. By many evangelicals, electro-acoustic technology is considered an important means to be “in touch” with God. This emotionally charged experience subjectively confirms the status aparte of the persons who adhere to the Pentecostal churches and, as such, authenticates the social distinctions they make between themselves and the other favela inhabitants.
Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.
Starting out from a celebrated 1995 controversy which arose from a late-night incident on Brazilian TV, the relationships between neo-Pentecostalism and established culture are explored. Taking into account traditions of legal rhetoric and of political adherence, the paper shows that what appears at one level as a religious conflict is at another level a conflict over political power, over the rhetoric and imagery of power, and for control of the popular imaginary.
This article examines a criminal trial in Brazil that touched on the imagined role of religion in public life. The case involved a Protestant minister accused of religious discrimination and of vilipending an image of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil. The prosecution argued and the court concurred that the minister's iconoclastic verbal and physical gestures endangered the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Yet the defense claimed that his actions, stemming from his religious convictions, expressed this same principle of freedom. Different visions of religious free-dom are at stake in the case as well as how such freedom relates to the rights and private lives of citizens. Placed in the history of church-state relations in Brazil, the case raises the problem of interpreting concepts of religious pluralism, religious freedom, and freedom of expression in Brazilian law.