Pub Date : 2022-07-05DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340222
Jung Ran Forte
For more than two centuries the Bight of Benin participated in the Atlantic trade. Today, along the same coastal region, it is possible to encounter Tchamba, the spirits of foreign slaves from the northern savannah. Tchamba ritual practice, part and parcel of the Vodun religion, narrates peculiar stories of domestic slavery and the Atlantic trade, of struggles for emancipation, love and trade, women and men, slaves and masters. Most of all, the worship of Tchamba questions the notion of memory in both discursive and embodied forms, and the ways in which we create linkages between practices, narration, history, and the experience of time.
{"title":"Travelling Gods, Ritual Memory, and Slavery in Contemporary Benin","authors":"Jung Ran Forte","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340222","url":null,"abstract":"For more than two centuries the Bight of Benin participated in the Atlantic trade. Today, along the same coastal region, it is possible to encounter Tchamba, the spirits of foreign slaves from the northern savannah. Tchamba ritual practice, part and parcel of the Vodun religion, narrates peculiar stories of domestic slavery and the Atlantic trade, of struggles for emancipation, love and trade, women and men, slaves and masters. Most of all, the worship of Tchamba questions the notion of memory in both discursive and embodied forms, and the ways in which we create linkages between practices, narration, history, and the experience of time.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138543748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-28DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340173
Franziska Duarte dos Santos
Building on ethnographic research, this article explores the significance of narrative accounts, namely testimonies and confessions, in the social project of creating reformed men in urban and peri-urban settings of present-day South Africa. By drawing attention to certain ‘family resemblances’ (Wittgenstein 1953) between Pentecostalism and gender activism, it analyses how gender activists use testimonies of personal transformation to influence other men to change their self-understanding as men, their attitudes, and patterns of behaviour. Throughout the article I elaborate on the socially integrative and disintegrative effects of this endeavour as well as on the difference between such testimonial accounts and confessions. By exploring the distinction between these two forms of speaking out, the article illustrates what it means to be a gender activist in this context, and what ideas about personhood are deployed in gender activism.
{"title":"On Becoming and Being a ‘Living Testimony of Change’: Masculinity, Gender Activism, and Pentecostalism in South Africa","authors":"Franziska Duarte dos Santos","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340173","url":null,"abstract":"Building on ethnographic research, this article explores the significance of narrative accounts, namely testimonies and confessions, in the social project of creating reformed men in urban and peri-urban settings of present-day South Africa. By drawing attention to certain ‘family resemblances’ (Wittgenstein 1953) between Pentecostalism and gender activism, it analyses how gender activists use testimonies of personal transformation to influence other men to change their self-understanding as men, their attitudes, and patterns of behaviour. Throughout the article I elaborate on the socially integrative and disintegrative effects of this endeavour as well as on the difference between such testimonial accounts and confessions. By exploring the distinction between these two forms of speaking out, the article illustrates what it means to be a gender activist in this context, and what ideas about personhood are deployed in gender activism.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138531782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340226
Ran Muratsu
This study investigates the Banamè Church, which has gained significant persuasive powers for conversion in Southern Benin, where the public is intensely afraid of witches and Pentecostal Charismatic Churches have expanded rapidly to fight against them. The Banamè Church claims that God came down and took the body of a girl called Parfaite and denies the authenticity of all other churches and religions. To understand how people have come to accept this as reality, it is necessary to examine not only economic and political dynamics and newly evolved relationships but also the reciprocal demonisation between religions and the affective persuasiveness that has emerged in these inter-religious correspondences. This study demonstrates how rationalisation and persuasion occur affectively and spirits become a reality in an entanglement of materials, discourses, media, and feelings against the backdrop of the contemporary expansion of Pentecostal Charismatic Churches, revealing the importance of focusing on inter-religious affective turbulence.
{"title":"Inter-religious Demonisation and Its Persuasiveness","authors":"Ran Muratsu","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340226","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study investigates the Banamè Church, which has gained significant persuasive powers for conversion in Southern Benin, where the public is intensely afraid of witches and Pentecostal Charismatic Churches have expanded rapidly to fight against them. The Banamè Church claims that God came down and took the body of a girl called Parfaite and denies the authenticity of all other churches and religions. To understand how people have come to accept this as reality, it is necessary to examine not only economic and political dynamics and newly evolved relationships but also the reciprocal demonisation between religions and the affective persuasiveness that has emerged in these inter-religious correspondences. This study demonstrates how rationalisation and persuasion occur affectively and spirits become a reality in an entanglement of materials, discourses, media, and feelings against the backdrop of the contemporary expansion of Pentecostal Charismatic Churches, revealing the importance of focusing on inter-religious affective turbulence.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42862036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340229
Devaka Premawardhana
{"title":"Faith in African Lived Christianity: Bridging Anthropological and Theological Perspectives, written by Lauterbach, Karen, and Mika Vähäkangas","authors":"Devaka Premawardhana","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340229","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":"31 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41256453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340224
W. Macgaffey
Manuscripts in their own language by indigenous ethnographers at the beginning of the colonial period, not hitherto examined in detail, give unique insight into precolonial beliefs in the Kikongo-speaking region of what was then Belgian Congo, and the transition to Christianity. That transition depended in large part on translation, giving new meanings to old words. The texts suggest that Nzambi, now the Kongo name for the Christian God, was originally a personification of death. The power of life, on the other hand, was credited to bisimbi, chthonic forces that are simultaneously both material and immaterial. Although scholars have generally overlooked this issue, belief in these forces is foundational to what has usually been called traditional religion and its rituals, most of them now extinct. This Kongo configuration exemplifies, on a small scale, one that is found generally in West and Central Africa.
{"title":"Precolonial Beliefs in God, Nzambi, and Chthonic Beings: Evidence from Kongo Texts","authors":"W. Macgaffey","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340224","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Manuscripts in their own language by indigenous ethnographers at the beginning of the colonial period, not hitherto examined in detail, give unique insight into precolonial beliefs in the Kikongo-speaking region of what was then Belgian Congo, and the transition to Christianity. That transition depended in large part on translation, giving new meanings to old words. The texts suggest that Nzambi, now the Kongo name for the Christian God, was originally a personification of death. The power of life, on the other hand, was credited to bisimbi, chthonic forces that are simultaneously both material and immaterial. Although scholars have generally overlooked this issue, belief in these forces is foundational to what has usually been called traditional religion and its rituals, most of them now extinct. This Kongo configuration exemplifies, on a small scale, one that is found generally in West and Central Africa.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45534244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340219
E. A. Sarfo, J. Salifu Yendork, Lily N. A. Kpobi
Religion is seen to have both positive and negative impacts on the individual and the society. The present study sought to investigate the impact of neo-prophetic Christianity on the members of neo-prophetic churches in Ghana. Eighty-six congregants of six neo-prophetic churches in Accra and Kumasi were sampled for this study. Methods used in the gathering of data included in-depth interviews, church observations, and focused group discussions. Results indicated that neo-prophetic Christianity has both positive and negative impacts on their members and the society in general. Some of the negative impacts included exploitation by church leaders, discrimination among church members and against other religions, and attribution of spiritual causes to illness and misfortune. The positive impacts of religion included the adoption of good personal values, provision of social support, the use of religious coping, as well as fostering hope and optimism. The implications of these findings are discussed.
{"title":"Is the Church a Place of Solace or Frustration?","authors":"E. A. Sarfo, J. Salifu Yendork, Lily N. A. Kpobi","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340219","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Religion is seen to have both positive and negative impacts on the individual and the society. The present study sought to investigate the impact of neo-prophetic Christianity on the members of neo-prophetic churches in Ghana. Eighty-six congregants of six neo-prophetic churches in Accra and Kumasi were sampled for this study. Methods used in the gathering of data included in-depth interviews, church observations, and focused group discussions. Results indicated that neo-prophetic Christianity has both positive and negative impacts on their members and the society in general. Some of the negative impacts included exploitation by church leaders, discrimination among church members and against other religions, and attribution of spiritual causes to illness and misfortune. The positive impacts of religion included the adoption of good personal values, provision of social support, the use of religious coping, as well as fostering hope and optimism. The implications of these findings are discussed.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64758801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340220
D. Bell
{"title":"Black Feminisms Reimagined: After Intersectionality, written by Jennifer C. Nash","authors":"D. Bell","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340220","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44389665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340223
Rebecca C. Hughes
As headmistress of the London Missionary Society’s Girls’ Boarding School from 1915–1940 in Mbereshi, Zambia, Mabel Shaw (1889–1973) created an innovative educational programme that embraced local culture and empowered women. Shaw drew from theological, anthropological, and feminist perspectives to guide her understanding of Bemba culture. Shaw built upon fulfilment theology with its premise that all religions had an element of God’s truth in them. In doing so, Shaw differentiated Western culture from Christian culture, creating space to accommodate practices such as ancestor veneration and polygamy. While scholars have been reluctant to label Shaw as a feminist, this author argues she must be recognized as one. Shaw actively collaborated with Bemba women and raised them as Christian saints. Moreover, Shaw was unique in that she urged her British audiences to listen to African voices and to consider the value of adopting aspects of African worship.
{"title":"Expanding the Bounds of Christianity and Feminism","authors":"Rebecca C. Hughes","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340223","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000As headmistress of the London Missionary Society’s Girls’ Boarding School from 1915–1940 in Mbereshi, Zambia, Mabel Shaw (1889–1973) created an innovative educational programme that embraced local culture and empowered women. Shaw drew from theological, anthropological, and feminist perspectives to guide her understanding of Bemba culture. Shaw built upon fulfilment theology with its premise that all religions had an element of God’s truth in them. In doing so, Shaw differentiated Western culture from Christian culture, creating space to accommodate practices such as ancestor veneration and polygamy. While scholars have been reluctant to label Shaw as a feminist, this author argues she must be recognized as one. Shaw actively collaborated with Bemba women and raised them as Christian saints. Moreover, Shaw was unique in that she urged her British audiences to listen to African voices and to consider the value of adopting aspects of African worship.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48908044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340227
José Ramón Rodríguez Lago
After Spain lost its overseas territories, Spanish priests increased their presence in Africa. From an analysis of the bibliography and the press of the time as well as of the different documents issued by the nunciature of Madrid, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and the Secretariat of State of the Vatican, it is possible to draw some significant conclusions about the evolution of Spanish missions in the Protectorate of Morocco and Spanish Guinea in the four decades which separate the so-called Disaster and the propagandistic myth of the Crusade represented by Francoists – and Africanists – during the Civil War.
{"title":"From the Ruins of Empire","authors":"José Ramón Rodríguez Lago","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340227","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000After Spain lost its overseas territories, Spanish priests increased their presence in Africa. From an analysis of the bibliography and the press of the time as well as of the different documents issued by the nunciature of Madrid, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and the Secretariat of State of the Vatican, it is possible to draw some significant conclusions about the evolution of Spanish missions in the Protectorate of Morocco and Spanish Guinea in the four decades which separate the so-called Disaster and the propagandistic myth of the Crusade represented by Francoists – and Africanists – during the Civil War.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43716150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340225
Misganaw Tadesse Melaku
Wollo is a province in Ethiopia where many ethnic, religious, and cultural groups live in harmony. The religious demography of the province, which has an almost equal number of Muslims and Christians living together intermingled, made social interaction inevitable. As a result, the community has a unique history of tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and a strong sense of togetherness. The people share many customary, cultural, and ritual practices. This paper thus examines the interaction and integration between the different ethnic and religious groups in Wollo that led to the emergence of a unique genetic amalgam and cultural hybridity in the province.
{"title":"Wollo: A Land of Religious and Ethnic Amalgamation","authors":"Misganaw Tadesse Melaku","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340225","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Wollo is a province in Ethiopia where many ethnic, religious, and cultural groups live in harmony. The religious demography of the province, which has an almost equal number of Muslims and Christians living together intermingled, made social interaction inevitable. As a result, the community has a unique history of tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and a strong sense of togetherness. The people share many customary, cultural, and ritual practices. This paper thus examines the interaction and integration between the different ethnic and religious groups in Wollo that led to the emergence of a unique genetic amalgam and cultural hybridity in the province.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46129457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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