Martin Lindhardt

Men of God: Neo-Pentecostalism and masculinities in urban Tanzania

Abstract Based on research in Tanzania, this article explores how masculine born-again Christian identities are constructed and enacted in a field of tension between Pentecostal/charismatic norms for masculine behaviour and popular cultural expectations of male honour and status. The author sheds light on the gendered aspects of conversion and highlights why becoming a born-again Christian often represents a different kind of challenge and a more radical change of lifestyle in the case of men. At the same time, the author argues that a thorough understanding of the ways in which born-again men negotiate identities and position themselves in the social world they live in requires that we move beyond the narrow focus on the oppositional aspects of born-again masculinities that characterises much of the literature on Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity and gender. Focusing particular attention on the recent neo-Pentecostal turn in Tanzania (and Africa), the article demonstrates how this kind of Christianity allows for transformations in private while at the same time providing room for the enactment of powerful masculine identities in public.

'If you are saved you cannot forget your parents': agency, power, and social repositioning in Tanzanian born-again Christianity

In much of the literature on African Pentecostalism, conversion has been associated with a striving for modernist individualist identities and a strategy for legitimising social, generational rupture. This article contributes to the existing scholarly field by shedding light on the ways in which urban Tanzanian born-again Christians address generational antagonisms and position themselves in relation to elder generations. Drawing on anthropological discussions of the concept of agency and focusing particular attention on the ways in which a specific kind of agency is cultivated through participation in ritual, I argue against a narrow association of born-again Christianity with modernist individualism. While an assertion of individual autonomy is implied in conversion, Tanzanian born-again Christians do not cease to be social beings, deeply embedded in family relationships. I demonstrate how born-again religious practice enables urban Tanzanians to actively rephrase and sometimes even improve their relationships with unconverted family elders.

Power in Powerlessness

In this study of a Pentecostal denomination in urban Chile Martin Lindhardt steps back from classical instrumentalist explanations of Pentecostal growth in Latin America and offers a comprehensive analysis of the ritual and quotidian practices through which adherents live their religiosity on an everyday basis.

Pentecostalism in Africa

Bringing together prominent Africanist scholars from a variety of disciplines, this book offers a comprehensive treatment of the social, cultural and political impact of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in postcolonial sub Saharan Africa.

Introduction: Presence and impact of pentecostal-charsimatic Christianity in Africa

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the book Pentecostalism in Africa . The book discusses the presence and impact of Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity (PC/C) in Africa. The extent to which the explosion of PC/C has contributed to overall Christian growth in Africa (Christians now make up almost half of the continents entire population) is uncertain and may, in fact, not be all that significant. Pentecostal/charismatic churches have in some cases gained converts from groups that only practiced traditional indigenous religions and some Muslims do convert, but a substantial number of first generation converts were already Christians, in some sense of the term, before becoming born-again Pentecostals/charismatics. Bringing together prominent Africanist scholars from a variety of disciplines (theology and church history, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, political science, developmental studies) the book offers an elaborate treatment of the social, cultural and political impact of PC/C in sub-Saharan Africa. Keywords: Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity (PC/C); sub-Saharan Africa

Who bewitched the pastor and why did he survive the witchcraft attack? Micro-politics and the creativity of indeterminacy in Tanzanian discourses on witchcraft

Many Tanzanians share a basic understanding of the occult as a moving force in the visible world. But at the same time, notions of the occult are characterised by indeterminacies in meaning, thereby allowing for multiple interpretations of particular events. This article explores various readings of two particular incidents that both occurred within a suburb of the city of Iringa in South-central Tanzania. First a Lutheran pastor started suffering from a paralyzed shoulder and a few weeks later an old woman was found lying naked outside of his home in the middle of the night. While both incidents were widely ascribed to witchcraft the article shows how particular interpretations were embedded in and reflective of a dense social climate, characterised by different kinds of tension, inequalities, suspicions of corruption and by religious and medical pluralism and competition. The article argues that the very opaqueness and uncertainty of witchcraft knowledge enabled a variety of actors with different stakes to make claims to truth, spiritual status and moral identity.

When God Interferes: Ritual, Empowerment, and Divine Presence

This chapter explores how theological notions of human powerlessness and dependence upon God are actualised and unfolded, rather than symbolically represented, through the bodily and rhetoric engagement in Pentecostal ritual. It examines different strategies by use of which divine presence becomes manifest as a part of the ritual communicative community, and the active interference of God is established as the only true source of consequential action. The chapter demonstrates that important insights into the cultural microdynamics of Latin American Pentecostalism will emerge from an explicit focus on ritual, a topic sadly neglected in most of the existing literature. It argues that it is mainly through the engagement in different practices of worship that Pentecostal dispositions for orientation towards and communion with the sacred are acquired and exercised.Keywords:divine presence; Pentecostalism; powerlessness; ritual

My God My Land. Interwoven Paths of Christianity and Tradition in Fiji

on individuals, gives a theoretical propensity to stress agency over structure, which disregards, for instance, the way Facebook is also used for detailed advertisements aimed at individual users and thus could perhaps be construed as an agent of capitalist marketing. It would be interesting to balance the emphasis on individual agency with more accounts of people claiming to be ‘addicted’ to Facebook, or a discussion of how Facebook has ‘forced’ a lot of communication into cyberspace thus estranging those who feel uncomfortable about using computers or the internet. Having said that, Miller does present two cases where persons feel Facebook has destroyed specific social ties for them (including one due to ‘Facebook -addiction’). With Tales from Facebook Daniel Miller has made a significant contribution to the understanding of this form of digital medium. There is a couple of minor, and to many readers probably insignificant, drawbacks. I would have liked a proper bibliography and an index, which would have made the book easier to use for someone wanting to peruse its different themes more carefully. Also on the side of academic detail, as an anthropologist with an interest in studies of Facebook and other digital media, I would have liked the author to have been clearer in the portraits he presents about what informants themselves said and what is his own interpretation. However, the book is highly recommendable and a must-read for anthropologists as well as anyone else interested in how Facebook is seen from the perspective of those using it.