This book centers around mid-level charismatic pastors in Ghana. Karen Lauterbach analyzes pastorship as a pathway to becoming small “big men” and achieving status, wealth, and power in the country. The volume investigates both the social processes of becoming a pastor and the spiritual dimensions of how power and wealth are conceptualized, achieved, and legitimized in the particular context of Asante in Ghana. Lauterbach integrates her analysis of charismatic Christianity with a historically informed examination of social mobility—how people in subordinate positions seek to join up with power. She explores how the ideas and experiences surrounding the achievement of wealth and performance of power are shaped and re-shaped. In this way, the book historicizes current expressions of charismatic Christianity in Ghana while also bringing the role of religion and belief to bear on our understanding of wealth and power as they function more broadly in African societies.

In March 2017, the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufu announced his intention to build a national cathedral to the people of Ghana. The announcement elicited watertight counter arguments that morphed into two a priori re-litigated assumptions: First, Ghana is a secular country and second, religion and state formation are incompatible. Informed by a frustrating paradox of an overwhelming religious presence and concurrent pervasive corruption in the country, public conversation reached a cul-de-sac of “conviction without compromising.” In The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana, Charles Prempeh deploys the national cathedral as an entry point to provide both interdisciplinary and autoethnographic understanding of religion and politics. The book shows the capacity of religion, when properly cultivated and curated as a worldview to answer the why questions of life, will foster personal, moral, collective and ontological responsibility. All this is needed to stem the tide against corruption, commodity fetishism, environmental degradation (illegal mining—galamsey), heritage destruction and religious exploitation. Prempeh recuperates a historical fact about the mutual inclusivity between religion and politics—politics helping to manage differences, while religion provides a transcendental reason for unity to be forged for human flourishing. Separating the two is, therefore, ahistorical and an obvious threat to the intangible virtues that answers, “why and how” questions for public governance.

Anthropological theory can radically transform our understanding of human experience and offer theologians an introduction to the interdisciplinary nature between anthropology and Christianity. Both sociocultural anthropology and theology have made fundamental contributions to our understanding of human experience and the place of humanity in the world. But can these two disciplines, despite the radical differences that separate them, work together to transform their thinking on these topics? Robbins argues that they can. To make this point, he draws on key theological discussions of atonement, eschatology, interruption, passivity, and judgement to rethink important anthropological debates about such topics as ethical life, radical change, the ways people live in time, agency, gift giving, and the nature of humanity. The result is both a major reconsideration of important aspects of anthropological theory through theological categories and a series of careful readings of influential theologians such as Moltmann, Pannenberg, Jüngel, and Dalferth informed by rich ethnographic accounts of the lives of Christians from around the world. In conclusion, Robbins draws on contemporary discussions of secularism to interrogate the secular foundations of anthropology and suggests that the differences between anthropology and theology surrounding this topic can provide a foundation for transformative dialogue between them, rather than being an obstacle to it. Written as a work of interdisciplinary anthropological theorizing, this book also offers theologians an introduction to some of the most important ground covered by burgeoning field of the anthropology of Christianity while guiding anthropologists into core areas of theological discussion. Although theoretically ambitious, the book is clearly argued throughout and written to be accessible to all readers in the social sciences, theology, and religious studies interested in the place of religion in social life and human experience.

Faith in African Lived Christianity – Bridging Anthropological and Theological Perspectives offers a comprehensive, empirically rich and interdisciplinary approach to the study of faith in African Christianity. The book brings together anthropology and theology in the study of how faith and religious experiences shape the understanding of social life in Africa. The volume is a collection of chapters by prominent Africanist theologians, anthropologists and social scientists, who take people’s faith as their starting point and analyze it in a contextually sensitive way. It covers discussions of positionality in the study of African Christianity, interdisciplinary methods and approaches and a number of case studies on political, social and ecological aspects of African Christian spirituality.

This volume approaches the Word of Faith as a worldview, and analyses the movement through N. T. Wright's model for worldview-analysis in order to provide necessary nuance and complexity to scholarly interpretations of the Word of Faith. The reader receives insights into the movement's narrative, semiotic, practical and propositional dimensions, which cumulatively offer a multifaceted understanding of how the Word of Faith interprets reality and engages with the world. The analysis shows that there is a narrative core to Word of Faith beliefs in the form of a unique theological story with focus set on the present restoration of Eden's authority and blessings. This study demonstrates how the Word of Faith operates as a distinct worldview that parses the world through the lens of faith's causative power to affect a direct correspondence between present reality and Eden's perfection. The findings advance a critical and therapeutic approach that acknowledges how the worldview both strengthens and subverts Pentecostalism.

The Pentecostal World provides a comprehensive and critical introduction to one of the most vibrant and diverse expressions of contemporary Christianity. Unlike many books on Pentecostalism, this collection of essays from all continents does not attempt to synthesize and simplify the movement’s inherent diversity and fragmented dispersion. Instead, the global flows of Pentecostalism are firmly grounded in local histories and expressions, as well as the various modes of their worldwide reproduction. The book thus argues for a new understanding of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements that accounts for the simultaneous processes of pluralization and homogenization in contemporary World Christianity. Written by a distinguished team of international contributors across various disciplines, the volume is comprised of six parts, with each offering a critical perspective on classical themes in the study of Pentecostalism. Led by a programmatic introduction, the thirty-six chapters within these parts explore a variety of themes: history and historiography, conversion, spirit beliefs and exorcism, prosperity, politics, gender relations, sexual identities, racism, development, migration, pilgrimage, interreligious relations, media, ecumenism, and academic research. The Pentecostal World is essential reading for students and researchers in anthropology, history, political science, religious studies, sociology, and theology. The book will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as culture studies, black studies, ethnic studies, and gender studies.

The last decade has witnessed fundamental shifts in the relationship between religion and politics. In this light, religious symbols, motifs, justifications, and practices are increasingly noticeable in political discourses, as well as agendas, particularly in the Global South, with Pentecostal Christians standing out as salient actors. Performative practices enacted in political contexts such as the anointing of state authorities, prophecies, warfare prayers, etc. have drawn the attention of numerous scholars worldwide. The four surveys contained in this volume account for these developments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and synoptically engage with the following question: Can any meaningful nexus connecting multiple and apparently isolated nodes of Pentecostal engagement in the political sphere around the globe be identified? In addition, they do the groundwork for drawing parallels on a global level, on the basis of which new light can be shed on fundamental changes in Pentecostal actorhood and self-understanding. Thus, local developments and ethnographic studies are for the first time reflected upon from a global perspective.

Grounded in ethnographic and historiographic research and taking a cross-regional approach, this book explores the complex dynamics of similarity and difference, rapprochement and detachment, and divergence and competition between practitioners of Christianity, Islam and African religious traditions.Across Africa, Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of African religious traditions live in shared settings, demarcating themselves in opposition to one another and at times engaging in violent conflicts, but also being entangled in complex ways and showing unexpected similarities and mutual cross-overs. However, while encounters and entanglements of African religious traditions with either Islam or Christianity have long been a central research issue, the configuration as a whole has barely been taken into account, even though Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of African religious traditions have long co-existed - and still co-exist - more or less peacefully in many settings in Africa. Building on recent interventions to move beyond the compartmentalization of the study of religion in Africa, this edited volume will spotlight why and how an integrated approach to Islam, Christianity, and African religious traditions is important. Bringing together stimulating case studies from Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, and Mozambique that offer new directions for ethnographic and historical research, the volume will not only shed light on an important phenomenon out there in the world - the long-overlooked ways in which Muslims, Christians and practitioners of African religious traditions interact with one another in various majority-minority configurations - but will also engage with a critical rethinking of the study of religion in Africa (and beyond).nterventions to move beyond the compartmentalization of the study of religion in Africa, this edited volume will spotlight why and how an integrated approach to Islam, Christianity, and African religious traditions is important. Bringing together stimulating case studies from Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, and Mozambique that offer new directions for ethnographic and historical research, the volume will not only shed light on an important phenomenon out there in the world - the long-overlooked ways in which Muslims, Christians and practitioners of African religious traditions interact with one another in various majority-minority configurations - but will also engage with a critical rethinking of the study of religion in Africa (and beyond).nterventions to move beyond the compartmentalization of the study of religion in Africa, this edited volume will spotlight why and how an integrated approach to Islam, Christianity, and African religious traditions is important. Bringing together stimulating case studies from Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, and Mozambique that offer new directions for ethnographic and historical research, the volume will not only shed light on an important phenomenon out there in the world - the long-overlooked ways in which Muslims, Christians and practitioners of African religious traditions interact with one another in various majority-minority configurations - but will also engage with a critical rethinking of the study of religion in Africa (and beyond).nterventions to move beyond the compartmentalization of the study of religion in Africa, this edited volume will spotlight why and how an integrated approach to Islam, Christianity, and African religious traditions is important. Bringing together stimulating case studies from Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, and Mozambique that offer new directions for ethnographic and historical research, the volume will not only shed light on an important phenomenon out there in the world - the long-overlooked ways in which Muslims, Christians and practitioners of African religious traditions interact with one another in various majority-minority configurations - but will also engage with a critical rethinking of the study of religion in Africa (and beyond). from Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, and Mozambique that offer new directions for ethnographic and historical research, the volume will not only shed light on an important phenomenon out there in the world - the long-overlooked ways in which Muslims, Christians and practitioners of African religious traditions interact with one another in various majority-minority configurations - but will also engage with a critical rethinking of the study of religion in Africa (and beyond).

The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies represents more than a century of scholarship related to the theology, history, and methodology of the propagation of Christian faith and the engagement of Christians with cultures, religions, and societies worldwide. It contains more than 40 articles by experts from different disciplinary and ecclesial perspectives, who are from all continents. It not only offers a broad overview of key approaches and issues in mission studies but it also highlights current trends and suggests future developments. The Handbook builds on renewed interest in mission studies this century generated by recent key statements on mission from ecumenical, evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox sources, and by a spate of academic works on the topic. Western church leaders now apply insights from foreign missions (such as, inculturation, liberation, interfaith work, and power encounter) to today's multicultural societies. Meanwhile, there are new initiatives in mission from the Majority World, where most Christians live, so that sending is not only 'from the west to the rest' but 'from everywhere to everywhere'. Therefore, this volume aims to reflect the voices of the receivers of mission as well as its protagonists and to raise awareness of new movements. In a time of growing recognition of 'religions' more generally, this work examines and theorizes the missional dimensions of the world's largest religion: its agendas, growth, outreach, role in public life, effect on cultures, relevance for development, and its approaches to other communities.