The Multi-Polarity of Angolan Pentecostalism: Connections and Belongings

Abstract

This article discusses the national framing of Angolan Pentecostalism from the perspective of connections. It analyses how Angola matters as a centre of inspiration for different Pentecostal churches and networks precisely by engaging different religious imaginaries, social memories and anticipations of the future that operate in a variety of ethnic, African and Lusophone spaces. In doing so, this contribution aims at overcoming both the understanding of global Pentecostalism through a national and diasporic lens as well as a universal lens, underscoring the multi-polarity of Angolan Pentecostalism. The connections that Angolan Pentecostalisms create between places and cultures involve different transnational circuits that cultivate diverse cultural, economic and political imaginations and belongings. The possibilities for bridging and bonding that different Pentecostal connections offer generate new relationships, imaginations, rituals and the circulation of ideas. We suggest that Angolan Pentecostalism might be seen as a multi-polar force of multi-directional connections, which dynamics and intensity oscillates, depending on the location and movement of a Pentecostal group in the global geography of power, in postcolonial territorial and social settings, and on modes of appropriating and making Lusophone heritages.