Journal of Africana Religions最新文献

{"title":"Performing Power in Nigeria: Identity, Politics, and Pentecostalism","authors":"Kefas Lamak","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0284","url":null,"abstract":"Abimbola A. Adelakum’s work engages the most recent Christian phenomena in Nigeria, Pentecostalism, through the lens of what she calls “performing power in Nigeria.” In this book, Adelakum uses theories, concepts, and terminologies of theater, performance, and playwriting to discuss the Pentecostal movement in Nigeria. With the growth and expansion of Pentecostalism since Nigeria’s independence, humanities scholars have been interested in knowing more about the historical evolution of the Christian movement and its confluence with military regimes, politics, health and diseases, identity, Islam, indigenous religions, and other Christian groups, among them the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, and African Independent Churches. Adelakum’s work responds to some of the questions scholars have been raising, emphasizing power performance. Adelakum describes herself as an insider to Pentecostalism, having been part of it while growing up in Nigeria. Perhaps Adelakum’s book title may give the impression that her book examines miracle performances in the Pentecostal movement of Nigeria, but the main argument of the book stems from how power is generated, practiced, and performed or circulated as in theater art. She puts the Nigerian Pentecostal movement alongside play, drama, and movie performances. Adelakum explains that when conducting this research among Pentecostal pastors and their members in Nigeria, most of them rejected her usage of the word “performance” to describe their religious rituals. In their perception, “performance” sounds unrealistic and casual; instead, spiritual phenomena and religious rituals should be taken as sacrosanct. Notably, while Nigeria is one of the leading centers of Pentecostalism globally, it is not the only country permeated by Pentecostalism; many developing countries are becoming more charismatic and Pentecostal in their Christian beliefs and practices.Throughout the book, Adelakum references two examples from a popular 1993 Nigerian Christian TV show presented by Mount Zion Faith Ministries International. Many series from Mount Zion have scenes of the devil and an angel, a pastor, and an African indigenous religion priest. The episodes mostly show some power encounters between the two opposing groups. The pastor is always depicted as the victor who defeats the devil through prayers or converts the African indigenous religious priest. Although this is a performance, it exemplifies what happens and how power is characterized in Nigerian Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism projects many forms of power: spiritual power, political power, and power related to identity struggles. Powers are displayed in how the pastors project themselves through excess wealth accumulation, building cathedrals, seeking political representation, and attending regular Christian meetings.Looking at the history of Pentecostalism in Nigeria, Adelakun opines that the movement became stronger during the period from 1970 to 1980. Like Olufemi Vaughan, she e","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135806676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Religious Entanglements: Central African Pentecostalism and the Creation of Cultural Knowledge and the Making of the Luba Katanga","authors":"Emma Wild-Wood","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0287","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of “entanglement” has become a productive analytical tool for social historians. “Entanglement” recognizes that categories used to delineate sets of things frequently create artificial boundaries that require interrogation. It acknowledges that human agency is a condition of interdependency, one which operates within and between social groups possessing different sorts of power. David Maxwell, following Tony Ballantyne’s Entanglements of Empire (2014), deftly deploys the notion to examine the “plural interaction, recursion, transcultural and cross-cultural engagement, interaction with science and social border crossing” (12) in colonial Katanga, amongst Luba, colonial officials, and missionaries of various nationalities and confessions. In doing so, he shows how the Luba people were intertwined in religious revival, in the establishment of Pentecostal churches, and in the formation of knowledge—and its international exchange—of themselves as a people. The span of topics is impressive and necessary in order to examine the extent and nature of entanglement. It is the Luba Katanga, both people and the place they inhabit, that provides the point of focus.Eight main chapters introduce us to the actors and their interdependent projects. The first chapter places the Congo Evangelistic Mission and its main protagonist William Burton in a transnational history of early twentieth-century Pentecostal revival that, in chapter 4, is shown to challenge the orthodoxies of Catholic missions and the Belgian colonial state. The second chapter provides a precolonial history of the powerful Luba Kingdom and its demise through the slave trades operating on both sides of the continent. This provides the background for explaining the development of a Luba Christian movement in chapter 3 in which expectations of gender and generation were revised in the formation of new identities and communities. An extended discussion of knowledge production is provided in chapters 5 to 7, showing the ways in which knowledge was co-created and how it both challenged and complied with anthropological and colonial knowledge production. The scientific endeavor had social and cultural effects in creating a more defined modern Luba identity, as Luba themselves worked at their morals and their language. Men like Shalumbo, Kangoi, and Ngoloma led emerging churches, by teaching, healing, and exorcising, and created “pathways” to knowledge through Bible translation and proverb collection. Yet the adoption of modernizing tendencies was selective and contested: for example, early convert Abraham rejected Christianity and became a charm-maker. The final chapter demonstrates how entangled social, religious, and scientific projects converted missionaries to new ways of understanding the world. The study of the scholarship of Burton and Placide Tempels, Burton’s better-known Franciscan counterpart and author of Bantu Philosophy (1946), reveals an evolution in their understanding of and re","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135806867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Uncovering the Role of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in the War between the Tigrian Forces and the Federal Government","authors":"Solomon Molla Ademe","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0228","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (EOTC) has a long and glorious history in the Ethiopian polity. It was an institution deeply engaged in Ethiopian politics and has long served as a unifying political force. For example, when foreign enemies invaded Ethiopia, the EOTC was tasked with uniting Ethiopians to fight against aggressors. However, in times of internal political crisis, particularly in contemporary Ethiopia, the EOTC’s role is relatively insignificant. Previous studies have not focused on this issue. Through a qualitative research approach, this study takes the post-2020 conflict between Tigrian forces and the federal government as a litmus test for showing the EOTC’s insignificant role in cases of internal political crisis. It shows that, as an institution, the EOTC played an insignificant role in reconciling, condemning, or trying to manage the conflict. Indeed, two challenges prevented the EOTC from doing what it was supposed to do in this conflict: ethnic politics and the EOTC’s top authorities’ submissiveness to the ruling regimes. This article recommends further studies aimed at assessing the invisible role of the EOTC in the Ethiopian polity and its counter-relationships. Conducting additional studies is significant for policymakers in general and the EOTC in particular.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"46 14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136260480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Denver’s Quest: Exploring Horror and Complex Subjectivity in <i>Beloved</i>","authors":"DeAnna Monique Daniels","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0251","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since its publication in 1987, Beloved has achieved critical acclaim, popularity, and status as one of Toni Morrison’s most iconic and accomplished novels. Based on the true story of Margret Garner, Beloved engages questions of being, agency, hauntings, and monstrosity while providing a visualization of the lasting aftereffects of slavery. As such, it has been the center of critical scholarship across many disciplines, including religion. However, the treatment in religious discourse has largely ignored the importance of the novel as representative of and engaged with the horror genre. This article argues that when read as a text of horror, Beloved aids in understanding Black religion as what Anthony Pinn has called a quest for complex subjectivity. Pinn’s theory understands terror as a dimension of life that shapes the look of Black religion. Here, I offer a conceptual shift—exemplified through an exploration of Beloved, particularly the character Denver—where terror is clarified as a vital component of horror. This article cautions against the conflation of terror and horror as equivalent terms. After reviewing their distinguishing characteristics, I ultimately situate horror as the more useful analytic descriptor for understanding the impetus and development of Black religion. By examining Denver’s complex subjectivity in Beloved, horror’s capaciousness as a genre, emotive response, and cultural phenomenon will unearth new dimensions of how we perceive Black religion.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135806671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“There’s A Day Coming”: The Origin, Reception, and Conception of the Catastrophic Apocalypse among Black Captives","authors":"Benjamin Baker","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0153","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Blacks employed myriad means to survive the harrowing and protracted ordeal of American slavery. Arguably, the most important means were ideological, and one idea ubiquitous among Black captives was the catastrophic apocalypse: God physically coming to earth to destroy the planet and “wicked” people, while preserving “righteous” people. This article explores the origin, reception, and conception of this idea among enslaved Blacks in the United States. To do this, I first explore West and Central African cosmology during the era of the transatlantic slave trade to determine if there were philosophical antecedents that may have predisposed Africans to such a belief. I then examine how and why many displaced Africans in America embraced the apocalypse. I argue that Blacks received and conceived of the catastrophic apocalypse in a manner consistent with traditional African ways of knowing and ordering the world in order to survive and combat a novel and brutal system of oppression.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135806672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ogun in the Black Atlantic: Family History and Cross-Cultural Religious Exchange in Bahia, c. 1813–1970","authors":"Lisa Louise Earl-Castillo","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.2.0198","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Afro-Brazilian religions play a vital role in the history of northeastern Brazil, home to an enormous Black population. An especially well-known case is Candomblé, which arose in the state of Bahia, where a number of large temples dating back to the time of the slave trade have long attracted scholarly attention. Less well-known, however, is the parallel existence of shrines belonging to individual families. One, dedicated to Ogun, in the city of Salvador, recently gained government recognition as a site of memory. According to oral tradition, it was created by a freed African couple on the farm where they lived and worked. Drawing on oral traditions, ethnographic data, and archival sources, this article reconstructs the family’s history over the course of nearly two centuries, tracing the presence of cross-cultural exchanges over time, initially from Dahomean and Hausa religion and more recently from Yoruba and Catholic cosmologies.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135806866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Policing Christianity in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Angola: Spiritual Incorporation as Therapy and Threat in Africa","authors":"Charlotte Walker-Said, Nadeige Laure Ngo Nlend","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article investigates the work of Christian churches in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Angola among refugee, migrant, and displaced persons communities and their support of two principal undertakings that allow these groups to reconceptualize belonging and reconstitute communal identities: (1) transnational family building and (2) therapeutic forms of emotional expression and communion. This article also demonstrates how the governments of Cameroon, Nigeria, and Angola perceive such noncitizen groups' innovative communal practices as inherently destabilizing to fragile national identities, and how state security forces work to dismantle ties of affinity and restrain or apprehend religious authorities in order to preserve social and political boundaries among increasingly diverse and composite societies.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"11 1","pages":"27 - 56"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45557405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Polygamy Re-Imagined and Re-Negotiated: A Postcolonial Reflection on Gender, Sexuality, and Narrative Theology in Africa Christianity","authors":"Itohan Mercy Idumwonyi","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0098","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The impact of the Christian message on the family's existential foundation underpins this article. The quest/ion of polygamy has been in public discourse as extramarital affairs where husbands in monogamous unions increasingly \"cheat\" on wives with mistresses, referred to in modern parlance as \"side chicks.\" Historically, polygamy assumed a new turn when Western culture became Christian virtue, thus a civilizing \"norm.\" The demonization of polygamy stirred converted-husbands to divorce all wives except one. This article uses multidisciplinary approaches to theologize and interrogate the impact of Christian encounters on the culture of Benin City, Nigeria. I argue that the family disruption pointedly impacted mothers and created a \"new social order\" with the commodification of sex and a surge in sex work, workers, traffickers, and trafficking in Benin, and thus it is a form of religious violence. I conclude that the value of African polygamy reasonably exceeds the alternative establishment and proliferation of divorce or serial relationships situated within the \"civilizing\" Western culture.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"11 1","pages":"118 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41683749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Cultural Biographies of West African Wooden Sculptures in Sao Paulo, Brazil","authors":"Patrícia Rodrigues de Souza, Justin Sands","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0119","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article is a combined effort of an author from Brazil and an author in South Africa to identify and comprehend the trajectories African wooden sculptures go through in their material cultural biographies. Wooden sculpting has always been part of African traditions. Africa's many artisans and markets provided and still provide a great number of wooden sculptures, which are now in several parts of the world, especially among former colonizers and in the diaspora. During their \"lives,\" such wooden sculptures acquired different statuses, such as commodities like souvenirs or valued art works, but also as priceless historical documents, objets d'art, and religiously consecrated entities. The value and meaning of wooden sculptures are always set in resonance with historical periods and local cultural moralities. Therefore, the study of such cultural biographies reveals aspects not only about the pieces themselves but also about their environment.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"11 1","pages":"119 - 143"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43044781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tete wↄ bi ka, tete wↄ bi kyerɛ: Pius Agyemang's Sacred Music and Ghana's Catholic Liturgical Inculturation felicity apaah","authors":"F. Apaah","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.11.1.0077","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article provides an ethnographic reading into Catholic liturgical music rooted in African indigenous concepts. It analyzes some selected lyrics of the compositions of Pius Agyemang, SVD, who was a versatile Ghanaian Catholic composer and historian with vast knowledge in Ghanaian culture, to explore the nexus between Christian religiosity and being an African. These songs are not just literary texts but indigenous theology in action that expresses the religious understanding and reflections of a people within the context of Ghanaian indigenous knowledge system's philosophy. The article shows how Pius Agyemang's works provide a paradigm of indigenous theology that combines the Asante thought-form and culture with indigenous expressions of the Christian faith. It argues that there is complementarity between Christianity and the indigenous knowledge system's philosophy that situates Christian belief in a stronger way in the Ghanaian traditional setting and serves as a relevant source of African Christian epistemology.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"11 1","pages":"77 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46998387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}