"CONFLICTING FUTURES, ENTANGLED PASTS: NIGERIAN MISSIONARIES IN A POST-SECULAR EUROPE?" 1 (original) (raw)
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Nigerian Missionaries in Europe: History Repeating Itself or a Meeting of Modernities?
This article discusses the question how to construct a vantage point from which to study the phenomenon of Nigerian missionaries in Europe. When theoretical frameworks extrapolating from the history of religion in western Europe are used to understand a religious network that originated in Nigeria, Nigerian missionaries and missionaries from the Global South inevitably appear as a case of history repeating itself and even as 'premodern.' In contrast, Africanist literature provides an understanding of the ways in which oppositions between tradition and modernity are constructed and used in Nigerian Pentecostalism that is very different. This literature however, does not provide ways to engage with the European contexts in which Nigerian missionaries operate. Therefore the article suggests that the encounter between Nigerian missionaries and European contexts might be most fruitfully conceptualized as a 'meeting of modernities' (inspired by Eisenstadt's notion of 'multiple modernities'), each implying a 'denial of coevalness.'
Mission Studies, 2021
Since the 1960s, African-led Pentecostal churches have flourished in the UK and Europe, often identifying the evangelisation of White indigenous populations as a key missiological aspiration. This desire has not yet been realised, although by numbers and social engagement, African Pentecostals are making their presence known and returning conversations on religion to the public sphere in Europe. This article, based on case studies in London and Amsterdam, departs from established scholarship on ‘reverse missions’ by arguing that intergenerational conflicts within Nigerian-initiated Pentecostal churches in Europe are a significant obstacle hindering their missional aims. This qualitative study focuses on second- and subsequent-generation Nigerian migrants and their perceptions of the missiological and religious activities of the first generation, exploring intergenerational conflicts relating to leadership; indigenous beliefs/practices; gender/cultural norms, and missiological approa...
Pneuma, 2012
This edited volume explores the interrelated themes of Pentecostalism and globalization in Africa and the African Diaspora. It is based on papers given at two international workshops in 2001: 'Pentecostalism and Globalization' and 'The Impact of New Communication Technologies on the Religions in West Africa' , organized by the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Bayreuth. Other contributions are drawn from papers presented within the Guest Lecture Series of the Department for the Study of Religion from 2000-2003. Most of the contributors are African, and seven out of twelve chapters focus on Nigeria, the location of one of the largest Pentecostal communities in world Christianity. The three opening chapters reflect on the concepts 'pentecostalism' and 'globalization'. Ulrich Berner discusses the interrelationship between religion and globalization, focusing on African initiated churches as local initiatives in a global context, religious pluralism as a global religious system, and the impact of global problems, such as environmental degradation, on the religious traditions of the world. Adogame and Asonzeh Ukah examine the scholarly discourse on globalization and African Pentecostalism, providing a helpful overview of the literature. The authors criticise the overdependence on theories that fail to take account of the complexity of the phenomena and call for more attention to be given to data arising out of fijieldwork. Finally, Umar Danfulani focuses on globalization in relation to the Pentecostal movement in Nigeria. He argues against regarding these churches simply as by-products of Westernization or religious imperialism. Rather, their theology, liturgy and organizational structures are an outcome of the 'interplay between global/local elements' (60). Three further chapters explore the provenance and historical development of African Pentecostalism in Nigeria, South Africa, and the USA. Ogbu Kalu discusses the tensions accompanying the 'charismatization' of the mainline churches, using as a case study the Presbyterian Church in Nigeria. Although not explicitly placed within a globalization framework, his discussion identifijies the main source of the tensions as the clash between the cessationist tendencies of the Reformed tradition and charismatic appropriations of the biblical text in response to local cultural realities. Consequently, the 'charismatic hermeneutic' served as a 'tool for decolonizing the church' by challenging the missionary doctrinal heritage (103). Allan Anderson's examination of globalisation and Pentecostalism focuses on independent churches in South Africa. He challenges the so-called 'Americanisation' thesis, which regards African Pentecostalism as an American import, by portraying these churches as indigenous initiatives responding to local concerns. The focus of Jacob Olupona's chapter is African immigrant Christianity in America. He identifijies three traditions: African independent churches, African Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, and African immigrants within mainstream American churches. According to Olupona, globalization in this context leads to an increasing awareness of Africa rather than assimilation and the destruction of African values. Thus, the presence of African immigrant churches serves as a 'new conduit for transglobal linkages of African Diaspora identity and culture' (79). The remaining chapters focus on Pentecostalism and globalization in relation to various thematic issues. Rosalind Hackett reflects on African Pentecostal deliverance and demonology,
This article discusses the spread and impact of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), a successful example of a Nigerian-initiated Pentecostal church in Britain, the Netherlands and Germany. The church’s capacity as a social force in Europe is assessed with reference to three dimensions: the social impact on the wider society through its missionary and civic activities, the social impact on members’ lives, and the extent to which the church contributes to the “deprivatization” of religion and its visibility in the public sphere (Casanova, 1994; Haynes, 1998). The article concludes that Nigerian-initiated Pentecostal churches such as the RCCG are quite clearly a social force in Europe: they are expanding, finding new ways of being present in public spaces and engaging with society, and are instrumental in constituting the spaces of the African Diaspora and shaping the self-conception of their members as valuable members of their host society. Furthermore, they contribute to the awareness of the European mainline churches that Christianity’s centre of gravity is moving south. All this is visible quite strongly in Britain, to a lesser extent in the Netherlands and least in Germany.
Mediating the local and the global in Nigerian Pentecostalism
Journal of Religion in Africa, 1998
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2023
In missiology, scholars have often used conceptual models to represent specific trends emerging from Christian missions. However, these models occasionally run the risk of oversimplification. "Reverse mission" is one such model. It concerns a supposition that Southern Christians have come to Europe to "re-Christianise" those who have fallen from the faith they initially brought to them. Through a rigorous qualitative methodology, this article investigates the reverse mission model within the Ghanaian-led Church of Pentecost (CoP) in Belgium, a product of previous European mission work in Ghana. The paper argues that while scholars sometimes easily describe the foreign mission praxis of Southern churches in the North as "reverse mission, " upon closer examination, the intention of "reverse mission" seems absent from the missionary activities of some of these churches. The CoP in Belgium gives credence to this argument as empirical data from congregants indicate that the church is deeply involved in "internal mission" and only marginally active in "reverse mission. "
A transnational history of Pentecostalism in West Africa
2017
Over the past three decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the popularity of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in parts of West Africa evident in the proliferation of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches in the region. This paper explores the roots of that movement starting with the arrival of Christianity in West Africa and traces the various transformations that have led up to the current wave of Pentecostal and Charismatic renewal. In compliance with the polycentric hypothesis of origin for the global Pentecostal movement, this paper looks at the actors, organizations and events that catalyzed and shaped the movement in West Africa starting with the itinerant African preachers that led revival moments at the start of the twentieth century. As such figures like William Wade Harris, Garrick Sokari Braide, Joseph Ayo Babalola, Benson A. Idahosa (Church of God Mission International), Enoch A. Adeboye (Redeemed Christian Church of God), David O. Oyedepo (Living Faith Church Worldwide a.k.a. Winners Chapel International) and Mensa Otabil (International Central Gospel Church) are discussed. Furthermore, the paper argues that rather than viewing Pentecostal organizations in various West African countries as solely independent developments or alternatively as local eruptions of global phenomena, we should view them as part of a regional process of exchanges of discourses and practices by Africans across national borders based on shared political and cultural histories. Particular attention is paid to goings on in Nigeria and Ghana where the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement have had the greatest impact.
Church History, 2009
Th is review is written in memory and honor of Ogbu U. Kalu, the book's main editor, who was called home to glory in January 2009. He sets the tone for the issues dealt with by the essays by using Andrew F. Walls's observation that 'the labors of the missionary movement, and the cross-cultural process in Christian history, have borne fruit and catalyzed a shift in the center of gravity of Christianity that has immense implications for the theology of the future and for the way we tell its story' (3-4). Walls was a participant in the conference where the papers for the volume were initially read. Th e book brings together carefully selected papers that are representative of the general tenor of the July 2001 Currents in World Christianity project held in Pretoria, South Africa. As Brian Stanley, the director, points out, the conference was the last public event of the project. Th is was a Pew Charitable Trusts-sponsored initiative coordinated by the University of Cambridge. As Stanley notes in his preface to the book, the Currents in World Christianity initiative 'combined an interest in the modern history of Protestant missions with an emphasis on the religious aspects of globalization' (x). A signifi cant aspect of this volume is the amount of attention given to studies of Christianity from the global south by local scholars, including specifi c case studies located in China (chapters 8 and 10), Ghana (chapter 11), Kenya (chapter 12) and India (chapters 9 and 14). Th ese regional and contextual studies, combined with Afe Adogame's chapter on 'Globalization and African New Religions in Europe' (chapter 13) and Joel Carpenter's groundbreaking essay on New Evangelical Universities (chapter 7), most of which are located in the Th ird World, are extremely insightful. Th ey provide very useful perspectives to readers with an interest in Christianity in the non-Western world, something like a kaleidoscope of how the faith has developed as it moved from north to south in the processes of globalization. Th e book is divided into fi ve parts, with each focusing on a particular dimension of the appropriations of Christianity within local contexts, or how particular streams of Christianity such as Pentecostalism have emerged in non-Western religious practice. Ogbu U. Kalu's opening chapter helps readers appreciate the exact contributions that Africa in particular and the Th ird World in general have made to global Christianity. To that end he, like Jehu Hanciles's contribution on 'African Christianity, Globalization, and Mission', privileges the view that in spite of its missionary history African Christianity is 'a genuine African construct' and not a purveyor of 'a product made in America and exported around the world in the form of '"a new Christian fundamentalism"' (80-81). Arguing against claims by such scholars as Paul Giff ord that Pentecostalism is a North American export into regions like Africa, Kalu notes that 'scholarly concern should privilege how transnational cultural forms are appropriated, set in motion, and "domesticated", investigating the way in which local cultural lenses refract the light in global cultural processes' (9). As Christianity is experienced and translated into other cultural symbols, Kalu further notes, 'the indigenous principle blossoms' (9). Th e essays in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity were selected to refl ect this worldview, a selection that makes the subtitle Global Processes and Local Identities more than apt for the book. Th e essays take an approach to the study and understanding of Christianity