Spirits and Letters: Reading, Writing and Charisma in African ChristianityBerghahn Books, 01.05.2008 - 288 Seiten Studies of religion have a tendency to conceptualise ‘the Spirit’ and ‘the Letter’ as mutually exclusive and intrinsically antagonistic. However, the history of religions abounds in cases where charismatic leaders deliberately refer to and make use of writings. This book challenges prevailing scholarly notions of the relationship between ‘charisma’ and ‘institution’ by analysing reading and writing practices in contemporary Christianity. Taking up the continuing anthropological interest in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity, and representing the first book-length treatment of literacy practices among African Christians, this volume explores how church leaders in Zambia refer to the Bible and other religious literature, and how they organise a church bureaucracy in the Pentecostal-charismatic mode. Thus, by examining social processes and conflicts that revolve around the conjunction of Pentecostal-charismatic and literacy practices in Africa, Spirits and Letters reconsiders influential conceptual dichotomies in the social sciences and the humanities and is therefore of interest not only to anthropologists but also to scholars working in the fields of African studies, religious studies, and the sociology of religion. |
Im Buch
Ergebnisse 1-5 von 28
... Documents of the Immediate 213 Agendas as Revelations 213 Reports of the Unpredictable 216 Agendas, Reports, and the Holy Spirit 221 Re-spiritualizing Bureaucracy 224 16 Bureaucracy In-between 227 Flows and Facades 227 African ...
... documents' (1968d: 67; cf. Goody 1977: 15–16) is one of the first mentioned. If there are no files, there is no bureaucracy. The bureaucratic logic evolves by means of recording and registering. Thus, what bureaucracy is to formally ...
... documents – does not reside in the text itself (Fish 1980; Iser 2000). Admittedly, writings are characterized by physical materiality and therefore lend themselves to contrapositions between 'immaterial spirit and material text' (Keane ...
... documents is the script ofJosiah Olunowo Oshitelu, the founder of the West African Aladura movement (cf. Peel 1968). Composed mainly between 1925 and 1934, the scripture comprises six volumes of cryptic symbols, which Oshitelu ...
... documents gathered by the founder were selectively used by his successor to print the first published combined hymn and prayer book' (Gunner 2006: 156). In 1949 the son and successor of Isaiah Shembe even appointed an archivist to ...
Inhalt
1 | |
31 | |
33 | |
CH 2Passages configurations traces | 53 |
CH 3Schooled literacy schooled religion | 71 |
Part IILiterate Religion | 83 |
CH 4Literate cultures in a material world | 85 |
CH 5Indices to the scriptural | 95 |
CH 10Setting Texts in Motion | 145 |
CH 11Missions in writing | 155 |
CH 12Enablements to literacy | 169 |
Part IVBureaucracy in the PentecostalCharismatic mode | 181 |
CH 13Offices and the Dispersion of Charisma | 183 |
CH 14Positions of writers positions in writings | 201 |
CH 15Outlines for the future documents of the immediate | 213 |
CH 16Bureaucracy inbetween | 227 |
CH 6The fringes of Christianity | 105 |
CH 7Thoughts about Religions of the book | 117 |
Part IIIWays of Reading | 123 |
CH 8Texts readers spirit | 125 |
CH 9Evanescence and the necessity of intermediation | 137 |
CH 17Epilogue | 243 |
Bibliography | 247 |
Index | 267 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Spirits and Letters: Reading, Writing and Charisma in African Christianity Thomas G. Kirsch Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2008 |
Spirits and Letters: Reading, Writing and Charisma in African Christianity Thomas G. Kirsch Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2011 |