Articles with the keyword Pentecostalism

• Paul Gifford

  PUBLIC LECTURE - The Primal Pentecostal Imagination: Variants, origins and importance

  Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(2) 2009:44-51

  Abstract

  This paper addresses the religious world-view that is characteristic of a great
  many of the Pentecostal Churches currently flourishing in Africa. In the opinion
  of the author, this world-view, which sees spiritual forces active in everyday events,
  is the greatest single reason for their success. This world-view comes in different
  but related forms, and three different forms currently found in Kenya are outlined
  here. These forms have obvious links to local religious thinking, but are also
  dependent for their expression on certain Western thinking. Finally it is claimed
  that this world-view, though in most studies of Pentecostalism virtually ignored,
  has important socio-political effects and merits serious discussion.

  Keywords Africa, Pentecostalism, socio-political effects, world-view

• Martin Lindhardt

  Narrating Religious Realities: Conversion and testimonies in Chilean Pentecostalism

  Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 25-43

  Abstract

  In this paper I explore the complex and constitutive role of narrative practice in
  Chilean Pentecostalism. I argue that it is in large part through different kinds of
  storytelling that Pentecostal self identities are produced, nourished and modified.
  Particular attention is focused on testimonies of salvation, and life stories as
  narrative practices through which converts engage in ongoing construction of
  biographic identities and provide themselves with symbolic schemes for present
  and future action. I further argue that Pentecostal story telling should be seen as
  a specific kind of social interaction, creating and unfolding religious realities to
  be inhabited by narrator and listener alike. I pursue this argument by examining
  different linguistic as well as non-linguistic strategies through which the listener
  is invited to project him or herself into the world of the story.

  Keywords Chile, conversion, identity, narratives, Pentecostalism