Spirits and Letters: Reading, Writing and Charisma in African ChristianityStudies 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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 34
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Contents
Acknowledgements | 7 |
CharismaSpiritOrality InstitutionLetterLiteracy | 8 |
Spirit and Letter in African Christianity | 15 |
The Fieldwork | 21 |
Colonial Literacies | 33 |
Passages Configurations Traces | 53 |
Schooled Literacy Schooled Religion | 71 |
Literate Cultures in a Material World | 85 |
10 | 145 |
Missions in Writing | 155 |
Enablements to Literacy | 169 |
Offices and the Dispersion of Charisma | 183 |
18 | 185 |
22 | 196 |
Positions of Writers Positions in Writings | 201 |
21 | 212 |
Indices to the Scriptural | 95 |
The Fringes of Christianity | 105 |
Thoughts about Religions of the Book | 117 |
Texts Readers Spirit | 125 |
1 | 130 |
8 | 136 |
Evanescence and the Necessity of Intermediation | 137 |