Eighteenth-Century Evangelical Calvinists

Eighteenth-century evangelical Calvinists were a diverse group of people, but the majority of them adhered to Reformed theology. They debated how best to practise their faith, including the proper mode of baptism. Whereas the English Particular Baptists and others insisted that believers be immersed upon a profession of faith as an adult, others, including the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, practised infant baptism. Evangelical Calvinists furthermore sometimes clashed on ecclesiastical policies. The Baptists and Congregationalists, for instance, established independent churches, contrasting the hierarchical structures of the Church of England and Presbyterianism. Despite their diversity on doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters, eighteenth-century evangelical Calvinists were unified in proclaiming that salvation came exclusively by divine grace mediated through Christ’s death on the cross, and that conversion was the means by which God redeemed the elect.

Divine Revelation in West Africa and Central Africa

This chapter examines divine revelation in West Africa and Central Africa, with a historical focus on the relation of biblical beliefs to African traditional religions. It discusses the African independent churches, specifically the Église de Jésus-Christ sur la Terre par le Prophète Simon Kimbangu; Vincent Mulago’s essay in Des prêtres noirs s’interrogent (1956); specific essays from the book Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs (1969); and Engelbert Mveng’s book L’Art d’Afrique noire: liturgie cosmique et langage religieux (1964). The chapter also examines the recent scholarship of the Ghanaian theologian Mercy Oduyoye and the Congolese scholars Oscar Bimwenyi-Kweshi and Kä Mana. Regarding the relationship between divine revelation and African traditional religions, it discusses J. B. Danquah’s book The Akan Doctrine of God (1944), the arguments of the Congolese Egyptologist Mubabinge Bilolo, and the West African scholar Ntumba Museka.

The Bible and Popular Christianity in Modern China

This essay investigates the influential role that the Bible played in the sphere of Chinese popular Christianity. It explores the widespread use of the Bible among the lay populace who were traditionally excluded from the concerns and pursuits of Chinese Christian elites in cosmopolitan cities. Beginning with an overview of the cultural influence of the Bible in the mid-nineteenth century, this study argues that the liberating power of the Word was leveraged by peasant converts looking for new cosmologies and norms to change society. The twentieth century witnessed multiple levels of direct engagement with biblical texts, unmediated by foreign missionaries, among Chinese evangelists and congregants. Some drew on new biblical inspirations to found independent churches and sectarian groups, and some relied on the practice of bibliomancy to seek guidance in times of chaos. These examples offer complex view of the symbiosis between Bible reading and conversion in Chinese popular Christianity.

Popular religions and multiple modernities

Religious diversity and pluralism is increasing in Latin America. The religious field that was some decades ago totally Catholic has changed radically. Not only Pentecostalism or NeoPentecostalism but other Evangelicals as well as independent churches of various denominations and forms, non-affiliated people and many diverse (ethnic, afro-American , New Age, etc.) and diffuse religious expressions are growing. The main argument of this paper is that this religious changes toward pluralism can be fully understood in the context of multiple modernities theory, provided that it be revised and modified. A new sociological approach is needed. The classical sociological concepts and theories, beginning with secularization, must be criticized and replaced with a more complex theoretical view. Latin American historical processes must be compared with what is happening in other regions of the world and not only with the West. World religions are answering each one by their own path to multiple interactions with modernities. The key understanding of changes must come from a better insight of popular religions worldwide. Latin American, Eastern Asia, Islam regions, are good examples of popular forms of religious revitalization that contrasts with the Northern European case. They put in evidence the fact that new ways of producing sense and spiritual search in non-Western geo-cultural areas are framing specific relationships between religion and modernities and bringing about new religious pluralisms.

Africa

This chapter focuses on Southern Africa, examining how the transformation of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand into the region’s industrial gold-mining hub has shaped the Christmas culture of the last one hundred years. What follows scrutinizes three distinct Christmas Days in and around Johannesburg. First, I show how the largely unattached male community of early twentieth-century Johannesburg interpreted Christmas as a period of (licensed) seasonal debauchery, while also pointing to the evangelical temperance organizations simultaneously pioneering a new definition of urban respectability. Moving to the 1930s, the chapter charts the rise of a new black middle-class in the city, and the manner in which Christmas celebrations became an opportunity to demonstrate their upward social progress and purchasing power, part of their larger argument for equal rights within a repressive and racially segregated South Africa. The final Christmas Day snapshot looks at the complex rural–urban networks that characterized the lives of those who worked in Johannesburg. It argues that annual labour migration patterns—whereby most city workers returned ‘home’ to the countryside over Christmas—established the holiday as a key node in monetary networks of obligation, support, and exchange. The chapter concludes by showing that most rural ‘African Independent Churches’ have emphasized other liturgical events—for example, Easter, or devising entirely new celebrations—due to Christmas’ popular associations with alcoholism and criminality.

Forging alternatively sacred spaces in Singapore’s integrated religious marketplace

This paper expands the notion of sacred space within the geographies of religion by arguing that spaces of religious praxis need to be understood in relation to the broader spatial logics within which they are embedded. Given that the spatial logics of urban environments tend to be secular and neoliberal in nature, it considers how religious groups respond to the realities of the marketplaces in which they operate by forging ‘alternatively sacred’ spaces. These spaces augment the appeal of religious groups in non-religious ways, thus making them more competitive players in a religious marketplace. Specifically, it explores how independent churches in Singapore create alternatively sacred spaces that are used for religious purposes, although their appeal and affective value do not accord with more traditional understandings of how sacred spaces should look, feel, or otherwise be engaged with. These spaces are designed to appeal to younger people, and to draw non-Christians to Christian spaces, and Christians to alternatively religious spaces. The extent to which they appeal to these groups provides insight into reimagination of religion under market conditions, spatial politics of value and ideological fissures between different Christian communities.

Independent Protestant Movements (1930–Present)

This chapter examines independent Protestant movements in China from the 1930 to the present. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Protestant foreign missionaries encountered occasional and sometimes violent resistance in China. At the same time, independent Chinese movements and leaders increasingly displaced foreign-controlled Protestant denominations and mission agencies. Then, with the Communist takeover, the Chinese expelled all foreign missionaries and sought to stamp out the imperialist Western religion. Under these hostile circumstances, previously formed independent churches such as the True Jesus Church, the Jesus Family, and the Little Flock, along with independent evangelical pastors such as Wang Mingdao, provided the necessary resources for survival and even growth during the repressive Cultural Revolution (1966–76). With the easing of religious restrictions in 1979, China witnessed an unprecedented explosion of Christian conversions, particularly of the evangelical/Pentecostal variety. An estimated 1 million evangelical Christians now live in the coastal city of Wenzhou, and an increasing number of Chinese urban elites are turning to Christianity.

Religious Diversity, Popular Religions and Multiple Modernities

Religious diversity and pluralism are increasing in Latin America. The religious field that some decades ago was mainly Catholic has changed radically. In addition to Pentecostalism and Neo-Pentecostalism, other Evangelical as well as independent churches of various denominations and forms, non-affiliated believers, and many diverse (ethnic, Afro-American, New Age, etc.) and diffuse religious expressions are growing. These religious changes toward pluralism can be understood from a revised theory of multiple modernities. The classical sociological concepts and theories, beginning with secularization, need to be criticized and replaced with a new theoretical approach. Latin American historical processes must be compared with what is happening in other regions of the world and not only with Western history. To understand key changes, popular religions worldwide need to be carefully analyzed. Latin American religions offer a good example of popular forms of religious revitalization that are useful to contrast with the Northern European case. This comparative exercise demonstrates new ways of producing sense and spiritual search in non-Western geocultural areas that are framing specific relationships between religion and modernities, bringing about new religious pluralisms.