looks like a good intro to global spread of pentecostalism

[bobbieinok]

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0511033370

The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity
Series: Cambridge Studies in Ideology and Religion (No. 12)
Simon Coleman
University of Durham
Adobe eBook Reader (ISBN-13: 9780511033377 | ISBN-10: 0511033370)

Also available in Hardback
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UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa | Americas | Asia | Australia and New Zealand

This book analyses the revival of charismatic Protestant Christianity as an example of globalisation. Simon Coleman shows that, along with many social movements, these religious conservatives are negotiating their own interpretations of global and postmodern processes. They are constructing an evangelical arena of action and meaning within the liminal, chaotic space of the global. The book examines globalisation not only as a social process, but also as an embodied practice involving forms of language and ritualised movement. Charismatic Christianity is presented through its material culture - art, architecture and consumer products - as well as its rhetoric and theology. The book provides an account of the incorporation of electronic media such as television, videos and the Internet into Christian worship. Issues relating to the conduct of fieldwork in contexts of globalisation are raised in an account which is also the first major ethnography of a Faith ministry.


• New analysis of globalisation, seeing it as an embodied practice
• Anthropological account of new media technologies
• Examination of the material culture of evangelical Protestants

Contents
1. A 'weird Babel of tongues': charisma in the modern world; 2. 'Faith which conquers the world': globalization and charisma; 3. Sweden: national 'state' and global 'site'; 4. The word of life: organizing global culture; 5. Words: from narrative to embodiment; 6. Aesthetics: from iconography to architecture; 7. Broadcasting the faith; 8. Expansive agency; 9. Contesting the nation; 10. The word and the world.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. The beginning of the 6th Crusade?

Well we do already have the bombers in place.

[bobbieinok]

2. many heads of govt in Africa + Central + So America are pentecostals

A pentecostal colleague said the conflict in the Ivory Coast was basically over the rising power of the pentecostals there.

I think one of Guatemala's nastier leaders was 'pentecostal' or 'evangelical.'

[Freedom_from_Chains]

3. And your are surprised?

Perhaps you should review the Christian history some.

[bobbieinok]

5. no...... it's just that until recently, no one was paying much attn to pen

pentecostals

[bobbieinok]

4. also many charismatic/pentecostal religious leaders tout their 'in'

with government leaders around the world, eg Richard Roberts and Miles Monroe.

I always wanted someone in the congregation to rise up and point out that Jesus did NOT hang out with heads of state; he socialized with the outcasts, prostitutes, tax-collectors, etc.

All the religious right preachers so proud of their contacts with W, Ashcroft, etc.....doesn't sound to me that they're 'following in Jesus' footsteps.

Didn't Jesus' contacts with government leaders occur only at the beginning and the end of his life. Herod at his birth wanted to use the wise men to locate Jesus so that he could kill him; Herod did kill many male children in the hope of killing Jesus, as related in Matthew 2:16-18 (New International Version).

16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18"A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more."

And the religious leaders and the government leaders (Pilate) condemned Jesus to death.

[yurbud]

6. this can be helped with medication or electroconvulsive therapy