Jamaica Genesis

by Austin-Broos, Diane J.

• ISBN13: 9780226032863
• ISBN10: 0226032868
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-09-02
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

How has Pentecostalism, a decidedly American form of Christian revivalism, managed to achieve such phenomenal religious ascendancy in a former British colony among people of predominately African descent? According to Diane J. Austin-Broos, Pentecostalism has flourished because it successfully mediates between two historically central yet often oppositional themes in Jamaican religious life--the characteristically African striving for personal freedom and happiness, and the Protestant struggle for atonement and salvation through rigorous ethical piety. With its emphasis on the individual experience of grace and on the ritual efficacy of spiritual healing, and with its vibrantly expressive worship, Jamaican Pentecostalism has become a powerful and compelling vehicle for the negotiation of such fundamental issues as gender, sexuality, race, and class. Jamaica Genesis is a work of signal importance to all those concerned not simply with Caribbean studies but with the ongoing transformation of religion andculture.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Foreword	xiii
Raymond T. Smith
Preface	xxi
Introduction	1	(1)
Enter Pentecostalism	1	(3)
Creole Culture and Religious Discourse	4	(2)
Cosmology, Ontology, and Moral Order	6	(1)
The Politics of Moral Orders	7	(10)
PART ONE THE MAKING
Cast into a Tumultuous World	17	(17)
Jamaican Pentecostalism	17	(5)
The Reconfiguration of a Regional Environment	22	(2)
Social Movements in a Changing World	24	(10)
A Certain Moral Inheritance	34	(17)
Ethical Rationalism and the Mission's Christian Black	36	(3)
The Missionary View	39	(2)
The Strategy for Change	41	(2)
West African Religion and the Creole	43	(1)
Ripostes to the Christian Black: Healing and the Trickster Eudemonic	44	(7)
Revival and the Healing of Sin	51	(24)
Myalists and the Healing of Affliction	51	(4)
Revival and the Affliction of Sin	55	(4)
The Baptists and the Morant Bay Rebellion	59	(3)
Zion Revival and the Eudemonic	62	(13)
PART TWO THE ADVENT
Hierarchy and Revival Culture: Precursors to Pentecostalism	75	(18)
Hierarchy and Jamaican Religion	75	(4)
Revival Negotiates Its Environment	79	(4)
Alexander Bedward's Martyrdom	83	(4)
Raglan Phillips and the City Mission	87	(6)
Preachers and Pentecostalism	93	(24)
The Clarendon of Pentecostalism	93	(4)
Jamaican Pentecostalism Begins	97	(4)
An Early Pentecostal Initiative	101	(2)
The Church of God Evangelists	103	(6)
The ``Oneness'' or Unitarian Evangelists	109	(5)
Race and Morality in the Pentecostal Movement	114	(3)
A Modern Pentecostalism: Ritual Resolutions and Gender Divides	117	(16)
Jamaican Perfectionism	119	(1)
Perfection and Morality	120	(4)
Perfection and Eudemonic Rite	124	(2)
Pastors, Gender, and the Rites of Saints	126	(7)
PART THREE THE PRACTICE
Pentecostal Experience and Embodied Rite	133	(25)
Contrition, Discipline, and Transformation	135	(7)
Being a Perfect Saint	142	(1)
Transformation and Embodiment	143	(6)
Mundane Meaning and Pentecostal Rite	149	(3)
Gender and Perfectionism	152	(6)
Exhorting the Saints	158	(37)
The Poetics of Biblical Exhortation	158	(5)
The Myth of the Fall and a Jamaican Origin Myth	163	(4)
An Exhortation to Victory in Kingston	167	(11)
Exhorting the Poor to be Rich in Spirit	178	(9)
From Bride to Babylon and Back	187	(8)
Hierarchy, Healing, and the Birth of Brides	195	(38)
Hierarchy, Dual Marriage, and Pentecostal Brides	196	(5)
Pentecostalism's Contemporary Appeal	201	(2)
Healing and Gendered Ritual Practice	203	(4)
Exorcism and Pastoral Practice	207	(14)
Living Holy and Giving Birth to Brides	221	(12)
Conclusion	233	(12)
Transposing the Politics of Moral Orders	234	(1)
Gender and the Politics of Rite	234	(1)
Power and the Constitution of a Religious World	235	(3)
Pentecostalism and Rastafarianism	238	(3)
Jamaican Pentecostals and America	241	(4)
Appendix I. Tables	245	(1)
Table 1. Population by Religious Affiliation, by Sex, All Jamaica	245	(1)
Table 2. Adherents for Selected Faiths	245	(1)
Appendix II. The Pauline Injunctions to Feminine Submission	246	(1)
Notes	247	(28)
Bibliography	275	(22)
Index	297