The Road to Clarity Seventh-Day Adventism in Madagascar

by Keller, Eva

• ISBN13: 9781403970763
• ISBN10: 1403970769
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-19
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In recent years, millions of people have joined churches such as the Seventh-day Adventist which prosper enormously in different parts of the world. The Road to Clarity is one of the first ethnographic in-depth studies of this phenomenon. It is a vivid account based on almost two years of participation in ordinary church members' daily religious and non-religious lives. The book offers a fascinating inquiry into the nature of long-term commitment to Adventism among rural people in Madagascar. Eva Keller argues that the key attraction of the church lies in the excitement of study, argument, and intellectual exploration. This is a novel approach which challenges utilitarian and cultural particularist explanations of the success of this kind of Christianity.

Author Biography

Eva Keller is a Research Fellow at the University of Zurich. She received her PhD in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2002. She is currently carrying out research on a national park in Madagascar.

Table of Contents

Note on the Pronunciation of Malagasy Words	ix
Glossary	x
Acknowledgments	xi
Foreword	xiv
Maurice Bloch
Introduction	1	(14)
Part I The Setting
People in Search of a Living	15	(22)
Christianity and Seventh-Day Adventism in Madagascar	37	(21)
International and Local Structure of the Adventist Church	58	(10)
Profiles	68	(17)
Part II The Road to Clarity
Bible Study	85	(32)
Knowledge of the Bible and Scientific Inquiry	117	(19)
Text and Learning	136	(21)
The Great Controversy	157	(12)
The Construction and Rejection of Ancestral Religion	169	(10)
Clarity	179	(14)
Part III Uncertainties
Making Choices	193	(14)
Kinship	207	(26)
Conclusions	233	(13)
Notes	246	(20)
Bibliography	266	(14)
Index	280