Worlds of Power Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa

by Ellis, Stephen; ter Haar, Gerrie

• ISBN13: 9780195220179
• ISBN10: 019522017X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

With Christian revivals (including Evangelicals in the White House), Islamic radicalism and the revitalisation of traditional religions it is clear that the world is not heading towards a community of secular states. Nowhere are religious thought and political practice more closely intertwinedthan in Africa. African migrants in Europe and America who send home money to build churches and mosques, African politicians who consult diviners, guerrilla fighters who believe that amulets can protect them from bullets, and ordinary people who seek ritual healing: all of these are applyingreligious ideas to everyday problems of existence, at every level of society. Far from falling off the map of the world, Africa is today a leading centre of Christianity and a growing field of Islamic activism, while African traditional religions are gaining converts in the West.One cannot understand the politics of the present without taking religious thought seriously. Stories about witches, miracles, or people returning from the dead incite political action. In Africa religious belief has a huge impact on politics, from the top of society to the bottom. Religious ideasshow what people actually think about the world and how to deal with it. Ellis and Ter Haar maintain that the specific content of religious thought has to be mastered if we are to grasp the political significance of religion in Africa today, but their book also informs our understanding of therelationship between religion and political practice in general.

Author Biography

Stephen Ellis, Director of the Africa Programme at the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Brussels, is a senior researcher at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, and author of The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (1999). Gerrie ter Haar is Professor of Religion, Human Rights and Social Change at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. She is a specialist in the religious traditions of Africa. Among her numerous publications is Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe (1998).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	v
Introduction	1	(10)
Why we wrote this book	3	(4)
Themes	7	(4)
1. Ideas	11	(16)
El Negro and other stories	11	(2)
Defining religion	13	(3)
A study of ideas	16	(5)
A dynamic model of religion in Africa	21	(3)
Causation	24	(3)
2. Words	27	(22)
Pavement radio	28	(2)
News and media	30	(3)
Rumours and facts	33	(6)
Rumour and religion	39	(10)
3. Spirits	49	(21)
Evangelist Mukendi's visit to the underworld	49	(2)
The spirit world	51	(5)
Communication with the spirit world	56	(4)
The politics of possession	60	(3)
The pathology of the spirit world	63	(3)
Spirits and politicians	66	(4)
4. Secrets	70	(20)
Secrecy in politics	72	(3)
Secret societies	75	(9)
Arcane power and political intelligence	84	(3)
Governing spiritual power	87	(3)
5. Power	90	(24)
Spirits and the ambivalence of power	92	(7)
Power and institutions	99	(3)
Religion and democracy	102	(8)
Religious literature as political comment	110	(4)
6. Wealth	114	(27)
Money, credit and wealth	115	(3)
People and wealth in Africa	118	(5)
Bargaining with the spirit world	123	(5)
Regulating money	128	(4)
Wild economies	132	(9)
7. Morality	141	(22)
Law, justice and morality	142	(7)
The concept of witchcraft	149	(5)
Political morality	154	(4)
Morality and the state	158	(5)
8. Transformations	163	(14)
Aspects of personal and social change	165	(3)
States and the management of change	168	(4)
Religion and the management of change	172	(5)
9. Histories	177	(52)
Locating religious revival	178	(4)
Reconnecting the past	182	(5)
A new historical age	187	(5)
Knowledge universal and local	192
Notes 197
Bibliography	229	(26)
Index	255