Traditional Churches, Born Again Christianity, and Pentecostalism
Religious Mobility and Religious Repertoires in Urban Kenya
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Beschreibung
In Kenya's vibrant urban religious landscape, where Pentecostal and traditional churches of various orientations live side by side, religious identity tends to overflow a single institutional affiliation. While Kenya’s Christianity may offer modes of coping with the fragilities of urban life, it is subject to repeated crises and schisms, often fueled by rumors and accusations of hypocrisy. In order to understand the unfolding of Kenyans’ dynamic religious identities, and inspired by the omnipresent distinction between ‘religious membership’ and ‘church visits,’ Yonatan N. Gez considers the complementary relations between a center of religious affiliation and expansion towards secondary practices. Building on this basic distinction, the book develops a theoretical innovation in the form of the ‘religious repertoire’ model, which maps individuals’ religious identities in terms of three intertwined degrees of practice.
In Kenya's vibrant urban religious landscape, where Pentecostal and traditional churches of various orientations live side by side, religious identity tends to overflow a single institutional affiliation. While Kenya’s Christianity may offer modes of coping with the fragilities of urban life, it is subject to repeated crises and schisms, often fueled by rumors and accusations of hypocrisy. In order to understand the unfolding of Kenyans’ dynamic religious identities, and inspired by the omnipresent distinction between ‘religious membership’ and ‘church visits,’ Yonatan N. Gez considers the complementary relations between a center of religious affiliation and expansion towards secondary practices. Building on this basic distinction, the book develops a theoretical innovation in the form of the ‘religious repertoire’ model, which maps individuals’ religious identities in terms of three intertwined degrees of practice.
Uniquely explains the processes underlying religious choice-making in urban Kenya and the country's ongoing Christian transformations. Offers an innovative model that helps to systematize the concept of lived religion. Invites readers to rethink religious normativity, identifying mobile religious identity as normative.
Autor*in
Yonatan N. Gez
Themen in »Traditional Churches, Born Again Christianity, and Pentecostalism«
Anthropology of Religion Kenyan religion religious identity secularism urban centres sociology
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“This tour de force in anthropology of religion is based on the author’s fieldwork. ... Thorough, copiously documented, and well- written, Gez’s work has implications for descriptive and constructive theologies that try to attend to grassroots beliefs, especially phenomenologies of African theology and global pentecostalism.” (Christopher A. Stephenson, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 47 (4), December, 2021)
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