The Nigerian Pentecostal Churches in the UK: Community Identity and Aspects of Boundary Maintenance

Stephen Hunt

doi:10.63931/pasrj.11.2

Authors

Stephen Hunt University of the West of England Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63931/pasrj.11.2

Keywords:

Community identity

Abstract

A measure of contemporary academic work has come to rigorously challenge the conventional view that in Western liberal democracies there is an observable narrowing of the fissure between the secular public square and the religious domain of faith communities. It is in the public sphere, so it is frequently presently argued, where religion can be seen as establishing a common space in the context of diversity and pluralism. This paper engages with such theorising by considering a relatively fresh wave of black Christian revivalism in the UK, a form of Pentecostalism originating in West Africa and subsequently transported to a localised setting of diaspora. The paper will conjecture that the churches involved conform to early academic surveys which interpret Pentecostalism as principally a means by which a black ethnic community is able to adapt and respond to social marginalisation and in doing so construct elements of boundary maintenance with mainstream society and the public sphere. The discussion will be with reference to the largest church of its type in the UK, the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

References

Achebel, C. (1993). The Trouble with Nigeria, London: Heinemann.

Aldred, J. (1999). Paradigms for a black theology in Britain. Black Theology in Britain, 2, pp. 9-32

Anderson, A. (2001). African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the 20th Century, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

Asad, T. (2003). Formulations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Belcher, V. (1995). Black Christians. Black Christian church traditions in Britain, a resource pack produced jointly by the Centre for Black and White Christian Partnership and Westhill RE Centre, Birmingham: Sellyoak Colleges.

Bellah, R. (1970). Beyond Belief, London: Harper & Row.

Casanova, J. (2005, April 21-22). Immigration and the New Religious Pluralism: A EU/US Comparison. Paper presented at the conference New Religious Pluralism and Democracy, Georgetown University. Retrieved 9/6/12 from http://www.ipri.pt/eventos/pdf/Paper_Casanova.pdf

Calley, M. (1962). Pentecostal sects among West Indian migrants. Race, 3(2), pp.55-64

Coleman, S. (2000). The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Coleman, S. (2003). The Faith Movement: A Global Religious Culture? Culture and Religion 3(1), pp.3-19.

Cope, J. (1983). For My People, New York: Orbis Books.

Fulton, A. (1996). Identity, status, religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Youth, 26 (1), pp.1-11.

Freston, P. (2001). Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambridge University Press.

Gerloff, R. (1992). A Plea for British Black Theologies, Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Gifford, P. (1994). Some recent developments in African Christianity. African Affairs, 93, pp. 153-34

Gifford, P. (1998). African Christianity, 21, pp.334-36.

Habermas, J. (2002). Rationality and Religion: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Hackett, R. (1990). Enigma Variations: The New Religious Movements in Nigeria Today. In A. Wallis and R. Shank (eds.), Exploring New Religious Movements: Essays in Honour of Harold W. Turner (pp. 32-47), Mission Focus: Elkhart.

Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, London: Lawrence & Wishart, pp.207-37.

Hill, C. (1971). Black Churches: West Indian and African Sects in Britain, London: Community Race Relations Unit of the British Council of Churches.

Halme, C. (1997) Cosmopolitan London. In A. Kershen (ed.), London: The Promised Land, Aldershot: Avebury.

Hunt, S. (2001). The British black Pentecostal "revival": identity and belief in the "new" Nigerian churches. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24(1), pp. 104-24

Hunt, 5. (2002). "Neither here nor there" the construction of identities and boundary maintenance of West African Pentecostals. Sociology, 36(1), pp. 147-69

Jules-Rosette, M. (1994). The features of African theologies - situating new religious movements in an epistemological setting. Social Compass, 41(1), pp. 49-65.

Kalilombe, P. (1997). Black Christianity in Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 20(2), pp. 308-15.

Lincoln, E. and Mamiya, L. (1990). The Black Church in the African Experience, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Marshall, R. (1991). Power in the name of Jesus. Review of the African Political Economy, 52, pp.21-37.

Marshall, R. (1993), "Power in the Name of Jesus": Social Transformation and Pentecostalism in Western Nigeria "revisited". In T. Ranger and O. Vaugn (eds.), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa, Essays in Honour of A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Basingstoke: McMillan.

Martin, D. (1990). Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Pentecostalism in Latin America, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Nelson, H. and Nelson, A. (1975). Black Churches in the 1960s, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

Ojo, M. (1980). The contextual significance of the charismatic movements in independent Nigeria. Africa, 58(2), pp. 23-37.

Ojo, M. (1988). "Deeper Life Christian Ministry": A case study of the charismatic movement in western Nigeria. Journal of Religion in Africa, 18(2), pp. 17-28.

Roof, W. (1994). A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journey of the Baby-Boom Generation, San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.

Toulis, N. (1993). Beliefs and Identity: Pentecostalism Among First Generation Jamaican Women in England, unpublished PhD, University of Cambridge.

The Nigerian Pentecostal Churches in the UK: Community Identity and Aspects of Boundary Maintenance

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

Versions

Issue

Section

License

How to Cite

Make a Submission