'Religion' can be used to mean all kinds of things, but a substantive definition---based on the premise of superhuman powers--can clarify much. It allows us to attempt to differentiate religion from culture, ethnicity, morality and politics. This definition of religion necessarily implies a perception of reality. Until recent centuries in the West, and in most cultures still, the ordinary, natural and immediate way of understanding and experiencing reality was in terms of otherworldly or spiritual forces. However, a cognitive shift has taken place through the rise of science and its subsequent technological application. This new consciousness has not disproved the existence of spiritual forces, but has led to the marginalization of the other-worldly, which even Western churches seem to accept. They persist, but increasingly as pressure groups promoting humanist values. Claims of 'American exceptionalism' in this regard are misleading. Obama's religion, Evangelical support for Trump, and the mega-church message of success in the capitalist system can all be cultural and political phenomena. This eclipsing of the other-worldly constitutes a watershed in human history, with profound consequences not just for religious institutions but for our entire world order.

The Plight of Western Religion: The Eclipse of the Other-Worldly

History

Gifford, Paul

World

Oxford University Press

There is an important if largely unremarked diversity within African Christianity; on the one hand, an enchanted Christianity that views the world as pervaded by spiritual forces, and on the other a disenchanted Christianity that discounts them. An enchanted Christian sees his glorious destiny threatened by witches, spirits, and ancestral curses. Churches catering for this worldview lay bare the workings of this spirit world, and this enchanted imagination, along with the prosperity gospel, and emphasis on the pastor's "anointing," are the principal characteristics of much African Pentecostalism. Gifford argues that the enchanted religious imagination militates against development by encouraging fear and distrust, diminishing human responsibility and agency, and downplaying functional rationality. The prosperity gospel of "covenant wealth from tithes and offerings" is the antithesis of Weber's Protestant ethic; and to magnify the person of the pastor is to perpetuate the curse of the "Big Man". Official Catholicism, totally disenchanted and long associated with schools and hospitals, is now involved in development, from microfinance to election monitoring, from conflict resolution to human rights. This "NGO-ization of Catholicism," made almost inevitable by funding from secular donors like the EU and UN, even if defended theologically, comes at the price of failing to address the "religious" needs of so many African Christians.

Christianity, Development and Modernity In Africa

Africa

Towards Reconciliation: Understanding Violence and the Sacred After Rene Girard

James Clarke

Why do humans sacralise the causes for which they fight? Who will decipher for us the enigma of 'sacred violence'? Paul Gifford shows that the culture theorist and fundamental anthropologist Rene Girard has in fact decoded the obscurely 'foundational' complicity between violence and the sacred, showing why it is everybody's problem and the Problem of Everybody. Rene Girard's mimetic theory, especially his neglected writings on biblical texts, can be read as an anthropological argument continuous with Darwin, shedding formidable new light to a vast array of dark and knotted things: from the functioning of the world's oldest temple to today's terrorist violence, from the Cross of Christ to the Good Friday Agreement, such insights illuminate superbly ('from below') the ways of creation, revelation, redemption - which is to say, ultimately, the Christian enterprise and vocation of Reconciliation. Here is a novel and exciting resource for scanning the hidden 'sacrificial' logic that still secretly shapes cultural, social, and political life today. Girard puts us ahead of the game in the key dialogues required if we are to avoid autogenerated apocalypses of human violence in the world of tomorrow.

Since achieving independence in 1963, Kenya has existed as a classic, patronage state, ruled with an iron fist by a corrupt political elite. Kenya has also become nearly 80 percent Christian, and in this book, Paul Gifford explores the country's diverse churches and their role in shaping public and political life.During the 1990s, Kenya's Catholic and Protestant churches challenged the state's dysfunctional one-party rule; yet today these organizations are interested more in increasing the numbers of their missionaries and enlarging their global networks than in protesting the current regime. Gifford follows this historical shift, noting the specific theology of Kenya's churches, which deeply respect African culture as a non-negotiable component of African Christianity. He also covers the rich variety of Kenya's churches and their individual efforts to preserve Kenyan cultures. Countless Pentecostal churches have also emerged in recent decades, ranging from affluent middle-class institutions to shelters for the poor. Nearly all emphasize power, success, achievement, and prosperity, priorities that privilege modernity over tradition. Gifford discusses the influence of these churches on domestic media; their crusades, structure, and use of scripture; and their complex economics, which help to explain the thorough domestication of Kenyan Christianity in recent decades, reinforcing the country's corrupt political practices.

Christianity, Politics, and Public Life in Kenya (Columbia/Hurst)

Columbia University Press

African Christianity: Its Public Role

"This is by far the most informative book about contemporary African Christianity around; nobody could have written a study as richly detailed and as informed by real insider knowledge as he has done.... It will be the most significant study of African Christianity to appear at a time when its importance for Africa is becoming ever more widely recognized." ―J. D. Y. Peel
"A sophisticated political and social analysis of the various Christian groups is allied to a most original, consistent exploration of their different theological positions and thinking.... An interesting, important critical assessment of the extent to which the churches are playing a major role in the emergence of a civil society.... Gifford’s overall analysis and his four case studies are so fresh and so important that... they cry out for immediate publication." ―Richard Gray
Paul Gifford analyzes African Christianity in the mid-1990s, against the background of the continent’s current social, economic, and political circumstances. Gifford employs concepts taken from political economy to shed light on the current dynamics of African churches and churchgoers and assesses their different contributions to political developments since 1989. He also evaluates the churches’ role in promoting a civil society in Africa. Four case studies―Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, and Cameroon―cover all strands of Christianity: Catholic, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Pentecostal, and Independent. These detailed analyses of the state of the churches in each country also suggest more general patterns operating widely across sub-Saharan Africa.

Indiana University Press

"Gifford knows his subject totally, has vast and wide-ranging sympathy for his subjects (though without being uncritical), and explores these themes with admirable intelligence. This book is simply the best thing out there." ―Philip Jenkins
"Gifford’s is an uncompromising, hard-nosed study... [N]o one can again look at the subject without at least a respectful nod in his direction." ―Lamin Sanneh
In Ghana’s New Christianity, Paul Gifford considers the explosion of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa by focusing on one place: Greater Accra, Ghana. Gifford examines every dimension of these new churches and mega-churches, including their discourse, theological vision, worship, rituals, music, media involvement, use of the Bible, finances, and clientele. Ghana’s New Christianity sets religious devotion into Ghana’s political and economic situation and focuses on how fervent belief in success and wealth in the here and now can provide motivation to change in circumstances where it is so easy to despair. No other book brings forth the complex nature of Africa’s new Christianity with such clarity or offers such a searching analysis of its power to tackle Africa’s predicament.

Ghana's New Christianity, New Edition: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy

Paul Gifford examines African Christianity in the mid-1990s against the back ground of the continent's current social, economic, and political circumstances. Gifford sheds light on the dynamics of African churches and churchgoers, and assesses their different contributions to political developments since 1989. He also evaluates the churches' role in promoting a civil society in Africa. Detailed analyses of the state of the churches in Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, and Cameroon suggest more general patterns operating widely across sub-Saharan Africa.

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

Indiana Univ. Pr

""Gifford knows his subject totally, has vast and wide-ranging sympathy for his subjects (though without being uncritical), and explores these themes with admirable intelligence. This book is simply the best thing out there."" -- Philip Jenkins
""Gifford's is an uncompromising, hard-nosed study... [N]o one can again look at the subject without at least a respectful nod in his direction."" -- Lamin Sanneh
In Ghana's New Christianity, Paul Gifford considers the explosion of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa by focusing on one place: Greater Accra, Ghana. Gifford examines every dimension of these new churches and mega-churches, including their discourse, theological vision, worship, rituals, music, media involvement, use of the Bible, finances, and clientele. Ghana's New Christianity sets religious devotion into Ghana's political and economic situation and focuses on how fervent belief in success and wealth in the here and now can provide motivation to change in circumstances where it is so easy to despair. No other book brings forth the complex nature of Africa's new Christianity with such clarity or offers such a searching analysis of its power to tackle Africa's predicament.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

As the pressures of globalization are crushing local traditions, millions of uprooted people are buying into a new American salvation product. This fundamentalist Christianity, a fusion of American popular religion and politics, is one of the most significant cultural influences exported from the United States. With illuminating case studies based on extensive field research, Exporting the American Gospel demonstrates how Christian fundamentalism has taken hold in many nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism

Brouwer, Steve

Rose, Susan D.

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gifford, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gifford, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gifford, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Plight of Western Religion: The Eclipse of the Other-Worldly

Christianity, Development and Modernity In Africa

Towards Reconciliation: Understanding Violence and the Sacred After Rene Girard

Towards Reconciliation: Understanding Violence and the Sacred After Rene Girard

Christianity, Politics, and Public Life in Kenya (Columbia/Hurst)

African Christianity: Its Public Role

Ghana's New Christianity, New Edition: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy

African Christianity: Its Public Role

Ghana's New Christianity, New Edition: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy

Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism