11th GloPent Conference: Pentecostal Strategies of Public Engagement

Conference of the European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism (GloPent)

The growing evidence of Pentecostal public engagement has attracted academic attention, especially, but not exclusively in arenas of the Global South. Recent explorations of the global “Charismatic city”, the notion of an African “Pentecostal republic”, or assertions about “property Christianity” in China point to peculiar Pentecostal taxonomies in the public realm. Pentecostal politics of public prayer, ‘spiritual warfare` or ‘crusades’ seek to transform religious landscapes, while ‘Dominionist` theologies claim to transcend narrow Pentecostal interests in order to advocate the common good. Megachurches establish networks to access political, economic and cultural elites. Prosperity theologies also target social transformations and partly enable structural innovations in economic life. The Pentecostal media revolution with its constitutive elements of religious broadcasting and publishing interferes in local public discourses; professionalized e-church performances disseminate transcultural strategies to impact a given political culture. Whether Pentecostal migrant communities in the Global North are pursuing a strategic ‘reverse mission’ to ‘conquer secular nations for Christ` remains open to debate.

Thus, Pentecostalism entails a variety of modes, forms and patterns of public mobilization or a religious mobilisation of public realms, which are the theme of this conference. The keynote speakers will address a diversity of public strategies in the Global South: Heinrich Schäfer (University of Bielefeld) will discuss Pentecostal political agendas in Latin America (respondent: Claudia Jahnel, Ruhr-Univerity Bochum); Ilana van Wyk (University of Stellenbosch) focuses on Pentecostal public strategies in Southern Africa (respondent: Sibusiso Masondo, University of KwaZulu-Natal); and Nanlai Cao (Renmin University, Beijing) (respondent: Mika Vähäkangas, Lund University) will address Pentecostal patterns of public engagement in China and within the Chinese diaspora.

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