Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa / Edition 1

by Stephen Ellis, Gerrie ter Haar

Overview

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 intertwined than 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 applying religious 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 ideas show 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 the relationship between religion and political practice in general.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195220162
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/13/2004
Series:	Contemporary History of World Affairs
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	8.56(w) x 5.46(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

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

Editorial Reviews

"This book is a critical corrective to much of the recent literature on colonialism and globalization that interprets modern African history largely in terms of alien influences and ideas and forces us to take spiritual forces and ideas as seriously as material ones."—American Historical Review

"Quite effective and illuminating."—Robert M. Baum, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"This remarkable book urges us to recast our approach to understanding modern African history by recognizing the religious basis of African political practice."—American Historical Review

"This book is a fascinating, insightful and timely contribution to our body of knowledge about the worlds most culturally-diverse, yet least- understood continent. Worlds of Power should be required reading for anyone concerned with Africa today."—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Lion's Grave: Dispatches From Afghanistan

"Worlds of Power shows how religious and supernatural ideas dominate African politics and culture, how they shape the ways that Africans both rich and poor view the world. The materials about clandestine politics, secret societies and conspiracy theories are especially intriguing - though they are handled throughout in a responsible and scholarly way. This wide-ranging and thoroughly researched book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand modern Africa." —Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity

"Power in the material world, most Africans continue to believe, cannot be separated from its source in the spiritual. It is the singular genius of authors Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar that they understand the encompassing nature and centrality of this belief. [...] The clarity and accuracy of this analytical lens makes Worlds of Power one of the most important books on African religion-and, indeed, on African politics-to appear in many years."—Professor R. Scott Appleby, University of Notre Dame

From the Publisher