Transnational Dynamics in African Christianity: How Global Is the Lighthouse Chapel International Missionary Mandate?
An increasingly salient character of the new Christian churches springing up in the global South (Africa, Latin America, and "developing" Asia) is their transnational outlook and rapid establishment of international branches, particularly in the global North. Their decision to include suff...
| Published in: | Journal of Africana religions |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
The Pennsylvania State University Press
2014
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| In: |
Journal of Africana religions
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| Further subjects: | B
Migration
B Globalization B Africa B African Diaspora B Missiology B Great Britain B global religion B transnational religion B African Christianity B Vienna [End Page 95] B European Christianity B Lighthouse Chapel International B Black majority churches B Transnational religion |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | An increasingly salient character of the new Christian churches springing up in the global South (Africa, Latin America, and "developing" Asia) is their transnational outlook and rapid establishment of international branches, particularly in the global North. Their decision to include suffixes such as "international" or "universal" in their names is but an inkling of their ambition. This essay investigates what the Lighthouse Chapel International, emanating from Ghana, believes to be its universal mandate to evangelize the world. Lighthouse has ventured into culturally and traditionally Catholic Vienna. Does religious transnationalism present Africa the opportunity to influence and transform the world by means of missionary religion, just as past European missionaries sought to do in Africa, as some of these new churches believe? To what extent does globalization propel the spread of these new churches in other parts of the world? This article suggests that despite its efforts, Lighthouse merely affects the African immigrant community rather than producing a truly "global" effect on a putatively dormant "Euro-Christianity.", This article explores the emergence of Britain's Black majority churches in the wake of migration from both Africa and the Caribbean. I examine the churches' rhetorical claims to be reverse missionizing unchurched Britons even as they gear most of their activities toward their mainly immigrant members. My conclusion suggests that these two endeavors work together to challenge notions of margin and center in global Christianity., The following response to articles by Michael Perry Kweku Okyerefo and Babatunde Adedibu first situates these two case studies within the larger phenomenon of African-led diasporic and transnational churches in the contemporary world. The response emphasizes the simultaneously local and global nature of ideas, persons, and practices in contemporary African-led congregations in the diaspora. Outlining the limits of scholarly approaches to African-led religious institutions that privilege the analysis of Pentecostal churches over other African-led congregations, I identify several research questions that are either obscured or ignored by these still useful essays. [End Page 117] |
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| ISSN: | 2165-5413 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Africana religions
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