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1002:12.2 [2016/10/17 20:39] – [Christianity and social integration] Ryan Schram (admin)1002:12.2 [Unknown date] (current) – removed - external edit (Unknown date) 127.0.0.1
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-# Western modernity as culture, ii # 
- 
-## Western modernity as culture, ii ## 
- 
-Ryan Schram  
- 
-Mills 169, A26  
- 
-ryan (dot) schram (at) sydney.edu.au 
- 
-Wednesday, October 19, 2016 
- 
-Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/1002/12.2 
- 
- 
-### Reading ### 
- 
-Haynes, Naomi. 2015. “‘Zambia Shall Be Saved!’: Prosperity Gospel Politics in a Self-Proclaimed Christian Nation.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 19 (1): 5–24. doi:10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.5. 
- 
- 
-## Christianity as site of conjuncture 
- 
-### Christianity is based on individualism 
- 
-* Personal, sincere confession 
-* Equality of all believers qua moral subjects 
-* Individual responsibility for one's relationship to God  
- 
-### Prosperity theology is individualism without asceticism 
- 
-* Prayers to God must be answered.  
-* Health, success and wealth are what God wants for believers.  
-* Not an ascetic morality 
- 
-If prosperity theology is a reciprocal exchange with God, where does 
-this idea come from? 
- 
-## Return to the Urapmin 
- 
-* The conversion of Urapmin also meant the end of place taboos, 
-  creating a "free time" (Robbins 2004, 220). 
-* Since the original revival, the Urapmin church periodically goes 
-  through intense periods of millennial expectation, followed by a 
-  return to normal routines (p. 159). 
-* During periods of millennial anticipation, people hold healing 
-  services called *Spirit disko*, in which many people, especially 
-  women, experience possession and can cast out sin (p. 282). 
- 
-## Christianity and social integration  
- 
-* Salvation is individual and private, but social meaning is always 
-  partly shared. 
-* Urapmin individual selves are only imagined as the negation of their 
-  social existence: free time, the end of the world. 
-* Urapmin Christianity becomes a social force in collective forms. The *alimal* 
-  (family) is a replacement society, oriented toward the 
-  value-rational goal of redemption, but only for a time. 
- 
-## The social context of prosperity theology 
- 
-* Pentecostal churches are start-up enterprises of Christianity 
-* Pastors of prosperity churches often hold themselves up as examples 
-  of success, and thus as moral models.  
-* The pastor's "charisma" (compelling message, not likeability or 
-  popularity) creates a congregation of fellow believers, i.e. a new 
-  social identity. 
-* Haynes: Prosperity is "socially productive"--The blessed can bless 
-  others (Haynes 2013, 87). 
- 
-## Liberal and neoliberal social contracts 
- 
-The liberal social order is based on individual rights guaranteed by 
-membership in a public, egalitarian political community. 
- 
-The "neoliberal" social order is arguably a rejection of this social 
-contract--a replacement of "individual rights" with private autonomy 
-in a market where everything is for sale. 
- 
-Does prosperity theology support or resist this change?  
- 
-## References 
- 
-Haynes, Naomi. 2013. “On the Potential and Problems of Pentecostal Exchange.” American Anthropologist 115 (1): 85–95. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01537.x. 
- 
-———. 2004. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. University of California Press. 
- 
- 
  
1002/12.2.1476761991.txt.gz · Last modified: 2016/10/17 20:39 by Ryan Schram (admin)