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Books > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Other Protestant & Nonconformist Churches > Pentecostal Churches
This volume approaches the Word of Faith as a worldview, and
analyses the movement through N. T. Wright's model for
worldview-analysis in order to provide necessary nuance and
complexity to scholarly interpretations of the Word of Faith. The
reader receives insights into the movement's narrative, semiotic,
practical and propositional dimensions, which cumulatively offer a
multifaceted understanding of how the Word of Faith interprets
reality and engages with the world. The analysis shows that there
is a narrative core to Word of Faith beliefs in the form of a
unique theological story with focus set on the present restoration
of Eden's authority and blessings. This study demonstrates how the
Word of Faith operates as a distinct worldview that parses the
world through the lens of faith's causative power to affect a
direct correspondence between present reality and Eden's
perfection. The findings advance a critical and therapeutic
approach that acknowledges how the worldview both strengthens and
subverts Pentecostalism.
Documentary as Exorcism is an interdisciplinary study that builds
upon the insights of postcolonial studies, critical race theory,
theological and religious studies and media and film studies to
showcase the role of documentary film as a system of signifying
capable of registering complex theological ideas while pursuing the
authentic aims of documentary filmmaking. Robert Beckford marries
the concepts of 'theology as visual practice' and 'theology as
political engagement' to develop a new mode of documentary
filmmaking that embeds emancipation from oppression in its
aesthetic. In various documentaries made for Channel 4 and the BBC,
Beckford narrates the complicit relationship of Christianity with
European expansion, slavery, and colonialism as a historic
manifestation of evil. In light of the cannibalistic practices of
colonialism that devoured black life, and the church's role in the
subjugation and theological legitimation of black bodies, Beckford
characterises this form of historic Christian faith as 'colonial
Christianity' and its malevolent or 'occult' practices as a form of
'bewitchment' that must be 'exorcised'. He identifies and exorcises
the evil practices of colonialism and their present impact upon
African Caribbean Christian communities in Britain in films such as
Britain's Slave Trade and Empire Pays Back through a deliberate
process of encoding/decoding. The emancipatory impact of this form
of documentary filmmaking is demonstrated by its ability to bring
issues such as reparations to the public square for debate, and its
capacity to change a corporation's trade policies for the good of
Africans.
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