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Books > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches
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.
This is a significant in-depth study that explores the cultural
context of the religious experience of West Indian immigrant
communities. Whereas most studies to date have focussed on how
immigrants settle in their new home contexts, Janice A.
McLean-Farrell argues for a more comprehensive perspective that
takes into account the importance of religion and the role of both
'home' and the 'host' contexts in shaping immigrant lives in the
Diaspora. West Indian Pentecostals: Living Their Faith in New York
and London explores how these three elements (religion, the 'home'
and 'host' contexts) influence the ethnic-religious identification
processes of generations of West Indian immigrants. Using case
studies from the cities of New York and London, the book offers a
critical cross-national comparison into the complex and indirect
ways the historical, socio-economic, and political realities in
diaspora contribute to both the identification processes and the
'missional' practices of immigrants. Its focus on Pentecostalism
also provides a unique opportunity to test existing theories and
concepts on the interface of religion and immigration and makes
important contributions to the study of Pentecostalism.
![Live Free (Hardcover): Dennis Clark, Dr Jen Clark](//media.loot.co.za/images/x80/495851964016179215.jpg) |
Live Free
(Hardcover)
Dennis Clark, Dr Jen Clark
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Since World War II, historians have analysed a phenomenon of "white
flight" plaguing the urban areas of the northern United States. One
of the most interesting cases of "white flight" occurred in the
Chicago neighborhoods of Englewood and Roseland, where seven entire
church congregations from one denomination, the Christian Reformed
Church, left the city in the 1960s and 1970s and relocated their
churches to nearby suburbs. In Shades of White Flight, sociologist
Mark T. Mulder investigates the migration of these Chicago church
members, revealing how these churches not only failed to inhibit
white flight, but actually facilitated the congregations'
departure. Using a wealth of both archival and interview data,
Mulder sheds light on the forces that shaped these midwestern
neighborhoods and shows that, surprisingly, evangelical religion
fostered both segregation as well as the decline of urban
stability. Indeed, the Roseland and Englewood stories show how
religion - often used to foster community and social connectedness
- can sometimes help to disintegrate neighborhoods. Mulder
describes how the Dutch CRC formed an insular social circle that
focused on the local church and Christian school - instead of the
local park or square or market - as the center point of the
community. Rather than embrace the larger community, the CRC
subculture sheltered themselves and their families within these two
places. Thus it became relatively easy - when black families moved
into the neighborhood - to sell the church and school and relocate
in the suburbs. This is especially true because, in these
congregations, authority rested at the local church level and in
fact they owned the buildings themselves. Revealing how a dominant
form of evangelical church polity - congregationalism - functioned
within the larger phenomenon of white flight, Shades of White
Flight lends new insights into the role of religion and how it can
affect social change, not always for the better.
War on the Saints is Jessie Penn-Lewis's masterwork, wherein she
outlines the occurrences of Satan within the Christian world, and
the eternal battle between good and evil. The book aims to prepare
and assist Christians who are caught unguarded against the
onslaught of evil and deception which has ensued for thousands of
years. In so doing, the reader will - assuming they heed the advice
upon these pages - be better equipped versus the various obstacles,
trickery and evils that Satan and his ilk will hurl in the path of
the righteous. Penn-Lewis firmly believed that the devil was a
master manipulator, with a keen knowledge of when and who to target
in his schemes. Several of the chapters within this book detail the
different techniques employed by Satan, and how to guard against
them. Quotations of Scripture abound, boosting the author's
authority and lending much credence to her arguments.
In the late nineteenth century, a small community of Native
Hawaiian Mormons established a settlement in heart of The Great
Basin, in Utah. The community was named Iosepa, after the prophet
and sixth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, Joseph F. Smith. The inhabitants of Iosepa struggled
against racism, the ravages of leprosy, and economic depression, by
the early years of the twentieth century emerging as a modern,
model community based on ranching, farming, and an unwavering
commitment to religious ideals. Yet barely thirty years after its
founding the town was abandoned, nearly all of its inhabitants
returning to Hawaii. Years later, Native Hawaiian students at
nearby Brigham Young University, descendants of the original
settlers, worked to clean the graves of Iosepa and erect a monument
to memorialize the settlers. Remembering Iosepa connects the story
of this unique community with the earliest Native Hawaiian migrants
to western North America and the vibrant and growing community of
Pacific Islanders in the Great Basin today. It traces the origins
and growth of the community in the tumultuous years of colonial
expansion into the Hawaiian islands, as well as its relationship to
white Mormons, the church leadership, and the Hawaiian government.
In the broadest sense, Mathew Kester seeks to explain the meeting
of Mormons and Hawaiians in the American West and to examine the
creative adaptations and misunderstandings that grew out of that
encounter.
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