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In this paper I connect an anthropology of Christianity to an anthropology of the body and an anthropology of the nation. I try to achieve this by looking at changing notions of femininity in the Pentecostal context of Vanuatu. I do this on two different levels; on the one hand I show how the meaning of womanhood is changed in what I call the 'pentecostalised' neighborhoods of the capital Port Vila, and on the other I show how the household and the nation become contexts into which this new notion of femininity is played. Thus, in the first part of the paper I look at the ways in which Pentecostal Christianity change the meaning of gender, whereas in the second part of the paper I look at how this new form of gendered meaning has relevance for our understanding of wider social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic premise of this paper is that oppressive and violent behaviour is not an essential aspect of the male identity. Seeking to comprehend the underlying causes of violence, specifically against women but also more generally, this paper examines some of the alternative ways of being a man that have accompanied Christianity. Through observation of some Pentecostals from New Ireland, I have concluded that new ways of being a man that are less oppressive and dominating for women are emerging. This phenomenon I argue is a step towards gender equality, since it involves creating more caring and equitable relationships and a step towards reducing violence both against women and in the community, since it embraces non-violent ways of being a man. Particularly useful in analysing the process of reforming men is Foucault's work on governmentality since it relates well to the Pentecostal emphasis on radical change in being 'born again'. Conversion for born-again Christians is more than simply abandoning sin; rather it involves the creation of a new self and becoming a new person. Similarly, Foucault argues that the individual practises the art of self-governance in re-forming her or himself as she or he desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While saluting the ethnographic originality of the contents of this special issue and the ambition of its editors to extend recent debates in the anthropology of Christianity to large Catholic populations in Asia, the author argues that the contributors remain in thrall to Protestant tenets of rupture and individualism. He urges more balanced coverage of the diversity of Christian communities and more attention to a long history of anthropological engagement with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trobriand dance is a key cultural expression and a means of communicating subjectivity in a number of ways: it expresses aspects of kinship, gender, morality, and ideas about modernity and primitivity. In a region with a long history of Christian missions, coupled with a recent 'Revival' brought about by the arrival of Pentecostal forms of worship, certain dances come to be key markers of particular moral positions. Primary among these is the Tapioca Dance, famed far beyond the Trobriands, but problematic in local discourses and practice. This paper examines the ways in which such dances make sexuality public, and why this is such a concern for 'Revived' (and other) Christian Trobriand Islanders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the story of the formation and subsequent activities of a church women's group in Maisin villages and women's experiences of Christianity more broadly, in relation to the changing production and uses of traditional bark cloth ( tapa), a signature women's product which has become a marker of Maisin identity. While the influence of the local Mothers' Union has waxed and waned over the past 60 years, tapa cloth has had a continuing influence upon its fortunes. Tapa cloth has been the chief means for church women to raise funds to support their activities and the local church. However, we argue that, more fundamentally, tapa has shaped women's gendered Christian identities, experiences and history, mediating relationships with men, between generations of women, and with various sorts of 'missionaries' who have often justified their intrusions in terms of improving women's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an anthropological exegesis on the Hare Krishna theology and practice of sankirtana-- a form of proselytisation in which devotees chant the Holy Names of the Lord through city streets and in other public places, and which can also involve other means of 'spreading the word'. This is also an inquiry into the relationship between anthropology and proselytism and their respective modes of communication, a topic I approach reflexively by addressing the awkward methodological question as to whether my writing about Hare Krishna proselytisation is itself a form of proselytisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores an ongoing dialogue about Christianity in light of the recent influx of HIV and AIDS into the villages of the Gogodala of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. I argue that a suggestion by a woman in late 2004 to 'build a wall' around the Gogodala region in Western Province in order to stop or slow the spread of HIV/AIDS reflects a recent concern with the sustainability of this rural Christian community, referred to in English as 'Christian country'. Understanding AIDS to be a threat posed largely from outsiders, whether Papua New Guinean or European, sections of these primarily village-based communities aim to create both a physical and metaphorical boundary between themselves and outsiders. At present, local prevention and intervention strategies concerning HIV and AIDS focus on conservative, evangelical narratives about the preservation of the principles and practices of Christian country, through the repudiation of unrestrained sexuality, for example, which is believed to be increasingly prevalent not only in their own area but throughout urban Papua New Guinea. A growing divide between rural and urban Gogodala, then, has become a major part of the local dialogue about AIDS and represents significant contestation over the practices and ideational basis of Christian country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the themes and practices of Christian performance at the Western Desert Aboriginal community of Warlungurru in 1988,1 six years after the Pintupi return to their homelands (see ; ; ) and the enthusiastic Christian revival-nightly Gospel singing, a ban on gambling-experienced in the first years of their return. My concern is with how a distinctively Lutheran focus in Pintupi Christianity (in opposition to competing Pentecostal orientations in Central Australia at that time) was grasped by some Pintupi as a structure organising relations between Indigenous people and others in the world, and how specialised knowledge constituted positions of prestige and authority. Thus, I explore certain convergences between prior Indigenous formulations of personhood and relatedness and the way in which Lutheran Christianity was articulated during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Motu and the Hula, two south coast Papua New Guinea societies, are linguistically related, have similar social organisation and were economically linked before European colonisation. They were both introduced to Christianity by the London Missionary Society in the late 19th century, and each appeared to incorporate the new religion into their social life and thought quickly and unproblematically. More than a century later, however, generalities about the similar adoption of Christianity by the Mom and the Hula are no longer possible. Nor are generalities about the engagement with Christianity within one or the other group, as individual Motu and Hula villages have unique histories. In this regard, while Christianity has now arguably become part of putative tradition among the Motu, some Hula are experiencing conflict between Christianity and their sense of tradition. In particular, while in the Motu village of Pari Christian virtues are appealed to as part of Pari's conception of itself as a 'traditional' Motu village, the situation in the Hula village of Irupara is more or less the contrary. Many people in Irupara are now lamenting 'tradition' as something lost, a forgotten essence destroyed or replaced by Christianity. Based on fieldwork in both villages, this paper discusses some differences in their engagement with Christianity and compares contemporary perceptions of religion, tradition and identity in both societies, informing a commentary on notions of tradition and anthropological representations of the Melanesian experience of Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Christian Yolngu in Arnhem Land visions shape the imagined, embodied and affective experiences of places of danger, illness, healing and general well-being. In this paper, I argue that Yolngu have consistently constructed their Christian faith through visions stemming from an ancestral aesthetic embodied in the environment. As a result, religious ideology and social action have sometimes been seen as syncretic, raising questions about how Yolngu understand and experience Christian conversion, encounter and revelation. I argue that Yolngu spiritual experiences emerge from the sentiments associated with ancestral places that act as emotive sites for remapping an ancestral aesthetic as Christian experience. The resultant emotional and spiritual synchronicity underlies a Yolngu Christianity that is corporeal and abstracted, negotiated and strategic, practical and experiential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I illustrate the way one Aboriginal artist challenged what he perceived as an essentialised concept of Aboriginality, by rejecting rainbow serpent iconography. The motivations for this rejection were the artist's strong belief in the Christian God as creator and his reaction against New Age representations of Aboriginality in which the rainbow serpent signifies Aboriginal spirituality and is posited as the single creator for all of Aboriginal Australia. A conflict arose at the artist's gallery when he refused to exhibit a rainbow serpent painting by another Aboriginal artist. Publicised in the local newspaper, the rejection of these artworks started a brief public debate about the role of Christianity in Aboriginal culture. The various positions adopted by the Aboriginal protagonists highlight the complex processes of negotiation, dialogue and debate surrounding diverse constructions of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do Pentecostal Christians seek repair and renewal in their lives, after their efforts to rupture with the past and become born again? In this article, I wish to consider the ways that a group of Nigerian Pentecostals who belong to a deliverance church re‐narrativise their lives by constructing and entering into new timelines of history after their attempts to break with the past. This discursive project works to insert a notion of 'Black Africa' into an authentically Christian historical chronology that stretches far back into the biblical past and forward to the eschaton. In this way, Africa's unique spiritual character is seen as reflected not only in its reasserted claim to Christian history, but also in its eschatologically driven destiny to re‐evangelise the world. This tells us something about the theological way these Christians reframe their role in history, including how their understanding of a collective past shapes their vision of who they are in the present and will be in the future. In this article, I argue that more attention needs to be given to processes of repair, repositioning and realignment in discussions about how conversion to Pentecostalism can generate efforts to break away from what becomes conceptualised as 'the past'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a ground-breaking article Joel Robbins analysed what he characterises as the 'awkward' relationship between anthropology and theology and invited greater anthropological engagement with its disciplinary cousin. This Special Issue responds to this provocation by using Robbins' argument as a bouncing board for wide-ranging forays into a common set of concerns. In investigating anthropological theologies the collection critically attends to the kinds of engagements and encounters that already take place and also lays out future agendas for further interactions. We call for an anthropology that is open to provisional, dialogic and potentially transformative interactions across diverse theologies and suggest that such a move will help shed light on the possibilities of re-modelling the practice of anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical developments within the anthropology of Christianity have shifted away from conceptualising the uptake of Pentecostal‐charismatic Christianity in polarised terms of rupture versus continuity towards more inclusive, dynamic interpretations that appreciate both underlying cultural synergies alongside deeply felt projects of personal and collective moral and spiritual transformation. Drawing upon Marshall's concept of 'resonant rupture', I explore how a series of interconnected revivals that occurred in many places throughout Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea resonated with pre‐existing elements of indigenous religion and cosmology. At the same time, however, I show that, although a broad conjuncture between tradition and Pentecostal‐charismatic Christianity existed, the events that constituted these movements were understood by revival participants as unequivocally Christian, innovative and radically new, thus revealing the simultaneous processes of resonance and rupture at work. In support of my argument I focus upon reports of religious intensification during this formative period from three different ethnographic settings, namely, Malaita, Solomon Islands, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea and the Min culture area, Papua New Guinea, respectively. All of the examples vividly exemplify Melanesian Christians absorbing existing religiosity into their new worship while at the same time imposing a radical change on the level of asserted meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Sepik, names feature centrally in political and religious contexts. Esoteric knowledge about totemic names enables Nyaura men to achieve status and power and can set them in contact with spirits. A recently arrived Pentecostal/evangelical movement—Operation Joshua—claims to have found the true name of God, whom it presents as being radically different to the beings people's ancestors have known. At Lake Chambri, however, the Nyaura (West Iatmul) community Timbunmeli had accommodated Catholicism to their culture long before Operation Joshua came to their village. While Operation Joshua demonizes Nyaura spirits, the Catholic community understands God to be an ancestral being for whom different clans know different names. Taking a political ontology perspective, I analyze the encounter of Operation Joshua and Nyaura Catholicism in Timbunmeli in relation to cosmo‐ontological politics pursued by ambitious Nyaura men and different denominations. I suggest that denominational pluralism creates ontological pluralism in Timbunmeli, where different actors engage different truth claims concerning the being and reality of central Christian figures in their world‐making practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First advanced in a major essay published in 2010, Mark Mosko's 'partible penitent' thesis asserts that Melanesian and Christian cultures are based upon analogous conceptions of dividual personhood. Consequently, conversion in the region has been characterised by continuity rather than rupture, as argued most prominently by Joel Robbins. This essay offers an assessment of Mosko's thesis in terms of his critique of the theoretical and ethnographic literature and his recent application of the model to religious change in the Trobriand Islands. Robbins' work proves more convincing and provocative on both theoretical and methodological grounds. Yet both approaches, which frame their analysis of Christianity in terms of conversion, appear increasingly out of sync with the experience of the vast majority of Melanesians who are more accurately considered active participants in a diverse global religious tradition rather than recipients of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a majority Catholic country like the Philippines, it can be difficult to appreciate the true impact of Catholicism, beyond the obvious presence of Catholics. For the 'unchristianised' indigenous minorities in its peripheral upland regions, the role of the Catholic thought-world in shaping who they are today is masked substantially by their cultural distinctiveness. Missionary-dominated narratives in colonial historiography configure our understanding of the present, structuring our approach to anthropology in these peripheral spaces. This article argues that the diachronic component is necessary to make sense of how Catholicism has not only shaped the diversity of modern Philippine cultures, but also how it has configured cultural and political spaces so completely that, as anthropologists, we at times reproduce this thought-world uncritically through our own ethnographies. A focus on the so-called unchristianised Lumad ethnic minorities of Mindanao argues that it is essential to look beyond Catholics as obvious subjects when undertaking an anthropology of Catholicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as a starting point the 1981 volume Gender and Kinship: Essays Towards a Unified Analysis, we here outline our approach to bring together analyses of gender and Christianity in Melanesia. We argue that studies of gender and Christianity must go beyond studies of men's and women's respective activities or roles in the church, and rather interrogate the ways in which Christian morality and social life become gendered in various ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Christianity and kastom [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Vula'a villages of south-east Papua New Guinea, the experience of more than a century of Christianity has been incorporated into local understandings of identity and tradition. Church-building (in both the architectural and ideological sense) is at the centre of village life. Even though it was a general policy of the London Missionary Society to build a church in every village in which conversion was undertaken, they did not build a church in the Vula'a village of Alewai. In 2001 the fact that Alewai did not have a church initiated a chain of events that draws attention to a situation of current relevance for Papua New Guinea, as evangelists no longer work to convert the 'heathen' but to convert Christians from one denomination to another. As a case study the article is focused on the pastors and deacons of the United Church and thus also serves to document some of the changes that have occurred in male leadership since the early colonial era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between Christian worship and the production of religious identity among Auhelawa speakers of Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea. Auhelawa people live in a society in which a locally developed form of Christianity has emerged from a long engagement with missionaries. In the colonial era, missionaries spoke in terms of light and darkness to mediate their contradictory aims of both authentic personal conversion and total social change. Today Auhelawa believe that their society has been changed, and that this change entails a new way of thinking as well as acting, though like the missionaries they also struggle to express the relationship between the two. Viewing themselves as already converted, Auhelawa today use an ideology of 'one mind'-unity in purpose which is subjectively felt and outwardly expressed-to resolve how their collective worship relates to individual belief. This framing of ritual, embedded in church prayer and music, however, is always incomplete. I argue this not only points to an important step in the process of formation of congregations, but also suggests why Christianity globally is both unitary yet also so strikingly diverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Oceania, which is arguably both the world's most linguistically diverse region and its most Christian, Bible translation projects are sites where ordinary people pay attention to the kind of 'interlingual articulations' that are the focus of this special issue. This article focuses on an ongoing vernacular revival movement that arose from the translation of the New Testament into Luqa, an Austronesian language of Ranongga Island in the Solomon Islands' Western Province. In 2000, the head translator began running workshops that encouraged native speakers to appreciate the lexical diversity and learn the grammatical structures of their language. In the context of the Bible translation and these language workshops, the vernacular is understood to be, simultaneously, an adequately transparent vehicle for God's Word and something of value in and of itself. In elevating the status of the vernacular, participants also hope to elevate the status of local territories and communities marginalised in an increasingly English-speaking regional world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Aboriginal discourses in East Kimberley appear to indicate that Indigenous particularities are being universalised by evangelical Christianity. The aim of evangelical Christianity is to bring all peoples under the domain of one God. But counter statements by people of all ages reveal that the Christian universalising project in East Kimberley is an unfinished (and possibly unfinishable) project. Although Indigenous particularities contribute to generational conflict they are not disappearing, while Aboriginal people remain on or near the lands in which their stories are embedded. Locative traditions emphasise genealogical continuities between the living and the dead. Evangelical missionaries, however, direct spirits of the living to heaven and condemn spirits of the dead to follow Satan. One Aboriginal woman has reached a kind of resolution between God and Indigenous spirits: mamu and juwarri (spirits of the dead) are not evil spirits but sinners who will be redeemed in the Last Days.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers a range of Western Arrernte terms employed by missionaries at Hermannsburg to translate the Bible and the Lutheran liturgy and hymns. My argument is that initially words were employed as metaphors in order to convey a Christian transcendental and ritual order quite different from the Arrernte one the terms had named previously. I examine the events and the Western Arrernte response that, over time, redefined some terms and shaped an Arrernte Christian vernacular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various aspects of Christian belief and practice have been documented as significant across Aboriginal Australia. In recent years, many communities have been involved in seeking to achieve traditional rights in land and sea as recognised in Australian law. Asserting and proving these rights entails demonstrating continuity of traditional law and custom since the establishment of British sovereignty. While legal discourse indicates that this does not exclude cultural change, law and custom must continue to derive from pre-sovereignty traditions. This article addresses the extent to which Christian belief and practice have been articulated and researched in applied anthropological work, against the background of relevant academic studies. If a sophisticated theory of cultural change and continuity is germane to researching land claims and native title, what is the significance of Christian syncretism in Aboriginal relations with place and the inheritance of ancestral connections to 'country'? Several case studies are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the substantial Aboriginalist literature on Christianity, Aboriginal Australia has been largely peripheral to the emerging subfield 'the anthropology of Christianity.' In the introduction to this collection of essays, we argue that the reasons for its exclusion include Christianity's late arrival, its limited fortune in the colonial encounter, and its continued marginal role in organising the values of Aboriginal life. However, it is precisely because of the rather unremarkable history of conversion in Aboriginal Australia that our volume can inform current debates in the general anthropological literature on Christianity. As the essays concentrate on Protestant forms of Christianity in remote Australia, we address the ways in which Aboriginal converts experience what are often argued to be the common features of modern Protestantism, namely, transcendence, rupture and belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

original people's responses to different exogenous religious influences have not been uniform. Here I contrast Aboriginal responses to Christian cosmology with responses to New Age influences. I then explore the question of whether a comparison of classical Aboriginal religious thought with New Age ideas and values yields much in the way of similarities or compatibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]