Modernity in Zimbabwe. The papers are presenting interesting facts and theories. Even if the four authors concentrate on different focus and different countries in their essays there are many similarities in the facts they present. I will not discuss all the papers in detail, but mainly relate to topics that concern the history of the Pentecostal Church in Burundi, with its roots in the Pentecostal Church in Sweden, the object of my own research. Finally I will raise a question that has repeatedly come to my mind while reading this issue, a question of scientific terminology. First of all I shall give a brief survey of the content of the four essays, one at a time and then compare some of the main points with my own research on Burundi. Much more could, of course, be said on these matters. 1a. Charismatic/ Pentecostal Appropriation of Media Technologies in Nigeria and Ghana Rosalind I.J Hacket concentrates on religion and media. Her aim is to show how the

No abstract

Emergent scholarship on the most radical technological invention of our time confirms what most of us know from first-hand experience - that the internet has fundamentally altered our perceptions and our knowledge, as well as our sense of subjectivity, community and agency (see for example Vries, 2002: 19). The American scholar of religion and communications, Stephen O'Leary, one of the first scholars to analyze the role of the new media for religious communities, claims that the advent of the internet has been as revolutionary for religious growth and dissemination as was the invention of the printing press (O'Leary, 1996).

In the absence of research on religion and the Internet in Africa, this paper examines select African Pentecostal ministries that are developing websites as a major new interface for interacting with their membership, with potential converts, competing or partnering religious groups, and organs of the media and the state. It argues that this new media platform constitutes an important site for the constitution of Pentecostal leadership in the contemporary African and diasporic contexts.

Recent theoretical perspectives on religion and violence and on cultural difference are grounded within a discussion of the discourses of demonism and satanism which have become increasingly prevalent in many parts of Africa today. These stem primarily from the popular deliverance-oriented Pentecostal ministries which flourish in countries like Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. Such movements are prone to violent condemnations of other (competing) religious options, in particular, traditional African religions. The article links these local expressions of `spiritual warfare' to more globalizing discourses of satanism, and points to the deleterious effects of such religious orientations for civil society, religious pluralism and freedom of religion.