Confession cum Deliverance:In/Dividuality of the Subject Among Kinshasa’s Born-Again Christians

Abstract

The article deals with the social significance of confessions among Kinshasa’s born-again Christians.1 Together with conversion narratives and former witches’ testimonies, confessions represent the main discursive rituals in the religious practices of newborn Christians. The analysis departs from the observation that among Kinshasa’s born-again Christians confessions are usually preceded or followed by deliverance rituals, and, that they are rarely acted out in an intimate and private encounter with the pastor. Rather, these narratives are usually expressed in public, preferably with the sinners’ victims as audience. The public nature of the confessions and their co-occurrence with spiritual cleansing as performed via deliverance rituals allow us to embark on an analysis that foregrounds the uncertainty of the Christian subject and the ways in which the subject can emerge but also be broken down.

“He Who Has the Spirits Must Work a Lot”: A Psycho‐Anthropological Account of Spirit Possession in the Dominican Republic

“…Some of these experiences and capabilities are consistent with models of a permeable self. Along these lines, Strathern () described a mode of personhood that proposes persons as relational and composed of divisible components and coined the term “dividual.” In the context of SP, dividual aspects of the self may account for the connections of a person with other social and even spiritual entities (Pype ). Connecting the perceptible human world with other experienced aspects is consistent with but goes beyond the characterization by Lester (, p. 9; see also James ) of the self as “epiphenomenal, arising from a buzzing, dynamic network of internal relationships rather than as any sort of identifiable, stable… state of being.”…”

The power of submission: Self and community in Fijian Pentecostal discourse

“…Relational or porous selves are also found within the church. Pentecostals in Kinshasa, Congo, for instance, see ties with the Holy Spirit and church community as replacing the influence of ancestral blood ties (Pype , 286–88, 298). There is a strong communal dimension to Pentecostalism.…”

Branhamist Kindoki: Ethnographic Notes on Connectivity, Technology, and Urban Witchcraft in Contemporary Kinshasa

“…The ways in which "connectivity" or "accessibility" is debated in contemporary technological cultures are of utmost importance for anthropologists, as this allows us to reflect on issues of personhood, subjectivity, and sociality. This draws attention to the dividuality of personhood (Marriott 1976;LiPuma 1998;Strathern 1988;Pype 2011) and opens up new realms for the study of agency, social (im)mobility, and power (De Bruijn and Van Dijk 2012). While personhood, the self, and interactions with Others (often spiritual others) have been studied within the medical and religious spheres, Pentecostal reflections on communication technologies force us to perceive the ways in which "contact" with Others (social and/or spiritual) can be initiated, mediated, evaluated, broken off, and even repaired.…”

“…Material is derived from ethnographic fieldwork in Kinshasa. Since 2003, I have been working with evangelizers from Awakening Churches (Pype 2006(Pype , 2011(Pype , 2012. Since 2011, I have begun conducting research among Kimbanguist (Pype 2014a) and Branhamist Christian communities.…”