Institutions, Infrastructures, and Religious Sociality: The Difference Denominations Make in Global Christianity

Anthropology of Transformation

“…These arrangements complicate the image of 'civility' Hann proposed, pointing to the historical and institutional dynamics that allowed for 'civility' to emerge in its various forms in the first place. They resonate with recent calls in the anthropology of Christianity for a shift of focus from individual faith and ethical pursuits towards religious institutions and (infra)structures of sociality (Handman and Opas 2019), something that should concern anthropologists of religion more broadly. It certainly applies to our regions, where Muslims and Orthodox Christians live their faith primarily through collective practice and community, the focus on which would not only produce fuller empirical renderings of religion in the region but would also continue to provide a corrective to the 'Protestant bias' of the anthropology of Christianity (see also Meyer 2017).…”

“…The majority of us were not primarily concerned with inherent religious dynamics an sich, and here, we argue, our investigations may have fallen short. Yet, when we did examine religious phenomena more fundamentally, our initial insights became productive directions for research on religion in the discipline more broadly, like the renewed attention to religious institutions and collective dynamics (Handman and Opas 2019), the focus on conversion and the agency of religious actors (Pelkmans 2009), and the contemporary interest in morality and ethics. Indeed, if the post-socialist religious question was, for our group, mostly about politics and institutional dynamics, the following group led by Hann in the Religion, Identity, and Postsocialism cluster (2010), focused on 'Religion and Morality', looking at individual transformation and modes of self-cultivation.…”

Positioning Culture within Pacific Christianities

“…Like the intrinsically regional inflection of Pacific Christianities, the central importance of denominational plurality for the lives of Christians throughout the region has not received sustained attention within the anthropological literature. Far from occupying a deservedly central analytical position, the place of the denomination has instead been subject to ‘long‐standing theological and ethnographic traditions that have resolutely denied the importance of this institution’ (Handman and Opas, 2019, p. 1002). Despite this deep‐seated reluctance to prioritise denominational dynamics (for some important early exceptions in the Pacific, see Ross, 1978 and Tiffany, 1978), over recent years there have been some important insights into the topic.…”

“…Coleman and Hackett (2015, p. 8) see the generation of this kind of denominational plurality as a result of the ‘chronic tendencies of Pentecostals to break off from established groupings to create new alliances and networks’, while Meyer (2010, p. 122) has more specifically cast this process as a result of the democratisation of charisma opening the possibility for the ‘endless fission and the opening of new churches’. Within this denominational plurality, churches articulate their identities not only through theological and philosophical differences, but, moreover, through a myriad of material and embodied practices, such as comportment, dressing, speech, performance, church buildings and other infrastructural components (Handman and Opas, 2019).…”

“…The issue of denominationalism is central to all papers in this collection and marks an important contribution the special issue makes to emerging trends in the anthropological literature on Christianity in the Pacific. One of the paramount ways in which denominations simultaneously announce their identity and critique rival churches is through ‘elaborate theological claims and counter‐claims through which local people reflexively conceptualise “tradition” or “the past,” “freedom” or “constraint”’ (Handman and Opas, 2019, p. 1003). For example, Jebens has shown how, in Pairundu, Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, Catholic and Adventist churches jointly ‘presuppose a break with tradition’ (Jebens, 2005, p. 236) but that each denomination adopts a unique approach to how this imperative is articulated in village practice.…”