Adriaan Van Klinken
Biographic Data
| ID | 205463 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adriaan Van Klinken |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adriaan |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Klinken |
| SIGNATURE | VAN KLINKEN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leeds |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2011-5537 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 58 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 140 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Introduction to Roundtable about Nathanael Homewood’s Seductive Spirits
This introduction sets the scene for the roundtable about Nathanael Homewood’s book Seductive Spirits: Deliverance, Demons, and Sexual Worldmaking in Ghanaian Pentecostalism. It positions the book in the broader landscape of scholarship on African Pentecostalism, while outlining its methodological approach, key arguments, and intellectual contribution, and briefly indicating the debates the book generates
A Hermeneutics of Life and Death, Liberation and Mourning
This roundtable was first convened as part of the 6th Es’kia Colloquium hosted by the Department of African Literature at Wits University, South Africa on the 15th and 16th September 2022. The discussion engages questions regarding knowledge production, method and (inter)textualities in relation to the book, Sacred Queer Stories: Ugandan LGBTQ+ Refugee Lives and the Bible (2021), co-authored by Adriaan van Klinken and Johanna Stiebert with Brian …
The Colonial Christian Kernel of African Anti-LGBT+ Politics and Queer Humanitarianism
Religious Leaders as Agents of Lgbtiq Inclusion in East Africa
When Ugandan parliamentarians passed a new Anti-Homosexuality Bill in March 2023, they reportedly did so under pressure from, and with the enthusiastic support of, religious leaders.1 In other African countries, too, recent legal and political struggles around LGBTIQ rights often feature religious leaders as key actors in campaigns that incite hate speech against, and contribute to the marginalization of, LGBTIQ communities and actively support o…
African Studies Keywords
Queer" is a relatively recent and somewhat controversial term in African studies. Yet it is proving to be productive, not only for understanding African subjectivities of sexuality and gender, but also for situating Africa's position in the larger economy of knowledge. Otu and van Klinken explore the productive tensions between "queer" and "Africa," and aim to read Africa as queer and to read queer from Africa. Thus, rather than imagining Africa …
Wangari Maathai’s Environmental Bible as an African Knowledge
Recent scholarship has acknowledged the contribution of the environmental activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Wangari Maathai (1940–2011), to African ecological and decolonial thinking. As far as Maathai’s engagement with religion is concerned, scholarship emphasises her critique of Christianity for its links to colonialism and environmental degradation, and foregrounds her reclaiming of Kikuyu religion and culture as a form of indigenous Af…
Abdellah Taïa and an Emergent Queer African Islamic Discourse
This article discusses the work of Abdellah Taïa, the first openly gay Moroccan novelist to write his queerness, as a major contribution to an emergent queer African Islamic discourse. Bringing Taïa’s work into conversation with diverse literary texts from elsewhere on the continent, the article makes two major interventions in the field of queer African studies. First, it centres Islam as a resource for queer agency, creativity and subjectivity …
Sacred Queer Stories
Presenting the deeply moving personal life stories of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees in Nairobi, Kenya alongside an analysis of the process in which they creatively engaged with two Bible stories - 'Daniel in the Lions' Den' (Old Testament) and 'Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery' (New Testament) - Sacred Queer Stories explores how readings of biblical stories can reveal their experiences of struggle, their hopes for the future, and their faith in G…
Sacred Queer Stories: Ugandan LGBTQ+ Refugee Lives & the Bible
Reimagining Christianity and Sexual Diversity in Africa
Religion is often seen as a conservative and retrogressive force in contemporary Africa. In particular, Christian beliefs and actors are usually depicted as driving the opposition to homosexuality and LGBTI rights in African societies. This book nuances that picture, by drawing attention to discourses emerging in Africa itself that engage with religion, specifically Christianity, in progressive and innovative ways--in support of sexual diversity …
Response by the author
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Religion, Gender and the Pluriversity
Christianity, Sexuality and Citizenship in Africa
The future of Christianity and LGBT rights in Africa – a conversation with Rev. Dr Bishop Christopher Senyonjo
In this interview, Rev. Dr Bishop Christopher Senyonjo narrates his involvement in LGBT advocacy in Uganda, and reflects on his pastoral and theological motivation and inspiration for this work
Changing the narrative of sexuality in African Christianity
This introduction to the special section dedicated to Bishop Christopher Senyonjo puts his ministry in the wider context of contemporary African Christianity, in particular African Christian politics of homosexuality and LGBT rights
Transgressions in Kenyan, Christian, Queer
Having spent some time with the contributions to this roundtable—digesting and contemplating their praises and criticisms of my book—I ended up thinking about the contribution of Kenyan, Christian, Queer to the field of religious studies. That question seems a relevant one to take up in my response to this roundtable in a journal called Religious Studies Review. Although I never intended this book as a methodological contribution to the study of …
Studying religion in the pluriversity
Taking up the concept of the pluriversity as developed by mostly South American thinkers, this essay shares some thoughts about what the study of religion/s might look like if we seriously engage with questions of decolonisation. I illustrate this with some specific examples from studying religion in contemporary African contexts
Religion in African literature
The study of religion and literature has emerged as a field of considerable academic interest. Although some work has been done on religion and African literature, research in this area tends to be fragmented and dispersed over various fields and disciplines. Reviewing available scholarship in this area, this article explores what engaging with African literary writing brings to the table of the study of religion in Africa. Focussing on postcolon…
Teaching & learning guide for
Towards humane scholarship
Kenyan, Christian, Queer
"Examines the role of religion in LGBT activism in Kenya. Offers case studies of creative forms of queer visibility through which Kenyan LGBT individuals organize and present themselves in the public domain while critically engaging and appropriating Christian beliefs, symbols, and practices"--Provided by publisher.
Religion and development in Africa
What is development? Who defines that one community/ country is “developed”, while another community/ country is “under-developed”? What is the relationship between religion and development? Does religion contribute to development or underdevelopment in Africa? These and related questions elicit quite charged reactions in African studies, development studies, political science and related fields. Africa’s own history, including the memory of marg…
Religions in Contemporary Africa
Out of Time
"Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality." The Journal of Development Studies, 58(1), pp. 210–211
Chosen Peoples
Men in the Remaking
The born-again discourse is a central characteristic of Pentecostal Christianity in Africa. In the study of African Christianities, this discourse and the way it (re)shapes people's moral, religious, and social identities has received much attention. However, hardly any attention has been paid to its effects on men as gendered beings. In the study of men and masculinities in Africa, on the other hand, neither religion in general nor born-again Ch…
Homosexuality, Politics and Pentecostal Nationalism in Zambia
Building upon debates about the politics of nationalism and sexuality in post-colonial Africa, this article highlights the role of religion in shaping nationalist ideologies that seek to regulate homosexuality. It specifically focuses on Pentecostal Christianity in Zambia, where the constitutional declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation has given rise to a form of ‘Pentecostal nationalism’ in which homosexuality is considered to be a threat t…
Gay rights, the devil and the end times
This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which…
Taking Up the Cudgels Against Gay Rights? Trends and Trajectories in African Christian Theologies on Homosexuality
Against the background of the HIV epidemic and the intense public controversy on homosexuality in African societies, this article investigates the discourses of academic African Christian theologians on homosexuality. Distinguishing some major strands in African theology, that is, inculturation, liberation, women's and reconstruction theology, the article examines how the central concepts of culture, liberation, justice, and human rights function…
Studying religion in the pluriversity
Taking up the concept of the pluriversity as developed by mostly South American thinkers, this essay shares some thoughts about what the study of religion/s might look like if we seriously engage with questions of decolonisation. I illustrate this with some specific examples from studying religion in contemporary African contexts
Male Headship as Male Agency
In some Christian circles in Africa, male headship is a defining notion of masculinity. The central question in this article is how discourses on masculinity that affirm male headship can be understood. A review of recent scholarship on masculinities and religion shows that male headship is often interpreted in terms of male dominance. However, a case study of sermons in a Zambian Pentecostal church shows that discourse on male headship can be fa…
Queer Love in a “Christian Nation”
On the basis of a study of a group of Zambian men identifying both as gay and as Christian, this article explores the negotiation of sexual and religious identity and critically addresses the "surprise" some scholars have expressed about the general religiosity of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) people in Africa. The study demonstrates that participants are not just victims subjected to homophobic religious and political dis…
African Studies Keywords
Queer" is a relatively recent and somewhat controversial term in African studies. Yet it is proving to be productive, not only for understanding African subjectivities of sexuality and gender, but also for situating Africa's position in the larger economy of knowledge. Otu and van Klinken explore the productive tensions between "queer" and "Africa," and aim to read Africa as queer and to read queer from Africa. Thus, rather than imagining Africa …
Culture Wars, Race, and Sexuality
In order to challenge and decenter monolithic narratives about Christian-inspired homophobia in Africa, this article draws attention to Christian countermobilizations that seek to affirm the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Africa. It focuses on the work of an African American organization, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM), to build a Pan-African LGBT-affirming Christian movement. TFAM presents…
Citizenship of Love
Against the background of the current politicisation of homosexuality and the policing of sexual citizenship in Kenya and other African countries, this article offers an analysis of the Kenyan gay music video Same Love, released by the band Art Attack in 2016. Employing the concept of acts of citizenship, the article foregrounds the political, ethical and aesthetical aspects through which the lyrics and images of Same Love perform an act of sexua…
Male Headship as Male Agency
In some Christian circles in Africa, male headship is a defining notion of masculinity. The central question in this article is how discourses on masculinity that affirm male headship can be understood. A review of recent scholarship on masculinities and religion shows that male headship is often interpreted in terms of male dominance. However, a case study of sermons in a Zambian Pentecostal church shows that discourse on male headship can be fa…
Pentecostalism, Political Masculinity and Citizenship
Africa has become a key site of masculinity politics, that is, of mobilisations and struggles where masculine gender is made a principal theme and subjected to change. Pentecostalism is widely considered to present a particular form of masculinity politics in contemporary African societies. Scholarship on African Pentecostal masculinities has mainly centred around the thesis of the domestication of men, focusing on changes in domestic spheres and…
Sexual orientation, (anti-)discrimination and human rights in a ‘Christian nation’
Zambia has recently witnessed heated public and political debates over issues of homosexuality and gay or LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) rights. This article explores these debates with particular reference to the new draft constitution and the role of the Human Rights Commission (HRC). Homosexuality and LGBTI rights became heavily politicized during the constitutional review process. Discussions emerged not only about t…
Religious Leaders as Agents of Lgbtiq Inclusion in East Africa
When Ugandan parliamentarians passed a new Anti-Homosexuality Bill in March 2023, they reportedly did so under pressure from, and with the enthusiastic support of, religious leaders.1 In other African countries, too, recent legal and political struggles around LGBTIQ rights often feature religious leaders as key actors in campaigns that incite hate speech against, and contribute to the marginalization of, LGBTIQ communities and actively support o…
Abdellah Taïa and an Emergent Queer African Islamic Discourse
This article discusses the work of Abdellah Taïa, the first openly gay Moroccan novelist to write his queerness, as a major contribution to an emergent queer African Islamic discourse. Bringing Taïa’s work into conversation with diverse literary texts from elsewhere on the continent, the article makes two major interventions in the field of queer African studies. First, it centres Islam as a resource for queer agency, creativity and subjectivity …
Religion in African literature
The study of religion and literature has emerged as a field of considerable academic interest. Although some work has been done on religion and African literature, research in this area tends to be fragmented and dispersed over various fields and disciplines. Reviewing available scholarship in this area, this article explores what engaging with African literary writing brings to the table of the study of religion in Africa. Focussing on postcolon…
Autobiographical Storytelling and African Narrative Queer Theology
This article addresses a methodological question: How to develop African queer theology? That is, a theology that interrogates and counter-balances popular representations of queer sexuality as being “un-African” and “un-Christian”. Answering this question, the article specifically engages with African feminist theological work on storytelling as politically empowering and theologically significant. Where African feminist theologians have used he…
Pentecostal intimacies
This article explores the intersections of gender, sexuality and citizenship in the context of one prominent neo-Pentecostal movement in Kenya, the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness (MRH) led by the charismatic Prophet David Owuor. Employing the concept of intimate citizenship, the article analyses, first, how MRH engages in a contestation of intimate citizenship in the contemporary Kenyan public sphere, especially in relation to women’s bodies…
Christianity, sexuality and citizenship in Africa
Citizenship in sub-Saharan Africa has undergone profound changes in recent decades as part of wider social and political dynamics. One notable development is the emergence of Christianity, especially in its Pentecostal-Charismatic forms, as a public religion. Christian actors, beliefs and practices have increasingly come to manifest themselves in the public sphere, actively engage with politics, define narratives of nationhood and shape notions o…
Porn in church
This case-study based paper on Uganda critically engages with the strategic visual representation of homosexuality as socially dysfunctional and non-productive, reflecting what in queer studies is called Ôqueer social negativityÕ.This depiction ensues from current popular Ugandan understandings of sexuality that are deeply rooted in the socio-moral order of family and kinship promoted by Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity.The Ugandan pastor…
Catachresis
Jesus Traditions and Masculinities in World Christianity
This opening article offers an introduction to the theme of this special issue of Exchange : Jesus traditions and masculinities in world Christianity. Highlighting the historical trajectory of feminist theological debates on the maleness of Jesus Christ and its implications for configurations of gender (read: the position of women) in Christian traditions, the article particularly explores two recent developments: first, the critical discussion i…
Karanga Indigenous Religion in Zimbabwe
When the Body of Christ has Aids
This article explores the global implications of the statement from African theologians that the body of Christ has AIDS. It will outline how these theologians employ the metaphor of the body of Christ to challenge the western world to enter into solidarity with Africa struck by HIV and AIDS. From the realization that the HIV epidemic is embedded in globalization processes, and from the understanding of contextual theologies as significant to wes…
The Ongoing Challenge of hiv and aids to African Theology
This article offers an extended review of some recent publications in the field of African theology and hiv and aids. Hence it critically examines the progress that is made in the engagement with and the reflection on issues related to the hiv epidemic by African theologians. The article notices the emergence of a new strand of Africa theology, a (liberation) theology of hiv and aids, which builds on and employs the classic strands of African lib…
Male Headship as Male Agency
In some Christian circles in Africa, male headship is a defining notion of masculinity. The central question in this article is how discourses on masculinity that affirm male headship can be understood. A review of recent scholarship on masculinities and religion shows that male headship is often interpreted in terms of male dominance. However, a case study of sermons in a Zambian Pentecostal church shows that discourse on male headship can be fa…
Male Headship as Male Agency
In some Christian circles in Africa, male headship is a defining notion of masculinity. The central question in this article is how discourses on masculinity that affirm male headship can be understood. A review of recent scholarship on masculinities and religion shows that male headship is often interpreted in terms of male dominance. However, a case study of sermons in a Zambian Pentecostal church shows that discourse on male headship can be fa…
Men in the Remaking
The born-again discourse is a central characteristic of Pentecostal Christianity in Africa. In the study of African Christianities, this discourse and the way it (re)shapes people's moral, religious, and social identities has received much attention. However, hardly any attention has been paid to its effects on men as gendered beings. In the study of men and masculinities in Africa, on the other hand, neither religion in general nor born-again Ch…
Taking Up the Cudgels Against Gay Rights? Trends and Trajectories in African Christian Theologies on Homosexuality
Against the background of the HIV epidemic and the intense public controversy on homosexuality in African societies, this article investigates the discourses of academic African Christian theologians on homosexuality. Distinguishing some major strands in African theology, that is, inculturation, liberation, women's and reconstruction theology, the article examines how the central concepts of culture, liberation, justice, and human rights function…
God’s World Is Not an Animal Farm—Or Is It? The Catachrestic Translation of Gender Equality in African Pentecostalism
Building on scholarly debates on Pentecostalism, gender and modernity in Africa, this article engages a postcolonial perspective to explore and discuss the ambivalent, even paradoxical nature of African Pentecostal gender discourse. It analyses the conceptualization of gender equality, in particular the attempt to reconcile the notions of ‘male–female equality’ and ‘male headship’, in a sermon series delivered by a prominent Zambian Pentecostal p…
Catachresis
Religion and Gender is the first peer-reviewed, international journal for the systematic study of gender and religion in an interdisciplinary perspective. The journal explores the relation, confrontation and intersection of gender and religion, taking into account the multiple and changing manifestations of religion in diverse social and cultural contexts. It analyses and reflects critically on gender in its interpretative and imaginative dimensi…
Catachresis
God’s World Is Not an Animal Farm – Or Is It? The Catachrestic Translation of Gender Equality in African Pentecostalism
Building on scholarly debates on Pentecostalism, gender and modernity in Africa, this article engages a postcolonial perspective to explore and discuss the ambivalent, even paradoxical nature of African Pentecostal gender discourse. It analyses the conceptualization of gender equality, in particular the attempt to reconcile the notions of ‘male–female equality’ and ‘male headship’, in a sermon series delivered by a prominent Zambian Pentecostal p…
Jesus Traditions and Masculinities in World Christianity
This opening article offers an introduction to the theme of this special issue of Exchange : Jesus traditions and masculinities in world Christianity. Highlighting the historical trajectory of feminist theological debates on the maleness of Jesus Christ and its implications for configurations of gender (read: the position of women) in Christian traditions, the article particularly explores two recent developments: first, the critical discussion i…
Gay rights, the devil and the end times
This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which…
Imitation as Transformation of the Male Self
St Joachim, who according to the apocryphal Protoevangelium Jacobi is the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the patron saint of a Catholic Men’s Organization in Zambia which promotes him as model of Catholic manhood. Through a case study of this organization, this article explores the intersections of religion, men and masculinity in a contemporary African Catholic context, in relation to broader discussions on African masculinities. The fo…
Homosexuality, Politics and Pentecostal Nationalism in Zambia
Building upon debates about the politics of nationalism and sexuality in post-colonial Africa, this article highlights the role of religion in shaping nationalist ideologies that seek to regulate homosexuality. It specifically focuses on Pentecostal Christianity in Zambia, where the constitutional declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation has given rise to a form of ‘Pentecostal nationalism’ in which homosexuality is considered to be a threat t…
African Christianity
Religion and the Inculturation of Human Rights in Ghana, written by Abamfo Ofori Atiemo
Porn in church
This case-study based paper on Uganda critically engages with the strategic visual representation of homosexuality as socially dysfunctional and non-productive, reflecting what in queer studies is called Ôqueer social negativityÕ.This depiction ensues from current popular Ugandan understandings of sexuality that are deeply rooted in the socio-moral order of family and kinship promoted by Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity.The Ugandan pastor…
Sexual orientation, (anti-)discrimination and human rights in a ‘Christian nation’
Zambia has recently witnessed heated public and political debates over issues of homosexuality and gay or LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) rights. This article explores these debates with particular reference to the new draft constitution and the role of the Human Rights Commission (HRC). Homosexuality and LGBTI rights became heavily politicized during the constitutional review process. Discussions emerged not only about t…
Queer Love in a “Christian Nation”
On the basis of a study of a group of Zambian men identifying both as gay and as Christian, this article explores the negotiation of sexual and religious identity and critically addresses the "surprise" some scholars have expressed about the general religiosity of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) people in Africa. The study demonstrates that participants are not just victims subjected to homophobic religious and political dis…
Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa
pt. 1. Pentecostalism as a public religion -- pt. 2. Broader Christian case studies and perspectives -- pt. 3. Christian subversions and transformations
Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa
pt. 1. The politicisation of homosexuality -- pt. 2. Global and local mobilisations -- pt. 3. Contestation, subversion and resistance
Christianity, development and modernity in Africa
This book offers a comparative account of two forms of Christianity in Africa, Pentecostalism and Catholicism, and their respective ‘public effects’. Gifford feels that the diversity between both ‘is unacknowledged in the usual studies of African Christianity, . . . [while] these differences have significant bearing on questions of development and modernity’ (p. 6). Chapter 1 – ‘The Issues’ – briefly introduces the major themes. It also attends t…
Pentecostalism, Political Masculinity and Citizenship
Africa has become a key site of masculinity politics, that is, of mobilisations and struggles where masculine gender is made a principal theme and subjected to change. Pentecostalism is widely considered to present a particular form of masculinity politics in contemporary African societies. Scholarship on African Pentecostal masculinities has mainly centred around the thesis of the domestication of men, focusing on changes in domestic spheres and…
Pentecostalism in Africa
Sociology (52 works) · Gender Studies (42 works) · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues (33 works) · Philosophy (31 works) · Political science (30 works) · Law (26 works) · Religious studies (23 works) · Gender Studies (20 works) · Politics (19 works) · Christianity (18 works)