The Thomas Souls Ministry – Onto‐praxis, Dividualism, and Charismatic Catholicism at Lake Chambri, Papua New Guinea
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18940486 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C Falck (0000-0003-2356-2543, University of Göttingen, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 89 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 301-315 |
| Publication date | 2019-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Oceania (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0029-8077 • E-ISSN: 1834-4461 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/ocea.5215 |
| OpenAlex | W2925033942 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 37 |
The Thomas Souls Ministry is a prayer group founded by Catholics from the middle Sepik. It is led by a spirit of the dead called Thomas who takes possession of a Nyaura (West Iatmul) woman to preach, prophesy, counsel, and heal. While a prominent debate within the Anthropology of Christianity argues for radical change and rupture with the pre‐Christian self and society, I suggest that continuity within change is found in the way my interlocutors have made Christianity their own. I argue that the local concept of the person defined by aspects of dividualism and reflecting ontological premises of people's lifeworld has strongly influenced the way Christianity was appropriated. In current religious practices people put these premises into action and reinforce them in intersubjective encounters with the divine other. Analysing people's ‘onto‐praxis’, I argue that the Thomas Souls Ministry can be understood as part of a re‐empowerment process that re‐appropriates local meanings, spirits, and practices despite, and in fact against, the influence of the Catholic mission proselytizing in the region
Charisma · Christian ministry · Christianity · Empowerment · Epistemology · Lifeworld · Political science · Possession (linguistics) · Praxis · Prayer · Social science · Sociology · Spirituality · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious studies · Religious Tourism and Spaces
Diverging and merging regimes of historicity along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea
‘You have to call the right name' – Operation Joshua meets Cosmology and Catholicism at Lake Chambri in Papua New Guinea
The power of things in a Catholic charismatic movement at Lake Chambri, Papua New Guinea
Positioning Culture within Pacific Christianities
Beyond rupture
Planning for later life
The Gender of God's Gifts-Dividual Personhood, Spirits and the Statue of Mother Mary in a Sepik Society, Papua New Guinea
The Supreme Sukundimi Declaration - Sacred Water, Moral Ecologies and Ontological Politics in a Mining Encounter in Papua New Guinea
Sepik Heritage
Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery
Stealing People's Names
Configuring Catholicism in the anthropology of Christianity
Social Structure of the Iatmül People of the Sepik River
The Politics of Incorporation
The (Re‐)Appropriation of Spirit Beings – Spirits of the Dead and Spirits of God in a Sepik Community
Third Wave Evangelism and the Politics of the Global in Papua New Guinea
Naven
Partible penitents
Ringing the living and the dead
On the paradoxes of global Pentecostalism and the perils of continuity thinking
The Gender of the GiftProblems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia
Crypto-Religion and the Study of Cultural Mixtures
Seeing and holding time
The Anthropology of Christianity
What is an individual
Dumont's hierarchical dynamism
Becoming Sinners
Intimations of Infinity
Cultures of Secrecy
Unbecoming individuals
Expanding definitions, contracting contexts
The varieties of Melanesian Christian experience
Beyond polarization and partition in Melanesian anthropology
Melanesia, Christianity, and cultural change
Partible penitents
The Anthropology of Christianity
Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture
Always been Christian
God Was Here First
Evangelical Conversion and the Transformation of the Self in Amazonia and Melanesia
Cosmology and Crisis in Oksapmin, Papua New Guinea
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |