Paul Gifford Livres

"Gifford knows his subject totally, has vast and wide-ranging sympathy for his subjects (though without being uncritical), and explores these themes with admirable intelligence. This book is simply the best thing out there." ―Philip Jenkins"Gifford's is an uncompromising, hard-nosed study . . . [N]o one can again look at the subject without at least a respectful nod in his direction." ―Lamin SannehIn Ghana's New Christianity, Paul Gifford considers the explosion of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa by focusing on one Greater Accra, Ghana. Gifford examines every dimension of these new churches and mega-churches, including their discourse, theological vision, worship, rituals, music, media involvement, use of the Bible, finances, and clientele. Ghana's New Christianity sets religious devotion into Ghana's political and economic situation and focuses on how fervent belief in success and wealth in the here and now can provide motivation to change in circumstances where it is so easy to despair. No other book brings forth the complex nature of Africa's new Christianity with such clarity or offers such a searching analysis of its power to tackle Africa's predicament.

'Religion' can be used to mean all kinds of things, but a substantive definition--based on the premise of superhuman powers--can clarify much. It allows us to attempt to differentiate religion from culture, ethnicity, morality and politics. This definition of religion necessarily implies a perception of reality. Until recent centuries in the West, and in most cultures still, the ordinary, natural and immediate way of understanding and experiencing reality was in terms of otherworldly or spiritual forces. However, a cognitive shift has taken place through the rise of science and its subsequent technological application. This new consciousness has not disproved the existence of spiritual forces, but has led to the marginalisation of the other-worldly, which even Western churches seem to accept. They persist, but increasingly as pressure groups promoting humanist values. Claims of 'American exceptionalism' in this regard are misleading. Obama's religion, Evangelical support for Trump, and the mega-church message of success in the capitalist system can all be cultural and political phenomena. This eclipsing of the other-worldly constitutes a watershed in human history, with profound consequences not just for religious institutions but for our entire world order.

The book explores the influence of Christianity in Liberia during the tumultuous period of Samuel K. Doe's corrupt regime from 1980 to 1990. It delves into how faith intersected with politics and societal issues, highlighting the challenges faced by religious communities and their responses to corruption and oppression. Through this examination, the study sheds light on the broader implications of religion in times of political turmoil.

Is African Christianity a religious marketplace now dominated by only two big players, the Catholic Church and Pentecostals?

A compelling analysis of the connection between violence and the sacred, using Rene Girard's mimetic theory to point the way towards Christian reconciliation.

This volume presents selected proceedings of a conference on ‘Europe and its Others’ held at St Andrews University in 2007. It seeks to explore the collective and cultural persona implied by Europe’s richly diverse gaze upon, and dealings with, non-Europeans, encountered or represented in the course of travel, trade, conquest or cultural exchange – and their gaze-in-return questioning ‘Europe’. The play of defining ‘interperceptions’ is followed here in a series of essays covering a broad spectrum of imaginative writings, film, history and culture theory produced in many European languages. Bringing together specialists in all these fields, this volume scans the unseen processes that the early twenty-first century has come to discern in identity formation: the role of gender as a paradigmatic signifier of Otherness; the narrating of history and memory; the role of border zones and marginalities; the hidden grammar of hostility and violence; the bonding effected by shared values and sacralities; public and private spaces of representation; the Other without and the otherness within. What emerges from this two-way play of reflection is a sense of the tissue of awareness of the cultural identity that is ‘Europe’; and, perhaps, a renewed openness to Europe’s Others.