Books by Karen Lauterbach
This book centers around mid-level charismatic pastors in Ghana. Karen Lauterbach analyzes pastor... more This book centers around mid-level charismatic pastors in Ghana. Karen Lauterbach analyzes pastorship as a pathway to becoming small “big men” and achieving status, wealth, and power in the country. The volume investigates both the social processes of becoming a pastor and the spiritual dimensions of how power and wealth are conceptualized, achieved, and legitimized in the particular context of Asante in Ghana. Lauterbach integrates her analysis of charismatic Christianity with a historically informed examination of social mobility—how people in subordinate positions seek to join up with power. She explores how the ideas and experiences surrounding the achievement of wealth and performance of power are shaped and re-shaped. In this way, the book historicizes current expressions of charismatic Christianity in Ghana while also bringing the role of religion and belief to bear on our understanding of wealth and power as they function more broadly in African societies.
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Papers by Karen Lauterbach
Migration and Society, 2021
This article discusses refugee-refugee hosting in a faith-based context. It looks particularly at... more This article discusses refugee-refugee hosting in a faith-based context. It looks particularly at Congolese churches in Kampala, Uganda, that play a crucial role for Congolese refugees seeking refuge and protection. The article analyzes hybrid forms of hosting in a faith-based context and discusses the implications of this for how guest and host categories are perceived. Four different patterns of refugee-refugee hosting are explored in which the relationship between host and guest as well as pastor and church member differ. The article argues that social status and hierarchies are important for how hosting is practiced. Moreover, religious ideas of gift giving, sacrifice, and reciprocity also influence hosting in this context.
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in Lauterbach, Karen and Vähäkangas (eds.), Faith in African Lived Christianity - Bridging Anthropological and Theological Perspectives. Brill, 2019
The prosperity gospel has gained visibility and prominence over the past decades as an empirical ... more The prosperity gospel has gained visibility and prominence over the past decades as an empirical and theological trend, as well as in scholarship on African charismatic Christianity. This chapter provides a critical discussion of how the prosperity gospel has been approached in the literature. It discusses in particular how giving and receiving, and the relationships this entail, has been analyzed from an instrumental perspective by seeing it as a disrupted relationship of exchange if the giver does not receive a material blessing. I argue that most analytical approaches have seen the prosperity gospel as a script in the sense that it is approached as a coherent system of thought. Instead of taking the prosperity gospel as the analytical focus, I suggest that studying different modalities of exchange provides a broader understanding of what is considered legitimate and what is considered dubious or fake in the charismatic Christian context and beyond. The argument of the chapter is that by combining the study of the prosperity gospel with an analysis of everyday theology we gain a more nuanced understanding of the role of wealth and money in charismatic Christianity in Africa that moves beyond what is encapsulated in the idea of the prosperity gospel.
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Cultural Entrepreneurship in Africa, eidted by Ute Röschenthaler and Dorothea Schulz, 2016
This chapter is concerned with the relationship between entrepreneurship and religion. It examin... more This chapter is concerned with the relationship between entrepreneurship and religion. It examines the making of Pentecostal churches and pastoral careers as a form of entrepreneurship and discusses what the religious dimension adds to our understanding of how entrepreneurship unfolds in Africa today. The chapter analyzes in particular how striving for and attaining social and economic aspirations can be fulfilled through a pastoral career in Pentecostal churches in Ghana. What is remarkable is that young men and women are able to ‘become someone’ in society, achieve status, and accumulate wealth through the making of pastoral careers in a general context where the possibilities for social climbing are constrained.
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Religion & Theology 21 (3-4): 290-308
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Religion and Development: Nordic Perspectives on Involvement in Africa / edited by Tomas Sundnes Drønen, 2014
This chapter draws attention to the ways in which spirituality becomes part of relations of excha... more This chapter draws attention to the ways in which spirituality becomes part of relations of exchange. It explores the ways in which these mechanisms of exchange take place and unfold among Congolese refugees in small Pentecostal churches in Kampala, Uganda. The chapter deals with the role of religion and spirituality in contexts of displacement and analyses spirituality (spiritual gifts) as an asset that can be exchanged for material goods, money and recognition. The spiritual realm takes on a specific meaning in contexts of displacement, where people seek ways of making a life in conditions of uncertainty and lack economic opportunities. Most often, religion and faith have been seen as providing hope and healing for people who have suffered distress and violence in relation to experiences of displacement. Religious institutions also offer a setting for achieving material support. This chapter argues that this materiality has to be understood as being strongly linked to the spiritual realm, which is exemplified by the revelation of spiritual gifts.
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Journal of Religion in Africa 35 (2), 2005
There is an academic revival in the study of religion and politics,
particularly with regard to ... more There is an academic revival in the study of religion and politics,
particularly with regard to contemporary Africa. No doubt fostered by a reflection on the rapid expansion of Christianity in Africa during the last century and on the contemporary rise of Pentecostalism and Islamism, there have been a number of attempts, from different disciplines and at different analytical levels, to make sense of the political significance of religion. At the same time, an increasing recognition of the numerous
ways in which Islamic ideas and institutions relate to and influence politics opens up the possibility of reframing the vocabulary used in the study of state-society relations. With this in mind, a seminar was convened in September 2004 at Roskilde University in Denmark, where a number of scholars from across the social sciences were able to share
current thinking on the role of religion in how power is organised and institutionalised in Africa.
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Book Reviews by Karen Lauterbach
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2016.32
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Africa, 2004
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Books by Karen Lauterbach
Papers by Karen Lauterbach
particularly with regard to contemporary Africa. No doubt fostered by a reflection on the rapid expansion of Christianity in Africa during the last century and on the contemporary rise of Pentecostalism and Islamism, there have been a number of attempts, from different disciplines and at different analytical levels, to make sense of the political significance of religion. At the same time, an increasing recognition of the numerous
ways in which Islamic ideas and institutions relate to and influence politics opens up the possibility of reframing the vocabulary used in the study of state-society relations. With this in mind, a seminar was convened in September 2004 at Roskilde University in Denmark, where a number of scholars from across the social sciences were able to share
current thinking on the role of religion in how power is organised and institutionalised in Africa.
Book Reviews by Karen Lauterbach
particularly with regard to contemporary Africa. No doubt fostered by a reflection on the rapid expansion of Christianity in Africa during the last century and on the contemporary rise of Pentecostalism and Islamism, there have been a number of attempts, from different disciplines and at different analytical levels, to make sense of the political significance of religion. At the same time, an increasing recognition of the numerous
ways in which Islamic ideas and institutions relate to and influence politics opens up the possibility of reframing the vocabulary used in the study of state-society relations. With this in mind, a seminar was convened in September 2004 at Roskilde University in Denmark, where a number of scholars from across the social sciences were able to share
current thinking on the role of religion in how power is organised and institutionalised in Africa.