Paper long abstract:

The spreading of charismatic and neo-Pentecostals churches in contexts of diaspora and migration, entails the creation of specific scenarios and issues. In the last decades the presence of migrants coming from Africa and Latin America produced the emergence of new configurations of Christianity in European urban spaces. The town of Lisbon is an emblematic case of religious encounter, a space of contact among different experiences of spirituality coming from the Atlantic shores.

The contribution is aimed at exploring the role of religion in the process of identity construction among migrant groups and, in particular, the case of African Pentecostal churches in Lisbon.

The analysis will be focused on the following topics:

1) public and private dimensions of religious identity;

2) transnational networks and processes;

3) theology of prosperity and migratory projects of the worshippers;

4) representations of gender and sexuality.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, based on fieldwork in Tunis, I will describe how, in Tunis today, men and women who chose to exit their Muslim faith and convert to protestant evangelism have to negotiate their place in different spheres. I will address three of these. On the first hand, I will look into the many ways their relation to their families may be reconfigured over time, from rejection to acceptance or resignation. On the second hand, I will outline how these new Christians relate to the State with regard to religious practice and civil acts such as marriages and burials. The Tunisian constitution states that its religion is Islam, while it also guarantees religious freedom. Converts are well aware of this constitutional right and intend to defend it if necessary. Finally, as a newly constituted group, the question of transmission of practices, discourses and values to the next generation is crucial, and I will analyse how this group's identity is delineated and maintained.

Paper long abstract:

The emergence of Pentecostal and neo-evangelical prayer networks in the last two decades can be understood as a new form of religious transnationalism. Prayer, as a highly intimate ritual form, spreads across many nations, connects individuals from all around the world and with different denominational backgrounds, and acts as a driving force in global Pentecostalism. Further, prayer chains also give rise for new 'sacred' landscapes which become negotiated and narrated in the religious imaginary. In my presentation I will examine certain transnational prayer networks and their impact on representations of the Self within those sacred landscapes. Prayer, I will show, transcends national boundaries and at the same time reinforces national and territorial consciousness. This way, the religious Self becomes negotiated between the local and the global, between 'sacred' and 'profane' landscapes, and between individual prayer and the religious community of a transnational movement.

Paper short abstract:

In the Faroe Islands, a new conception of relationship with Jesus gained some remarkable success since the 1980. The paper examines this intimacy with Jesus as a little revolution that allows social transgressions and builds a new type of authority and prestige.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to understand the great changes that neo-pentecostal and charismatic revivalisms provoked in the little nordic society of Faroe Islands. During the mid 1980', a new conception of Jesus landed to the archipelago, and quickly settled new free churches all around the country. So far it gained some remarkable success among attenders of traditional darbyst and lutheran congregations. Today, it is worth to consider it as a little revolution for such a conservative religious society. One of the greatest changes is the local conception of the god mad, the "good person". The paper examines how the intimacy with Jesus allows social transgressions and builds a new type of authority and prestige, and what are their influences on local traditional churches.

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