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Media Development Vol LIV 1/2007

3 How do fundamentalists shape media 41 Pentecostalism, media and cultural agendas? discourse in Africa Stewart M. Hoover and Nadia Kaneva Ogbu Kalu

7 From ‘bumkins’to Baghdad:Fumbling 45 The unknown history of televangelism with fundamentalism William F. Fore Steve Rabey FORUMFORUM FORUM 12 Media, politics and fundamentalism in 49 Communication is peace: Latin America WACC’s mission today Dennis Smith Philip Lee

16 From the pulpit to the studio: Islam’s 53 New Convention for Persons with internal battle Disabilities Nabil Echchaibi

56 Congo’s hidden tragedy 20 Women, news and fundamentalism Hugh McCullum Sheila J. Gibbons

60 On the page . . . 23 Christian fundamentalism and the media in South India Pradip N. Thomas

32 Columbusday, hate speech, and American Indians Tink Tinker In the next issue Mass media in the Middle East and repre- sentations of the Middle East in the media 36 Religion, identity and dialogue will be the focus of the 2/2007 issue of Glory E. Dharmaraj Media Development. 2007(PL2).qxd 1/18/07 10:16 AM Page 2

This issue of Media Of course, we have to distin- EDITORIAL Development is based on the guish between the absolute need proceedings of that conference. for freedom of expression and In 2007 the Creation Museum R. Scott Appleby, co-direc- the mandatory imposition of will open in Kentucky, USA, tor with Martin E. Marty of the controversial beliefs. People dedicated to the proposition renowned Fundamentalism have the right to believe in that the account given in the Project, gave a public lecture angels provided that such a Book of Genesis is literally cor- during the conference called belief does no harm to others. rect. It aims to persuade visitors ‘Waging peace through the It is the negative impact of using a combination of anima- media: What can we learn from fundamentalist beliefs that gives tronic models, tableaux (pre- fundamentalists?’ rise to concern. Not the use of a sumably less than vivants), and The building of the Creation medium per se, but the use to a Disneyesque rendition of the Museum vividly illustrates which that medium is put. Not Bible story. Appleby’s contention that, the building of a museum, but It will be the Bible story as ‘Fundamentalists’ intriguing the construction of a cathedral ‘truth’ — apart from the adoption and adaptation of the of ignorance. By accepted stan- dinosaurs, which strangely most powerful products of tech- dards of truth-telling, it is fak- enough are missing from the no-scientific modernity, not least ery writ large. biblical narrative. That absence modern means of communica- In his book Faith in Fakes, has presented Creationists with tion, are of concern. Indeed, Umberto Eco points out that ‘to a conundrum: justifying the many of the ideological and speak of things that one wants existence of dinosaur bones in a behavioral family resemblances to connote as real, these things world less than 6,000 years old. — the envy of the modernist must seem real. The “completely In stark contrast, scientists and desire to steal his thunder; real” becomes identified with say that fossils and sophisticated the tactic of fostering a sense of the “completely fake”. Absolute dating technologies show that crisis and urgency in order to unreality is offered as real pres- the Earth is more than four bil- force a decision upon the poten- ence.’ Fakery is harmless when lion years old, the first tial recruit; the flair for the dra- recognized as such. But there is dinosaurs appeared around 200 matic and symbolic act; the a grave danger that fakery mas- million years ago, and they died shrewd, popular, and effective querading as truth and publicly out well before our first human adaptations to modernity — mediated acquires credibility as ancestors came on the scene . converge in fundamentalism’s ‘real presence’. John Morris, president of the seemingly innate understanding Eco also warns that, ‘On Institute for Creation Research of, and effortless manipulation entering his cathedrals of iconic in San Diego, an organization of, modern mass media.’ reassurance, the visitor will that promotes creationism, said Participants in the conference remain uncertain whether his that the museum affirms the were at pains to provide a defin- final destiny is hell or heaven, doubts that many people have ition of fundamentalism and and so will consume new about the notion that humans some of that debate is reflected promises.’2 It is an open ques- evolved from lower forms of in the following articles. tion as to what promises of life. ‘Americans just aren’t What has all this to do with heaven or hell fundamentalists gullible enough to believe that the Creation Museum? Well, it offer and how communicators they came from a fish.’1 is an example of using a modern should respond. This is, of course, a funda- mass medium (in this case a mentalist worldview: defined by repository of pseudo-scientific Notes one participant at a recent thinking) to convey one side of 1. ‘Museum brings creationism to WACC-sponsored conference on a complex story. The museum life’, by Dylan T. Lovan. AP, 31 ‘Fundamentalism and the media’ mediates a worldview directly July 2006. held at the University of contested by science. It offers 2. Faith in Fakes, by Umberto Eco. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986, Colorado at Boulder, USA, 10- seeming certainty and reassur- pp. 7 and p. 58. 12 October 2006, as a ‘strategy ance in place of doubt and for dealing with uncertainty’. rational inquiry.

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ple, a different fundamentalism emerged in the world media arena during the 1978-79 Iran How do funda- hostage crisis. Of course, this was also a major turning point in the West’s understanding of mentalists Islam and of the place of religion in the 20th and 21st century. Prior to 1979, it was easy for political and shape media social authorities in the industrialized West to assume that religion was a fading dimension of public life. The Islamic Revolution in Iran, agendas? however, was a wake-up call to those who held that assumption and introduced a decades-long Stewart M. Hoover and Nadia Kaneva reappraisal of a seeming religious resurgence worldwide. Without a doubt, the place of fun- The religion we see in the media today damentalisms within this resurgence has been seems increasingly polarized and central. Thus, in the years since 1979, media coverage has had to contend with the increas- embroiled in emerging fronts of conflict ingly complicated role of fundamentalist move- and struggle. The media are also quick ments in local, national, and global conflicts. to tell us that the religious impulse most responsible for this polarization is the Can fundamentalisms exist without the media? impulse to ‘fundamentalism’. The ori- Despite the success of fundamentalist groups in gins of this term can be traced to U.S. attracting media attention, their complicated th relationship to public communication remains Protestantism at the turn of the 20 little understood and understudied by scholars century, but the fundamentalist idea has of both religion and media. This problem pre- shown a protean tendency to expression sents itself as an important area of inquiry in a variety of religious and cultural deserving of greater attention. On one level, locations. questions may be raised about the ways in which fundamentalisms use the media and the fter public repudiation in the early 20th ways in which media cover fundamentalisms. century, U.S. fundamentalism regrouped On a deeper level, we might also ask whether Aand resurfaced, both in its original form, fundamentalisms might actually be a function and in the broader movement known as of the media age – in other words, we might ‘Evangelicalism’. Perhaps due to the global question whether fundamentalisms could exist influence of American media and American cul- without the media. ture, the term fundamentalism gained broad The International Conference on currency as a designation used to describe ten- Fundamentalism and the Media, held at the dencies that seem to have become a feature of University of Colorado at Boulder on October late modernity. This use has been particularly 10-12, 2006, was conceived as an effort to common in journalistic and media discourses, bring scholarly and professional attention to where simple and evocative labels are basic to this web of issues and stimulate interest in fur- conventions of treatment and coverage. ther research in that area. In his keynote Some may still argue today that the funda- address, Scott Appleby of The University of mentalist label should only be applied in its Notre Dame offered an excellent summation of original Protestant context, but that battle has the conference focus: ‘What concerns us […] is long since been lost in the public and media the fundamentalists’ intriguing adoption and spheres, where fundamentalism is a category adaptation of the most powerful products of used to describe a wide range of phenomena techno-scientific modernity, not least modern and movements around the world. For exam- means of communication.’

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Stewart Hoover (left) conference convenor, with R. Scott Appleby, keynote speaker (centre) and Adán Medrano (right) conference sponsor. Photo: George Conklin.

The conference was jointly sponsored by the London University’s School of African and World Association for Christian Oriental Studies, whose work focuses on the Communication (WACC) and the Center for Middle East and Iran in particular, Pradip Media, Religion, and Culture (CMRC) within Thomas of Queensland University in Brisbane, the School of Journalism and Mass Australia, who spoke about issues in South Communication at the University of Colorado Asia, Ogbu Kalu of Chicago’s McCormick at Boulder. The three-day forum brought School of Theology, who focused on West together over 80 religion and media scholars, Africa, and Steve Rabey of Colorado’s Fuller media professionals, and members of the reli- Theological Seminary, who discussed American gious community. Participants attended a num- Evangelicalism, among others. ber of plenary addresses, delivered by a selec- Along with a report from WACC’s Latin tion of prominent scholars of religion and the American consultation on fundamentalism, pre- media. sented by Adán Medrano and Dennis Smith of Headlining the list of internationally the NARA and WACC-LAC organizations, the renowned experts was keynote speaker Scott plenaries explored problems of religious funda- Appleby who, between 1988 and 1993, co- mentalisms in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, directed the Fundamentalism Project of the Latin America, and North America. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which The broad geographical and conceptual resulted in the definitive work on fundamental- focus of the conference was intended to accom- ism that he co-edited with Martin Marty. Other plish two main goals. First, it was intended to noted speakers included Annabelle Sreberny of acknowledge the position that there is no single

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form of fundamentalism and that no religion is of the film. inherently more or less prone to fundamentalist Some audience members struggled to recon- tendencies. Second, as conference planners we cile their personal impressions of the Jehovah’s were committed to creating intellectual and Witnesses movement with the overall positive social spaces for productive conversations portrayal in the film. This enabled a deeper dis- between the academic, religious, and journalis- cussion of the role that media can play in either tic communities. In this sense, the conference supporting or contesting religious traditions, was intended as an invitation to future collabo- and of the extent to which media frames condi- ration. It aimed to unsettle a number of binary tion our impressions of the religious world. The divisions whose rigidity inhibits broader under- opportunity to think concretely about a specific standings about religion and the media. case of religious mediation added an ines- These oppositions include essentialist dis- timable depth to the conference’s consideration tinctions between East and West, North and of its subject. South, developed world and two-thirds world, as well as between religious and spiritual tradi- Persistence of religion tions. As an academic forum, the conference Several areas of broad consensus emerged from also crossed boundaries between a number of the great diversity of voices and experiences disciplines, including religious studies, media represented at the conference. It was agreed studies, area studies, communications, history, that the scholarly tendency to see religion as a geography, languages, and cultural studies. residual and fading dimension of public life Each of these was represented in the papers under a regime of secularization is misguided. and plenaries, generating many opportunities What might have once been viewed as anachro- for debate and reflection. Finally, the confer- nistic is now understood to be deeply active in ence self-consciously attempted to identify history and, as such, warrants greater atten- points of contact where academic scholarship tion. and professional and public discourse can Recent academic work has been rushing to inform each other. catch up with the persistence of religion and its An important element of the conference was emergence in the most modern or post-modern the advance screening of Knocking: Faith and of contexts: the media. As religion finds its way Fundamentalism Meet at the Front Door, a in late modernity, it must contend with the new documentary to be aired on U.S. public media. The diverse range of conference papers television in the spring of 2007. The film con- demonstrated that there are a variety of ways siders a specific religion – the Jehovah’s that this contention takes place. There is the Witnesses – placing it in historical and social way that religions and religious movements context. In particularly moving scenes, themselves use media. There is the related but Knocking looks at how this religious move- also distinct question of the historical media- ment, often thought of as an expression of the tion of religion and the changes that emerging most closed and marginal tendencies of funda- forms of communication bring about in that mentalist faiths, has actually been involved in mediation. There is the way that religion is rep- important, even liberatory social action in his- resented in global media, both in journalistic tory. As all good media can, Knocking also and in entertainment forms. There is the way humanizes the Witnesses. that religious symbols and ideas have become The co-producers and directors of the film, iconic tropes in media discourse. Joel Engardio and Tom Shepard, were in atten- There is also the role that the media have dance and engaged in conversation with a assumed in what we might call new ‘civil reli- panel of conference participants who had been gions’ of nationalism, identity, and meaning. invited to make formal responses. This discus- There is the fundamental role that media play sion and the ensuing broader interactions with in representing ‘us’ to ‘them’ and ‘them’ to ‘us’, the full-house audience revealed fascinating that is, the role of media in religious under- questions both about the subject and the form standing. And there is the way that media are

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active in establishing and maintaining global rized this sentiment well when he commented ethnoscapes in an era of global commerce and that, ‘today, many young people around the migration. Other ways are emerging, will con- world are becoming accidental fundamentalists, tinue to emerge, and will demand study and some of whom seek to save the world through interpretation. violence. One of the challenges I have been Another theme that persisted throughout the wrestling with is the question: How do we conference was related to the problems of engage them in positive ways so that they see defining and classifying fundamentalisms. signs of life outside their theological/cultural Definitional debates, however, converged enclaves?’ around a consensus understanding best For all of its breadth, there were some sig- expressed in Scott Appleby’s notion that funda- nificant gaps in the conference coverage, some- mentalism is ‘a tendency, a pattern, a habit of thing that should be addressed as the discourse mind rather than something that is definite and progresses. Perhaps as a function of the particu- self-contained.’ This understanding, in turn, lar moment in history, there was a notable ten- encouraged a pluralistic approach among con- dency toward focusing on Christianity and ference participants who agreed that fundamen- Islam as themes among the papers. Having a talisms are inevitably situated within specific conversation that brought attention to these socio-historical, political, and cultural circum- two faiths was in itself an important accom- stances and are best examined in those terms. plishment. There was, indeed, something his- At the same time, it was widely acknowl- toric about the fact that experts in these two edged that there are common trends among religious traditions and their workings in a various fundamentalist movements that should variety of global contexts were gathered togeth- be recognized. In his keynote address Appleby er to consider the interactions between religion pointed out five such common ideological and the media. At the same time, other reli- traits, including reactivity, selectivity, abso- gious traditions, such as Judaism, Buddhism, lutism, dualism, and millennialism. Further, he Hinduism, and Sikhism, and other perspectives, observed the mutuality between fundamental- such as those of women and minority groups, ists and the media. Fundamentalist movements, were represented less prominently. he argued, use media, respond to media, are In spite of its gaps, the conference could be represented in media, and really could not exist seen as an indicator of the current state of without media. As Appleby put it, ‘fundamen- affairs in research on fundamentalist move- talist are “framers” of the highest order; they ments as they interface with the media. One know instinctively… how to identify, select, notable tendency was the number of studies portray, project and enhance the drama inher- that focused on analyzing the content of vari- ent in their religious/supernaturalist worldview.’ ous media as they attempt to cover religious Appleby’s observations, in a sense, tied fundamentalisms. Such studies are important in together the diversity of conference discussions. documenting prevailing attitudes in public dis- As the gathered scholars, media professionals course. However, the analyses of content alone and religious leaders interacted, they were con- can tell little about the ways in which funda- cerned to understand the sources, meanings, mentalist movements act strategically to set the and implications of fundamentalists’ attempts media agenda or take advantage of it. to shape media agendas. These concerns To generate insights about these processes it extended beyond academic analysis and is necessary to conduct ethnographic and cul- involved the civic and humanistic positions held turally informed work. This is a particularly by conference participants. The questions asked difficult task for researchers because fundamen- were not simply about what could be learned talist groups are typically tightly closed to out- about fundamentalisms but also what should siders. It is, perhaps, in this direction that the be feared or greeted sanguinely about the work collaboration between academy and the reli- fundamentalists do in society. gious communities can help to create opportu- Early in the conference, Steve Rabey summa- nities for greater access and understanding.

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Stewart M. Hoover earned his PhD in mass communica- tion at the University of Pennsylvania and also holds an M.A. in ethics. His research interests are in reception From ‘bumkins’ studies of media audiences and the related cultural impli- cations. He has focused on studies of media and religion, looking first at the phenomenon of televangelism, and to Baghdad: later at the cultural and discursive construction of religion by the press. He is the author of The Electronic Giant (Brethren Press,1979), Mass Media Religion: The Social Fumbling with Sources of the Electronic Church (Sage, 1988) and Religion in the News: Faith and Journalism in American Public Discourse (Sage, 1998) and co-editor of Religious Television: Controversies and Conclusions (Ablex, 1990; fundamentalism with Robert Ableman) and Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture (Sage, 1997; with Knut Lundby). Currently Steve Rabey at the University of Colorado, he is a Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a Professor Adjoint of Religious Studies and American In 2004, religion scholar Stephen Studies. Prothero wrote a review in The New York Times Book Review of James Nadia Kaneva studied at the American University in Bulgaria (Bachelor of Arts, Journalism and Mass Ault’s book Spirit and Flesh: Life in a Communication, 1997), at S.I. Newhouse School of Fundamentalist Baptist Church. In the Public Communication, Syracuse University (Master of review Prothero claimed that when it Arts, Advertising. 1999) and is currently a Doctoral Candidate, Communication. Expected Graduation in May comes to American religion, ‘the last 2007. School of Journalism and Mass Communication, acceptable prejudice is anti-fundamen- University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Her primary research agenda draws on critical theories of culture and talism’. That assertion may be debat- communication and explores collective identities and able, but I think many would agree memories in different contexts. My current work exam- with Prothero’s lament that, ines changing notions of national identity in post-commu- nist Eastern Europe and stems from a broader interest in ‘Fundamentalism has been scoffed at nation branding and public diplomacy as tools of power more than it has been studied.’ in the context of globalization and European integration. A secondary area of interest concerns identity and com- here are still plenty of people who scoff munity in virtual environments and online games. at fundamentalism, including some jour- Tnalists and pundits, as the following two WACC is extremely grateful to the examples from 2006 press reports suggest: University of Colorado at Boulder, USA, and its Center for Media, Religion and ‘Putting the mental into funda’ Culture for hosting and sponsoring the (a September headline in the Irish international conference on Independent about anti-gay activist Stephen ‘Fundamentalism and the Media’, 10-12 Green). October 2006. In particular, WACC would like to thank Professor Paul ‘…aside from some fundamentalist leaders, Voakes, Dean, School of Journalism and even people who loved The Passion seem deeply dismayed [by Mel Gibson’s recent Mass Communication, Professor G.P. drunken, anti-Semitic outburst]’ ‘Bud’ Peterson, Chancellor of the (a news report in Entertainment Weekly). University of Colorado at Boulder, and Professor Stewart M. Hoover, Director, But today more than ever, such attitudes Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, seem not only shortsighted but downright dan- and Professor Adjoint of Religious gerous. Sure, some people still associate funda- Studies and American Studies. mentalism with an image of backwoodsy, back-

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wards and backward-looking American labels. Also, allow people to characterize Christians. But such imagery fails to provide an their own beliefs, but be wary of allowing accurate picture of the origins of fundamental- them to explain opposing views.’ ism nearly a century ago. It also fails to make sense of the growing power and influence of Unfortunately, some writers merely echo the fundamentalist movements in most major faith rhetoric of gay activist (and personal friend) traditions around the globe today. Mel White, who issued this characterization in I am a ‘recovering fundamentalist’ who has a fundraising appeal for his activist group, written about religion for both the mainstream Soulforce: and Christian media for more than a quarter century. And no doubt, there are those who feel ‘The fundamentalist Christian leader, Dr my recovery remains far from complete! James Dobson, founder and chairman of For the last 20 years I have lived and Focus on the Family, has become the prima- worked in Colorado Springs, a city that I (and ry source of misinformation about homosex- others) have described as the ‘Vatican’ of uality and homosexuals in this country and American evangelicalism. (The analogy is far around the world….With your help we can from perfect, but the city is the place Focus on continue putting pressure on those with a the Family and dozens of other big, internation- ‘Fundamentalist Agenda.’ al, evangelical ‘parachurch’ organizations call home.) Some of the relatively few journalistically I have continually struggled with how to appropriate uses of the word have been found cover fundamentalism in my own reporting and in news reports about Warren Jeffs, the leader writing. I have also seen the term ‘fundamental- of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of ist’ used and abused by many other writers Latter-day Saints; and in the Christian press, over the years. In this article I will try to clarify where leaders such as Charles Colson have portions of the historical record while offering explicitly embraced the label, at least in part. some suggestions for addressing fundamental- And thankfully, when The New York Times ism more appropriately in the future. covered recent protests in Amish country staged by Fred Phelps and his notorious ‘God Hates Coming to terms Fags’ crew from the independent Westboro The Associated Press Stylebook 2005 counsels Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, editors had caution when using the word ‘fundamentalist’: the insight to avoid the convenient ‘fundamen- talist’ lingo and use the more appropriate adjec- ‘The word gained usage in an 20th century tive ‘fringe’ instead. fundamentalist-modernist controversy within One of the best uses of the term I have seen Protestantism. In recent years, however, fun- in recent months came from a singles ad in a damentalist has to a large extent taken on September issue of London’s The Times, which pejorative connotations….In general do not read: ‘Christian fundamentalist, protestant, use fundamentalist unless a group applies seeks tall white lady, 50-70, non-smoker. Not the word to itself.’ into drinking or dancing. You must live alone and want marriage.’ And more recently, the Religion Newswriters Association’s excellent booklet, ‘Reporting on Origins of a movement Religion: A primer on Journalism’s Best Beat’, Today, many of us struggle to stay on top of urges reporters to exercise caution: developments in our changing world, including globalization, regular changes in the technology ‘BE CAREFUL WITH LABELS. Many – we use in our daily life, and scientific break- including pro-life, liberal, and fundamental- throughs about both disease and the very ist – are loaded. Characterize beliefs with nature of human life itself. specifics rather than giving them general If you ever feel dizzy, perhaps you can

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both human and cosmic origins. Psychology and sociology subjected human behavior to unprecedented scientific scrutiny. And new reli- gious movements like Spiritualism, Transcendentalism, Unitarianism, Christian Science and Mormonism introduced religious diversity on an unprecedented scale. Immigration and industrialization unleashed drastic social changes. There was an influx of Catholic and Orthodox Christians, as well as Asians and European Jews. Many of these new- comers flocked to America’s growing urban centers, where they fueled the industrial revolu- tion and created unique cultural enclaves. Urban despair and poverty helped inspire a mainline Protestant “Social Gospel” movement which often placed greater emphasis on meet- ing people’s physical needs than on securing religious conversions. Increasingly, some believers felt a deeper appreciation of the words of the old revival hymn: ‘This world is not my home.’ And the popular Scofield Reference Bible led many to believe that human history was in its final ‘dis- Steve Rabey addressing participants at the con- pensation’ and the end of the world was near. ference. Photo: George Conklin. Some conservative Christians responded to cultural change by redoubling their efforts to understand the feelings of ‘culture shock’ and promote personal spirituality and morality, social dislocation experienced by the first peo- such as organizing more evangelistic crusades, ple in the world to embrace the name ‘funda- promoting temperance, and lobbying for the mentalist’. passage of Sunday ‘blue laws’. Meanwhile, In the late 19th century, a series of destabi- other believers came to fear that modernist lizing social transformations (like industrializa- ideas and institutions were eroding the very tion) and wrenching cultural conflicts (like the foundations of Christian faith. In 1910, some debates over higher criticism of the Bible and of these defenders of the faith published the evolution) that threatened America’s former first in a series of books entitled The Christian hegemony. So severe were the chal- Fundamentals, which would serve as a rallying lenges of the modern age that historian Sydney cry for the emerging fundamentalist movement. Ahlstrom said they represented ‘the most fun- The Fundamentals booklets featured articles damental controversy to wrack the churches by scholars (that’s Jeffery L. Sheler’s term, not since the Reformation.’ mine, in his recent Believers: A Journey Into Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was Evangelical America) like B. B. Warfield and merely one of many troubling challenges to were edited by Rueben A. Torrey and others. orthodox Christian assumptions. Higher Twelve booklets were published between 1910 Criticism subjected scripture to scholarly inves- and 1915, and all are still in print (and avail- tigation, leading many to question the reliabili- able on the Internet). They covered everything ty of the Bible and its God. Protestant from biblical inerrancy to personal testimonials Liberalism gained a foothold in many denomi- about the efficacy of prayer in ninety loosely nations and seminaries. The science of geology organized articles. wreaked havoc on long-accepted notions about Though well-reasoned and polite in tone,

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the books did little to change culture, so achieve even greater impact and influence. defenders of the faith began building their own Still, there’s much to criticize about new institutions. American fundamentalism, and evangelicals In 1919, some 6,000 conservative Christians have been among the harshest critics, beginning gathered for the inaugural meeting of the with Carl F. H. Henry’s 1947 book, The World Christian Fundamentals Association, cre- Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism ated to counter the more liberal Federal (reissued by Eerdmans in 2003). Henry criti- Council of Churches, which was founded in cized his brethren for condemning the evils of 1908. In 1920, a group of Northern Baptists Communism while ignoring the evils of called ‘The Fundamentalist Fellowship’ became Capitalism, and wrote, ‘Whereas once the the first to claim the name ‘fundamentalist’ for redemptive gospel was a world-changing mes- themselves. sage, now it was narrowed to a world-resisting As the fundamentalist movement gathered message.’ strength it sought to translate its ideas into More recently other evangelicals have criti- action by taking greater control of Baptist, cized fundamentalist failings: Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational and Historian George Marsden has called funda- Episcopalian denominations. mentalism ‘militantly anti-modernist Protestant After these denominational efforts failed, evangelicalism.’ separatist fundamentalists engaged in a flurry Joel Carpenter describes it as ‘a crabbed and of institution building, founding many indepen- parochial mutation of Protestant orthodoxy’, dent Bible colleges, publishing houses, and mis- and talks about the movement’s ‘cultural alien- sion agencies that would create the foundation ation, sectarian behavior, and intellectual stag- of America’s present, massive evangelical sub- nation.’ culture. In the long run, however, the self- Edward John Carnell, who had been raised a defeating belligerence of leaders like Bob Jones, fundamentalist, later received degrees from Sr., founder of an influential college, and John Harvard University and Boston University and R. Rice, editor of a newspaper called The served as president of Fuller Theological Sword of the Lord, led not to greater influence, Seminary. His critiques of the movement writ- but instead to increasing isolation. ten during the 1950s and 1960s called funda- The divisions within the fundamentalist mentalism ‘orthodoxy gone cultic’ and ranks resulted in the creation of two competing described the movement’s creed as, ‘Believe on organizations: the more activist (and now irrel- the Lord Jesus Christ. don’t smoke, don’t go to evant) American Council of Christian movies...and you will be saved.’ Churches, founded in 1941 by Carl McIntire; And Richard Mouw, the current Fuller and the more moderate National Association of provost, has frequently written about funda- Evangelicals, which was founded in 1942 and mentalism’s tangled legacy. positioned itself between the contrasting Mouw and Carpenter both criticize funda- extremes of liberal Protestants and conservative mentalism for its many flaws, but they also fundamentalists. acknowledge its accomplishments. In The Smell of Sawdust, Mouw mourns the fact that funda- Assessing the impact of America’s first funda- mentalism has left the evangelical movement mentalists with three common defects: anti-intellectualism, Although the movement didn’t achieve many of otherworldliness, and a separatistic spirit. But its stated goals, it correctly perceived that pro- things are not that simple: found changes were afoot in the world, and some of its leaders made a valiant effort to call ‘Anti-intellectualism is a genuine danger, but America and its churches back to their earlier so is a highly intellectualized packaging of biblical moorings. Even more important, the Christianity. Otherworldliness is a threat to movement left a legacy of institutions and net- the Christian community, but so is a thor- works that would help later evangelicals oughgoing this-worldliness. Ecclesiastical

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separatism is to be avoided, but we must sacred tradition which is to be reinstated as an also be on our guard against a vague inclu- antidote for a society that has strayed from its sivism in our understanding of Christian cultural moorings.’ unity.’ Both the Fundamentalism Project and author Malise Ruthven have explored ‘family Carpenter issues the following warning in resemblances’ among theologically unrelated Revive Us Again: ‘All Christian communities groups. are profoundly shaped by their cultural situa- My own definition would borrow the fol- tion, and revisionists who chide a prior genera- lowing concepts from the Fundamentalism tion for not seeing its own foibles and limita- Project: tions should know that some day their descen- The importance of a wholehearted religious dants will say the same of them.’ idealism; Historian Mark Noll’s acclaimed 1994 A belief that Truth (with a capital T) has not book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, only been revealed but can be accurately detailed the continuing consequences ‘the intel- grasped (at least by some male leaders) and lectual disaster of fundamentalism’. Alan effectively applied to contemporary problems; Wolfe’s article in The Atlantic Monthly in A robust counterculturalism that may seem 2000 explored the continuing consequences of inscrutable to outsiders but provides the only this disaster: ‘Of all America’s religious tradi- source of meaning for insiders; tions, evangelical Protestantism, at least in its An innate sense of the reality of good and evil twentieth-century conservative forms, ranks as well as the crucial role of the True Believers dead last in intellectual stature.’ in the cosmic battle; Kenneth Kantzer, a former editor of And a selective appropriation of aspects of Christian Today, discussed this problem in a religious tradition. 1996 interview for the magazine’s 40th anniversary edition. ‘Most fundamentalists A better way believed that the life of the mind was impor- As helpful as these tools are, I still think one of tant’, he said, ‘but they didn’t know what to do the most helpful approaches comes from Scott about it.’ Appleby, who sees fundamentalism ‘as a ten- In recent years, some of these anti-intellectu- dency, a pattern, a habit of mind rather than al tendencies have been reversed, as Wolfe and something that is definite and self-contained.’ others have noted. And at the same time, many The beauty of Appleby’s approach became writers have praised the logistical brilliance of apparent to me as I interviewed him for the both Christian fundamentalists like anti-abor- Colorado Springs Gazette in 1994. People have tion activist Randall Terry and Muslim funda- been quick to apply the term ‘fundamentalist’ mentalists who carried out the 9/11 attacks on to many of the evangelical parachurch organi- America. zations headquartered in the Springs, but Appleby told me that most of the time the term So, who’s fundy? does not fit. Discussing Focus on the Family, The term ‘fundamentalism’ is so problematic Appleby said: ‘If you look at fundamentalism that scholars, including those who worked with as a tendency rather than a definition, you can The Fundamentalism Project (see below), have ask that question in terms of when Focus does only reluctantly continued to use it. The fol- certain things and when it does not. Most of lowing scholars have made important contribu- the time, I would say they are not.’ tions in recent years. Although Focus is a $100 million-plus orga- Jeffrey Hadden has identified four types of nization, most of its most controversial posi- fundamentalism: theological; political; cultural; tions and newsworthy ‘culture war’ sound bites global. Hadden and Anson Shupe gave us one emerge from one of its relatively small depart- of the best definitions of fundamentalism: ‘a ments: its Public Policy division. ‘This organi- proclamation of reclaimed authority over a zational division allows Focus to play good

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cop/bad cop’, said Appleby. ‘This way, one side of the ministry can win ground by appealing to the mainstream, while the other side can engage Media, politics in absolutist rhetoric and condemnations.’ As for me, I have tried to use the word ‘fun- and fundamen- damentalist’ as seldom as possible in my own writing because I find that it typically generates more heat than light, leaving readers confused. talism in Latin And when I am trying to assess the theological position of people I meet or cover, I have increasingly tried to think of fundamentalism as America a tendency that most of us engage in from time to time rather than seeing it as an iron clad cat- Dennis Smith egory into which I can proudly pigeon-hole believers I consider less intelligent or less spiri- In 2006 the Latin America region of the tual than myself. World Association for Christian Communication (WACC-AL) held a Resources The Fundamentals (1910-1915). series of meetings on ‘Communication, J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism (1923). Politics and Religious Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947, 2003). Fundamentalisms’. The conferences Joel Carpenter, Revive Us Again: the Reawakening of were held in collaboration with the American Fundamentalism (1997). Catholic University ‘San Pablo’ of La Richard Mouw, The Smell of Sawdust: What Evangelicals Can Learn from Their Fundamentalist Heritage (2000). Paz, Bolivia, the Methodist University Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994). of São Paulo, Brazil, the Central Alan Wolfe, “The Opening of the Evangelical Mind,” The American Evangelical Center for Atlantic Monthly, October, 2000. George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Pastoral Studies in Guatemala City, Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Guatemala and the Methodist Seminary Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (1980); and Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New in Santiago, Chile. Evangelicalism (1987, 1995). Martin Marty and Scott Appleby, The Glory and the n all of the above conferences, speakers Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern made the obligatory references to the U.S World (companion book to PBS series, 1992). roots of religious fundamentalism. In a Jeffery L. Sheler, Believers: A Journey Into Evangelical I America (2006). broader context, we understood fundamen- talisms to be social movements that embrace Steve Rabey is an adjunct professor with Fuller Seminary unconditional truths expressed by authoritarian of Colorado Springs, and freelance writer/editor/consul- leaders who validate their position through tant who has written more than 20 books and more than charismatic religious, economic or political dis- 2,000 articles for publications including The New York Times and Christianity Today. A version of this article course. was presented at the International Conference on Fundamentalisms are strategies for dealing Fundamentalism and the Media in October, 2006. And with uncertainty and ambiguity, especially for portions of the article were adapted from ‘Fightin’ communities that consider themselves disen- Fundies’, a chapter in Milestones: 50 Events of the 20th franchised or persecuted and that seek to build Century That Shaped Evangelicals in America by Steve their identity and a sense of self-affirmation in Rabey and Monte (OP, but available at www.rabey.us). moments of profound and rapid social change. We began with the premise, succinctly stated by Chilean sociologist Arturo Chacón, that fun- damentalism is a product of modernity. More specifically, fundamentalism is a product of the

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deep cultural changes and social dislocation charismatic individual with a powerful plat- produced by modernization and industrializa- form from which intolerance can be multiplied. tion. Brazilian sociologist Saulo Baptista describes In our discussion we came to realize that fundamentalism as a system of representations most people demonstrate fundamentalist whose leaders elaborate a discourse that behaviors at one time or another, reacting with responds to the fractured sensibilities of the fear, disgust or intolerance to other persons or faithful in a post-modern world. Baptista has groups. We found this important because, in observed that fundamentalist discourse can ful- Latin America, where the rule of law is precari- fill people’s need for order and meaning in a ous, where violence is endemic, and where world that offers neither. many people feel alienated from traditional Baptista also asks whether the academy’s social and political structures, fundamentalisms protestations against the intolerance of funda- become another survival strategy, but a strategy mentalism does not reveal the implicit intoler- that undercuts a sense of citizenship, of active ance of liberal democracy that reserves for itself participation in the exercise of power for the a monopoly on the right to blaspheme against common good. Fundamentalisms can encour- all that does not fit within liberal ideology. age intolerance and the negation of the other. Violeta Rocha, a Nicaraguan Pentecostal We understood that there is a qualitative dif- theologian who is Rector of the Latin American ference between isolated individuals demon- Biblical University in Costa Rica, notes that strating intolerance and fundamentalism as a fundamentalism is flourishing in a consumer social system. To build a fundamentalist move- culture, a culture of desire in which individuals ment requires power. A radio or television pro- want to feel satisfaction. This moment in histo- gram, political office, or a pulpit can provide a ry makes people especially susceptible to the blandishments of prosperity theology, the Dennis Smith, President of WACC Latin notion that God wants God’s children to be America. Photo: George Conklin. healthy and wealthy, and if one isn’t, it is either because one lacks faith, or is living in sin. In this cultural milieu, divine blessing has become more linked to material prosperity, than to such intangibles as a sense of personal well- being, consolation or forgiveness. Both Rocha and Baptista described how, in a materialist, consumer culture, individuals can become disconnected from their identities and their traditions. Traditional religion as a path to the numinous, can lose its centrality in a community’s life when forced to compete with the concrete immediacy of consumerist gratifi- cation. In the words of the Spanish pastoral theologian Juan José Tamayo, ‘God has carved out a space in the midst of billions of inhabi- tants who have been progressively dishabited by a culture that pretends to abolish the mys- tery of things’ (Tamayo, 2004:51-53). We are witnessing the materialization of mystery. We also posited that fundamentalism strengthens male attempts to control women’s bodies, be it through the prohibition of abor- tion, the negation of female sexual pleasure, or

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macho social norms that propose to keep Chacón also argues that such myths are women pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. always cloaked in violence. Deeply rooted in While we found abundant anecdotal evidence the Latin American psyche is an understanding to support the link between fundamentalism that God cannot be domesticated, and that our and patriarchy, we also recalled that many profound longing for a personal encounter with Pentecostal groups, despite their sexist dis- transcendence is fraught both with mystery and course, end up providing unprecedented social with danger. spaces where women have found their voices In our conferences Violeta Rocha argued and begun to exercise control over their lives. forcefully that all Pentecostals are not funda- Where else can women in Latin America stand mentalists and that not all fundamentalists are up in public and pour out their souls in vibrant Pentecostals. Many adherents to Spirit-filled and eloquent testimony? Where else can religion, because of their faith commitments, women find a community of support to help are deeply engaged in social justice issues and them challenge their partner’s debilitating alco- have been for the last century. If Pentecostals holism or domestic violence? don’t identify themselves publicly with progres- Indeed, Richard Shaull and Waldo Cesar sive political causes it may be because of the found in their study of neopentecostal groups secular and explicitly anti-religious discourse of in the slums of Rio de Janeiro that women the political left. leaders in some local congregations, despite their formal affiliation with megachurches Brazil: A case study whose leaders own media empires and control Baptista looks specifically at Brazil, a country voting blocks in Congress, were creatively of 186 million people of whom 15% are engaged in battling gang violence, creating jobs, Protestants of one form or another. About 7 and building self-esteem (Shaull, Cesar: 2001). million are traditional Protestants or evangeli- However, these examples of agency exercised cals, while at least 20 million are Pentecostals by women tend to be individual or local in or Neo-pentecostals. Brazil is experiencing an nature, and do not threaten patriarchal institu- explosion of Spirit-based religion. Baptista cites tions. research documenting that Brazil has the sec- ond largest population of practicing Protestants Fundamentalism and spirit-filled religion in the world, second only to the United States. In recent decades we have witnessed the irrup- Baptista also emphasizes that fundamental- tion of charismatic religion in Latin America as ism is neither reactionary nor nostalgic. TV preachers and neopentecostal megachurches Fundamentalists, even if they employ the have become major players on the regional rhetoric of nostalgia, are proposing a return to stage. Simultaneously, we have seen deeply- the future, a utopia that has never existed. In rooted traditional movements such as Afro- Latin America, religious and political funda- Brazilian religions, Mayan spirituality and mentalisms have been able to build upon Kardecist Spiritism come out from the shadows modernity’s unfulfilled promises by offering to compete for the public allegiance of the their own visions of a brave new world. faithful. Baptista notes that fundamentalism enthusi- Chacón argues that Protestantism, with its astically embraces cutting edge technology. emphasis on reasoned theological discourse They employ strategic planning, modern orga- rooted in the thoughtful analysis of a written nizational theories, new information technolo- text, has served as a vehicle for modernization. gies and the full range of the electronic media – If traditional Protestants have sold their soul to all in service to their utopian vision. reason, suggests Chacón, then Spirit-filled reli- Fleshing out that utopian vision can be a gious leaders, to sustain their authority, must challenge. Historically, Latin American funda- reclaim their founding myths, and must either mentalism has been rooted in the sensationalist usurp existing religious institutions or create eschatology of dispensationalism as imported new ones. from the United States. Back in the 1980s the

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fundamentalist media agenda was set by U.S. course of prosperity theology can consider televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Rex more inclusive alternatives. Language is key. If Humbard. one seeks to unpack how and where God is As prosperity theology began to take hold in present in today’s world, and what are our the 1990s, Latin America’s religious entrepre- responsibilities as people of faith when con- neurs began to validate their ministries by pro- fronted with human need, neopentecostals will claiming themselves prophets or apostles, who not respond positively to partisan leftist dis- claim privileged access to divine revelation. course. Most of us on staff at Cedepca are able When so many apostles are promising material to engage such seekers because we come from success here and now, end time prophecies conservative evangelical backgrounds; we speak become somewhat passé. the language of faith and participate actively in Unlike other Latin American countries, some local churches. Brazilian Neopentecostal religious leaders have A non-sectarian approach rooted in our proved their ability to deliver the vote in elec- common humanity is also key. I have observed tions. Edir Macedo, the head of Brazil’s that many Latin Americans have embarked on Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and a personal spiritual pilgrimage that has taken owner of the TV Record television network, them from traditional Catholicism through tra- cut a deal with Lula that allowed Macedo to ditional Protestantism into Neopentecostalism designate Lula’s vice-presidential candidate in and then out the back door, thoroughly disillu- the previous elections. Baptista described to me sioned with organized religion. how big landowners, known in Brazil as Current statistics suggest that more than Colonels, have positioned themselves as region- 14% of Guatemalans, a profoundly religious al leaders in Pentecostal and Neopentecostal people, no longer identify with any religious churches. From this position they came to exer- institution. One is left with the impression that cise influence in regional and national politics. many Latin Americans feel themselves to be When fundamentalist leaders become so adrift in an ethical void and that religion, mundane as to define their vision as prosperity instead of providing a touchstone, a moral now, and to craft shifting political alliances of community, has become, for some, just another convenience, such short-sighted tactics would consumer product for individual consumption. seem to undermine their long-term credibility As people of faith, can we propose a com- and effectiveness. The most recent election mon ethical agenda? In our discussions I turned results from Brazil would seem to support this to that classic Christian apologist C.S. Lewis hypothesis: More than half the 513 congres- who, in The Abolition of Man, suggests that sional representatives were re-elected on Oct 1, the core teachings of diverse religious traditions but only 15 of the 60 members of the evangeli- can be summarized under the rubric of the Tao. cal caucus were re-elected. Adelor Vieira, the Key elements would include: head of the caucus, was re-elected despite being implicated in a financial scandal. It is not yet The law of general beneficence: all people clear how many representatives will choose to should work generally for the good of all join the evangelical caucus in the new congress. humankind and for all of creation. Then, the law of special beneficence: all people should Building engaged citizens? work especially for the well-being of their fami- Can people of faith who seek to build citizen- ly and their community. ship and work for peace and social justice Each person should respect their mother, their relate to people who seek God in neopente- father and their ancestors. costal megachurches? Each person should respect their children and My own work at Cedepca, a small ecumeni- their posterity. cal training center in Guatemala City, tends to The practice of justice applies to all human suggest the importance of creating safe spaces behavior, from the practice of sexuality to the where people who are imbued with the dis- rule of law: No to deceit, no to imposition by

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force, no to falsehood, no to theft, yes to struc- tures of justice that are effective, just and trans- parent. From the pulpit Each person should practice good faith and veracity. to the studio: Each person should practice mercy. Each person should practice generosity. Islam’s internal As professional communicators we also recalled that WACC has given us useful bench- marks we can apply to our discourse and prac- battle tice. We call these benchmarks the Christian Principles of Communication. They were first Nabil Echchaibi drafted 20 years ago by Michael Traber, who passed away in 2006: In February 2006, when Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American activist in Southern Communication affirms transcendence: when California who advocates secularism in we communicate with other people we affirm that God is present in our world and God Muslim countries, defiantly told an desires abundant life for all of Creation. Islamic sheikh on a widely popular Al- Communication builds participation. Jazeera news show ‘to shut up and lis- Communication builds community. ten, it’s my turn’, she knew she was Communication promotes freedom. making history on Arab television. Communication promotes human culture, cel- Never before has the authority of Islam ebrating diversity and defending the right to be different. represented on this show by a conserva- Communication is prophetic; it should pro- tive sheikh from Cairo’s famed Al-Azhar claim justice and speak truth to power. University been challenged in a similarly brazen way by another Muslim, and This summary is drawn from the following papers: Las much less so by a woman. raíces del fundamentalismo by Arturo Chacón; Fundamentalismos, comunicación y cultura by Violeta Rocha; Fundamentalismos, comunicación y globalización: ultan’s caustic comments on Al-Jazeera, in Desafíos pastorales by Dennis Smith; and which she describes the difference between Fundamentalismo e identidades no campo evangêlico radical Islam and modernity as ‘a clash brasileiro by Saulo Baptista. S between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Bibliography Ages and another that belongs to the 21st cen- Tamayo, Juan José. Fundamentalismos y diálogo entre tury’, may be an extreme example of dissent, religiones, Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2004. but her defiance mirrors a rising disenchant- Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man. MacMillan, New ment in the Muslim world with the official York. 1971 gatekeepers of Islam. The Internet and satellite Shaull, Richard; Cesar, Waldo. Pentecostalism and the television are full of emerging Muslim voices Future of the Christian Church: Promises, Limitations,Challenges. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI. who are seeking to redefine their faith away 2001. from the ghastly headlines of Islamic radical- ism. Today, decisions whether to wear the veil, grow a beard, eat halal meat, date before mar- riage, or get a mortgage loan with interest, can be influenced more by cyber discussions and popular shows on 24-hour Islamic channels conducted by charismatic hosts than by the eru-

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dite religious authorities of Al-Azhar in Egypt This individual input on what Islam means or the Wahhabi clerics of Saudi Arabia. has leveled the playing fields of religious Internet websites like Islamicity.com allow authority as Islamic theologians compete poor- visitors not only to conduct sophisticated ly with superstar television preachers and searches within the Quran, but also search for Internet bloggers with minimal or no theologi- marriage partners in an extensive database that cal background. This erosion of authority is returns glossy pictures and lavish descriptions also creating an unprecedented environment of ‘marriage-minded Muslim singles’. You can whereby the Islamic laity, boosted by improved also find elaborate recipes using halal ingredi- literacy, is no longer content with the role of ents, shop for an iPod that comes with the the passive quiet audience. Some have respond- entire Quran and its English translation, buy ed to this call for participation by joining Bin alcohol-free perfume, or listen to R&B and hip- Laden’s camps of terror, but scores of Muslims hop songs with Islamic lyrics. are peacefully learning how to liberate their On satellite Islamic television the staid, faith from extremist ideologies and seam its bearded and turbaned sheikh has been replaced teachings with modernity. by young, stylish beardless men and colorfully- Much like the Internet, satellite Islamic tele- veiled women, most of whom were formerly vision channels like Iqra’ (Read) and Al- unveiled Egyptian film stars. The boring half- Resalah (The Message) have been the laborato- hour advice show by the government-ordained ry in which the new Islam has emerged and sheikh is ceding way to a sophisticated line of evolved. The fact that satellite television is value-laden entertainment programming that bound, by virtue of its audience of millions of ranges from engaging talk shows, cooking viewers, to compete for market share, forces shows inspired by the prophet Muhammad’s channels, even the overwhelmingly religious culinary habits, sleek game shows, intricate ones to provide a space for alternative voices to soap operas, to reality television contests where emerge and widen the range of social and cul- young entrepreneurs devise plans without a tural topics on which Islam is brought to bear. budget to help charitable causes from Darfur to As a result, the direction and style of Islamic Kosovo. discourse is undoubtedly changing because it is increasingly pressured to account for what is New Age Islam said in alternative venues and engage the Welcome to New Age Islam. Here the feeling mutating socio-cultural universe of the Arab and experience of religiosity are more impor- world. tant than critical spirituality. Here the formula- Modeled after American televangelism and tion of the religious message; more than its religious entertainment, Islamic broadcasting content, creates meaning. Here the Quran is seeks a simpler, more moderate message that performed; not only recited. New Age Islam is rebukes radicalism and makes religion cool. a generally peaceful face of Islam deliberately This is a far cry from the customary calls of designed to fend off the lure of Al Qaeda’s divine retribution Muslims have grown to hear indiscriminate radicalism and fight the old from fulminating sheikhs at the mosque and on guard’s futile intellectualism. television. Since 9/11 a heightened scrutiny of Islam by the West has compelled ordinary Muslims New ideas, new programmes everywhere to define what falls within and out- The architects of the new Islam are younger side of ‘pure’ Islam. More than ever before, preachers with more business skills than reli- Muslims are called to task to explain and justi- gious knowledge. Some of Iqra’s hit shows fy topical concepts like Jihad, halal, fatwa, and were produced by Ahmed Abu Haiba, a 38- cultural traditions in Islamic countries and year-old who believes Islam could benefit great- among Muslim immigrants in western countries ly from the ways in which American evangelists like female circumcision, arranged marriages, have embraced modern media and mass culture or honor crimes. to popularize religion.

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A similar belief is shared by the general eager to spend millions of dollars to make manager of the latest Islamic channel Al- Islamic programming look as appealing and Resalah, Tareq Al-Suwaydan, a 46-year-old catchy as the sleek and racy Arab Superstar or Kuwaiti television celebrity and a motivational Arab Star Academy, two music talent contests speaker who teaches young Muslims how to similar to American Idol that drew millions of become effective business leaders. During his votes every week from across the Arab world. 17 years in the United States as a student, Al- Suwaydan was heavily influenced by Western Revolutionizing Islamic broadcasting entrepreneurial literature on self-improvement Al-Resalah’s first day broadcast featured a song such as Steven Covey’s The Seven Habits of by Sami Yusuf, perhaps Islam’s first superstar. Highly Effective People and religious literature Yusuf, a 26-year-old British singer of Azeri ori- such as Norman Peale’s work on the power of gins, had been a sensation before the launch of positive thinking and faith. Upon his return to Al-Resalah, but the channel used his upbeat Kuwait, he adapted this literature by making western-influenced rhythms and enthralling Islam a success formula for spiritual self-fulfill- Islamic lyrics as an indicator of its intention to ment and material achievement. revolutionize Islamic broadcasting. Yusuf’s Through Al-Resalah, a private channel songs range from joyful praise of the Prophet dubbed as the first Islamic entertainment televi- Mohammed to riveting pleas to revive the sion, Al-Suwaydan hopes to make the medium Ummah, the global community of Muslims, in the message. Islam, he says, is not supposed to the face of humiliating failures in Lebanon, be dull and irrelevant. Islamic values of self- Palestine, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Iraq. piety, hard work, filial piety, helping the poor His lyrics can be equally biting when he can be embedded more effectively in reality TV chastises Islamic extremists for committing shows, soap operas, game shows, cartoons, and ‘atrocities in the name of the divine’. Much like even music videos. It is a marriage of tradition the New Age Muslims, Yusuf, who sold more and modernity. than 1.5 million copies of his first two albums, Since its launch in March 2006, Al-Resalah is comfortable with his religious identity and has generated both praise and criticism in the eager to embrace modernity, even when that Muslim world. Some see its thin line between means interacting with and adopting Western religion and secular content bordering on culture. His sophisticated use of music videos heresy; others believe it is the only way to and his moderate Islamic message represent a derail mounting forces of extremism in the new balance for Muslim youth who feel equally region. Just like its on-screen graphics and stu- estranged by the moral bankruptcy of pop cul- dio sets, Al-Resalah’s programs are innovative ture and the excessive austerity of religious and edgier. Its shows expose some delicate real- extremism. ities like children and women abuse, drug and Yusuf owes much of his fame to Amr alcohol addiction, divorce, corruption, and Khaled, the pioneering figure of New Age Islam romance. Some shows feature veiled women as on television. Khaled, a 39-year-old former hosts, and although they are stereotypically accountant from Egypt, has become through assigned to discuss topics related to the family, his show, Sunaa al-Hayat (LifeMakers), a veri- some of these women issue fatwas, a function table sensation, a media phenomenon both in long reserved for male Islamic sheikhs. the Middle East and among the Muslim diaspo- More than the other dozen 24-hour religious ra in the West. His sermons, which can be channels, Al-Resalah hopes to compete with found on television, on DVD and video tapes in popular secular channels like Saudi-owned libraries and outside mosques, and on his popu- MBC and Rotana which feature expensive film lar website, sound more like motivational and soap opera productions as well as music speeches than religious advice sessions. videos from some of the most well-known His use of colloquial Egyptian Arabic – most artists in the Arab world. Al-Resalah’s owner, Islamic sheikhs use classical Arabic – his age, Saudi billionaire Walid bin Talal, is presumably and his modern look (jeans and polo shirts, or

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stylish open-collar suits, clean shaven with a common Muslims the first traces of an Islamic carefully-trimmed mustache) make him accessi- reformation, a grassroots clash between the ble to a disillusioned young Muslim audience. voices of moderation and those of dogmatic His Islam sounds exceedingly fresh as he tells extremism. them change becomes reality, not by controlling The Internet and television to Islam may as thought, but by accepting individual account- well be, as Aslan says, what the printing press ability and ‘breaking the chain of negativity’. was to the Christian Reformation. The fact that Khaled’s show LifeMakers is an elaborate individual bloggers, television personalities, and 12-step project with three phases that combine artists with minimal theological background a series of devotional speeches with the realiza- also get to shape their faith is an indication the tion of social reform projects helping with fight to define Islam will be long and brutal. poverty, unemployment, health, and small busi- Bin Laden’s radicalism and other forms of nesses. When he told his viewers in one of the Islamic puritanism may have obscured the early episodes to submit practical reform ideas more silent and less spectacular march of mod- to his website, he received more than 350,000 erate Islam, but not for long. ideas from 35 countries including the UK, But as the gates of interpretation open up in France, Italy, and the US. the Islamic world, it is still unclear what kind His faith-based social initiative is working of Islam will emerge in the future. Some of too. A number of LifeMakers clubs have been New Age Islam is still conservative, and for created by loyal fans around the world as those hoping for genuine reforms, it remains grassroots organizations dedicated to local indi- rather timid. But in the face of extremist bar- vidual and social reform. His calls to raise barism, conservative reform seems more and money for the poor are met with generous more appealing to Muslims across the globe. donations and dedicated volunteers who collect clothes, food, medicines, and offer computer Nabil Echchaibi is a visiting assistant professor of com- literacy courses for free. Positive faith that munication at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. His translates in effective action, he says, is a viable research interests include the political economy of Islamic satellite media in the Middle East and among the Muslim alternative to radicalism and government inac- diaspora in the West. His articles have appeared in vari- tion. ous international academic journals. Khaled’s detractors on the religious side accuse him of reducing a serious religious mes- sage to a soundbite. The old guard of Islam’s authority refers to his preaching style as super- ficial, air-conditioned, and self serving, but Khaled insists young Muslims need concrete reformers who would guide them; not simply tradition relayers who would flood them with Quranic recitations. So far, the audience seems to favor his style and he has plenty of evidence to support it: his website is one of the most vis- ited on the Internet with millions of hits monthly; his shows compete with the most popular entertainment programs; and his lec- tures around the world are quickly sold out. Other critics of Khaled are afraid his tele- vangelism and this entire trend of New Age Islam is nothing but a form of religious pop- ulism that will produce no tangible reforms in Islam. Yet, some emerging scholars, like Reza Aslan, see in the erosion of Islamic authority by

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gave, as one of its reasons for doing so, the lib- eration of Afghan women and girls from the Women, news tyrannical Taliban then in control of the coun- try; and more recently, in November 2006, and fundamen- when the leader of a fundamentalist sect prac- ticing polygamy was charged in the U. S. state of Utah with rape as an accomplice for forcing talism a 14-year-old to marry her 19-year-old first cousin. Sheila J. Gibbons The latter case confronts the practice of marrying underage girls to older men, common The rising influence of fundamentalist in this group, the Fundamentalist Church of religious and political leaders around Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Its members the world is a staple of discussion in believe that ‘plural’ marriage guarantees exalta- tion in heaven. FLDS teachings also require a mainstream media and the alternative woman to submit herself to the will of a hus- press, in online chats on web sites oper- band without question. ated by NGO activists and bloggers, The virtual enslavement of women by the and in media controlled by fundamen- Taliban and the FLDS – organizations vastly talists themselves. Among all these enti- different in scale, in nations thousands of miles ties there are wide disparities in how apart – has been possible because these two often and how candidly they explain groups have many elements in common: iron rule by patriarchs; a God-surrogate or surro- how fundamentalism is affecting the gates controlling every aspect of women’s lives; lives of women and girls. isolation of women from education, from civic life, and from travel. f particular concern is how traditional Yet news coverage of these suffocating con- daily journalism, with its pyramid of ditions for women occurs in a virtual vacuum, Oeditors and beat reporters, is being flat- lacking the context that would show that this tened in the name of corporate cost-cutting. betrayal of the human spirit is a persistent phe- With that diminution of resources and experi- nomenon with severe social consequences not ence we can expect to lose much of the journal- limited to Afghanistan or several closed com- istic enterprise that has ferreted out poignant munities in Utah and Arizona. stories of women whose lives have been limited Daily news coverage is usually event-driven, by religious and cultural conservatism. and never more so than in an intensely visual At the same time traditional journalism is age in which the availability of images influ- faltering, faith-based conservative groups are ences story prominence and placement. establishing and acquiring their own media However, much of what happens to women via holdings, the better to propound their doctrines fundamentalism can’t be readily photographed and build audiences for their messages. The or videotaped. result is fewer platforms for reporting, objec- Those stories require a different kind of sto- tively, on the consequences of fundamentalism rytelling, in which words are more compelling that force women and girls into second-class than images. Fortunately, there are journalists personhood. telling these stories with compassion and skill, but there are not nearly enough of those jour- Fundamentalism as news about women nalists nor enough of those stories. Of course, there have been times when funda- There also are not enough editors and mentalism’s impact on women made big head- reporters probing for the gender angle in cover- lines. Here are just two examples: when the age of health, war, education, public policy, U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and civic participation, and crime. The third annual

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Global Media Monitoring Project’s report, nary Catholic women, or women who disagree released in February 2006, found that only with the bishops’ positions, quoted. No repro- 10% of all stories in the global spot check of ductive health care providers were quoted. By media in 76 countries focused specifically on omitting comment from those who would be women. News about gender inequality repre- most personally affected by the bishops’ action sented just 4% of stories.1 and from secular family planning experts, With that performance, it’s easy to see why Townsend’s piece flunked the diversity of the news media are not delivering the full story sources and ‘connect-the-dots’ tests, and made of fundamentalism’s impact on women around women’s stake in this matter seem smaller than the world. that of the church hierarchy. In contrast, a few days later The Critiquing news coverage Washington Post produced a story that did I am sympathetic to reporters and editors strug- everything right. ‘Nicaragua’s Total Ban on gling to make decisions about how to use Abortion Spurs Critics’ ran on Page One, dwindling newsroom resources. However, the bylined by N. C. Aizenman of the Post’s for- media’s overall inattention to women’s plight in eign service.3 Aizenman described the quandary fundamentalist-dominated cultures and com- of a five-months pregnant woman who arrived munities, and the gradual mainstreaming of at a Managua hospital with a fever and fundamentalism into broader culture – such as abdominal pain. Two days later she was dead, when pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for and accusations are flying that a law passed a contraceptives on religious grounds – needs to week before she died that eliminated any change. If it doesn’t, we will have an underin- exceptions for abortion played a part in her formed populace excusing oppressive funda- death. mentalist practices as simply the local exercise Aizenman’s story included quotes from of religion or the exotic norms of faraway cul- women’s advocates, the hospital administra- tures, rather than violations of human rights. tion, the Catholic archdiocese which had lob- Even though we need more stories about bied for the legislation, the nation’s OB-GYN these inequities, it’s not just the quantity of society, and the dead woman’s family. It also news reports that matters, but the comprehen- cited pertinent information from the country’s siveness of their content. That means reporters health ministry. It was a 360-degree reporting should draw upon diverse sources and provide job that in my view was complete and fair to enough context for the reader to ‘connect the all involved. dots’ and draw an informed conclusion from the information provided. Missing vital coverage St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Tim The saga of fundamentalist Warren Jeffs’ polyg- Townsend produced an article on the U. S. amist sect and the legal case against him were Conference of Catholic Bishops’ recent reaffir- recounted in many press and broadcast reports mation of that church’s stance that artificial as his Nov. 21 hearing on rape charges contraception is immoral, even for husbands approached and then occurred. Most of the and wives. Townsend quoted bishops, acade- coverage focused on the star witness’ testimony mics, theologians, and Catholic documents on of the marriage Jeffs forced her into when she the subject. In The Washington Post’s edited was 14. But none of the stories I read broad- version of Townsend’s story, published Nov. ened the perspective to also consider the com- 22, 2006, not a single woman was quoted. mon practice of forced marriages of girls to However, in a version of his article published older men in the world’s poorest nations by the San Jose Mercury News, two women – (which the United Nations says means the girls both employees of the Catholic Church – were cannot complete their education and are at quoted.2 greater risk of being exploited and contracting In none of the various other published ver- sexual infections, including the HIV virus that sions of Townsend’s story that I read were ordi- causes AIDS).4

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Rather, the Jeffs case is being reported as if our miseries. It will require a very different Utah is the only place that the forced marriage approach indeed for those evils to be eliminat- of girls occurs. It’s an approach that echoes ed… And in fact, by reinstalling the warlords in what journalist-researcher Ammu Joseph found power in Afghanistan, the U.S. is ultimately in her analysis of news coverage of rape in replacing one fundamentalist regime with India, in which the greatest attention is paid to another.’8 victims (and offenders) from the middle or Womankind Worldwide says: ‘It cannot be upper classes, ‘while crimes against the poor, said that the status of Afghan women has the powerless and the distant tend to receive lit- changed significantly in the last five years.’9 An tle, if any, media and public attention.’5 Oxfam report released Nov, 27, 2006, said that After the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban only one in five girls attend primary school, the assumed control of Afghanistan in 1996, they ratio reaching one in 20 at secondary school began forcing Afghan women and girls into level.10 tighter and darker corners of society, depriving The point about exchanging one set of them of employment, health care, and school- oppressors for another has not gone unreported ing. But the world’s media didn’t turn a bright in the world’s media. But the continuing crisis light on these practices until October 2001, for Afghanistan’s women and girls has received when the United States and other Western much less notice than the early optimistic and, countries invaded Afghanistan in search of al as it turns out, exaggerated reports of their lib- Qaeda operatives. ‘The oppression of Afghan eration did. An exception is the excellent Nov. women by fundamentalist groups was barely 28, 2006 report by Natasha Walter of The addressed by the corporate media until it Guardian, (‘We are just watching things get proved rhetorically useful for U.S. elites to worse’)11 which compares women’s situation in argue for military intervention as a means to Afghanistan today with five years ago. liberate the women of that country,’ argued scholars Carol A. Stabile and Deepa Kumar.6 Many stories waiting to be told Several months after the invasion, in March These are but a few examples of recent report- 2002, U.S. first lady Laura Bush gave a sunny ing on the intersection of gender and funda- report on the future for Afghan women and mentalism. Many others can be explored: the girls on International Women’s Day to an audi- re-emergence of the long-banned practice of ence at the United Nations. Subsequent press sati (widow immolation) in India, female feti- reports focused on the positives in Mrs. Bush’s cide in India and China, feminine genital muti- speech: Afghan women starting bakeries, their lation (also known as female circumcision) in daughters returning to reopened schools, Africa. American schoolchildren collecting money to It’s also important that journalists track fun- buy books for Afghan students. However, by damentalist trends in mainline religious denom- December of that year, Human Rights Watch inations, such as the Southern Baptist said that Afghan females had suffered mount- Convention. The second largest religious body ing abuses, harassment and restrictions of their in the United States (after Roman Catholics), fundamental human rights during 2002.7 the SBC requires a married female member ‘to According to the Revolutionary Association submit herself graciously to the servant leader- of the Women of Afghanistan, the incidence of ship of her husband,’ and bars women from rape and forced marriage is on the rise again, being pastors. and most women continue to wear the burqa In this form of fundamentalism (which obvi- out of fear for their safety. ‘The level of every- ously is not limited to the Southern Baptists or day violence in Afghanistan is something we to Christians) subordination of women to men would find it hard to imagine,’ the RAWA web is formalized, not only curbing the full expres- site says. ‘The “war on terrorism” has removed sion of their spiritual selves but also implying the Taliban, but it has not removed religious that they are ill-suited to any role that would fundamentalism, which is the main cause of all elevate them to a position of authority over a

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male. That – and the considerable influence proponents of such a philosophy have in poli- tics, especially in the United States – is a story Christian funda- worth following. To the extent that journalism fails to ‘con- mentalism and nect the dots’ between fundamentalism and societies made fragile by denying women equal rights, we will be disadvantaged in a quest to the media in achieve politically stable environments in which all can thrive. South India Notes 1. Global Media Monitoring Project 2005, Pradip N. Thomas http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ 2. Tim Townsend, Bishops at odds with parishioners on subject of contraception, Nov. 18, 2006 The turn towards Hindu nationalism in http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/nati India has been a subject of academic on/16047550.htm study for over two decades. Events such 3. N. C. Aizenman, ‘Nicaragua’s Total Ban on Abortion Spurs Critics,’ The Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2006, p. as the pogroms (February-April 2002), A1 against Muslims in Gujarat immediately 4. UN joins in 16-day campaign to fight violence against after the Godhra killings in February women, Nov. 24, 2006, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20722 2002, the murder of the Australian- 5. Ammu Joseph, ‘Days of our lives: women and news in born evangelist Graham Staines India,’ presentation to the Symposium on Women and News, Dresden, Germany, June 18, 2006 (January 1999) and the destruction of 6. Carol A. Stabile and Deepa Kumar, ‘Unveiling imperial- the Babri Masjid (December 1992) ism: media, gender and the war on Afghanistan,’ Media, received international and national Culture and Society 27(5), 2005. 7. Human Rights Watch, ‘Afghanistan: Women still not media coverage. liberated,’ Dec. 17, 2002, http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm n the three instances mentioned above, 8. http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html members belonging to the Sangh Parivar, the 9. Womankind Worldwide, ‘Don’t forget the women of family of right-wing Hindu organisations Afghanistan,’ http://www.global-sisterhood- I network.org/content/view/1383/59/ who gave ideological succour and people-sup- 10. Oxfam, ‘Seven million Afghan children missing an port for the previous Hindu nationalist, education, warns Oxfam ahead of NATO summit on Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) government in Afghanistan,’ http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleas- India, have either been charged with aiding and es2006/pr061127_education abetting violence against minorities or are in 11. Natasha Walter, ‘We are just watching things get worse,’ The Guardian, Nov. 28, 2006, the process of being charged for the offences. http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1958707, The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, including 00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1) recent events such as the railway bombings in Mumbai (July 2006), has also received cover- Sheila Gibbons is editor of Media Report to Women age in the national and international media and (www.mediareporttowomen.com), a quarterly news jour- become part of global academic discourses nal of research and commentary on women and media. She is co-author of Taking Their Place: A Documentary involved in either understanding, supporting or History of Women and Journalism (Strata Publishing), contesting the ‘war against terror’. which received the ‘Texty’ Textbook Excellence Award Christians in India have generally had a pos- from the Text and Academic Authors Association, and of itive image in the media and the national imag- Exploring Mass Media for A Changing World (Erlbaum). inary given their involvement in education at She also writes the ‘Uncovering Gender’ column for Women’s eNews (www.womensenews.org). school and college levels, in health care and national development. As a relatively small minority (2.4% of the population), their pres-

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ence or expressions, have traditionally not been Christian fundamentalism in India has rarely a cause for concern, or viewed as a threat to figured as an academic project except the study majoritarian identities and futures. This stands by Lionel Caplan (1987) ‘Fundamentalism as a in contrast to Muslims who at close to 10% of Counter-Culture: Protestants in Urban South the population are significantly present in most India’, and in the recent past, the investigative parts of India, are involved in the very trades writing by Edna Fernandes (2006) ‘Holy and professions that lower and middle class Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Christian Hindus are either involved in or covet, and Fundamentalism’. whose involvement in bloodletting during the The latter has sections on Christian Partition of India, presence in neighbouring Fundamentalists in two states in India, Goa and Pakistan and in disputes over Kashmir, have Nagaland, and indicates that there are contest- made them a suspect population among the ed issues arising from the practices of conserva- Hindu nationalists in particular. tive Christianity in India. There is, in the on- Their ideologues have made determined line world, a vast amount of information on efforts, offline and online, to de-legitimise and the activities of Christian groups in India on problematise the Muslim Indian binary. Evelyn web-sites supported by the Hindu right-wing Kallen (1998: 7) describes the ways in which and concerned secular groups with this ‘invalidation’ is constructed via a sequence www.Christiansagainstaggression.org being the of three main stages: most informative site that monitors the activi- ties of Christian mission in India. ‘Invalidation myth (prejudice): definition of While Muslims remain the major target for target group as inferior and/or dangerous. Hindu nationalists, the rise of muscular Invalidation ideology: development of theory Hinduism between 1980-2005, and in particu- of vilification and provision of supporting lar, their involvement in government, led to the arguments and “evidence “ to “justify” creation of national projects and spaces direct- denial of fundamental human rights. ed towards the interrogation of religious Platform for action: incitement to hatred minorities inclusive of Christians, that were and harm (discriminatory action); denial of earnestly pursued by various groups within the human rights.’ Sangh Parivar, particularly by diaspora Hindus based the USA. Christian fundamentalism in India The ex-Minister of Divestment, Even to suggest that there is a relationship Communication and Information Technology in between the media and Christian India, Arun Shourie’s (1994, 2000) critiques of Fundamentalism in Chennai, South India, Christian mission lent this project academic might seem odd to readers of Media respectability. Shourie’s trenchant account of Development, whose prior knowledge of the historical and contemporary Christian mission, subject is perhaps limited to the influence of the in particular Catholic mission, is difficult to religious right-wing on the Bush administration contest given that education and health were or/and the rise and fall of tele-evangelists such and are used by a variety of Christian denomi- as Jimmy Swaggart and in the recent past, the nations, as entry points for Christian conver- evangelist Ted Haggard, the president of the 30 sion. The ‘rice Christian’ and of late the ‘tsuna- million member National Association of mi Christian’ is a reality in India. Evangelicals in the USA. While the historical churches in India, in Some readers will have knowledge of the particular the Syrian Orthodox, have been relationship between the media, politics and chary of embarking on any aggressive form of religion in Brazil – the Tele Rede network in Christian expansionism, some post-colonial Brazil owned by Edir Macedo and his Universal churches – Catholic and Protestant – certainly Church of the Reign of God, and the ex- have taken seriously the Biblical injunction to President of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba’s brand proclaim the Word and to ‘make all nations of politicised, conservative Christianity. But Christian’. While the traditions of mainstream

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New Life Church, Chennai, India.

Christian mission, for the most part, continue These churches are involved in catering to to be carried out within the larger framework niche groups – the urban poor, youth, the new of respect for religious pluralism and secular- rich. ism and the constitutional framework of They are not accountable to a synod or to a respect for faith communities, the exponential larger authority, and as a result there is little or growth of Pentecostal and in particular neo- no oversight on how moneys are spent.. Pentecostal churches in India over the last two They receive large amounts of foreign contri- decades has been accompanied by altogether butions. more aggressive projects of Christian mission. Many are family-based and run. These churches, para-churches, house While there are differences in style and churches, Christian associations and networks approach, these churches share certain ‘funda- that can be counted in the thousands all over mentals’ – Biblical inerrancy, the need to be India share a number of characteristics: ‘born again’, salvation for the elect, etc. Many are involved in media ministries includ- They are independent of the mainstream ing Christian broadcasting. Christian churches in India. In terms of numbers they can vary from a Why Chennai? handful of members who belong to a house I chose Chennai for my study because of a church to an Assemblies of God mega-church familiarity with the city of my birth but also that has tens of thousands of members. because the various denominations representa-

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tive of Protestant Christianity have had a signif- a reflection of the changing nature of needs and icant historical presence in the state of expectations of people living in the context of Tamilnadu. The Church of South India, the accentuated forms of economic globalisation. first expression of the ecumenical movement, While India remains a predominantly agricul- was established in Madras in 1948. The tural country, economic liberalisation, the dis- Pentecostals have been around for decades course of Hindu nationalism, the success of the (Burgess: 2001), so has Christian broadcasting IT economy and the media revolution have and this city today is considered the fastest contributed to the strengthening of an urban growing hub of Christianity in South Asia. identity and to the re-creation of the image of a 1) According to the 2001 census, 5.2% (3.8 new, self-assured and self-confident nation. million) of the 62 million people in Tamilnadu While there is no denying the successes of are Christian. This figure, along with figures the Indian economy, its obverse, including the for the whole of India that suggests a decline in adverse consequences of globalisation, has not Christian numbers between 1991 and 2001 made the news to the extent that it should. The (2.4 to 2.3%) is contested. death of agriculture has led to migration to 2) Southern Tamilnadu was the first mission already over-crowded cities, Structural field in India to be actively wooed by Adjustment Policies have led to the gradual Protestant missionaries starting with the withdrawal of government support for rural Tranquebar Mission that was established by the development, starvation-related deaths are now Royal Danish Missionaries represented by two commonplace, and divides between the rich Germans Bartolomaus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich and poor have become extraordinarily pro- Plutschau in July 1706 (Hudson: 2000). nounced in cities such as Mumbai and 3) In terms of Christian revival, the first Bangalore. recorded outpourings of the Spirit, manifesta- New migrants to the cities formed the bulk tion of tongues and other gifts was reported in of the congregations of the early Pentecostal 1860 at a mission in Tirunelveli in Tamilnadu churches in Chennai. This trend has continued (Hedlund: 2001) although it is now complemented by settled 4) It has had a strong presence of congregations catering to the needs of the Pentecostal churches and conservative forms of urban upper and middle classes. Chennai and Christianity that led to the religions scholar its suburbs alone have upwards of 2500 Lionel Caplan (1987) to write the first academ- churches – consisting of indigenous churches, ic work on Christian fundamentalism in India. house churches and a variety of Pentecostal and 5) Tamilnadu had a strong anti-Brahmin neo-Pentecostal churches which, according to movement and traditions of tolerance that still some observers, makes it the fastest growing remain. While North India and Central India hub of Christianity in South Asia. have witnessed a rise in anti-Christian feeling Numbers can of course be disputed – but the during the last two decades, the South has sheer numbers of churches listed in church remained relatively free of attacks on directories available in Christian bookshops Christians. The repeal of the anti-Conversion point to their growing presence. Raj & laws by the government of Tamilnadu promul- Selvasingh (2004: 10) have observed that, gated in 2002 and withdrawn in 2005 is an ‘Chennai is privileged to have the highest num- indication of the religious dynamics that con- ber of churches of all the cities in South Asia.’ tinue to favour minority communities unlike in In 1994 there were about 1,400 churches in North and West India where the conflict Chennai…in 1999…1864 churches…small between Christians and Hindus have become a churches (formed) ‘by the influence of the lot sharper. Pentecostals.’ Mega churches include the New Life AOG church in Saidapet, Chennai with its Christianity in contemporary Chennai 35,000 members and 10,000 at a sitting ser- The changing nature of Christianity in India vices. during the last two decades is, to some extent, The clearest evidence, however, of church

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growth in Chennai is the Chennai Christian uals and communities to deal with a world that Directory (2000) which lists 3000 churches and is changing around them,’ in the midst of parachurch organizations in this city inclusive places and shopping, leisure and recreation, of the Beulah Church (8 churches), End Time production and consumption, an observation Zion (14 churches), Marantha Full Gospel that captures the new church in changing Church (27 churches), Moving Jesus Mission (3 Chennai. The cell church movement in India is churches), Pillar of Fire Mission (6 churches), an organic expression of church growth in the the Village Evangelism of Indian Mission (5 era of globalisation. Since church planting and churches), Indigenous Churches (645), the harvesting of souls are fundamental objec- Assemblies of God (120) among very many tives of the new churches, members belonging other churches in Chennai. This directory also to tightly knit cell churches are required to lists 46 Bible colleges, 23 Christian media cen- facilitate a viral replication of these cells. tres, 122 Christian magazines in English and A number of these new churches may be Tamil and 114 church planting missions. There called indigenous churches responding to the is every reason to believe that there has been a fulfilment of local needs although as many are further growth in these sectors of late. influenced by the Health and Wealth Gospel linked to the Faith movement. Stephen Hunt in Bourdieu in Chennai a perceptive essay on the Health and Wealth In order to make sense of this reality, I Gospel, observes that the success of this model employed concepts from the French social theo- relates to its value-addedness: rist Pierre Bourdieu – field, habitus, distinction, symbolic capital – to try and get to grips with ‘…Pentecostalism serves to develop attribut- this contestation. In a sense it is not a visible, es, motivations and personalities adapted to obvious, in your face kind of contestation – but the exigencies of the de-regulated global is a much more measured contestation repre- market. …it has integrated the urban masses sented in other ways by mainstream accommo- into a developing economy through the dations with new forms of worship, the com- protestant work ethic and active citizen- munication of a specific all India Christian ship…At the same time, the mobile new pro- identity often by leaders of the new churches, fessionals and the educated in mega-cities the presence of these new churches in every carry a work ethic that results from a strict nook and corner of Chennai – posters, rallies, Pentecostal upbringing…The explanation conventions, coverage in the media, the post- for the success of the Faith movement is that colonial presence of missionaries from the West it can adapt itself to such complexities. This and the strong presence of Christian broadcast- makes it a global “winner”’ (Hunt, 2000: ing, both transnational and domestic. 344). One of the interesting features of the new church is their spatial presence in Chennai, Bourdieu’s analysis of the role played by cul- their embrace of the official city and the unin- ture in social domination and the specific con- tended cities, the rural in the urban, their being cepts he invokes to study the links between part of and catering to a globalising Chennai ideational and material power can be applied and Chennaites (Prakash: 2002, Manokaran: to understanding a variety of societal fields, 2005). There is a real sense in which including that of religion. Bourdieu’s project of Pentecostalism intrinsically is a religion that constructivist structuralism attempted to bridge was made to travel, for it is part of the flows of the differences between the objective and the the global, as at home in a crowded market subjective, between agency and structure, area as in a gleaming Mall (Dempster et.al: between cultural idealism and historical materi- 1999, Cox: 1996). alism and was an attempt to theorise the mutu- Mendieta (2001:20), observes that ‘…reli- ally constitutive connectivities between social gion appears as a resource of images, concepts, structures and actors. traditions and practices that can allow individ- Bourdieu, like Weber, Durkheim and Marx,

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was of the opinion that religion was a declining India today. There is a nation-wide platform institution. While Bourdieu did not value reli- (televisual) for the mediation of ‘distinctiveness’ gion as anything more than an aspect of false – and it is being mobilised to create distinctions consciousness and his interest in religion is not between the old and the new, the old church as developed as that of his other concerns and the new church, new doctrine as opposed including art and culture, a number of his key to old doctrine, new sources of Biblical authori- concepts, inclusive of ‘belief’, ‘distinction’, ty and the validity of interpretations, new ’field’ and ‘habitus’ are derived from his read- understandings of the qualities of a pastor to ings of Max Weber or based on his observa- the legitimisation of the objectives of Christian tions of the culture of Catholicism in France ministry and the individual’s relationship with (Dianteill: 2003). God. Bourdieu’s relatively unknown study, This distinctiveness is not only reflected in Genesis and Structures of the Religious Field the personal grooming and rhetorical styles (1991: 9) is the only work that I have come adopted by evangelists and tele-evangelists but across in English that is explicitly concerned his/her complete symbolic repertoire. Tele-evan- with the relationship between the religious gelists, such as Benny Hinn and others, in an field, symbolic capital and religious power.

The cultivation of ‘distinction’ Pradip Thomas (below left) discussing his Bourdieu’s emphasis on the cultural basis for paper with Annabelle Sreberny of the School of ‘distinction’ seems particularly apt to under- Oriental and African Studies, London, UK. standing mediated forms of Christianity in Photo: George Conklin.

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elemental sense have reclaimed a belief in reli- mediated by professionals. In the Indian con- gion as fundamentally about using magical text, there has always been space for faith- powers to effect healing, restoration and recon- based healing and healers although Christian ciliation. In Weber’s way of thinking, magic evangelists are responsible for making faith was the basis for early forms of religion that healing a public spectacle. depended on a magician’s coercion of the In Bourdieu’s way of thinking, these ele- divine for human ends. ments of distinctiveness are implicated in a pol- The advent of organised religion led to the itics of power that works through a ‘misrecog- superseding of magic and the magician and to nition of (their) material interests’ (Swartz, the establishment of an extensive metaphysics 1996: 3). Tele-evangelists such as Benny Hinn, of religion. As Weber (1963: 30) has pointed Kenneth Copeland, Sarah and Peter Hughes, out, ‘The full development of both a metaphys- Sam Chelladurai, Brother Dhinakaran and oth- ical rationalisation and a religious ethic ers, communicate themselves as persons chosen requires an independent and professionally by God to do God’s command, often through a trained priesthood, permanently occupied with highly personalised repertoire of unique, often- the cult and with the practical problems times idiosyncratic, symbolic capital that is involved in the cure of souls.’ communicated via expressive styles and meth- However, despite the institutionalisation of ods of audience identification. organised religion, reliance on magic as the This disconnect is powerfully visible in the basis for delivery from the chains of the devil living histories of numerous evangelists and has remained a potent sub-text in all the major tele-evangelists in India today whose self-inter- religions and in the many religious cultures and est has been made invisible by many layers of traditions found throughout the world. mediated pietistic purposefulness. Television Mainstream Protestant Christianity’s overt has been used to cultivate ‘disinterestedness’ as rationalisation of its faith, its denial of alterna- for instance Benny Hinn’s frequent confirma- tive, popular expressions of healing and its tions that God is the healer not him or the inability to deal with the ‘unexplainable’ – has more disingenuous advertisements on God TV been exposed as wanting and out of touch, par- fronted by Indians who claim that the funds ticularly so in the context of the rise of tele- are required solely for the greater glory of evangelists, who have, by their reliance on God’s ministry and plan for India. magic, contributed to what one might call the This misrecognition is reflected in what is a ‘re-enchantment’ of Christianity. common sub-text shared among many One can argue that ‘healing’ is among the Christians and people of other faith in India most distinctive features shared by the tele- that Benny Hinn, and other tele-evangelists, evangelists and neo-Pentecostal preachers and whatever their shortcomings, are God’s repre- this makes their ministry different from that sentatives on earth. They have been blessed. followed by other ministries. Healing connects There is a misrecognition of the real connec- to the spirit world, to malevolent forces that tions between the other-worldly metaphysics of play a significant role in the lives of people liv- these preachers and the very real-world materi- ing in globalised contexts throughout the ality of their ministries. world. The recognition of evil in the world of What Weber and Bourdieu have tried to the everyday allows for a continuation of belief stress are the correspondences between the in the presence of evil – the principalities and exercise of ritual power as an exercise of mate- powers that are graphically described in the rial power. language of the Bible. It also connects to the belief in the supernat- Christian television in Chennai ural that remains a residual element in the lives There are five avenues for Christian television of Hindu converts to Christianity. The power in India. 1) The occasional space on the nation- to heal is a powerful draw and especially so in al broadcaster Doordarshan for Christian pro- a globalised world where access to healing is grammes; 2) Transnational satellite channels

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including GOD TV, CBN, TBN, MiracleNet, It is for this reason that many independent and Daystar TV that are available on cable; 3) Christian producers such as Good News TV Christian programming on a variety of secular and Jesus Calls produce Indian-language based cable channels available throughout the country programmes for premier local channels. While on Raj TV, Zee TV, Vijay TV and numerous Jesus Calls programmes are available on GOD other channels; 4) stand alone indigenous TV in English five days a week, the bulk of Christian cable channels such as Blessing TV, their programmes are on a host of local chan- Angel TV, Shalom TV, Jeevan TV and others; nels in local languages, Sahara One TV, Star 5) Web-based telecasting for instance Jesus Vijay, Win TV, Raj TV, Surya TV, Asianet TV, Calls’ ‘Num.TV’. Webcasting remains an evolv- Namma Cable, Alpha Bengali, ETV-2 and oth- ing reality in India with limited audiences. ers. This makes sense for Raj TV’s February 2006 viewership figures for Chennai was 3.6 Status of Christian TV in Chennai million (85.3%) of the cable audience in During the research that I conducted in Chennai. Chennai, it became clear that among English speaking middle classes, GOD TV and Daystar GOD TV in Chennai TV, were the two transnational Christian chan- GOD TV was established by a UK-based South nels that had audiences in Chennai. However, African couple, Rory and Wendy Alec in 1995. these audiences remain small. While GODTV In 2004, they moved their broadcast office to maintains that it is available in 216 major and Israel and today it is a 24-hour, global channel minor cities in India – from Aizawl, Mizoram available throughout the world. As their tag in North East India to Trivandrum, Kerala line states, ‘broadcasting from the Holy Land which is located close to the tip of South India, to the ends of the earth’. With seven separate with a total audience reach of 21 million, the feeds, carried on 12 satellites, plus a further Nielsen-owned audience rating company TAM three non-contracted satellites, the GOD Media Research India’s February 2006 viewing Channel is currently broadcast around the figures for GOD TV reveal that it has a total world to 275 million people in more than 200 reach of 3.9 (4.6%) million homes out of an all nations and territories. As the founders exult in India wide market of 85 million cabled homes. Armageddon-speak (2005: 20), ‘The darkness GOD TV’s audience figures for Chennai of across the heavenlies of Britain and Europe had 150,000 viewers (3.53%) out of an estimated been pierced and the first bastion taken – the 4.2 million cabled homes is not exactly flatter- years 1995-2005 were to be a death blow to ing. Daystar’s TV Chennai figures of 270,000 the devil’s hold on the media, opening up the viewers is only marginally better. A third airways for the Gospel and sending the forces transnational channel, MiracleTV, whose of darkness reeling.’ offices are situated in Chennai, fared even Endorsed by Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, worse on TAM ratings. While they have no Crefilo Dollar, Dhinakaran, Benny Hinn and presence in Chennai, their all-India reach for other ‘healing’ and ‘prosperity’ evangelists, the the said period was 600,000 (0.7%). GOD Channel is a slick, Christian channel that A number of Christians involved in this features 21 ministries of recognised tele-evange- industry were of the opinion that for the pur- lists including Kenneth & Gloria Copeland, pose of ‘reaching the unreached’, a stand-alone Jesse Duplantis, Billy Graham, Benny Hinn and Christian channel’s chances of recruiting audi- others, praise and worship programmes that ences was severely limited by the fact that 1) include Christian rock and gospel (Dream On there literally are hundreds of channels vying TV) and the Australia-based Hillsong TV, mag- for audiences; 2) in a primarily ‘Hindu’ coun- azine programmes, news and current affairs try, a channel dedicated to furthering the pro- programmes, counselling programmes, celebrity ject of Global Christianity had limitations; and interviews, review of the arts and programmes 3) English-only programmes have restricted for children including the Bed Bug Bible Gang reach. and the Story Keepers.

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There are a handful of Indian evangelists on (Ed.) Studies in Religious Fundamentalism, Macmillan the God Channel including Sam Chelladurai ( Press, Basingstoke/London. Apostlic Fellowship Tabernacle, Chennai), Paul Cox, H. (1996), Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in Thangiah (Full Gospel Assembly of God, the Twenty-first Century, Cassell. Bangalore) and Dhinakaran (Jesus Calls, Dempster, M.W., Klaus, B. D., Petersen, D. (1999), Eds., Chennai). But the majority are US-based. Apart The Globalisation of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to from these Indian evangelists the only Indian Travel, Regnum, Carlisle. presence is the regular evening solicitation for Dianteill, E. (2003), ‘Pierre Bourdieu and the Sociology of Religion: A Central and Peripheral Concern’, (529-549), funds presented by Indians. As one Regional Theory and Society, 32. Director explains: Fernandes, E.(2006), Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism, Penguin Books, New ‘As more channels crop up and crowd the Delhi. limited bandwidth in India, cable operators Hedlund, R. E. (2001), ‘Previews of Christian Indigenity have hiked prices and are unwilling to nego- in India’ (213-230), Journal of Asian Mission, 3, 2. Hudson, , D. D. (2000), Protestant Origins in India: tiate…Our needs are great….thank you for Tamil Evangelical Christians, 1706-1835, William B. your assurance of partnering us on a month- Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, ly basis.’ Michigan/Cambridge, UK, & Curzon Press, Richmond, UK. Further research opportunities Hunt, S (2003), ‘The Alpha programme: Some Tentative Observations of State of the Art Evangelism in the UK’ This article highlights fragments from a study (77-93), Journal of Contemporary Religion,18, 1. of Christian Fundamentalism and the Media in Kallen, E (1998), Hate on the Net. A Question of Rights/ Chennai currently being written up by the A Question of Power (1-19), Electronic Journal of author. The Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal Sociology, Accessed Nov. 29. turn in India offers a plethora of research Manokaran, J. N (2005), Christ & Cities: Transformation opportunities. There is a need to understand of Urban Centres, Mission Educational Books, Chennai. Mendieta, E (2001), ‘Invisible Cities: A Phenomenology of India as a conduit for global-local flows of Globalisation from below’ (7-26), City, 5, 1. Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism, the Partner Connect: India a Beautiful Pearl in God’s Eyes, presence of new Christianity in globalising http://www.god.tv/Archive/200608-India/ Accessed India, the Christian religious commodity circuit November 29. in India, meaning-making and the consumption Prakash, G (2002), ‘The Urban Turn’ (2-6), Sarai Reader. Raj, V. S. & Selvasingh, J. W. (2004), ‘Churches in of mediated religious products, the political Chennai: Characteristics of Churches in Chennai’ (10), economy of Christian media production, the Ethne, 3, 8, Jan-March. contested nature of Christianity in India, and Shourie, A (1994), Missionaries in India: Continuities, last but not least, the politics of Christian sepa- Changes, Dilemmas, Rupa & Co., New Delhi. ratism. Shourie, A (2000), Harvesting Our Souls: Missionaries, Equally importantly and against the tenden- their Design, their Claims, ASA Publications, New Delhi. Swartz, D. (1996), ‘Bridging the Study of Culture and cy for churches to establish their own broad- Religion: Pierre Bourdieu’s political economy of symbolic casting outlets, there is an urgent need to estab- power’, Sociology of Religion, Spring, 57, 1. lish the presence of inter-faith cable and satel- Weber, M. (1963), The Sociology of Religion, Boston, lite television in India. Beacon Press.

References Pradip Ninan Thomas is an Associate Professor at the Albert, S.V. (2000), Chennai Christian Directory, Church School of Journalism & Communication, University of Growth Association of India, Chennai. Queensland, Australia. He is currently involved in com- Bourdieu, P (1991), ‘Genesis and Structures of the pleting a manuscript on Christian Fundamentalism and Religious Field’ (1-44), Comparative Social research, the Media in Chennai. In 2006 he co-edited publications Volume 13. with Jan Servaes - Intellectual Property Rights and Burgess, S. M. (2001), ‘Pentecostalism in India: An Communications in Asia: Conflicting Traditions, (Sage), Overview’ (85-98), Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies, and Issac Mazondei - Indigenous Knowledge Systems and 4, 1. Intellectual Property Rights: Perspectives from Southern Caplan, L (1987) ‘Fundamentalism as a Counter-Culture: Africa (CODESRIA). Protestants in Urban South India (156-176) in Caplan, L.

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the issues in any meaningful dialogue, prefer- ring the standard, defensive knee-jerk response, Columbusday, rooted in the denial of any possible wrong- doing on the part of the European invaders of hate speech, these continents. Rather, the press uses the holi- day excuse to solicit an extra heavy dose of full-page advertisements for ‘columbus day’ and American sales all over the metro area. Genocide, the per- fect excuse to indulge the gluttonous religion of american consumerism! Indians The real shame is not that columbusday parades are acts of hate speech. The shame is Tink Tinker that columbusday gives voice to state sanc- tioned hate speech. Every year one to two thousand people line the streets in Denver, USA, to A modern religious fundamentalism protest the annual columbusday parade, For a number of years there was one regular to oppose what is a blatant celebration banner that spanned the width of the street. It of five hundred years of genocide in the seemed to speak for the parade organizers just as it decidedly named one of the reasons for Americas. A federal holiday only since protest. ‘He [Columbus] brought Christ to the 1971, columbusday seems to have Americas!’ The pious colonialist sentiment become a quintessential U.S. holiday, shrieked its message in four-feet high letters. It yet one that commemorates a murderer, was a pernicious reminder to all Indian people slave-trader and thief as the all- present that our conquest and the loss of our American hero. lands, our economies, our self-sufficiency, and our way of life was as much a religious con- quest as it was military and political. he so-called parade on this day amounts The banner, like the columbusday holiday to no more than a ‘convoy of conquest’, itself, was both a trope to the larger public sen- a parade of semis with empty flatbeds, T timent of the settler population of the U.S. and empty limos, and motorcycle gangs, rolling a convenient lie steeped in denial. It presses a through a gauntlet of protesters who far out- modern religious fundamentalism that contin- number the paraders and make up the only ues to see its religion (and its socio-political audience for this unashamed racist outburst. systems) as superior to, for instance, the reli- The real shame, of course, is not the pathetic gious traditions of the peoples that were native attempt at a parade. There are ugly racists to this continent—all of which are consigned to everywhere, and the USA’s concept of civil lib- the euro-western tropic categories of animism, erties reserves to all Americans the right to primitive polytheism, pagan idolatry, and the racist speech. diabolic. The shame is that the body politic and the Of course, calling this holiday an exercise in press have failed to raise their own voice of religious fundamentalism begs the question as protest. For nearly two decades a huge alliance to what we might consider to be fundamental- of Denver metro area citizens (some 80 differ- ism. Presumably no one any longer confines ent local organizations) has pressed a public fundamentalism to that late 19th century amer- education about the murderous and on-going ican christian movement that invented the legacy of Columbus. Yet neither the city nor the name. They created the name as a positive self- state has seen fit to step in with their own affirmation of their strict adherence to a nar- moral condemnation of this holiday to geno- row set of doctrines. cide. The shift to a new meaning is especially The press has generally declined to engage

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apparent, however, since September 2001 when mentalism, on the other hand, has been the fundamentalism came to be an adjective (or imposition of dominance by an invading colo- abjective) describing Islam as a negative trope nial power. From an American Indian perspec- and slogan, coined by U.S. political speakers tive, fundamentalism began with the colonialist and gleefully propagated by the corporate U.S. urges of European expansionism and the colo- press — with little regard for the breadth and nial need to impose structures of thought, pat- complexity of Islam in actuality. terns of behavior, and a certain cultural unifica- Given this contemporary usage, we might tion on the colonized other. It came with the define fundamentalism this way: the reckless European invasion in the form of the imposi- sense that a more or less narrowly defined faith tion of whole ways of thinking about the or belief system is both the only salvific way of world, along with the religious teachings and being in the world; and that it needs to be practices to go with those ways of thinking. imposed on others at whatever cost, perhaps While this fundamentalist imposition of cul- even by force of one kind or another. This ture, values and language was quite apart from seems, at least, to capture the abjective sense the theft of the land, it served as a colonial intended by those who use the trope of ‘Islamic device to rationalize and self-validate conquest, fundamentalism’. theft, and genocide. Part of the strategy invariably involved send- Relationships of power ing missionaries from the metropole to the col- Where does fundamentalism in this sense come onized in order to win their adhesion to the from? To be clear about issues of religious fun- colonizer’s cultural and religious beliefs. While damentalism today, we need to be clear about the missionaries themselves no doubt had con- relationships of power in the world — around cern of some kind for the Natives, the mission- us and in which we are embroiled. ized, their efforts served especially to increase Fundamentalism can arise both as a response to the effectiveness of the colonizer governmental dominance and as an act of dominance itself. structures of control by subtly shifting the cul- That narrow slice of Islam that engages in vio- tural values of the colonized toward those of lent resistance in central and west Asia is an the colonizer. example of a fundamentalism, then, that has That cultural practice is inherent in coloniz- arisen as an act of resistance to amer-european er religious beliefs is already apparent in the christian political dominance in the world. missionaries insistence (John Eliot in 17th cen- Whatever one’s ultimate judgment might be tury puritan New England; the Franciscan of the Other, if we are serious about under- Gerónimo de Mendietta in Mexico half a cen- standing — rather than merely quashing — tury earlier) that Indians must learn European those who oppose us, then we need to see the culture before they can fully convert to the reactive response of the Other in its own inter- gospel and affirm the doctrines of the church. pretive context. Too often, we see a response to In the vast majority of cases, these colonial important or global dissent that is merely a missionaries served the purposes of colonial reaction based on self-interest. It would be government more overtly and purposefully. helpful today to begin our understanding of Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple and Jesuit contemporary religious fundamentalism as a Pierre-Jean DeSmet, to suggest just two exam- perceived self-defense against what non-U.S. ples, served as U.S. government officials in peoples around the world may be identifying as negotiations with the same Native peoples the reigning fundamentalism of the U.S. domi- whose trust they were purported to have won nated world: namely, the ideological imposi- as missionaries. More pernicious was the insis- tions of the IMF, World Bank, Security Council tence, using fear in a variety of ways, that any Permanent Membership, and the radical euro- Native community was condemned by a loving christian individualism that lies at the base of god unless they adopted and learned to reflect these ideologies. back the colonizer’s religious traditions. The American Indian experience of funda- Thus aboriginal communities in the

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Americas experienced religious fundamentalism tive), people are faced with a choice as to from the very first preaching of the gospel in whether to participate with the community for their midst. In puritan ‘New England’ it began the good (salvation) of the whole, or to make in 1646 with John Eliot or on Cape Cod with an individual decision for personal salvation. Thomas Mayhew, and concurrently with the Indeed, the European ideal of individualism Massachusetts General Council passing a law was the first colonial imposition in the that made it illegal for any Indian to mock the European colonial project in every corner of the missionary. In the Roman Catholic version in colonized earth. California, the 18th century Franciscan mis- Since our spiritual life was inherently com- sionary Junípero Serra (continuing the 16th munity based, every major ceremony called for century efforts his Franciscan ancestor the involvement of the whole community. In my Gerónimo de Mendietta honed among Indians tribe, key leaders from virtually all 24 clans in Mexico) used the local Spanish military had to be present in order for a major ceremo- detachment to hunt down any Indian person ny to be completed in a healthy fashion. There who, rethinking his or her conversion to was never a question as to which ceremony or Christianity, tried to leave the walled mission which church one would attend on a given day. compound in order to rejoin their communities Every ceremony was a community event that and families. commanded the attention of every person in the By the 1880s this Christian fundamentalism community. The first euro-western missionary had captured the hearts of liberal republican to venture into an Indian community with his politicians, who were often also churchmen or colonial proclamation of a better gospel and a were following the advice of churchmen like new hegemony succeeded first of all in splitting Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple. These politi- the community irrevocably. Suddenly, with the cians called explicitly for the imposition of first convert, every member of the community Christian conversion and a concomitant con- was faced with a new choice: to participate version to euro-american culture. with the community or to honor a perception of a greater power (backed by the U.S. Cavalry) Devastated communities represented by the colonizer’s god. While the intent of the missionizing process The columbusday banner recalls the pres- was to replace Indian cultures with their own ence of missionaries in every conquest of the European culture, missionization was devastat- Americas and the imposition of a new religious ing to the community structures of every Indian conviction that destroyed or attempted to nation. For example, the very first White euro- destroy the peopleness of every Indian nation, missionaries who entered an Indian community that is, proactively to destroy that nation’s with an idea to convert members of that com- community-ness by replacing the communitari- munity to their church functioned explicitly to an structures and value system with radical split that community and to destroy the indige- euro-western individualism. After several hun- nous culture and value system that they had dred years of missionary preaching of the encountered. gospel in Indian communities of north America, The community had been a coherent and the net result has been the multiplication of integrous whole, intricately bound together in denominational choices and the greater division complex structures of family, clan, village, of community; the destruction of our own reli- sodal and modal organizations. People awoke gious traditions; the end of too many grand each morning with a clear sense of who they ceremonies that require the participation of dif- were and what needed to be accomplished that ferent personalities from a variety of different day. If there were a ceremony, it would be a clans; the destruction of communitarianism in tribal ceremony in which all were involved as favor of a new radical individualism; the deval- participants. Suddenly, with the appearance of uation and replacement of Indian values with the powerful White colonial official (and the those propagated by the missionaries and missionary was always a colonial representa- deeply reflective of their european culture.

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Colonial entanglement these tropes voice a clear political agenda, they This sense of fundamentalism — the religious presume to voice a normative and universal attachment to the superiority and normativity value that is to be imposed on all others in the of european culture (and its religion) and the world of U.S. dominance. World domination. concomitant privileging of Whiteness — has As such then, the U.S. imposition on Iraq of been historically always in play in the colonial- ‘modern’ euro-western statist democracy, with ist interaction between American Indians and its attendant notions of freedom of religion, is the euro-colonizer, just as it was inherent in the a distinct type of religious fundamentalism, as colonialist project of mission civilisatrice in all are its economic doctrinal counterparts: capital- 19th century European colonialism. In any con- ism, privatization, and the globalization of cap- text where there is a political imbalance ital. between groups (societies, genders, classes), This mode of fundamentalism as dominance when a socially constructed dominant group continues to be imposed globally in the eco- imagines itself normative or superior and sup- nomic and governance policies promulgated by poses its prerogative to teach, mentor, manipu- the priestly institutions of globalization: the late, coach, subdue, or enslave the dominated International Monetary Fund and the World other falls into this pattern of colonial entan- Bank. The banner of Christ, carried so proudly glement. in the columbusday parade as a remembrance In the context of the modern or postmodern of triumphal glories past, has been replaced, by world, then all missionary work dedicated to a a new gospel and a new fundamentalism, root- mission of conversion is necessarily imperialis- ed in the same euro-western culture as the old tic and triumphalist and fits into a pattern of gospel, but to which Christianity has become colonial conquest. As a result, it is always a merely the choir. dangerous and inherently destructive enterprise. And American Indian peoples in the U.S. The biblical notion of mission, it would seem, continue to be today the poorest by far of all rooted as it was in a survival modality in ethnic communities on the continent by all worlds of Judaism and Roman Empire that social indicators. The columbian legacy and the threatened to destroy early Christianity, is one genocide it spawned is long-lived indeed. That that has been terribly warped by the social fab- it is now celebrated as a holiday by a modern ric of colonialism in the modern world. liberal democratic state can only be seen as an In today’s world, fundamentalism continues act to further disavow the abjected aboriginal to have its political and economic analogies owners of the land. which are not entirely non-religious, depending on how broadly analytical one’s definition of Note religion dares to be. Does a ‘god’ have to be 1 As one National Public Radio commentator put it the named — even in atheistic religions like day after 9-11-2001, the ‘Twin Towers’ of the World Trade Center marked the ‘uprights of the world’s largest Buddhism or in indigenous cultures for whom dollar sign.’ the word god equally fails to function in any useful way except as a Christian missionary Tink Tinker (Osage Nation) is Professor of American device? Or can the god be merely presumed Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at the Iliff and unnamed as such, as in the globalization of School of Theology, Denver, Colorado, USA. He has been an activist in urban American Indian communities for 1 capital? three decades and serves on the leadership council of the Otherwise useful words such as freedom and American Indian Movement of Colorado. He is the democracy have become powerful religious author of Spirit and Resistance: American Indian tropes — along with the blatant political posi- Liberation and Political Theology (2004), of Missionary tioning of the language of free trade and capi- Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Genocide talism — as political rhetoric in the U.S. gov- (1993), and co-author of A Native American Theology (2001). ernment’s and U.S. press’ attempts to justify the invasion of other countries and the killing of innocent civilians in those countries. While

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moves on Religion, identi- beneath my window, for I am the crone too who shakes her sheets ty and dialogue over every street in the world Glory E. Dharmaraj muttering What’s this? What’s this? I am the boy with his hands raised over his head ‘The House that Fear Built: Warsaw, 1943’ in Warsaw his seemingly simple poem by Jane Flanders, with its incremental pair of I am the soldier whose rifle is trained Twitnessing eyes, captures for the modern on the boy with his hands raised over reader a cluster of multi-layered, multi-perspec- his head tive, and inter-locked realities, seen through a in Warsaw panoptic vision. This poem is also a visual mnemonic grid for the historical burden laid on a reader, in a given time in history. It is a pho- I am the woman with lowered gaze tograph in words etched in memory, in an age who fears the soldier whose rifle is where photo opportunities often replace points trained of view, with pictures dominating words on the boy with his hands raised over because they sell and are even cheap to produce his head (Fore, 2001: 13). in Warsaw However, a multi-perspective, word-picture of an innocent victim or a scapegoat is a mnemonic prism, through which a witness can I am the man in the overcoat see how shared lines of visions as well as differ- who loves the woman with lowered ing lines of visions constitute multiple realities. gaze Attendant, also, are questions for communi- who fears the soldier whose rifle is cations in general, and Christian communica- trained tion, in particular. If you see many sides, what on the boy with his hands raised over do you do? If you see only two sides, what do you do? his head The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, seems in Warsaw to posit another angle. That is ‘Living the ques- tions.’ I am the stranger who photographs To name an enemy has not been easy, as it the man in the overcoat has been evident in the U.S. communication who loves the woman with lowered context. The phrase, ‘War on Terror’, used for gaze some time, does not any longer make a distinc- tion between the method and the user of the who fears the soldier whose rifle is method. Is the name of the enemy terror? trained Terror is a method used by an enemy, and not on the boy with his hands raised over the enemy itself. It is rather ‘an amorphous idea his head of intimidation rather than a specific, belliger- in Warsaw ent nation or a hostile people’ (Safire, 2006: 9). Some thinkers posit the current times as transition period. That is, we are moving away The crowd, of which I am each part, from a traditional concept of a world with

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‘individual enemies for individual countries’ to political power? Isolated representations of that of ‘multifaceted enemies for all’. It is these, without exploring the deeper connections incumbent on communication to catch this among these continue to create a ‘culture of sight of a larger canvass of the real ‘multifac- violence’, here and worldwide. etedness’ of the enemies, identify them, and On March 30, 2006, I coordinated a media confront the hydra-headed monster, while monitoring of peace across the country for the demolishing an ongoing ‘construction’ of ene- United Methodist Women. The media monitor- mies who do not exist at all. Totalizing the ing for images of peace was designed on the enemy has to be avoided at all costs. model of global media monitoring of the images and representation of women in media, Seeing each other into a composite vision of sponsored by the World Association for realities Christian Communication. Issues and struggles under analysis, namely, In the content analysis, among many others, religion and identity, are fluid notions, caught I asked questions such as: up in the rigidity in their representations, while How is the story of peace and conflict treat- the solutions need to be pragmatic with short- ed? term and long-term goals. How does violence occur? Interconnected realities of our times What is the conflict about? demand interconnected, intercultural, integrat- Why does it happen? ed visions. Nelle Morton popularized the How are race, class, gender, sexual orienta- notion of women ‘hearing each other into tion or other forms of exclusion a factor in the speech’. It is time for all of us, not only to hear conflict? each other into speech, but also to see each How are economic and/or religious interests a other into a composite vision. In other words, factor in the conflict> interconnectivity of stories is a key need in Who is being violent? Who is the victim? communication as well as mission theology. How are the aggressor and the victim present- For the church in the United States, simulta- ed? neously, I long for a theology of interstices: a What is the role of women in the conflict? theology that seeks to discover God’s presence What is their role in peace efforts? through the experiences of those who live in I distributed 128 monitoring forms to moni- the cracks or narrow spaces of church and soci- tor the first page or the lead page of newspa- ety, and build bridges between and among pers across the country. I received 76 complet- them. ed responses, with a total number of 76 differ- A theology of interstices would lift up the ent newspapers monitored. voices and experiences of persons who are Preliminary analysis shows that 36% of the struggling for life, as members of marginalized news stories dealt with violence in the Middle groups, without interconnectedness between East, 5% racial and religious intolerance, 7% their realities reflected in a bridge-building the- the rising tide of protest against immigration ology. laws, 2% crimes, 2% drug-related offence and Communication, whose core is interconnec- so on. tivity, and theology, whose core is connecting News stories of the War in Iraq,, interna- across the interstices in God’s presence, can tional debate on Iranian enrichment of urani- explore the invisible threads of systemic and um, local disputes, fights and killings dominat- deep-rooted causes. For example, is there a ed the reports. One of the participants wrote, connection between violence in the bedroom ‘Will we ever have peace anywhere in the and the violence against women in armed con- world?’ Another said the ‘extreme horror’ of flict and militarization? Are there connections the world was ‘sickening’. between deep-rooted issues such as unequal When women appeared in stories involving distribution of resources, structural marginal- violent conflict, they most often were portrayed ization of peoples, and lack of equal access to as innocent victims, passive observers hoping

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for a better future, or the solace of husbands racial profiling has been used in order to and children besieged by turmoil. Several address the issue of terrorist acts. women asserted that regardless of news por- trayals, women’s active peace work is ‘gradual- Strategy 2: Creating safe spaces for Civil Rights ly increasing worldwide.’ As a response to the tragedy of September 11, Further, during times of crises, such as the Patriot Act (HR 3162) was signed into law armed conflict, natural calamities, and terrorist ‘to deter and punish terrorist acts in the U.S. acts, there is a likelihood of ‘co-option’ of com- and around the world, and to enhance law munities into racial, ethnic, religious, or ideo- enforcement investigatory tools.’ While those logical identities. A key challenge, in particular, who commit terrorist acts must be brought to for most of the women in the U.S. context is justice, the balance between security and civil balancing security and freedom, national rights has been at stake because of the arrest of defense and international relations, local com- innocent immigrants. munity and world community. In ‘Little Pakistan’ in Brooklyn, New York, While living out these contradiction-laden, out of more than 120,000 Pakistanis, 15,000 often polarized claims, the concept of ‘global fled to Canada, Europe, and Pakistan, due to sisterhood’ is often challenged. When crises massive arrests in that area. According to a such as war, terrorist acts, and natural calami- story in the Washington Post (May 29, 2003), ties occur, women often deny their identities, federal agents stopped and detained hundreds but are co-opted along lines of identity drawn of Pakistanis in the aftermath of the September by religion, race, class, and ethnicity. 11 attacks. The Department of Homeland In short, they are caught in the oppressive Security also required that every male Pakistani discourses and dominant practices, with their visa holder age sixteen and above register with contradictions and complexities, and are unable the Bureau of Immigration and Customs or unwilling to transcend beyond their narrow Enforcement. selfhood. Some 13,000 of those who voluntarily regis- The role of communication, in this context, tered were placed into deportation proceedings is to recover the muted voices, stifled differ- because of irregularities in their immigration ences, and multiple identities. I would like to status. Such irregularities would have required suggest some strategies. basic legal corrections before September 11. While the Special Registration has ended, some Strategy 1: Empowering the margins through people are still under threat of deportation. communication Detainees have suffered 24 hours of illumina- Early this year, Mark Fitzgerald talked about tion of cells, lack of proper medical care, racial an investigatory committee of the Washington slurs by guards. Post staffers finding a management emphasis In many instances, neither the detainees nor on celebrity reporters. Fitzgerald found a pauci- their families have been notified of their status ty of non-minorities among the ‘celebrity or their rights. People who come under racial reporters’. Nearly half of the newsroom jobs profiling in this are South Asian men, especially filled between 2003 and October 2005 were Arab and Muslim men. Most of them are guilty never posted. He went on to say, ‘Of these until proven innocent. unposted jobs, 74% went to non-minorities’. But a woman responded to Patriot Act by The result has been, in his words, ‘an exodus’ co-founding a committee on the Bill of Rights of black, Asian, and Latino journalists Defense Committee. Nancy Talanian came up (Fitzgerald: 2006). with the idea of establishing ‘civil liberty zones’ In the U.S. media monitoring done in 2005, in communities across the United States. A women were more visible in news media, but national grassroots movement to protect inno- their perspectives were not. Gender identity is cent people who come under racial profiling still a complex one in relation to media. While was started by a woman. identity as a concept is contradiction-ridden, As of August 2, 2006, grassroots opposition

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to the USA Patriot Act, there are 408 resolu- ‘That we seek alternate perspectives on the tions, including 8 states, 400 cities, and coun- Middle East from those disseminated by ties, encompassing 85 million people. Alaska, mainstream media, especially during times California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana of war, attacks, and conflicts. and Vermont have come up with statewide res- That we critically evaluate justifications olutions. Faith-based grassroots men and given by political, religious, and other sec- women have engaged in creating these safe tarian entities to attack or declare war on spaces, creating a climate for communication other parties. for civil rights (Women’s Division: 2006). That we contact media outlets when reports of conflict do not include all relevant par- Strategy 3: Communication as enabler of ‘inter- ties, including civilians. regionality’ That we engage our elected legislative repre- Communication is not just sending and receiv- sentatives at the national level in ongoing ing messages and images. As Mikhail Bakhtin, discussion of the impact of conflict on a Russian formalist, would say, communication women, children, and youth of the Middle is taking into consideration the potential East.’ response of the receiver and intended audience. Recently Riad Jarjour, President of the Strategy 4: Education on fear-based vision Middle East Regional Association of WACC versus shalom based vision reported: Moving the faith community from a fear-based vision of security to the vision of shalom pro- ‘One can observe the growth of different claimed in the Bible is an on going task. Bryan types of religious “fundamentalisms” in the Massingdale, a Franciscan theologian, presents Middle East, many of which promote use of the competing claims of two visions. He says: violence to address grievances, something which no religion justifies. This violence ‘The first is rooted in a world of fear, seeks causes Western nations to have an adverse security in military power directed to the reaction to Islam, particularly to Muslims end of defending economic privilege for a who live in Western countries. Moreover, few. The other, rooted in a world view of this type of fundamentalism gives rise to and blessing, sees security lying in the effort of promotes an ever-increasing and militant assuring that the blessings of creation are interpretation of both Western and Eastern enjoyed by all. How do we respond to these Christian fundamentalism. In this context, visions?’ the American/Western war against terrorism has not succeeded in curbing this latter type Lifting up the alternative vision of shalom in of fundamentalism. On the contrary, this the Bible and asking the difficult question why war appears as if it is responding to terror- we cannot think about peace and work for just ism by counter-terrorism tactics, both of peace is one side of the story of making a dif- which are unacceptable and must be con- ference. The other side is helping handle grief demned’ (Jarjour: 2006). on the part of the victims and grieving commu- nities. Jesus weeping over Jerusalem is only a For communication in general, Christian com- partial picture. Jesus simultaneously asking munication, in particular, the notion of inter- why Jerusalem cannot think about things that regionality, or inter-regional sensitivity is vital make for peace constitutes the whole. The pas- for the promotion of peace and curbing reli- toral and the activist can be the twin strategies gious fundamentalisms. of the faith communities. They should not be Recently in its Board meeting, the Women’s polarized. Division of the General Board of Global It is imperative to lift up the liberating pas- Ministries came up with a resolution regarding sages from the Bible in order to move the faith peace in the Middle East: community on the road to peace, at the grass-

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roots level, since there are members at the pew giously plural U.S. context, calls for interdepen- who may not be moved by the Universal dency on each other’s religious tradition, in Declaration of Human Rights, but who are order to address justice issues and live a peace- faithful to the gospel and the prophetic call to ful co-existence. peace and justice in the Scripture. If you see two sides, create a third. If you see many sides, form a circle. If you see many Strategy 5: Salvation for the perpetrator and circles, bBegin to dance. the victim There are deep and systemic evils. As we recall, References Nelson Mandela sought freedom for himself Fitzgerald, M. (2006). ‘Star System, Tense, Newsroom and his people first. Then, in what he termed Chase Away Minorities’. Internal Washington Post Report. 2/14/2006. the ‘long and lonely years’, he evolved a more Flanders, J. (1988). ‘The House that Fear Built: Warsaw, integrated approach. Mandela said: 1943.’ Timepieces. Pitts Poetry Series. Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburg Press. ‘My hunger for the freedom of my own peo- Fore, W.F. (2001). ‘Communication, Reconciliation, and ple became a hunger for all people. I know Religion in America.’ In: Lee., ed., Communication and Reconciliation: Challenges Facing the 21st Century. as well as I knew anything that the oppres- World Association for Christian Communication. sor must be liberated just as surely as the Gerzon, M. (2006). Leading Through Conflict. Boston, oppressed. A man who takes away (another) Harvard Business School Press. man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, and is Mandela, N. (1995). Long Walk to Freedom. Boston, locked behind the bars of prejudice…Both Back Bay. are robbed of their humanity. When I Messingdale, B. (2003). ‘From Homeland to Biblical Security’. In: Origins 2/20/2003. walked out of prison, that was my mission: Raheb, M. (2004). Bethlehem Besieged: Stories of Hope in to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor Times of Trouble. Minneapolis, Fortress Press. both.’ Safire, W. (2006). ‘On Language: Islamofascism’. In: The New York Times Magazine. 10/1/2006. A similar vision is lifted up by Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran minister in Bethlehem. He is a tire- Glory E. Dharmaraj (PhD) is Director of Spiritual less prophet of hope in the Middle East and Formation and Mission Theology for the General Board spells out the dynamics of hope in terms of of Global Ministries, the United Methodist Church and neighborliness. He says: Vice-President of WACC’s North American Regional Association. ‘What is the benefit if Israel wins the moral and financial support of the American Jewish community and the Christian right, yet loses its Palestinian Neighbors? What is the benefit if the Palestinians win the sympa- thy and support of most of the Arab and Islamic countries and lose their Israeli neigh- bors?’

Kosuke Koyama, a theologian, would have summarized it in just one phrase, ‘neighborolo- gy’. Christian communities have produced much by way of theology. But what is needed, according to Koyama, is ‘neighborology’. Easily understandable resources on interfaith in the hands of the faith community is of great help in times such as these. Seeking to be faithful Christians, in a reli-

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mal worldviews. The implication is that Pentecostalism is growing because of its cultur- Pentecostalism, al policy and attitude to indigenous worldview media and cul- and culture. Pentecostalism in African cultural discourse Many African countries have dug deeply into tural discourse traditional values for cultural symbols of unity. In the rainbow ideology of South Africa, the television features a stimulating jingle, in Africa Simunye-e-e-e, we are one! In Ghana, Sankofa, a Twi word, is one of the symbols used to pro- Ogbu Kalu mote unity based on the recovery of Ghanaian cultural heritage. Each of the symbols affirms a Media use is the most important expla- salient value that should be cultivated. Sankofa nation for the growth of charismatic is the bird that turns its head to look back- and Pentecostal movements in contem- wards in the direction from where it came porary Africa. It gave new value to the because a person who is not conscious about missionary strategy and radically where a journey started may not know where he /she is going. This symbol urges people to reshaped the religious landscape in a ‘go back and take it’, or look back and reclaim way that ‘charismatized’ the mainline their cultural heritage. churches. However, for reasons that the Pentecostal cultural discourse must be set author begins by explaining, the follow- within the other discourses canvassed as schol- ing article reflects on Pentecostal cultur- ars explain the recent explosion of al discourses rather than exploring how Pentecostalism in Africa. The historical dis- course takes a long view to show how the they use media. Cultural policy is the movement’s historical origins hold clues to its backdrop or foil to their media use. contemporary salience. It fits the movement into the trail of ferment in African Christianity ephas Omenyo’s study, Pentecost and the African’s attraction towards the charis- Outside Pentecostalism documents that matic or pneumatic tradition within the gospel. Ctrend in Ghana.1 A recent documentary Some scholars have deployed the instrumen- by James Ault on African Christianity, shot in talist explanation that runs into various Ghana and Zimbabwe, illustrates how the grooves. It images the growth of the movement liturgy, doctrine, ethics and other practices in as an aspect of a religious response to contem- the mainline churches resonate with Pentecostal porary cultural challenges and Africa’s struggle spirituality, liturgy and doctrines. Two explana- to respond to the economic, social and cultural tions argue that the missionary-founded forces of modernity and globalization. It is a churches are engaged in encapsulating strategy; functionalist analysis that examines the that they retain their members by enlarging the response of the movement to a cultural envi- charismatic space for the youth and women. ronment embattled by external global cultural The second explanation is that Africans forces. Hot Christianity becomes a solace from have always been attracted to the charismatic the harsh realities of the collapse of economies, and pneumatic elements of the gospel because marauding poverty, softness of the state, failed these resonate with the goals and practices of leadership and legitimacy crises. traditional religion. This buttresses the argu- The tendency is to start the analysis from ment that African Christianity is an extension the external cultural contexts and show how of African traditional religion. People come to Africa responds to the forces of externality: the charismatic churches to seek answers to modernity and globalization. It ignores the questions raised within the interiors of the pri-

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indigenous factor and limits the interpretation reshaping their histories. The face of of Pentecostalism to its salience in ‘globalizing Christianity acquired a different character in economies’. the encounter because it was now expressed in An awkward strand applies a conspiratorial the idiom of the African world. This means theory to expose the covert activities of the that the conversation partners in shaping American security forces in alliance with the Pentecostal ideology and praxis are the indige- American Right-Wing fundamentalists.2 nous religions and cultures, the experiences of Undeniably, there must be a religious response individuals and communities of contemporary to the socio-economic and political forces in cultures and competing religious forms in contemporary Africa. Indeed, every religious urban and rural contexts, biblical resources and form addresses the issues of the day or risk los- a certain ecclesiastical tradition or the pneu- ing relevance. matically-driven Pentecostal image of the It is however unclear why certain choices are church. These are not discreet categories but made in a congested religious market place. shape the being, saying and doing of the The religious discourse images Pentecostalism Pentecostal movement. They are useful sources in Africa as primarily a religious movement. To for revisiting the debate on Pentecostal ignore this will be like watching a dancing response to African cultural heritage. madman without hearing the music playing in Recently, the social scientific method in his ears. Africans say that the madman may doing the cultural analysis and this has become look stupid but he is hearing the spirits blowing quite a significant voice in constructing the sweet tunes with the conch.3 They also say that image of Pentecostalism. This voice virtually how a spectator describes a masquerade proces- drowns the theological voice because it is ‘sci- sion depends on where the person stands. entific’ and is embellished with prolific jargons. These scholars have interpreted the move- It is built on certain assumptions, worldview ment from various stances, methodologies, and methodology that jar with theological biases, vested interests and ideologies. The method. According to Michael Barnes, the his- movement should benefit from the interdiscipli- tory of secular social science theorizing has put nary resources because it will be reductionist to theologians on guard. Some treat the social sci- fasten onto any mono-causal mast. ences less as a servant than as an animal to be domesticated, like goats worth milking once in Exploring the cultural discourse awhile but to be tethered outside the tent where The burden here is to explore a different dis- their gamey odor will not disturb the finer air course, the cultural discourse and to start from of theology.4 a different location. The cultural discourse Yet some models of cultural analysis share argues that Pentecostalism has grown because the same assumptions in theological anthropol- of its cultural fit into indigenous worldviews ogy. From both perspectives, we must be atten- and its response to the questions that are raised tive to three dimensions in the conversation within the interior of the worldviews. It asserts between religious traditions and cultures: how that the indigenous worldview still dominates the religious traditions challenge cultures by contemporary African experience and shapes posturing in a prophetic stance, how religious the character of African Pentecostalism. traditions are challenged by cultures and how It interprets African Pentecostalism as the religious traditions could engage the resources ‘setting to work’ of the pneumatic semen of the of cultures in pursuit of their own religious gospel in Africa, at once showing how Africans mission. appropriated the gospel message, how they Equally important is a revisit of political responded to the presence of the kingdom in economy under the colonial canopy. To profile their midst, and how its power transformed the terrain, we deploy the theory of three their worldviews. Exercising a measure of publics that modifies P.P. Ekeh’s concept of two agency, African Christians absorbed new publics. He argued that colonialism created two resources generated internally and externally in publics, that the African exploited the niches

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between the traditional and civic (modern) London.’ To foray there successfully was an publics in negotiating citizenship and responsi- achievement to be celebrated with the flute and bility.5 It is more complex. There are three drum. People learned to loot in the emergent interpenetrating “publics” in the African politi- public without due repercussions in the primal cal and moral universe: the indigenous culture context as long as they were not caught and or public, an emergent culture/public created in brought home and shared the wealth with the the encounter between the indigenous and the kinsfolk. The interplay between the three western cultures and the external western pub- publics has been used to explain the break- lic that is maintained by multinational corpora- down of social control models and the moral tions, international organizations and other collapse in contemporary culture. agents of globalization who operate with a James Ferguson has theorized the cultural western mindset. Foreign education and global dualism in rural connections and urban styles forces keep the character of the western public in his book, Expectation of Modernity. He in Africa’s present. One could hear the white urges that urban scholarship should focus on complaints about their hosts’ different work circular migration rather than rural-urban ethics, priorities and lifestyle, indicating that migration precisely because most African this public is peripheral but influential because migrants spend the period in the urban envi- of the amount of resources that it controls. The ronment in planning the re-entry or return to most powerful political space is located in the the homesteads. So, he designed the character emergent public that is neither primal nor west- of urban life as a spectrum from two polarities, ern, a veritable mélange of both. One of the the cosmopolitan capability and localist capa- songs by the Afro-jazz artist, Fela Ransome bility. As a town dweller shows a high cos- Kuti dubbed it, shakara culture (lacking stable mopolitan style and urban competence, the risk roots), spawned in the sabob gari (strangers’ may be a decreasing capability to perform quarters) of the urban environment. It has its localist expectations. Villagers often label such own value system bred in the anonymity of the people as being ‘lost’.7 town. Studies on African urbanity have It, therefore, matters where an analysis described the strangeness, allure, opportunities starts or is located because many studies on and challenges of this environment. Under the African Pentecostalism are usually placed in the imprint of Heinneman’s Africa Writers series, contemporary period and in the context of novelists such as Wole Sonyika in his The urbanity and its shakara (rootless) culture. Interpreters, Alex la Guma’s Down Second From here, assertions are made that ignore in- Avenue, Cyprian Ekwensi’s Lokotown and depth ethnographical research and that pre- Jagua Nana have recreated the noise, bustle, sume a higher degree of urban ethos than exists slums and chaos in African cities. As a society in Africa. It does not recognize the force of cul- is thrust into the enlarged or re-organized tural villigization of the modern public space; macrocosm, new lifestyles and ethical options that most of the inhabitants of the towns carry are spawned.6 medicine made in the villages to empower their From this moral perspective, it is as if the successful foraying in the towns. As Ellis and urban is a deviation, lacking authenticity, a ver- ter Haar observed: itable wasteland inhabited by ‘black Englishmen’ who were neither English nor ‘Many Africans today who continue to hold authentic Africans. Changing value systems beliefs derived from their traditional cos- ensured that people did things in the emergent mologies apply these to everyday life even public that they would not dare to do in the when they live in cities and work in the civil indigenous or western publics. In the latter they service or business sector. Religious world- would be imprisoned; in the former gods were views do not necessarily diminish with for- the policemen. But the emergent public was mal education.’8 regarded as the white man’s world where peo- ple did the white man’s work and live in ‘half Perhaps, western scholars start from their

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own experience because the rise of Pentecostalism in the United States was Templeton Film Award ascribed to rapid social change, urbanization, 2006 social mobility and the undermining of tradi- tional values and structures of meaning. Thus, Grbavica by the Bosnian film director there is a connection between the movement Jasmila Zbanic (Austria/Bosnia- and urban anomie, deprivation and cognitive dissonance. Herzegovina/Germany/Croatia 2006) The analysis of contemporary experience in has won the 10th European John Africa does not start from globalizing cultural Templeton Film Award 2006. forces, however crucial. The force of traditional cultures in determining behavior and policy in The European John Templeton Film the modern public space compels an in-depth Prize is awarded in the name of the study of its salience and resilience. Pentecostal prestigious John Templeton Foundation cultural policy demonstrates an acute aware- by INTERFILM, and the Geneva-based ness of this powerful reality for the majority of Conference of European Churches Africans, in a continent where most people live (CEC). The prize carries an award of in the rural areas and where the urban dwellers Euros 10,000. cultivate their roots in their villages.

Notes The film is set in Grbavica, a suburb of 1. Cephas Omenyo, Pentecost Outside Pentecostalism: A Sarajevo, where 12-year-old Sara lives Study of the Development of Charismatic Renewal in the in a loving relationship with her mother Mainline Churches in Ghana( Zoetemeer: Uitgeverij Esma. The child is preparing to go on a Boekencentrum,2002). 2. Paul Gifford, The New Crusaders (London: Pluto school trip for which Esma is working Press,1991). hard to raise the money. Problems arise 3. Ogbu U. Kalu, “The Third Response: Pentecostalism when Sara’s belief that her father died and the Reconstruction of Christian Experience in Africa, in the Bosnian war is undermined by 1970-1995,” Studia Ecclesiasticae Historiae, University of Pretoria,24 ,2,(1998):1-34. the fact that the trip is free for ‘war 4. Michael H. Barnes, ed., Theology and the Social heroes’. So why cannot her mother find Sciences (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001),xi the certificate which would allow her to 5. P.P.Ekeh, Colonialism and Social Structure (Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press, 1983): 28-29. travel free? 6. R.W. Hefner, Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Berkeley: University of The film captures the real dilemmas of California Press, 1993). the aftermath of a tragic ethnic conflict; 7. James Ferguson, Expectation of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life in the Zambian Copperfield the economic problems facing single (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), parents; the continuing social divisions chapt.,3 in a society struggling to come to terms 8. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: with the past; but overall is the endur- Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004),51. ing love of a parent for her child and the child for her parent. The film suc- ceeds in evoking a traumatising experi- Ogbu Kalu is Henry Winters Luce Professor of World Christianity and Mission, McCormick Theological ence through gestures, physical expres- Seminary, Chicago, USA. He is an elder in the sions and moments of silence. Presbyterian Church of Nigeria and has served as visiting professor at several institutions. His publications include Grbavica won the Golden Bear and the Power, Poverty and Prayer: The Challenges of Poverty and Pluralism in African Christianity 1960-1996 and as Ecumenical Jury prize at the 2006 editor History ofthe Church in the Third World: Vol. III, Berlin Film Festival. African Christianity: An African Story.

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Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to grant broadcast licenses. The Congress asserted The unknown that the electromagnetic spectrum is a national resource that cannot be owned by any one per- history of son or corporation, but that it can only be licensed for a specific period of time. The license, in effect, is a monopoly to use a scarce televangelism commodity. In exchange for this monopoly, the station is obligated to broadcast ‘in the public William F. Fore interest’. From the beginning, religious broad- casting was considered one of the ways of ful- A brief summary of how televangelism filling a station’s ‘public interest’ obligation. in the United States began, grew, and But which religious speakers should broad- finally dominated the media is given in casters put on the air? Literally hundreds of the following article. It explores some ministers and evangelists asked for time. At implications of this history, and indi- first the radio networks sold time to religious cates why the subject deserves a good speakers, but some of the more outspoken cler- gy were much too narrow and controversial for deal more careful analysis than it has their liking. Perhaps the worst example was received thus far. Along the way it Father Charles Coughlin who broadcast on describes how the televangelists gained radio in the early 1930s, regularly preaching power over the Federal Communication hatred of Jews and blacks. Commission, a power that has provided Very soon the radio networks decided not to a unique opportunity for fundamentalist sell time but to give time to the largest repre- religion to effect cultural change. sentative bodies which would speak on behalf of all religions. These groups were the national Council of Catholic Bishops, the Federal great deal is being written these days Council of Churches (Protestant), and a coali- about the increasing role of religion in tion of three national Jewish organizations. AAmerican life, and in particular, its This system worked reasonably well political life. A recent book by best selling throughout the late 1930s and 1940s. When author Kevin Phillips, entitled American television came in about 1950, each of these Theocracy (Penguin Books, Viking Group, ‘faith groups’ was given time each Sunday for 2006) details the central role religion now plays their TV programs, programs which were in America. broadly representative of the religious and cul- Many writers, sociologists, historians, cul- tural diversity of the country as a whole. The tural analysists, have described this phenome- FCC gave ‘public interest credit’ to the net- non and tried to explain its origins and power. works and their stations for providing free They point to the sect-driven dynamic of time. In fact, the networks themselves actually American religion, the populist innovations in paid for the program production. worship developed by laypersons, the large However, the evangelical and fundamentalist number of denominations, the pervasive influ- groups were more or less excluded from this ence of the Bible and its literal interpretation. agreement, although the Southern Baptists, But with few exceptions, almost none of them Mormons and others were given a modest has dealt with one of the most important fac- amount of air time, and some televangelists tors in the equation, the use of the mass media were able to buy time, mostly on radio and by televangelists. non-network TV stations. In 1960 all this changed. Under growing A brief history of religious broadcasting pressure from conservative groups, the FCC In 1934 the U.S. Congress passed the ruled that local stations could sell airtime for Communications Act which authorized the

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religious programs and still get ‘public interest’ multi-million dollar giants. Aggressive and legal credit. Suddenly evangelical groups lined up to fund-raising on the air made possible the cre- buy commercial time on radio and TV, and ation of huge distribution systems for the tele- local stations that had previously agreed with vangelists, all with the bonus of being tax free the network policy not to sell airtime for reli- as religious organizations. gious broadcasting, began to cash in on the new demand and to sell time to the highest bid- Political power of the electronic church der. In addition, since 1960 the religious broadcast- The new FCC policy was devastating to pro- ers have steadily increased their political power grams that had been carried free for the major in America. Consider the famous ‘Madelyn (main line) groups. Just before the FCC ruling Murray O’Hare Affair’. In the 1960s and 70s, took effect, only 53% of all religious broad- Madelyn Murray O’Hare was a famous casting was paid-time. But by 1977, paid-time American atheist. Among other things, she religious broadcasting had risen to 92%. Thus, attacked the electronic church through marches since the mid-1970s, religious broadcasting has and protests. But in 1975 an anonymous letter been firmly in the hands of the televangelists. began to circulate, charging that Mrs. O’Hare was trying to get the FCC to remove all Deregulation Christian programs from radio and television. However, the changes in religious broadcasting To quote from the letter: ‘(Her) petition, were only the beginning of a more fundamental Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way change in broadcasting itself. When Ronald to stop the reading of the gospel (of) our Lord Reagan became President in 1980, he brought and Savior, on the airwaves of America. They about an almost complete deregulation of radio got 287,000 signatures to back their stand! and TV. He did this by weakening the FCC to Please stand up for your religious freedom and the point where it had very little real control. let your voice be heard.’ He cut the number of FCC Commissioners The only problem with this letter, which was from seven to five. He drastically reduced its passed on to thousands of conservative budget. And he installed a Chairman who pub- Christians in church meetings, newsletters, and licly proclaimed that ‘television is no different through private mailings, is that none of it was from a toaster’. That is, in his view, the TV set true. Mrs. O’Hare had not filed a petition with was just another appliance. The cultural impact the FCC. There were no 287,000 signatures. of broadcasting was irrelevant. The market- The whole thing was false. It was soon revealed place, not public policy, determined who con- to be untrue in the press and on the air. The trols TV and radio. FCC issued a public statement saying the peti- The result was the rapid buying up of sta- tion never existed and that it had no intention tions by large networks, which made possible of forbidding Bible reading on the air. the centralization of power in the hands of only Yet this did not deter the religious faithful. a few multinational corporations who now They began to send letters and postcards to the own every part of the broadcasting system ? FCC by the thousands, and finally by the mil- radio, TV, cable, and satellite. Programming, lions, for months and months, and then for including sports, news, investigative reporting, years and years. The Commission received so even the weather,- rapidly became commercial- much protest mail (more than 30 million!) that ized. Profits ruled over the public interest. they had to stop opening them, and merely Businesses profited greatly from this change, piled stacks of mail bags in their closets. and so did the Electronic Church. Televangelists And from this experience the FCC got the used money sent by listeners and viewers (much message, loud and clear: don’t challenge the of it pledged for mission work overseas) to buy Electronic Church. Ever since that time, the up hundreds of radio and TV station licenses, Commission has refused to exert any significant and to create satellite-fed networks. Some of regulation over so-called religious stations. the largest televangelist organizations became Today there are some 1,600 ‘Christian’ radio

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stations on the air, and 250 ‘Christian’ TV sta- and God’s creation of the earth in six days. tions. They blanket the nation. Their licenses Even more disturbing, 71% of evangelical require them to broadcast ‘in the public conve- Christians said they believe the world will end nience, interest and necessity’, and the courts in an Armegaddon battle between Jesus Christ have ruled that this means a broadcaster must and the Antichrist. Thus, millions of people in provide diverse programming that meets the America hold this amazing (and very disturb- needs of its entire listening-viewing audience. ing) view But these 1,600 radio stations do not do But of course, millions do not. The result is that. Instead, they broadcast, hour after hour, that America is a nation deeply divided the brand of religion that suits them, and noth- between people who are concerned about real- ing more. The FCC should have long ago life issues, war and peace, social justice, the denied them their licenses to broadcast, but health and welfare of people, on one hand, and they will not. They cannot, because the reli- other people who are concerned, instead, about gious right has become so strong in the ‘values’, by which they mean adherence to Congress and the Administration that it would ancient taboos, dependence on a magical God, be political suicide for any politician to chal- enforcing acceptance of ancient creeds, requir- lenge these stations. ing everyone to believe as they do, and finding If you turn on one of these stations, you will safety in raw (though often hidden) social and hear an amazing gospel. The outline of the economic power. message is rather simple, and bizarre. For most of them it goes something like this: The Old Implications Testament is literally true, and it promises the What are the implications of such a message, Jews that they are the People of God. Once broadcast everywhere in America, everyday of Israel has occupied all of the ‘biblical lands’, the year, on radio and television? First, consider legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, trigger- the theological implications. In the last half- ing a battle in the valley of Armageddon, at century a whole new understanding of the Bible which time the Messiah will return for the ‘rap- has emerged from Biblical scholars. The result ture’. in Europe has been a mass exodus from the tra- During the ‘rapture’, true believers will be ditional churches which cling to the orthodox lifted out of their clothes and transported to views, while in America there has arisen a heaven, where, seated on the right hand of much stronger fundamentalism. Why has there God, they will watch their political and reli- been such different religious development on gious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, the two sides of the Atlantic? A major differ- locusts, and frogs during the seven years of ence is that in America there were scores of ‘tribulation’ that will follow. Then there is television evangelists and hundreds of radio increasing struggle and the final battle on the preachers on the air, day and night, preaching a plains of Armageddon. Christ is victorious, and bogus religion whose story is a wild tale of the those who are saved look forward to a glorious end of the world, and whose values closely reign of a thousand years, a new Heaven and a resemble the values and worldview of secular new Earth. (Incidentally, this is one of the main America, the values of winning, of wealth, of reasons for America’s support of Israel, since power, and of being Number One. On the Israel’s control of the ‘biblical lands’ is a first other side of the Atlantic, European audiences step toward the ‘rapture’ and the end of the were never subjected to this kind of message. world which is so much desired by these Second, consider the political implications. Christians!) Today there is a significant group within the If you find it difficult to accept that many fundamentalist community who want to bring ordinary people would really believe this sort about a complete change in the American form of thing, consider that in a 2004 Gallup Poll, of government. Pat Robertson is a key leader in 55% of Americans said they believe the Bible is the group called Dominionists, or sometimes literally true, including the story of Noah’s Ark Reconstructionists. Robertson and his followers

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consistently and openly argue that America in its task. must become a theocracy under the control of The FCC has allowed licenses to go to reli- Christian fundamentalists. He is on record say- gious groups who have no intention of ever ing that democracy is a terrible form of govern- broadcasting in ways that speaks to the diversi- ment, unless it is run by his kind of Christians. ty within their community, but only to use their Dr. Gary North, a major figure among the monopoly as a tool to further their own nar- Dominionists, clarifies their goal and tactics: row ideology. And if they are able to continue ‘We must use the doctrine of religious liberty ... to gain power, some day they may even attempt until we train up a generation of people who to deny religious liberty to all the ‘enemies of know that there is no religious neutrality, no God’. This is what the current ‘culture clash’ in neutral law, no neutral education, and no neu- America is all about. tral civil government. Then they will get busy Of course, this situation was not created in a constructing a Bible-based social, political and political and social vacuum. Many other forces religious order which finally denies the religious were at work, including the powerful commer- liberty of the enemies of God.’ To give you an cial broadcasters who wanted to be free from idea of what the new Bible-based order would regulation at least as much as the religious be like, Dr. North advocates public execution broadcasters. But without the development of of women who undergo abortions, and a simi- large and powerful conservative religious lar fate for those who advise them to do so. broadcasting, with its strong political compo- This situation could easily be dismissed as nent, much of what has occurred in the past six the ravings of a few neurotic sociopaths, except years in the United Sates simply would not for the chilling fact that our President and have happened. many of his advisors talk in much the same Mr. Bush would not have been elected way. While Mr. Bush does not agree wholly President. The nation would not have been with the Dominionists, he is supported by plunged into a war that is understood by many many of them, and they have much in com- to be a religious war and not acknowledged to mon. In Mr. Bush’s world, there exist only two be about oil. And millions of Americans would groups, the enemies of freedom and the lovers not have been misinformed and misled into of freedom, the evil and the good. Thus to accepting a war based upon both false informa- waver, to change policy, would be to tempt tion and a superficial misunderstanding of the God’s disfavor. Indeed, the very act of holding Bible and its teachings. to his resolve, what his critics identify as his Television is not a toaster. It is the world’s stubbornness and arrogance, becomes a way of most important source of news and informa- reassuring himself of his special place in God’s tion, and its most powerful propaganda agent. plan. Unless it is regulated by governments so as to insure that all people have access to all sides of Summary issues, democracy as we know it becomes What we have in the American Electronic impossible. Church today is a phenomenon that has gained immense power, almost entirely through the use William F. Fore graduated from Occidental College and received his BD degree from Yale University Divinity of radio and television. The televangelists have School. He is ordained in the United Methodist Church used this power to join forces with the political and is a member of the California-Pacific Conference. In right in order to bring about a nation more in 1971 he received his PhD from Columbia University and conformity with what its adherents believe to Union Theological School. From 1972 to 1975 served as be the will of God, or at least the demands of chairperson of the Advisory Council of National Christianity. This power came about because Organizations of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. and from 1982 to 1988 as President of the World the FCC, which is charged with making certain Association for Christian Communication. His books the airwaves are used to meet the needs of the include: Television and Religion: the Shaping of Faith, entire community and that all issues of impor- Values and Culture and Mythmakers: Gospel, Culture and tance to citizens are thoroughly aired, has failed Media.

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flagged in several places in the New Testament (Mt 19:19; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27; Rom 13:9; Communication Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8). Clearly a founding principle of Christianity, it was quickly ignored by the is peace: WACC's church authorities for reasons of political expe- diency and on many occasions dismissed alto- gether. The concept of a ‘just war’ of aggres- mission today sion, for example, enabled church authorities to endorse hostile and belligerent acts.1 Philip Lee Modern Christianity has come a long way towards reconciling some of its earlier more ‘The peoples of our planet have a callous and divisive beliefs. Even so, it still has sacred right to peace’, states the a long way to go. Many churches have debated Declaration on the Right of Peoples to their response to homosexuality. Some have Peace, adopted by the UN General rejected homosexual practices as incompatible Assembly on 12 November 1984. What with the Scripture, at the same time as con- demning homophobia, defined as an irrational does this mean in the context of today’s fear of homosexuality. Some have decided that complex societies? In what kind of envi- they cannot legitimize or bless same-sex unions ronment can people flourish without or ordain those involved in same-sex unions. conflict? Where does communication fit Ironically, they are still committed to listening in? And what should be WACC’s role? to the experience of homosexual people, assur- ing them that they are all loved by God. hen the world was divided into ‘true Other churches explain why the ordination believers’ and ‘infidels’, it made sense of women is impossible. They say, for example, Wfor the church authorities to enforce that the issue of the ordination of women is not the ‘great commission’ to ‘go into all the world a matter of ‘human rights’ or ‘church tradition’ and proclaim the good news to the whole cre- or various human opinions and customs. Nor is ation’ (NRSV, Mark 16:15). The verse that fol- it a matter of ‘discrimination against women’, lows that command makes it clear that those but a question of avoiding becoming ensnared who do not believe the good news will be con- in self-centered demands for ‘rights’ and forget- demned, so a strict interpretation condones the ting the Lord’s call to service. alienation, if not the elimination, of all those In 2006, with public awareness of HIV and who refuse the grace of salvation. AIDS running at an all time high, the Roman This aim of the early church authorities was Catholic Church, at the behest of Pope immediately contested on several fronts. The Benedict XVI, asked senior theologians and sci- power and resources of the early church were entists to prepare a document discussing the challenged by the Jewish authorities, the resid- use of condoms as a means of preventing the ual Egyptian and Persian empires, the declining transmission of HIV. It is doubtful whether the Roman power, and the arrival of hoards of proposed document will pave the way for a ‘outsiders’ (Vandals, Visigoths, Huns), as well fundamental shift in church policy. The Vatican as the imminent rise of Islam. Only by allying still opposes the use of condoms as part of its politically and economically with the dominant teaching against contraception and advocates powers could the church ever succeed in pro- sexual abstinence as the best way to fight the claiming the ascendancy of the Christian faith spread of the AIDS virus. over all other religious or secular beliefs. Women, homosexuals, people of color, and Tactically this was an error. It meant ‘inter- people of other faiths and none, still find it dif- preting’ (thus altering) the biblical command- ficult to conceive that ‘love your neighbor as ment to ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’, yourself’ does not mean total acceptance, inclu- which appears in Leviticus (19:18) and is also sion and equality. These aspects of ‘tolerance’

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are present in the widely ignored Declaration nomic structures, and reshaping social and cul- Toward A Global Ethic of the Parliament of the tural attitudes and beliefs in the light of mod- World’s Religions (1993) whose introduction ern understandings. In terms of communica- states: tion, it means using mass and community media for social change. It means ‘going public’ ‘We must treat others as we wish others to with beliefs and values in which everyone can treat us. We make a commitment to respect see him or herself represented fairly and justly – life and dignity, individuality and diversity, beliefs and values that include rather than so that every person is treated humanely, exclude. without exception. We must have patience Further differences between the old and the and acceptance. We must be able to forgive, new models are identified in the table opposite. learning from the past but never allowing But the question of how far the churches have ourselves to be enslaved by memories of come remains open to interpretation. For hate. Opening our hearts to one another, we example, much of the pioneering work of the must sink our narrow differences for the churches in Latin America in the three decades cause of the world community, practicing a 1960 to 1990 (Dom Helder Câmara in Brazil, culture of solidarity and relatedness.’ Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez in Chile, Mons. Oscar Romero in El Salvador, Bishop Juan The Declaration lists four ‘irrevocable direc- Gerardi in Guatemala, Bishop Samuel Ruiz in tives’. They are commitment to a culture of Mexico) reflects an understanding of Gospel non-violence and respect for life; commitment values than many conservative and reactionary to a culture of solidarity and a just economic groups still contest. order; commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness; and commitment to a What does this mean for WACC? culture of equal rights and partnership between In 1986 WACC defined its understanding of the men and women. It is this call to recognize and role of communication today in the form of its protect the abundant diversity of life that Christian Principles of Communication. They should underlie the mission of the churches rationalized the situation facing communicators today and, by implication, their communication in a world where public communication, at the practice. beginning of yet another phase of ‘globaliza- tion’,2 was tending to reinforce divisions, widen Proclaiming values that everyone can recognize the gap between rich and poor, consolidate The mission of the churches used to be to pro- oppression, and distort reality in order to main- claim the ascendancy of the Christian faith over tain systems of domination and subject the all other religious or secular beliefs. This meant silenced masses to media manipulation. WACC proselytizing, converting the non-believer. It recognized five crucial components of good meant ‘going public’ with a different, possibly communication: alien, set of beliefs and values and extolling Communication creates community. Genuine social and cultural values that reflected particu- communication cannot take place where there lar denominational tenets of faith. In terms of is division, alienation, isolation and barriers the mass media, it meant criticizing and con- that disturb, prevent or distort social interac- demning practices with which the church dis- tion. True communication is facilitated when agreed or that did not conform to its historical people join together regardless of race, color or role as ‘guardian of the faith’. religious conviction, and where there is accep- In a pluralistic world of different cultures tance of and commitment to one another. and beliefs, the mission of the churches must be Communication is participatory. to proclaim non-violence, tolerance, truthful- Participatory communication may challenge the ness, and equal rights as universal values. In authoritarian structures in society, in the practice, this means criticizing abuses of power, churches and in the media, while democratizing campaigning to reform unjust political and eco- new areas of life. It may also challenge some of

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The old The new structures in society that are more just, more egalitarian and more conducive to the fulfill- Churches converted infi- Churches promote a ment of human rights. dels to the Christian Christian faith that Communication supports and develops cul- faith without regard for emphasizes a just and cultural or racial differ- equitable basis for co- tures. Communicators have a responsibility to ence. existence. use and develop indigenous forms of communi- cation. They have to cultivate a symbolic envi- Churches created a com- Churches create a com- ronment of mutually shared images and mean- munity of believers munity of believers ings which respect human dignity and the reli- whose aims were to whose aims are solidari- gious and cultural values which are at the heart divide and conquer. ty in diversity. of Third World cultures. One of the greatest Churches restricted par- Churches encourage assets of today’s world is its many different cul- ticipation to strictly participation at all lev- tures, revealing the richness of God’s image in hierarchical levels. els. all its diversity. Communication is prophetic. Prophetic Churches liberated peo- Churches affirm people communication stimulates critical awareness of ple from their ‘pagan in their own social and beliefs and supersti- cultural histories. the reality constructed by the media and helps tions’. people to distinguish truth from falsehood, to discern the subjectivity of the onlooker and to Churches supported and Churches support and disassociate that which is ephemeral and trivial developed other cultures develop other cultures from that which is lasting and valuable. in order to change them. in order to engage with Each of these five principles contributes them. directly to a sixth that is implicit. Building a Churches interpreted the Churches interpret the genuine sense of community, enabling all mem- signs of the times signs of the times bers of society to participate, guaranteeing true according to the politi- according to the politi- freedom to speak out and be heard, openly rec- cal, social and cultural cal, social and cultural ognizing cultural diversity, and creating critical needs of the elite. needs of the marginal- awareness of potential problems and solutions ized. can be described as the pillars of peaceful coex- istence. Yet peace does not exist in and of itself Churches communicated Churches communicate hierarchically. multilaterally. – it has to be worked for. There are two kinds of peace. The absence Churches used mass Churches use mass of war, violence, acts of terrorism and hostility media to reinforce faith media to challenge faith constitutes what has been called ‘negative and to obstruct political and to promote political peace’. Positive peace, on the other hand, is and social change. and social change. much more than those absences: it means establishing and maintaining a harmonious, the ‘professional rules’ of the media, whereby functionally co-operative and well-integrated the powerful, rich and glamorous occupy cen- society at local, national and global levels. ter-stage to the exclusion of ordinary men, Professor Johan Galtung refines these con- women and children. Participatory communica- cepts further: ‘Peace is the absence/reduction of tion can give people a new sense of human dig- violence of all kinds’, and ‘peace is non-vio- nity, a new experience of community, and the lence and creative conflict transformation.’ In enjoyment of a fuller life. short, peace is the political, social and cultural Communication liberates. Communication context in which conflict can ‘unfold non-vio- 3 that liberates, enables people to articulate their lently and creatively.’ own needs and helps them to act together to meet those needs. It enhances their sense of dig- Communication promotes peace nity and underlines their right to full participa- The true mission of faith-based organizations tion in the life of society. It aims to bring about and, therefore, communication, is peace. This is

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implicit in ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’, strong presence of illegal economies (such as since only a fool would wish to be denigrated, drug trafficking). All these, working in con- vilified, or killed in the processes that lead to junction, erode the social fabric and nor- conflict and war. Only by invoking the sacred- malise a culture of strong individuality, dis- ness and inviolability of life, by advocating belief in the rule of law, fear and isolation, non-violence and creative resolution, can com- exclusion of difference, and lack of solidari- municators act morally. Communication that ty among individuals. In these contexts, promotes peace responds, therefore, to the real- communication for peace initiatives emerge ity of: as attempts to “re-knit” the social fabric. Here, the goal is to open communication ‘Otherness – the other race and ethnicity, the spaces where individuals can - collectively - other sex and caste, the other nation, other construct links among each other based on faith, other ideology, even other language. mutual respect, solidarity, and collective Otherness is one of the key concepts of con- enjoyment of public spaces.’5 temporary philosophy, of social ethics, and of communication studies.’4 The mission of the Christian churches is to communicate the original Gospel values of love Communication that promotes peace must for one’s neighbor: respect, understanding, soli- not confuse freedom of expression with intoler- darity, justice and the 'sacred right to peace'. To ance or intemperate criticism or confuse plural- do so in the information and knowledge soci- ism with indifference to truth. It must cultivate eties of today, the churches have constructively truthfulness in place of dishonesty, bias and and honestly to criticize their own and other’s opportunism. It must actively seek truth in use of the mass media and all other means of place of spreading ideological or partisan half- communication in order to debate, question truths. It must courageously serve truth in a and challenge the policies and actions of any constant and trustworthy way. ‘principality and power’ that misrepresents or Communication for peace includes media- negates those values. tion via mass and community media, non-vio- As Richard Holloway affirms, ‘Christianity lent methods of conflict resolution, and a clear is not a way of explaining the world; it is a way stand against the arms race. It supports those of disturbing the world.’6 The mission of the affected by violence and war – orphans, wid- WACC is, therefore, to promote peace using all ows, widowers – and their communication means of communication. That is also the true rights. It demands accountability from those meaning of global ecumenism – not the post- involved in violent confrontation, strengthens Reformation ecumenism aimed at reuniting all inter-governmental and non-governmental bod- Christians, but an ecumenism aimed at bringing ies involved in peace-making, promotes a dis- together all the people of the inhabited world course of peaceful co-existence rather than to act in solidarity to bring about their physical security issues, and advocates extensive deploy- and spiritual salvation. ment of ICTs in peace programmes. Above all, communication for peace Notes attempts to mend the fabric of communities 1. The most systematic exposition of this philosophy is torn by violence: given by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) in the Summa Theologica, where he discusses not only the justification of war, but also the kinds of activity that are permissible ‘In the “social fabric” approach to commu- in war. Aquinas’s thinking became the model for later nication for peace, social and political vio- scholars and jurists to expand. lence are understood as very complex phe- 2. In his book A Brief History of Globalization nomena that emerge at the intersection of (Constable & Robinson, 2006), Alex MacGillivray focus- es on ‘global intent’ as the crucial element in the process, many factors ranging from unequal distribu- i.e. knowledge breakthroughs that spurred the ambition to tion of resources, weak state presence, cor- encompass the newly imagined globe. For MacGillivray rupt government officials, impunity, and globalization is not a linear process. He identifies five cru-

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cial moments of global ‘contraction’: Spain and Portugal’s carve-up of the world in the late 15th century; imperial Britain’s expanding global reach in the late 19th; the first New flight of Sputnik and the Cold War that followed; the emergence of modern multinational corporations and the Internet; and the imminent challenge of climate change, or Convention for ‘thermo-globalization’, the impact of which ‘could make all previous experiences of globalization look like a false labour’. Persons with 3. Johan Galtung (1996). Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. Sage Publications. 4. Traber, Michael (2003). ‘Proto-Norms of Disabilities Communication Ethics.’ Paper on ‘Communication Theology from Missiological Perspectives’, given at St On 13 December 2006, after five years Peter’s Pontifical Seminary & Institute, Bangalore. 5. ‘Communication for Peace: Contrasting Approaches’ of negotiations, an international treaty by Clemencia Rodriguez in The Drum Beat, Issue 278, 6 giving greater rights and freedoms to December 2004. disabled people around the world was 6. Richard Holloway (2001). Doubts and Loves, p. 134. Edinburgh, Canongate. adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The UN Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Philip Lee studied modern languages at the University of Warwick, Coventry, and conducting and piano at the Disabilities is the first human rights Royal Academy of Music, London. He joined the staff of treaty of the 21st Century. The UN the World Association for Christian Communication in expects that it will contribute to a sig- 1975, where he is currently deputy director of programme and editor of the international journal Media nificant improvement in the lives of dis- Development. Publications include The Democratisation abled people whose world population is of Communication (ed.) (1995); The WACC 1975-2000: ‘A Labour of Love’ (2000); Communication & estimated to be 650 million. Reconciliation: Challenges Facing the 21st Century (ed.) (2001); Requiem: Here’s Another Fine Mass You’ve N General Secretary Kofi Annan greeted Gotten Me Into (2001); and Many Voices, One Vision: ‘the dawn of a new era - an era in The Right to Communicate in Practice (ed.) (2004). Uwhich disabled people will no longer have to endure discriminatory practices and attitudes that have been permitted to prevail for far too long.’ Proponents of the convention maintained that the treaty was necessary because people with disabilities represent one of the most mar- ginalized groups and their rights have been rou- tinely ignored or denied throughout much of the world. While the Convention does not create new rights, it specifically prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of life, including civil rights, access to justice and the right to education, health services and access to transportation. Currently only 45 countries have specific legislation that protects disabled people. The Convention recognises that a change of attitude is vital if disabled people are to achieve equal

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status – countries that ratify it will be obliged bility issues facing persons with disabilities; to combat negative stereotypes and prejudices (d) Provide in buildings and other facilities and to promote an awareness of people’s abili- open to the public signage in Braille and in easy ties and contribution to society. to read and understand forms; Countries will also have to guarantee that (e) Provide forms of live assistance and interme- disabled people will have a right to life on an diaries, including guides, readers and profes- equal basis with others. Access to public spaces sional sign language interpreters, to facilitate and buildings as well as transport, information accessibility to buildings and other facilities and communications will also have to be open to the public; improved. (f) Promote other appropriate forms of assis- Most notable among the countries that will tance and support to persons with disabilities not be signing the convention is the USA. It to ensure their access to information; says that it already has comprehensive laws on (g) Promote access for persons with disabilities disability rights. to new information and communication tech- Articles 19 and 21 of the Convention nologies and systems, including the Internet; include communication and the mass media in (h) Promote the design, development, produc- their texts, which are given below. tion and distribution of accessible information and communications technologies and systems Article 9 – Accessibility at an early stage, so that these technologies and 1. To enable persons with disabilities to live systems become accessible at minimum cost. independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties shall take appro- Article 21 – Freedom of expression and opin- priate measures to ensure to persons with dis- ion, and access to information abilities access, on an equal basis with others, States Parties shall take all appropriate mea- to the physical environment, to transportation, sures to ensure that persons with disabilities to information and communications, including can exercise their right to freedom of expres- information and communications technologies sion and opinion, including the freedom to and systems, and to other facilities and services seek, receive and impart information and ideas open or provided to the public, both in urban on an equal basis with others and through sign and in rural areas. These measures, which shall languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative include the identification and elimination of communication, and all other accessible means, obstacles and barriers to accessibility, shall modes and formats of communication of their apply to, inter alia: choice, including by: (a) Buildings, roads, transportation and other (a) Providing information intended for the gen- indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools, eral public to persons with disabilities in acces- housing, medical facilities and workplaces; sible formats and technologies appropriate to (b) Information, communications and other ser- different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner vices, including electronic services and emer- and without additional cost; gency services. (b) Accepting and facilitating the use of sign 2. States Parties shall also take appropriate languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative measures to: communication, and all other accessible means, (a) Develop, promulgate and monitor the modes and formats of communication of their implementation of minimum standards and choice by persons with disabilities in official guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and interactions; services open or provided to the public; (c) Urging private entities that provide services (b) Ensure that private entities that offer facili- to the general public, including through the ties and services which are open or provided to Internet, to provide information and services in the public take into account all aspects of accessible and usable formats for persons with accessibility for persons with disabilities; disabilities; (c) Provide training for stakeholders on accessi- (d) Encouraging the mass media, including

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providers of information through the Internet, enhancement of Homo sapiens and other to make their services accessible to persons species beyond species typical boundaries. with disabilities; The design of new life forms through syn- (e) Recognizing and promoting the use of sign thetic biology, might lead people to believe language. that it is essential to change the concept of “person” and “human rights” towards the Missing ethics concept of “sentient being rights” and to The Convention makes no reference to the ethi- link the term “person” not just to cal use of new technologies, especially those “humans” but to cognitive abilities of any ‘convergent’ or ‘NBIC’ technologies (see Media species, in order to give the required legal Development 2/2006) that are currently the protection. subject of much serious debate. The impact on Different ethics and morality can be people with disabilities of developments in applied to biological entities not seen as per- nanotechnology, biotechnology, information sons. This is important for the applicability, technology and cognitive science is conspicuous legality, acceptance and ethical approval of by its absence. the selection of embryos with desired char- Without further comment, Article 4 (f ii) acteristics, elimination of fetuses with encourages research, development, availability unwanted characteristics, manipulation of and use of ‘new technologies, including infor- embryos and fetuses, infanticide, after-birth mation and communication technologies, biological enhancements and therapies on mobility aids, devices, assistive technologies, newborns, mercy killing, and interventions suitable for persons with disabilities, giving pri- at any other stage of human development ority to technologies at an affordable cost’. where a biological entity is seen as a non- Similarly, Article 17 on ‘Protecting the person. integrity of the person’ merely states that Disabled people will have to follow the ‘Every person with disabilities has a right to debates around personhood and what it is respect for his or her physical and mental to be a human being very closely to see how integrity on an equal basis with others.’ the applicability of the Convention might As Dr Gregor Wolbring, researcher at the change in the future.’ University of Calgary and chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People’s International Note has commented:1 1. The choice is yours. ‘NBICS and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, 15 September 2006. ‘Using the term “person” in the Convention http://www.innovationwatch.com/choiceisyours/choiceisy- has a variety of consequences. First, it ours.2006.09.15.htm makes this a Convention for disabled people who acquired or developed their impair- ment-labelled characteristic of functioning after birth. It does not protect against eugenic measures of pre-birth deselection. Article 10 - Right to Life will not apply to pre-birth stages and can not be used to fight other pre-birth interventions... Second, the Convention is susceptible to changes in the meaning of the term person, which has changed throughout history. The debate around the concept of personhood is now intensifying again for two reasons. Advances in science and technology increas- ingly allow for the modification and

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only be reached by air. All day and into the night white UN helicopters had roared across Congo's hidden the town and out to the bush, delivering all the paraphernalia needed for a national election in tragedy a country where there are no paved roads and the tracks through the bush that pass for roads Hugh McCullum are axle-breaking. The election stories were endless and amaz- There is no sky as big and deep and ing. Two skinny, bent grandmothers set out on Saturday to walk 35 kilometres to the polling dark as an African sky. I awoke in the station and then, having voted, turned and dark to a soft humming noise. A mos- walked back through the bush. They were quito, I thought, remembering the rip in dressed as for a feast: ‘We have voted; now the net over my cot and Aru's high inci- everything will be all right. No more violence; dence of malaria (1 million or more we will be safe.’ people die every year in Africa from the Henriette Katuku Kishala, a nurse in a hos- pital, built by the Belgians in 1926, which has disease). As I fumbled for a candle, the no electricity, and does surgery by the light of humming grew louder but still soft and candles and kerosene lamps, said the elections undulating. Can't be that many mosqui- would end the suffering. ‘It will make things toes. I went to the small glassless win- change because we must have change; we have dow. The sun was just touching the suffered too much.’ horizon. About 4.30 a.m. The humming In Ituri’s capital, Bunia, a bashed-up city of grew, my eyes adjusted. I could see and unknown numbers, the main MONUC centre for the northeast, the blue berets from a couple was hearing a huge crowd of people of dozen or more countries are exhausted, about 50 meters from my room. A long dirty, dark circles under their eyes, but they orderly queue as far as I could see in the laugh and dance and act as if they had voted early dawn light. Sort of eerie, was it themselves. ‘We did it, we did it,’ says a something religious on this Sunday Pakistani corporal with huge handlebar mous- morning, July 30? taches. ‘We’ve been fighting here for months, lots got killed. Today, nothing. People walked for days, old people, crippled people, pregnant uddenly my brain clicked in – election day women, kids, everyone walked for miles and – but the polls didn't open until 7 am. miles. Do you do that in Canada?’ SThere were thousands lined up around the voting station near where I had been sleeping. First elections for decades Solemn, quiet, patient, hands clutching their Technically, the war ended with the Pretoria voting papers. By the time the poll opened it accords of 2002, brokered by the UN, EU, US seemed half the town was there. and South Africa. Congo is no longer supposed Aru lies near the top of eastern Congo’s Ituri to be the killing fields of foreign countries and province, one of the most war-scarred ethnic militias. These elections for president, provinces in the DRC where more than the first in over 40 years, were held peacefully 200,000 people are still displaced, driven from and fairly on July 30. The 19,000-member their villages into squalid camps. Aru district is MONUC force, charged with maintaining just a few kilometres from the Uganda border. order, brilliantly supported the complex Congo- It is a MONUC (the French acronym for the operated voting process. UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC) base The UN spent more than $500 million, the serving 132 polling centres which adds up to biggest peacekeeping mission in its history. But 555 polling stations, most of them in the bush. for an area of 2.5 million sq kms, the mission is None has electricity, even in Aru, and most can

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accept the result due to fraud. He was support- National Elections at a glance ed by some elements of the powerful Roman Catholic church. Overall cost: US$430 million The election results immediately sparked Number of registered voters: 24.7 million violence in Kinshasa which heavily supported Number of voters: 17.9 million, 70% Bemba while Kabila received most of his votes Number of polling centres: 11,000 from the Swahili-speaking east of the country. Number of voting stations: 50,000 The Supreme Court was required to ratify the Number of presidential candidates: 32 electoral commission’s results and also hear Number of candidates for 500 parliamentary Bemba’s complaints that the vote was fraudu- seats: 9,000 lent. As the Supreme Court was hearing the Number of political parties: 200 case, it was set afire by a large crowd of pre- Last, and only, election: 1960 sumed Bemba supporters, burning many elec- toral documents and leading the Kabila- tiny. By contrast, in Europe, Kosovo had appointed judges to suspend hearings on Nov. 40,000 troops in 10,000 sq km with far fewer 22. people. And MONUC further lacks the ability The black-robed judges fled the court, as to move outside town centres while the militias documents and furniture caught fire. The UN still operate freely in the dense forests of the troops, EU peacekeepers and police fired tear East. gas into the crowd. The future of the case is Already, however, some of the more influen- uncertain since the court had only until Nov. tial UN members complain about costs, what 23 to hear the Bemba appeal. Election with another big mission under way in observers, including former Canadian prime Lebanon. The MONUC mandate expires this minister Joe Clark, heading the prestigious year and diplomats worry that it will be drasti- (President Jimmy) Carter Institute’s observer cally reduced or cut altogether. The auspicious team, said there were irregularities but they vote is fragile and the fear is widespread that were not large enough to overturn Kabila’s more conflict faces this already devastated for- lead. mer Belgian colony. The influential Catholic More distressing was the discovery by and Protestant churches have called on the two MONUC, just after the announcement, that presidential rivals to talk. three mass graves had been found in a A runoff election Oct. 29, 2006, between Congolese army camp in Ituri province. Each the two main candidates, interim President grave contained around 30 bodies, not yet even Joseph Kabila and former rebel leader and decomposed in the heat of that area. Ituri is in interim Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, to east, a previously volatile area, and fears are achieve the necessary 50% majority posed a high that ethnic and militia violence involving possible threat. Already violence has struck the the undisiciplined and often unpaid Congo capital, Kinshasa, and parts of the volatile East. army will destabilize the country. And will the losers accept defeat or will they Kinshasa, the ramshackle capital of 8 mil- return to the bush wars manipulated by foreign lion, mostly very poor but with pockets of economic and political interests? And will the gross wealth, is especially fragile while leaders in all the countries that surround observers say there is a precarious peace in the Congo leave it alone? north and west of the country due more to The runoff elections were held Oct. 29, splits in the Bemba coalition concerning what 2006. The Independent Electoral Commission tactics to use. However, these same observers announced a month later that Kabila had won point to the serious divide between the capital with 58% of the votes cast, leaving Bemba and the north of the country and the Swahili- with 42%, a gap between them of approxi- speaking east. Kabila, and the 81-year-old mately 2.5 million votes. Immediately tensions Antoine Gizenga, whom he has appointed arose with Bemba declaring he would not prime minister have poor records in governance

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and are not Lingala-speakers who are the majority in the north and west of the country. Democratic Republic of Congo The newsletter, Southscan, says ‘it is not at a glance likely’ that Kabila’s future government will be able to deliver on the social front given the cor- Population: 65 million (estimate, no census) rupt terms of many contracts signed by the Capital: Kinshasa interim government and their bad record on Area: 2.5 million sq km managing state revenues and properties. Major languages: Lingala, Kiswahili, Kikongo and 220 lesser but distinct Pivotal to future stability dialects, French for the elites There is no place more pivotal to the future of Major religions: Roman Catholic, Africa than Congo. Since the first of two wars Protestant, Islam broke out in 1996, its potential to drag down Life expectancy: 42 years (men), 44 years the prospects of the continent are immense. Of (women) the armies of the eight African countries that Main exports: diamonds, gold, copper, were involved at the height of the war, which cobalt, coltan, timber, crude oil gave them the chance to indulge in systematic Interim president: Joseph Kabila, 34, former looting of diamonds and other minerals, several major-general (since 2003) still have influence through proxy militia, Governance: unelected president, four vice- mafia-style business networks and ethnic links. presidents, interim appointed parliament, The DRC’s instability immediately threatens unelected senate, unpaid civil service, army Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi – all emerging and police from various forms of violent unrest – and the six other countries that border Congo. After the 2002 peace deal brokered by the which ignored high level reports from the UN. UN and South Africa, a fragile, transitional Despite international pressure few multi-nation- government came to power, in a uniquely al or regional corporations will grapple with Congolese power-sharing arrangement: the possibility that their products may contain President Kabila (thrust into the job at age 29 the tainted fruits of civil strife. According to the after the assassination of his father Laurent UN, more than 20 international mineral trad- Kabila in 2001) shared power with four vice- ing companies import minerals from the Congo presidents – the major warlords whose militias via Rwanda alone. wrought havoc for the past years. (A wry ‘So, don’t kid yourself, my man,’ explodes a Congolese joke described this unwieldy coali- Kisingani businessman, Mokeni Ekopi Kane, tion as ‘four plus one equals zero’.) one night in the airport. ‘This war is about one This was peace enough to placate interna- thing and one thing alone. Plunder, loot, tional donors, who've poured in money to prop exploitation and you [Westerners] are the bene- up the flimsy government and maintain some ficiaries.’ stability to reassure adventurous international It’s always been that way. When DRC was mining companies, who are rushing to re-open called Zaire (after it was called the Congo shop in the Congo. when it got independence in 1961 from Coltan was one of the products that grabbed Belgium, who had had raped its resources and the world’s attention in the DRC. An ore called murdered 10 million people since 1890 in the columbite-tantalite – coltan for short – was one world’s largest ever genocide), its dictator of the world's most sought-after materials Mobutu Sese Seko was often feted in the White although some of its sheen has now worn off. House for his pro-American stance during the (Refine coltan and you get a highly heat-resis- Cold War and for his generosity in giving away tant metal powder called tantalum.) contracts to American (and Canadian) mining The link between bloodshed and resource corporations. extraction was slow to cause alarm in the West In the Ronald Reagan years, Zaire received

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almost half of all foreign aid allocated by the ed 33,000 child soldiers, forced into militias US to the entire continent. After Mobutu had when they are as young as 10, accomplished pillaged the country for 30 years, a middle- dead-eyed killers at 14. Amnesty International aged rebel, Laurent Kabila, seen as a puppet of says 40% of these children are girls or young Uganda and Rwanda, finally kicked him out in women kept as sex slaves. Most of the DRC, 1997. Mobutu died the next year in exile, with especially the East, is extremely dangerous even between $5 and $8 billion stashed in foreign with the big white UN vehicles constantly on banks and French and Swiss properties – this patrol. The place is on edge. while the country had fewer than 50 kilometres Yet the Congo’s troubles rarely hit the daily of paved roads. newspaper columns, and the country ranks Even though per capita income, which is near the bottom of international donor lists. meaningless in DRC, is said to be $1 a day and Ten months ago, in February 2006, donors the Central Bank has no money, the ‘fat cats’ of made a humanitarian appeal of US$692 million Kinshasa can buy a Mercedes for a million dol- for Congo. So far they have received about lars today, or a box of Kellogg’s Cocoa Pops $100 million – $9.40 per person in need. As for $35 or a can of Diet Coke for $7. So, who this was being written, donors in one day buys these items at City Market, an American pledged $900 million to rebuild Lebanon for style supermarket in downtown Kinshasa? The the third time from Israel’s lethal destruction. people of the Eastern Congo who loathe the Last year’s tsunami raised $550 for each person politicians and businessmen of the capital and donors didn’t know how to spend it all. 2,000 km away call them the ‘fat cats’ whose What explains this widespread neglect of the corruption and tastes for high living have made Congo? To visit its trackless lands, its lush jun- Kinshasa the Sodom and Gomorrah of Africa. gles, its smashed towns and cities, its hundreds It is their SUVs along with those of embassies, of thousands of displaced who greet a visitor relief agencies, adventurer mineral developers joyfully, is to see an incredibly brave people. and the UN, that are parked outside City The world should not be forced to make choic- Market, just like at Chez Gaby, a popular es between Darfur and Congo. We, in obese Portuguese restaurant with a well-stocked bar. comfort, have no right to be suffering donor Just outside the supermarket compound, the fatigue. grotty streets steam and stink with garbage, Congo represents the promise of Africa as and AIDS, malaria and other diseases kill many much as its misery. We have money for a dubi- of the city’s eight million or so poverty-stricken ous war on terror, billions to destroy Iraq and people. According to the International Rescue save Afghanistan from itself. Is Africa some- Committee (IRC), 1,250 people still die every how entitled to less for the country that lies at day because of war-related causes, the vast its very heart? majority succumbing to diseases and malnutri- Can Congo be saved? Of course, but it did tion that wouldn’t exist but for the wars. And, not get this way by itself and it cannot be beyond Kinshasa, there is little sign that the expected to save itself. One woman called war has ended. Congo the broken heart of Africa. Another The countryside is broken, its peoples divid- man – both are pastors in the EEC (Eglise du ed and volatile. There is no rebuilding, no Christ au Congo, the Protestants) – asked if phone service, no electrical grid, no roads; hos- the white world would let millions more die pitals, when they are still standing, have been because there is no one listening to the story of looted of everything from beds to bandages. the Democratic Republic of Congo. No government employee – teachers, judges, nurses, doctors, civil servants – has been prop- Originally published in AfricaFiles, republished with per- erly paid in 14 years. mission. www.africafiles.org is a network of volunteers Congolese soldiers, also often unpaid or relaying African perspectives and alternative analyses to promote justice and human rights. Contact: their wages appropriated by their officers, are [email protected] driven to violent looting. There are an estimat-

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Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical of the impact of sports on business discourse Perspectives and Media Representations, and practices and on social perceptions of suc- edited by Linda K. Fuller. Houndmill and New cess and appropriate behaviour. In their well- York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 263 pp. argued chapter Language, Gender, and Sport: A ISBN 1-4039-7328-8 Review of the Research Literature, Segrave, McDowell, and King present evidence in sup- ‘Sport does not exist in a world of its own but port of their theory that if language is a mecha- reflects the world around it... if language is cen- nism which can ‘inferiorize women’ then ‘the tral to human behaviour, then the language of language of sport in particular can contribute sport is likely to provide evidence for how we to their cultural devaluation.’ view men and women differently’ (Adrian Examples cited include a process the authors Beard, The Language of Sport). call ‘asymmetrical gender marking’ through If we accept Beard’s thesis, then just what which women’s athletic events are marginal- can be learned from the language of sports ized. The authors maintain that by identifying reporting about how we view men and women? (‘marking’) athletic events featuring women as In what ways does coverage of women in ‘women’s athletic events’ - while identifying sports differ from the coverage of men? Do events featuring men simply as ‘athletic events’ those differences affect how men and women - the activities of men become the norm and live and work together beyond the sports play- women’s events are understood to be derivative ing fields? Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: or second-class. Historical Perspectives and Media But does this matter? Segrave, et al, argue Representations, an anthology of scholarly compellingly that language is indeed ‘critical in papers and popular articles edited by American the construction of social reality.’ Their analys communication theorist Linda K. Fuller, invites supports the theory that the fault line which reflection on these questions. divides expectations of men and women ath- Fuller, a professor in the Communications letes both mirrors, and is shaped by, the lan- Department of Worcester State College in the guage of sports. ‘Naming is neither a neutral USA, is currently Visiting Senior Fellow at nor random process,’ they write - adding that it Northeastern University (2005-2006) with the carries biases and prejudices and that the use of Institute for Critical Gender and Ethnic Studies terms for women athletes such as ‘girls’ and Research. Most of her previous published work ‘doll’ or ‘princess’ trivialize and demean all focuses on popular mass media. women. Her latest book analyses what Fuller terms To a great extent, Sport, Rhetoric, and ‘the nexus between rhetoric, sexuality, and Gender does justice to its wide-ranging subject sport’. Her objective, she writes, is to ‘decon- and succeeds in presenting multiple perspectives struct the role of language in the multibillion from international and interdisciplinary points dollar infotainment business.’ In combining of view. Inevitably though, this text cannot gender studies, sociolinguistics, and the sociolo- overcome the barrier of language. This is an gy of sports, Fuller has created a unique anthol- analysis of English-language metaphor, vocabu- ogy marking what she writes in the introduc- lary, and syntax. As Fuller acknowledges, that tion is ‘the first time gender and language have means it will not necessarily cross cultural bor- been applied to the field of sport.’ ders. The anthology presents compelling evidence The text, however, can serve as a comple-

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