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Taking as a starting point the paradox that immediacy is not prior to, but rather a product of mediation, this article argues that the negotiation of newly available media technologies is key to the transformation of religion. Invoked to authorise sensations of spiritual powers as immediate and real, media are prone to 'disappear' or become 'hyper-apparent' in the act of mediation. I argue that a view of media as intrinsic to religion requires a fundamental critique of approaches of both religion and media that posit an opposition between media and immediacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key features of Pentecostal/charismatic churches is their sensational appeal. Taking as a point of departure the experience of the Holy Spirit as a "portable," embodied power source, this essay seeks to contribute to developing alternative concepts that expand our view of Pentecostalism as it emerges through a "Protestant lens." First, I critically discuss the severance of aesthetics and Protestantism, and the concomitant dismissal of "form" in the work of Max Weber. I argue for the need to recapture an understanding of religion as aesthetics, albeit taken in the broad sense of aisthesis, advocated by Aristotle. Calling for the reappreciation of form as absolutely essential to religious experience, I then introduce the notion of the sensational form, which allows us to grasp how the Holy Spirit operates according to Pentecostal understanding and experience. Presenting the term aesthetics of persuasion, I address the question of how aesthetics is relevant to broader modalities of binding and politics of belonging—paying attention to Jacques Rancière's "distribution of the sensible." Taking Pentecostalism as a prominent representative of global Christianity, I seek not only to enhance our understanding of its particular sensational religiosity but also to outline new directions in the broader study of Protestantism and Christianity in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay focuses on the representation of 'tradition' and 'heritage' in Ghanaian video films, which are frequently critiqued by accomplished filmmakers (as well as global audiences accustomed to 'African Cinema') for offering a negative image of Africa. Film is shown to be situated in the midst of tensions and cleavages about 'tradition' and 'heritage', between state and Christian-Pentecostal views that hark back to the colonial era. With the commercialization of film production in the aftermath of democratization, movies have increasingly come to depend on audience approval. Two modes of depicting 'tradition' and 'heritage' and the ways in which they offer pleasurable experiences to audiences are explored. First, I show that a great number of video films surf along with the popularity of Pentecostal churches that view 'tradition' and 'heritage' as devilish legacies from the past that need to be overcome, instead of being cherished as a repository of cultural values. Secondly, focusing on the so-called 'epic' genre and other recent attempts to picture 'tradition' and 'heritage' in a more positive light, I identify a subtle shift from an understanding of 'tradition' and 'heritage' in binary terms of 'good' and 'evil' towards a visual aestheticization of 'the past' that produces nostalgic pleasure. Based on these explorations, I argue for a performative (rather than essentializing) approach to 'tradition' and 'heritage' that takes into account video filmmakers' creative use of traditional repertoires. This approach challenges the opposition of 'African Cinema' and 'video movies' that still underpins much scholarly work on and debates about film in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an in-depth exploration into the social, media and religious phenomenon of popular depictions of Jesus Christ in Ghana. Introductory details are given noting the strong presence of Pentecostal and Evangelical Protestant multimedia in the nation since the 1990s. Analysis is given examining the religious and popular reactions to the media depictions of Jesus Christ, particularly in regards to iconoclastic tendencies traced from the nation's 19th-century missionary roots. Particular attention is given to ways in which the depictions of Jesus Christ has ceased being a representation of Christianity and more associated with the Devil.

Situated in an approach of religion in Africa that stresses the need to move beyond essentializing oppositions of Africa and the West, this article focuses on the Christian popular culture that has emerged in Ghana in the aftermath of democratization, enabling the unprecedented public presence of Christianity, in particular Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches, in the public sphere. Analysis of this Christian popular culture compels us to acknowledge the relevance of the material dimension of the Christian imagination, and, in so doing, to address the genesis of a Christian environment with powerful pictures that involve people into a particular religious aesthetics. My key concern is to show how Christian pictures, though thriving through modern possibilities of reproduction, ultimately refuse to appear as "mere" representations and tend to retain the somewhat excessive potential to partially merge with the divine—and above all satanic—power which they depict, calling for adequate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the liberalisation and commercialisation of the media in the wake of Ghana's return to a democratic constitution in 1992, there has emerged a new public sphere which has been successfully and effectively colonised by Pentecostal‐charismatic churches and led to the rise of a Pentecostalite public culture geared towards Christian entertainment. This paper focuses on the popular video‐film industry, which stays close to audience expectations and deliberately appropriates Pentecostal styles of representation. Examining the entanglement of cinema and church, video‐filmmakers and pastors, I argue that the marked presence of Pentecostal styles of representation in the public sphere contributes to the spread of a social imaginary geared towards the recuperation of the project of modernity under the new condition of an open public sphere, characterised by the retreat of the state and the overwhelming presence of market forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses the phenomenal success of pentecostalism, a global religious movement par excellence, throughout postcolonial Africa. Investigating pentecostalist views of and attitudes towards commodities in southern Ghana, the article shows that pentecostalists represent the modern global economy as enchanted and themselves as agents of disenchantment: only through prayer may commodities cease to act as `fetishes' which threaten the personal integrity and identity of their owners. Pentecostalism creates modern consumers through a ritual of prayer, which helps them handle globalization and control foreign commodities in such a way that they can be consumed without danger. Through prayer, commodities cease to possess their owners; the latter are rather enabled to possess the former. Pentecostalism engages in globalization by enabling its members to consume products from the global market and by offering its followers fixed orientation points and a well-delimited moral universe within globalization's unsettling flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response to the article "Locating the Textual Gaze: Then and Now" by Terje Stordalen published in this issue of the journal. The author, a scholar of Protestantism and Pentecostalism among African Christians, agrees with Stordalen's contention that textual sources have traditionally been privileged over archaeological sources in the historiography of pre-modern religions. The author argues for the need to develop methodologies and concepts that better integrate both textual and non-textual sources.