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312
book reviews
Katrien Pype
The Making of the Pentecostal Melodrama: Religion, Media and Gender in Kinshasa,
Anthropology and the Media Series (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012).
xvii + 331 pp. $95.00 hardback.
The author of this groundbreaking study went to Kinshasa to study develop- ment-related theatre, but ended up studying a group of Pentecostals making tv melodramas, even becoming one of the group and acting in their films. The book is based on fieldwork conducted in 2003–2006. The word “melodrama” is used to convey a strong division between good and evil, with protagonists being not mythic creatures or epic heroes but common citizens, and a plot based on a strong sense of moral justice (9). The big strength of the book is that it gives due importance to the Pentecostal worldview which she calls apocalyptic, but which (since it lacks a sense of imminent end) might better be called dualist or Manichean. She portrays the worldview well through Ortner’s “key scenarios,” which in any culture sort out “complex and undifferentiated feelings and ideas and make them comprehensible to the individual, communicable to others, and translatable into orderly action” (10). Thus the American dream: “a boy of lowstatus,butwithtotalfaithintheAmericansystem,worksveryhardandulti- mately becomes rich and powerful” (10). Kinshasa’s Pentecostal “key scenario” could be expressed: “Life in Kinshasa is hazardous because of the workings of the Devil and his demons. They invade the domestic sphere with the help of witches, who threaten collective and individual health (in a physical and social sense). Christians, however, can arm themselves against evil through prayer and by listening closely to the advice of pastors” (10). This imaginary pervades every aspect treated in the book.
The book tells of the producing of these tv melodramas, which interestingly are modified as they go along, since viewers’ comments after each weekly episode are taken seriously. (I wish Pype had made more effort to link these Congolese melodramas with their prototypes in Nigeria, but for that we are referred to a ‘forthcoming’ article.)
So many points are well made, but I can list some of them here. For allkinois, “the ‘Real’ is located within the invisible” (102). The Christian scene in Kinshasa is changing and contested, but currently there is the “hegemony of Pentecostal- Charismatic Christianity in Kinshasa’s public culture” (115). The role of the pas- tor is well conveyed—as that of his wife: “The pastor and the pastor’s wife have nowadays become the ideal types of masculinity and femininity in the city, for they combine several aspects of social success; others depend on them, and they enjoy material and financial wealth and occupy a privileged position with regard tothe spiritual world”(80). The pastorin manywaysreplicatesthe role of
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/15700747-03602014
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the healer diviner: both attempt to restore the “life flow,” transmit life-bearing forces between spirits and their followers, have the same enemy, the witch, and bring what is hidden into the open (115–118). They control two contrast- ing domains of the invisible, the “charismatic” and the “mystical” respectively (109). The construction of both “Pentecostalism” and “witchcraft” is an on-going operation; such concepts and ideas are not fixed in their content, but spur con- tinuous reflection and debate. “Spiritual confusion” is widespread; no one, not even pastors, need to be what they seem, which engenders widespread fear and doubt. (The pastor associated with Pype’s tv film crew was rumoured to have killed three people by cursing them (83)).
The traditional and the Christian form an amalgam, which Pype calls both “indigenous beliefs interpreted within an apocalyptic Christian grid” (41), and “a particular form of appropriation of the ‘foreign’ religion into autochthonous structures of causality” (116). That in itself queries the assumption of some observers that African Pentecostalism must inevitably be “conversionist.” She adds that, changing reality “compels us to take a very flexible approach to the notion of ‘Christian’” (96), which she justifies from chapter nine on gender roles, showing that sex is such a large part of Kinoiserie that, it is by no means certain that the Pentecostals live up to the image they studiously present to the public.
The merits of the book are evident, let me mention a few points which I wish had been made clearer. Chapter seven deals with the ways Pentecostals are changing the nation. She writes: “The results of this spiritual healing are economic (jobs), social (marriage without problems), and political (the end of corruption, a new democracy)” (223). I know Pentecostals claim that, but no evidence is offered which would indicate that this is the case. I think there are some instances where Pype is less than sure-footed. For example, the revivalist stress on spiritual gifts hardly comes from the Catholic Charismatic movement (36). If it is true that the Pentecostals in Kinshasa consciously discount the Old Testament (201), this would be worth further discussion. The prosperity gospel is alluded to a few times, and a photo shows a billboard advertising a prosperity crusade (222), but if prosperity is as unobtrusive in Kinshasa’s Pen- tecostalism as this study implies, again that would merit discussion. Using the label “fundamentalist” on the last page adds little but confusion. Hard statistics are avoided, even when their addition could give the reader some guide as to numbers and size. Above all, there is little attempt to situate this study in the failed state that is the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the inhuman living conditions of Kinshasa today, which must have an enormous effect on the form Christianity is taking. Pype finished her fieldwork as Kabila was elected in 2006, but the implication that this gave “democratic legitimacy” (25) and that things
PNEUMA 36 (2014) 297–350
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would get better (298) seem hardly warranted. However, such quibbles in no way detract from the originality, significance and stimulation of this landmark study.
Paul Gifford
Professor Emeritus, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, uk
PNEUMA 36 (2014) 297–350
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