in L. Woodhead et G. Giordan (eds.), A Sociology of Prayer, Farnham, Ashgate, 2015, p. 49-65., Jul 2015
In classical Pentecostalism, prayer can be seen as the keystone of an “enchanted” individualisati... more In classical Pentecostalism, prayer can be seen as the keystone of an “enchanted” individualisation produced by an institutional work of training, control and mediation which aims to establish the subjective experience of an “individual, free conversation with God” (Mauss). Prayer functions as a vector of personal involvement, enabling the individual to enter an intimate relationship with God, while encouraging the conversion of this deeply “personal” experience into a commitment for church community and collective mobilisations. Drawing from observations and interviews collected within the Assemblies of God of French Polynesia, this chapter examines three different forms of prayer in order to specify the Pentecostal articulation between individual, community and institution: “Personal Prayer and the ‘Voice of the Holy Spirit’”, “Prayer in tongues and Meta-Communication”, “Prayer of Intercession and Spiritual Warfare”.
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Books by Yannick Fer
Quelles sont les origines du pentecôtisme et comment faire la part entre le récit légendaire forgé par les pentecôtistes eux-mêmes et la réalité historique ? Comment s’opère la conversion pentecôtiste, quelle place occupe l’institution dans ce travail de transformation des existences personnelles et que recouvre exactement l’expérience pentecôtiste de la « guérison » ? Quel rôle y jouent les émotions ? Quelles relations les différents courants du pentecôtisme entretiennent-ils avec la globalisation et les cultures locales ? Et en quoi le pentecôtisme est-il aussi un acteur politique ?
L’ambition de ce livre est de faire du pentecôtisme un objet sociologique, susceptible d’éclairer les évolutions contemporaines des rapports entre autonomie individuelle, institution, autorité et engagement.
La sociologie y occupe néanmoins une place privilégiée. De Emile Durkheim et Max Weber jusqu’aux auteurs les plus contemporains, sociologie des religions et sociologie des sciences ne cessent en effet de se croiser. Et les différentes études de cas présentées dans l’ouvrage démontrent qu’on ne peut pas réduire les rapports entre sciences et religions à un combat structurel : si les exemples de conflit sont nombreux, on constate aussi l’existence de « zones grises » où ces deux registres se rencontrent et se mêlent.
From 2012 to 2014, a series of fieldwork and a quantitative study focused on this Protestant diversity in Paris, in the frame of a research program funded by the Paris City Hall. This volume presents the outcomes of this collective work and throws light on the relations Protestant churches build with a Parisian urban space characterised by social inequality, territorial dynamics and strong mobility.
The contributors are mainly sociologists and anthropologists, but also include historians, a law professor and a specialist in British languages and civilisations.
Papers by Yannick Fer
I open the chapter by asking why the French sociology of religion has mostly ignored the affective turn and the theoretical challenges it raises, seeming to prefer the established – we could say canonical – interpretations of classical authors over empirical research. These canonical interpretations closely link the issue of religious emotions with a set of pivotal concepts of the disciplinary doxa, such as legitimacy, institution, charisma, or modernity. The dominant understanding of religious emotions is not simply a blind spot in sociological analysis; rather, it constitutes the cornerstone of an intellectual construction which, in the eyes of many sociologists in this field, “engage everything which defines their own idea of themselves,” to quote the epigraph of this chapter.
Then referring to the specific case of Pentecostalism – usually described as an “emotional religion” – I go on to consider how these canonical interpretations go hand-in-hand with strategies of categorisation and (dis)qualification. As I show, these strategies are intertwined with interests in the academic or religious field and with social relationships of domination. They highlight the social distance between the academic position (and the intellectual figure, classically associated with reason) and the religious “emotional” field. They also point to classification struggles between religious actors themselves.
Finally, I suggest how to disentangle the sociology of religious emotions from the influence of beliefs, distinction effects, and academic doxa and connect this field of research to wider social dynamics, such as the evolution of the relationships between individual and institution, the contemporary ideology of the “society of communication” (Neveu, 2001), and the norms of self-control in relation to the body.
Quelles sont les origines du pentecôtisme et comment faire la part entre le récit légendaire forgé par les pentecôtistes eux-mêmes et la réalité historique ? Comment s’opère la conversion pentecôtiste, quelle place occupe l’institution dans ce travail de transformation des existences personnelles et que recouvre exactement l’expérience pentecôtiste de la « guérison » ? Quel rôle y jouent les émotions ? Quelles relations les différents courants du pentecôtisme entretiennent-ils avec la globalisation et les cultures locales ? Et en quoi le pentecôtisme est-il aussi un acteur politique ?
L’ambition de ce livre est de faire du pentecôtisme un objet sociologique, susceptible d’éclairer les évolutions contemporaines des rapports entre autonomie individuelle, institution, autorité et engagement.
La sociologie y occupe néanmoins une place privilégiée. De Emile Durkheim et Max Weber jusqu’aux auteurs les plus contemporains, sociologie des religions et sociologie des sciences ne cessent en effet de se croiser. Et les différentes études de cas présentées dans l’ouvrage démontrent qu’on ne peut pas réduire les rapports entre sciences et religions à un combat structurel : si les exemples de conflit sont nombreux, on constate aussi l’existence de « zones grises » où ces deux registres se rencontrent et se mêlent.
From 2012 to 2014, a series of fieldwork and a quantitative study focused on this Protestant diversity in Paris, in the frame of a research program funded by the Paris City Hall. This volume presents the outcomes of this collective work and throws light on the relations Protestant churches build with a Parisian urban space characterised by social inequality, territorial dynamics and strong mobility.
The contributors are mainly sociologists and anthropologists, but also include historians, a law professor and a specialist in British languages and civilisations.
I open the chapter by asking why the French sociology of religion has mostly ignored the affective turn and the theoretical challenges it raises, seeming to prefer the established – we could say canonical – interpretations of classical authors over empirical research. These canonical interpretations closely link the issue of religious emotions with a set of pivotal concepts of the disciplinary doxa, such as legitimacy, institution, charisma, or modernity. The dominant understanding of religious emotions is not simply a blind spot in sociological analysis; rather, it constitutes the cornerstone of an intellectual construction which, in the eyes of many sociologists in this field, “engage everything which defines their own idea of themselves,” to quote the epigraph of this chapter.
Then referring to the specific case of Pentecostalism – usually described as an “emotional religion” – I go on to consider how these canonical interpretations go hand-in-hand with strategies of categorisation and (dis)qualification. As I show, these strategies are intertwined with interests in the academic or religious field and with social relationships of domination. They highlight the social distance between the academic position (and the intellectual figure, classically associated with reason) and the religious “emotional” field. They also point to classification struggles between religious actors themselves.
Finally, I suggest how to disentangle the sociology of religious emotions from the influence of beliefs, distinction effects, and academic doxa and connect this field of research to wider social dynamics, such as the evolution of the relationships between individual and institution, the contemporary ideology of the “society of communication” (Neveu, 2001), and the norms of self-control in relation to the body.
In this chapter, I examine four Protestant events held in the Parisian public space between 2012 and 2015, to specify how various Protestant actors invest this urban space, in connection with the social, political and Protestant local context. I also show how, through these events, they negotiate their place in the city, both symbolically and more practically, through their negotiation with the public authorities which control the occupation of the Parisian public space.
Drawing on fieldwork mainly conducted in the Assemblies of God of Singapore, the chapter shows how this nation building process interacts with the churches’ own dynamics, and how this interaction leads missionary churches to reshape the forms of their religious commitment in order to fit the legal and ideological framework designed by the Singaporean government. This analysis includes three distinct levels of observation: at the national scale, the chapter describes the adaptation of the global theology of Spiritual Warfare to the Singaporean context; at a district scale, we examine the partnership established between Pentecostal churches and the Singaporean government for the implementation of social care programs; and within the local churches, we show how socioeconomic changes jeopardize the classical modalities of religious commitment and the familial transmission of a Pentecostal identity.
The charismatic network Youth with a Mission (YWAM), which has been present in Oceania for forty years, exemplifies this global transformation of the Pentecostal-charismatic field and its local impact upon reshaping the identity of Pacific Islander youth. After situating this network within contemporary Pacific Island Protestantism and the post-World War ii American context, this chapter examines the patterns of YWAM global culture, including its positive representation of cultural diversity. I show how these trends generated a militant reappropriation and renewal of cultural identities within the Christian space among young Polynesian converts at the outset of the 1980s. In particular, the Island Breeze movement, a YWAM ministry launched in 1979 by the Samoan Sosene Le’au, claims to seek the “redemption of cultures” and advocates the use of Polynesian dances as both an expression of Christian faith and a universal missionary tool. Finally, an analysis of the links between the YWAM global charismatic culture and this local religious renewing and reshaping of Polynesian cultural identities illuminates several points of adjustment or tension: between individual “new birth”, regional migrations and cultural authenticity; and between historical relationships of domination and the emergence of a “Christian indigeneity influenced by the global theology of “spiritual warfare”.
The vocabulary and practices of “Spiritual Warfare” began to spread in Evangelical circles at the end of 1980s and the early 1990s, under the influence of American missiologists. It first aimed to struggle against the secularisation of Western societies – especially in big cities – and finally gave birth to a global movement that brought decisive changes in Pentecostals/Charismatics’ relation with territory, cultural identities and politics.
Spiritual Warfare contributes to a reterritorialization of the Pentecostal/Charismatic imaginary, especially through Spiritual Mapping practices involving the exploration of space and history in order to identify “spiritual strongholds”, “gates” and “keys” which determine the outcome of this “war of spiritual liberation” of cities and nations.
This return of territory goes with a new Charismatic representation of indigeneity, which notably draws on anthropological readings, as the theologians of Spiritual Warfare aim to take “more seriously the worldviews of non-western traditional societies” that deal with territorial spirits (Ediger). This reshaping of the symbolical bound between the individual and the territory results in recognizing indigenous peoples as the “Gate Keepers” of their native territories.
Political activism inspired by this Charismatic ideology fights for the establishment of “Christian nations”, a political ideology in which the defense of “indigeneity” (also understood as national identity) and Christian identity tends to contradict the building of pluralist and democratic societies based on the recognition of religious and cultural diversity.
Based on fieldwork in Europe, Pacific Islands and Asia, this chapter examines different kinds of Evangelical activism inspired by the theology of Spiritual Warfare, to clarify the issues at stakes relating to this Charismatic globalization.
So the “informalization” of manners (Wouters) and the free expression of cultural “personal” identity fostered by charismatic networks need to be understood within the perspective of a historical incorporation of Christian morality, which has made the discipline of the body a cornerstone of the new system of authority. By promoting a liberation of self that redeems the individual body as a “natural” means of expressing cultural identity, such charismatic networks contest both the Christian tradition of historical Protestantism and the moral conservatism of classical Pentecostalism, which associates conversion (and personal respectability) with a strict control of the Polynesian “pagan nature” smoldering in the corporal expressions of the local culture. One of the paradoxes of these charismatic movements in Polynesia resides in the way they combine this claim for radical liberation with political activism for the restoration of a “Christian government” that would give precedence to the “salvation of the nation” at the expense of individual freedom.
L’utilisation de ces formes d’expression culturelle au service de l’action missionnaire, dans un espace public à la fois parisien et international (avec la présence de nombreux touristes étrangers), illustre les rapports que ce type d’organisation entretient à la fois avec l’espace public urbain (un espace à conquérir) et avec les formes d’expression culturelle contemporaines.
Ce film s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un programme de recherche Le protestantisme à Paris et les enjeux de l’intégration (appel à projets Paris 2030, Mairie de Paris, 2012-2014), qui porte notamment sur les mobilisations protestantes dans l’espace public.""
Suivant la perspective définie par le programme PSL « Agenda pour une sociologie critique des religions », qui vise à réinscrire le religieux dans le social, nous chercherons à mieux cerner les logiques d’affinité, les tensions et les analogies qui relient les différentes formes de recompositions religieuses à un contexte sociopolitique profondément travaillé par la pénétration des logiques néolibérales. Une telle approche suppose de dépasser les cloisonnements disciplinaires, tout en ouvrant la sociologie des religions sur les débats plus larges des sciences sociales, dans le cadre d’un dialogue avec l’anthropologie, l’histoire, les sciences économiques et les sciences politiques.
Mais dans un monde où la liberté, l'autonomie et la responsabilité individuelle sont sans cesse invoquées, qu'en est-il du rôle des institutions ? Comment parviennent-elles à« se faire oublier » alors qu'elles doivent convaincre, transmettre, former et maintenir les individus dans les limites de l’orthodoxie ? Comment exercent-elles leurs contraintes, assurent-elles une formation collective et continue de leurs publics tout en maintenant chez ceux-ci le sentiment qu'ils sont les maîtres de leurs parcours ?