Abstract
This chapter describes the ways in which APCC recapitulated African forms of worship in Canada, and reproduced familiar expressions of Christianity for a migrant community. These features of APCC are contrasted with non-African Canadian churches, which were perceived by congregants as having uninspiring Sunday services, being spiritually lacklustre, and in need of considerable religious rejuvenation. The evolving transnational identities of APCC members are highlighted, as well church-wide considerations of the democratization of power, gender, and ethnicity. This analysis further reveals how APCC united a multiethnic and multinational congregation by endorsing a successful form of Christian Pan-Africanism. As church members claimed, through common Christian faith, characterized by equal access to the Prosperity Gospel and Holy Spirit Power, even deep-seated ethnonationalistic prejudices were lessened within APCC’s walls.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Afe Adogame, The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 12.
Regina Gemignani, “Gender, Identity, and Power in African Immigrant Evangelical Churches,” in African Immigrant Religions in America, ed. Jacob Olupona and Regina Gemignani (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 152.
Adenike O. Yesufu, “The Gender Dimensions of the Immigrant Experience: The Case of African-Canadian Women in Edmonton,” in The African Diaspora in Canada: Negotiating Identity and Belonging, ed. Wisdom J. Tettey and Korbla P. Puplampu (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005), 135.
Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser, and Yolande Jansen, “Introduction: Diaspora and Memory. Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics,” in Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics, ed. Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser, and Yolande Jansen (New York: Rodopi B.V., 2007), 217.
Stuart Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” in Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, ed. Stuart Hall, David Held, Don Hubert, Kenneth Thompson. (Cowley: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).
Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (New York: Routledge, 1996), 20.
Anne-Mike Fechter, Transnational Lives: Expatriated in Indonesia (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 103–104.
Korbla P. Puplampu and Wisdom J. Tettey, “Ethnicity and the Identity of African-Canadians: A Theoretical & Political Analysis,” in African Diaspora in Canada: Negotiating Identity and Belonging, ed. Wisdom J. Tettey and Korbla P. Puplampu (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005), 28.
Linda Green Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States (New York: Routledge, 2005), 8.
Martha K. Kumsa, “Between Home and Exile: The Dynamics of Negotiating Be-Longing among Oromos Living in Toronto,” in The African Diaspora in Canada: Negotiating Identity and Belonging, ed. Wisdom J. Tettey and Korbla P. Puplampu (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005).
Karen Fog Olwig, “Place, Movement, Identity: Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion in a ‘Caribbean’ Family,” in Diaspora, Identity and Religion: New Directions in Theory and Research, ed. Khachig Tölölyan, Waltraud Kokot, and Carolin Alfonso, (London: Routledge, 2004).
Claudia Währisch-Oblau, The Missionary Self-Perception of Pentecostal/Charismatic Church Leaders from the Global South in Europe: Bringing Back the Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 48.
Relatively similar attitudes have been observed among Pentecostal migrants of various origins. For instance, see Nicole Rodriguez Toulis, Believing Identity: Pentecostalism and the Mediations of Jamaican Ethnicity and Gender in England (Oxford: Berg, 1997), 165–211.
Elias K. Bongmba, “African Immigrant Religions in the Diaspora,” in Communities of Faith in Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Casely B. Essamuah and David K. Ngaruiya (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 43.
Wisdom J. Tettey, “Transnationalism, Religion, and the African Diaspora in Canada: An Examination of Ghanaians and Ghanaian Churches,” in African Immigrant Religions in America, ed. Jacob K. Olupona and Regina Gemignani (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 251–254.
See Ben F. Rogers, “William E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Pan-Africa,” The Journal of Negro History, 40:2 (1955): 154–165;
Lenton Aikens, “Pan-Africanism: Self-Determination and Nation Building,” Negro Digest, 19:1 (1969): 38–42;
Sidney J. Lemelle and Robin D. G. Kelley, “Imagining Home: Pan-Africanism Revisited,” in Imagining Home: Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora, ed. Sidney J. Lemelle and Robin D. G. Kelley (London: Verso, 1994);
William B. Ackah, Pan-Africanism, Exploring the Contradictions: Politics, Identity, and Development in Africa and the African Diaspora (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1999);
Hakim Adi and Marika Sherwood, Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787 (New York: Routledge, 2003).
Tiffany Ruby Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World,” African Studies Review, 43:1 (2000): 19–20.
Ali A. Mazrui, “Africa between Nationalism and Nationhood: A Political Survey,” Journal of Black Studies, 13:1 (1982): 27.
Kwame A. Appiah, In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 26.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Thomas Aechtner
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Aechtner, T. (2015). One in Worship: Recapitulation, Transnational Identities, and Christian Pan-Africanism. In: Health, Wealth, and Power in an African Diaspora Church in Canada. Religion and Global Migrations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137485496_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137485496_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-50371-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-48549-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)