The phrase “Christian politics” evokes two meanings: political relations between denominations in one direction, and the contributions of Christian churches to debates about the governing of society. The contributors to this volume address Christian politics in both senses and argue that Christianity is always and inevitably political in the Pacific Islands. Drawing on ethnographic and historical research in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji, the authors argue that Christianity and politics have redefined each other in much of Oceania in ways that make the two categories inseparable at any level of analysis. The individual chapters vividly illuminate the ways in which Christian politics operate across a wide scale, from interpersonal relations to national and global interconnections.
Table of Content
Figures
Maps
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Chapter 1. Christian Politics in Oceania
Matt Tomlinson and Debra Mc Dougall
Chapter 2. Mediating Denominational Disputes: Land Claims and the Sound of Christian Critique in the Waria Valley, Papua New Guinea
Courtney Handman
Chapter 3.“Heaven on Earth” or Satan’s “Base” in the Pacific?: Internal Christian Politics in the Dialogic Construction of the Makiran Underground Army
Michael W. Scott
Chapter 4. The Generation of the Now: Denominational Politics in Fijian Christianity
Matt Tomlinson
Chapter 5. Christian Politics in Vanuatu: Lay Priests and New State Forms
Annelin Eriksen
Chapter 6. Evangelical Public Culture: Making Stranger-Citizens in Solomon Islands
Debra Mc Dougall
Chapter 7. Anthropology and the Politics of Christianity in Papua New Guinea
John Barker
Chapter 8. Chiefs, Church and State in Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands
Geoffrey White
Chapter 9. Why is There No Political Theology among the Urapmin?: On Diarchy, Sects as Big as Society, and the Diversity of Pentecostal Politics
Joel Robbins
Chapter 10. Afterword: Reflections on Political Theology in the Pacific
Webb Keane
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Debra Mc Dougall is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia.
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