CONFERENCE INVITATION
Conversion and Time in Global Pentecostalism:
a lifelong ‘live’ experience
VU University Amsterdam
11-13 June 2008
Venue: Pinkstergemeente Amsterdam
Arent Janszoon Ernststraat 302 Amsterdam
The conference seeks to explore new directions for the study of conversion looking specifically to Pentecostalism. The need for new directions emerged out of the work of the interdisciplinary research program ‘Conversion Careers and Culture Politics in Global Pentecostalism’ at the VU University in Amsterdam and the Centre for Intercultural Theology (IIMO), Utrecht University. This program started in 2004 and has been funded by the NWO-project: ‘The Future of the Religious Past’.
We propose conversion to be a lifelong experience beyond the important notions of rupture and radical change while acknowledging them to be important elements in conversion stories and experiences. It is the continuous appeal to change and the recurrent negotiation of the present, past and future in conversion processes we want to stress in order to move away from time-restrained models. In that sense conversion is not only a lifelong but also a continuously ‘live’ experience, i.e. ‘in the here and now’. We believe that perceptions of time in Pentecostal practices are a powerful instrument in a world where people seem to be captured by culture and identity politics. It is through conversion that converts and converters understand culture and personal lives. In all the Pentecostalisms we study, conversion and the making of time and its various temporalities are reciprocally implicated in new and powerful ways, which, we feel, demand constructive scholarly engagement.
By emphasizing the mutually constitutive relationship between conversion and time, we will address the dynamic from multiple perspectives:
1) We will focus on the particular ways converts experience and address time and temporalities, i.e. past, present and future in their construction of a (new) Pentecostal identity.
2) We also will point to the embodiment of temporalities in the process of conversion, i.e. the body as mediating, construing and expressing conversion.
3) We further will rethink the relationship between time and space in conversion, taking in consideration how converts position themselves and move in what we could call a global and virtual Pentecostal space.
The conference program will be organized around these three perspectives. The program includes the following:
11 June
Public Event in Dutch. Communication of research findings to a large public
Thursday 12 June 2008
09.30-10.00 registration and Coffee/Tea
10.00 – 10.10 Opening by André Droogers
10.10 -12.30 Session 1: Conversion and Time
Chair: Birgit Meyer
10.10-11.10 Keynote Lecture Lewis Rambo: The Vicissitudes of Conversion:Contemporary Conversion Studies and the Emergence of a New Paradigm
11.10-11.30 Coffee/Tea
11.30-12.30 Keynote Lecture Matthew Engelke: Past Conversion
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30-17.30 Session 2: Results Research Program “Conversion Careers and Culture Politics in Global Pentecostalism”
Chair: André Droogers
13.30-14.10 Henri Gooren: Conversion, ritual and time: Pentecostals and charismatic Catholics in Managua, Nicaragua
– discussant Clara Mafra
14.10-14.50 Ikuya Noguchi: Conversion in the Transnational Context: Korean Pentecostalism in Japan
- discussant Juliette Koning
14.50 -15.10 Coffee/Tea
15.10 –15.50 Linda van de Kamp: Converting the Spirit Spouse: Time and Relatedness in Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique
- discussant Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
15.50 -16.30 Miranda Klaver: Negotiating Christian tradition: Conversion and baptism in new evangelical churches in the Netherlands
- discussant Cecil M. Robeck, Jr
16.30-16.50 Coffee/Tea
16.50-17.30 Regien Smit: Pentecostal Migrants dealing with the past. A comparison between two migrant Pentecostal churches in Rotterdam
–discussant Catherine Wanner
17.30 Drinks
Friday 13 June 2008
09.30-10.00 Coffee/Tea
10.00 – 12.30 Session 3: Temporalities and Identity in Conversion Chair: Oscar Salemink
10.00-11.00 Keynote Lecture Simon Coleman: Between ‘Making’ and ‘Invoking’ History: The Everyday Ruptures of Pentecostalism
11.00-11.20 Coffee/Tea
11.20 –12.20 Keynote: Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu: ‘Your Body Is A Temple’: Conversion Narratives in African-led Eastern European Pentecostalism
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30-15.00 Session 4: Conversion and the Body
Chair: Marjo de Theije
13.30 – 14.00 Martijn Oosterbaan: Technologies of Conversion
- discussant Clara Mafra
14.00 – 14.30 Marleen de Witte: Touched by the Spirit. Converting the body in a Ghanaian charismatic church
- discussant Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
14.30 – 14.50 coffee and tea
14.50-15.50 Session 5: Conversion and Space
Chair: Peter Versteeg
14.50 –15.20 Juliette Koning: Backrooms, Showrooms and Webrooms: Pentecostal Space in Indonesia and Malaysia
- discussant Freek Colombijn
15.20 –15.50 Kim Knibbe: Managing multiculturalism in a Nigerian Pentecostal church in the Netherlands: How much does place matter?
- discussant Catherine Wanner
15.50-16.15 Coffee/Tea
16.15-17.15 Concluding Lecture André Droogers
Drinks
If you wish to attend, please send an e-mail with your name and affiliation to conversionandtime@fsw.vu.nl.
Due to the need of arranging various logistic matters, we would like to encourage you to register before the date of June 9.
Conference registration is free
Register via conversionandtime@fsw.vu.nl
For the program with abstracts see Conference Conversion and Time