Imitation as Transformation of the Male Self

St Joachim, who according to the apocryphal Protoevangelium Jacobi is the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the patron saint of a Catholic Men’s Organization in Zambia which promotes him as model of Catholic manhood. Through a case study of this organization, this article explores the intersections of religion, men and masculinity in a contemporary African Catholic context, in relation to broader discussions on African masculinities. The focus is on the practice of imitation of St Joachim and its effects on masculinity as the symbolic, discursive and performative construction of embodied male gender identity. Two theoretical concepts inform the analysis, being the notion of imitation as a hermeneutical process and Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of the technologies or hermeneutics of the self. The article shows how a sacred text is mobilized and inspires a communal imitative practice through which men are shaped, and shape themselves, after a religious ideal of masculinity.Saint Joachim, présenté par le proto-évangile apocryphe de Jacques comme le père de Marie, elle-même la mère de Jésus, est le saint patron d’une organisation catholique d’hommes en Zambie, qui le promeut comme modèle de masculinité catholique. À travers l’étude de cette organisation, l’article explore l’intersection entre religion, hommes et masculinité dans le contexte de l’Afrique catholique contemporaine, en lien avec une discussion plus large sur les masculinités africaines. Une attention particulière est accordée à la pratique d’imitation de saint Joachim et à ses effets sur la masculinité comme construction symbolique, discursive et performative de l’identité de genre masculin incorporée. L’analyse repose sur deux concepts théoriques: la notion d’imitation comme processus herméneutique et la conceptualisation des techniques ou herméneutiques de soi par Michel Foucault. L’article montre comment un texte sacré est mobilisé et inspire une pratique imitative commune à travers laquelle les hommes sont façonnés, et se façonnent eux-mêmes, sur la base d’un idéal religieux de masculinité

Men in the Remaking: Conversion Narratives and Born-Again Masculinity in Zambia

The born-again discourse is a central characteristic of Pentecostal Christianity in Africa. In the study of African Christianities, this discourse and the way it (re)shapes people’s moral, religious, and social identities has received much attention. However, hardly any attention has been paid to its effects on men as gendered beings. In the study of men and masculinities in Africa, on the other hand, neither religion in general nor born-again Christianity in particular are taken into account as relevant factors in the construction of masculinities. On the basis of a detailed analysis of interviews with men who are members of a Pentecostal church in Lusaka, Zambia, this article investigates how men’s gender identities are reshaped by becoming and being born-again and how born-again conversion produces new forms of masculinity. The observed Pentecostal transformation of masculinity is interpreted in relation to men’s social vulnerability, particularly in the context of the HIV epidemic in Zambia

Pentecostal intimacies: women and intimate citizenship in the ministry of repentance and holiness in Kenya

This article explores the intersections of gender, sexuality and citizenship in the context of one prominent neo-Pentecostal movement in Kenya, the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness (MRH) led by the charismatic Prophet David Owuor. Employing the concept of intimate citizenship, the article analyses, first, how MRH engages in a contestation of intimate citizenship in the contemporary Kenyan public sphere, especially in relation to women’s bodies. Second, it examines how MRH simultaneously configures, through a range of highly intimate beliefs, practices and techniques, an alternative form of intimate citizenship defined by moral purity and concerned with a political project of moral regeneration. Coining the notion of ‘Pentecostal intimacies’, the article provides insight into the reasons why so many people, especially women, are attracted to MRH, and hence it interrogates the liberal frame in which intimate citizenship is usually conceptualised

Citizenship of Love: The Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics of Sexual Citizenship in a Kenyan Gay Music Video

Against the background of the current politicisation of homosexuality and the policing of sexual citizenship in Kenya and other African countries, this article offers an analysis of the Kenyan gay music video Same Love, released by the band Art Attack in 2016. Employing the concept of acts of citizenship (Isin and Nielsen 2008), the article foregrounds the political, ethical and aesthetic aspects through which the lyrics and images of Same Love perform an act of sexual citizenship mediated through art. It argues that as an artistic intervention, the video interrogates popular narratives of homosexuality as un-Kenyan, un-African and un-Christian and creates a sense of a citizenship that is yet to come: a pan-African, Christian and queer citizenship of love. Thus, the article explores the new possibilities of cultural, sexual and religious citizenship created through popular culture and public space in contemporary Africa

Christianity, Sexuality and Citizenship in Africa: Critical Intersections

Citizenship in sub-Saharan Africa has undergone profound changes in recent decades as part of wider social and political dynamics. One notable development is the emergence of Christianity, especially in its Pentecostal-Charismatic forms, as a public religion. Christian actors, beliefs and practices have increasingly come to manifest themselves in the public sphere, actively engage with politics, define narratives of nationhood, and shape notions of citizenship. A second major development is the emergence of sexuality as a critical site of citizenship and nationhood in postcolonial Africa. On the one hand, many political and religious leaders are invested in a popular ideology of the heterosexual family as the basis of nation-building, while on the other hand, LGBT communities are becoming more visible and claim recognition from the state. The contributions to this special issue engage these two contrasting developments, examining the interconnections between Christianity, sexuality and citizenship empirically and theoretically through case studies in various African contexts and from several academic disciplines and critical perspectives

Taking up the cudgels against gay rights? Trends and trajectories in African Christian theologies on homosexuality

Against the background of the HIV epidemic and the intense public controversy on homosexuality in African societies, this article investigates the discourses of academic African Christian theologians on homosexuality. Distinguishing some major strands in African theology, that is, inculturation, liberation, women’s and reconstruction theology, the article examines how the central concepts of culture, liberation, justice, and human rights function in these discourses. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of a large number of publications, the article shows that stances of African theologians are varying from silence and rejection to acceptance. Although many African theologians have taken up the cudgels against gay rights, some “dissident voices” break the taboo and develop more inclusive concepts of African identity and African Christianity

Gay Rights, the Devil and the End Times: Public Religion and the Enchantment of the Homosexuality Debate in Zambia

This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which the international pressure to recognise gay rights is considered a sign of the end times, and Ban Ki-moon, the UN and other international organisations are associated with the Antichrist and the Devil. Here, the debate about homosexuality becomes eschatologically enchanted through millennialist thought. Building on discussions about public religion and religion and politics in Africa, this article avoids popular explanations in terms of fundamentalist religion and African homophobia, but rather highlights the political significance of this discourse in a postcolonial African context

God’s World Is Not an Animal Farm—Or Is It? The Catachrestic Translation of Gender Equality in African Pentecostalism

Building on scholarly debates on Pentecostalism, gender and modernity in Africa, this article engages a postcolonial perspective to explore and discuss the ambivalent, even paradoxical nature of African Pentecostal gender discourse. It analyses the conceptualization of gender equality, in particular the attempt to reconcile the notions of ‘male–female equality’ and ‘male headship’, in a sermon series delivered by a prominent Zambian Pentecostal pastor, and argues that the appropriation and interruption of Western notions of gender equality in these sermons can be interpreted, in the words of Homi Bhabha, as a catachrestic postcolonial translation of modernity. Hence, the article critically discusses the Western ethnocentrism in some scholarly debates on gender and Pentecostalism in Africa, and points to some of the fundamental questions that Pentecostalism and its ambivalent gender discourse pose to gender-critical scholarship in the study of religion.

Imitation as Transformation of the Male Self How an Apocryphal Saint Reshapes Zambian Catholic Men*

Imagine a group of Catholic men in Zambia who together form a lay movement named after St Joachim. The constitution of their organization explicitly states that St Joachim is "the role model of every Catholic husband and father". In the organization, these men tell and retell the narrative about St Joachim who, according to an apocryphal gospel, was married to St Anne and was the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus. How would these men read this story, creatively apply it to their own context and relate it to their own lives? What type of manhood does Joachim represent for them? How do they imitate this model vis-à-vis the challenges they are facing as men in a contemporary urban African setting, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, changing family and gender relations, and so on? How does the participation in the organization and the imitation of St Joachim affect the moral and spiritual lives of these men, how does it shape their male bodies and gender identities? These questions call for a closer examination of the practice of imitation of St Joachim in the context of this men's organization. This article offers such an examination, exploring how a sacred text is mobilized and functions to shape male bodies after a religious ideal of masculinity in an African context. Even though the story about Joachim and Anne is not part of canonized Scripture, it certainly is a "sacred story". Sacred stories are stories that, in the words of Mircea Eliade (1959: 97), in a specifi