Christian ModernizationsCirculating Media Practices of the Mission along the Nile Modernisations chrétiennes. Pratiques circulantes des media le long du Nil

Abstract

This paper explores media-techniques of conversion among Arabic speaking Christians along the Nile. Their practices build up on and intensify long existing religious dynamics of missionization (through migration and re-migration of evangelical Christians) and conversion (from existing religious communities into new, transnational movements) and are formed around narratives of modernisation. In past and present Christian proselytizing has articulated universal aspirations that are to be realized in situ through the differentiation between believers und unbelievers. The demand to make a complete break with the past is emphasized by the use of media (books and more recently the internet) and formats (like a creed) that are seemingly removed from the modifications of time and space. Exploring the various strategies and media-practices of Christian proselytizing along the Nile through time, this paper offers a more detailed analysis of a recent prophetic movement and its territorialisation strategies in the context of the founding of the state of South Sudan.

Keywords

• Pentecostalism
• Evangelical Christianity
• Proselytizing
• Dinka Prophecy
• Media Practices
• Mission