The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa
A Church of Strangers

This book shows how the UCKG utilizes rituals that are locally meaningful and are informed by local ideas about human bodies, agency and ontological balance.

Ilana van Wyk (Author)

9781107057241, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 May 2014

299 pages, 9 b/w illus. 1 map
23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'Most compelling about Ilana van Wyk's book is its anthropological attention to a decidedly un-anthropological topic: asociality. Similarly compelling is van Wyk's challenge to a foundational assumption sustained by scholars of African Christianity: the assumption that community and commensality are intrinsic to the tradition … Van Wyk sets for herself the immensely important task of exploring why so unsociable and, to many, so unsavoury a church has nevertheless found such popularity … Her intention is to document the particularities and peculiarities of the UCKG, and to find within them explanations for the church's appeal. In this, she succeeds wonderfully.' Devaka Premawardhana, Africa

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a church of Brazilian origin, has been enormously successful in establishing branches and attracting followers in post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike other Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCC), the UCKG insists that relationships with God be devoid of 'emotions', that socialisation between members be kept to a minimum and that charity and fellowship are 'useless' in materialising God's blessings. Instead, the UCKG urges members to sacrifice large sums of money to God for delivering wealth, health, social harmony and happiness. While outsiders condemn these rituals as empty or manipulative, this book shows that they are locally meaningful, demand sincerity to work, have limits and are informed by local ideas about human bodies, agency and ontological balance. As an ethnography of people rather than of institutions, this book offers fresh insights into the mass PCC movement that has swept across Africa since the early 1990s.

1. Introduction
2. Christian warriors and the spiritual warfare
3. On the frontlines
4. Women of God, love and marriage
5. The leaking nature of things
6. Gossiping demons, strong words and lies
7. Profit prophets and God's money
8. Family demons and the blessed life
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], African history [HBJH]