Christian Temporalities

This volume explores how different forms of Christianity shape people's visions of pasts and futures, and how the transcendent is brought into human time. Beyond conventional discussions around breaks with the past in Christian conversion and future ruptures announced in prophecy, the volume reveals previously unexplored ways in which Christians work with concepts of time and its articulation with divinity, subjectivity, agency, and personal, social, and political change. By developing Coleman’s argument about “historiopraxy” in novel directions, contributors provide new understandings of religious temporalities and the ritual articulation of immanence and transcendence. While building upon previous scholarly work in the anthropology of Christianity, this volume pushes the debate further and provides original insights into how religion is mobilised to shape and transform people's pasts, presents and futures.

Anna-Karina Hermkens is a senior lecturer and researcher in the School of Social Sciences at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has a background in Gender Studies, Religious Studies, and Cultural Anthropology. Her research focuses on the various interplays between gender, material culture, religion, and violence in Indonesia, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, with particular attention to the power of Marian devotion in times of conflict and violence.

Simon Coleman is Chancellor Jackman Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, Canada. His research focuses on the globalization of Pentecostalism, contemporary manifestations of pilgrimage, and Christian influences on urban infrastructures.

Matt Tomlinson is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. His research focuses on relationships between language, politics, and religious ritual in the Pacific Islands and Australia.