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Book | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Translating the devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in Ghana |
Author: | Meyer, Birgit |
Year: | 1999 |
Issue: | 21 |
Pages: | 265 |
Language: | English |
Series: | International African library (ISSN 0951-1377) |
City of publisher: | Edinburgh |
Publisher: | Edinburgh University Press |
ISBN: | 074861303X |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | missionary history Protestant churches Ewe |
Abstract: | This study deals with the local appropriation of Christianity in an African context, that of the Peki Ewe of southeastern Ghana. It follows a line that leads from the activities of the first missionaries of the Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft (NMG) among the Ewe in 1847, through the establishment of the Ewe Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and its formal independence from the mission in 1922, to the rise of independent churches after World War II and the secession of 'Agbelengor', the Lord's (Pentecostal) Church, from the mission church in 1959, ending with the present situation, where there are two conflicting EP Churches. The main argument of the study is that, for the Ewe, involvement with modernity goes hand in hand with new enchantment, rather than disenchantment, of the world. At the grassroots level, the study focuses on the image of the Devil, which the missionaries communicated to the Ewe through translation and which currently receives much attention in the Pentecostal churches. This image played and still plays a crucial role in the local appropriation of Christianity. The study is based on field research carried out in 1989 and 1991-1992. |