Working Paper 97

Title
Distinctly African Christians: situating His People Christian Church within social transformation

Author
André P. Czeglédy

Department
Department ‘Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia’

Year of publication
2007

Number of pages
22

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Working Paper 97

Abstract
This paper looks at the ways in which His People Christian Church and its congregation have incorporated into their services and activities a variety of performative, graphic and thematic reference points that closely follow contemporary attitudes in the promotion of new identities in South Africa. Such incorporation speaks of a revalorisation of the local that balances more international institutional links, while confirming underlying ties with the trajectory of the nation-state in the post-apartheid era. The discussion first considers the history and underlying organisation of His People Church before turning attention on the Sunday services of its main Johannesburg venue. What emerges from the subsequent analysis of this 'charismatic Christian' community is a conscious and unconscious dissolution between the sacred and the secular that affirms the sense of contemporaneity at His People Church.