The secular and the global: rethinking the anthropology of Christianity in the wake of 1492

Abstract

In this article, I call for anthropologists of Christianity to do more to address the ‘difference’ that 1492 has made in Christian institutions, practices, and social worlds. In so doing, I argue the most significant condition constraining critical analyses of Christianity is not modernity’s secularity, but, what Jared Hickman has called its ‘global’ condition. I push back against attempts to integrate Christian theology into anthropological analyses in ways that protect religious life from the violence and exploitation found in social worlds. Instead, I argue that analytical tools developed in political theology and theopolitics can help anthropologists to address how, following 1492, Christianity has often been accompanied by attempts to annihilate ontological difference. In addition, anthropologists of Christianity are well positioned to seek out those ‘incarnations’ that elide the eradication of difference.

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