Religious Movements in South Africa

Rationale: This is a joint project that ISER is conducting with the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute for socio-cultural studies, Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany. The project is linked to a larger comparative study of new churches in Costa Rica, the Philippines, and Hungary. The aim is to interpret the spread of new churches in terms of its socio-political and quality-of-life significance.

The study: Preliminary in-depth interviews to inform a sample survey were conducted with South African church leaders in several urban centres in 2006. In 2007 the researchers commissioned a national sample survey as well as a special survey to be conducted among members of a large charismatic church in Soweto.

Preliminary results were presented at an international conference held in Freiburg and Basel in May 2008.

Researchers: Professor Theodor Hanf and Dr Helga Dickow (Arnold Bergstraesser Institute for socio-cultural studies) and Valerie Møller (ISER)

Conference paper

Dickow, H. and Møller, V.

2008 Let’s face the world: Comparisons between members of a new pentecostal/charismatic church and other Christians in Gauteng. Conference on Frontiers and Passages, Freiburg i.Br., Germany/Basel, Switzerland, 14-17 May.