Different Repetitions by Andreas Bandak Simon Coleman

Author:Andreas Bandak, Simon Coleman [Andreas Bandak, Simon Coleman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000368635
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 55783356
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Wasting time and suicidal signs

On Sunday, 9 March 2014 – not quite the Ides of March – Ulf Ekman stood on the podium at the Word of Life, in the same place that his son Benjamin had occupied a little over three years earlier. This occasion was rather less festive, however, as Ekman was announcing that he was leaving not just the congregation but also the movement: his movement, the reflection of his charismatic image. He began with a note of reassuring continuity: ‘First I want to say that it’s so fantastic to know that things continue to go so well for our wonderful congregation.’ He also gave thanks to all the ‘wonderful donors’ for the Sports Hall that the congregation was constructing: classic Prosperity fare, indexing progress through the harvesting of gifts and consequent expansive materiality. Then things became complicated. Ekman explained that his encounters with the Catholic Church over the years were ‘not so strange since it is the world’s biggest Church.’ Furthermore, his new experience of a Church he had previously derided was an important part of his personal ‘growth.’ According to the new Ekman – the one now being ‘born again’ out of Pentecostalism – not only did Roman Catholicism express ‘a continuity that goes back to the Apostles and to the time of Jesus,’ its members ‘read and use the Bible much more than we often do.’ Ekman finished with Ephesians 3:18–21 (NIV), invoking ‘this love that surpasses knowledge’ and a reference to ‘Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.’

Judging from the reactions from some of the congregation, played out in social media and recounted to me subsequently, the announcement was not a complete surprise: Benjamin had already gone, and Ekman had been making reconciliatory noises about Catholicism for years.17 However, to some of the congregation, this apologia seemed the ultimate in betrayal. As one Pentecostal friend put it to me a few months later: how could Ekman throw away his life’s work, abandoning all those whom he had originally enticed into the ministry? And yet, he added, Ekman had made such shifts before. My friend was right. Ekman had originally defied his Socialist youth and secular parents by becoming a Lutheran priest, and then infuriated the Swedish Church by becoming a Prosperity preacher. Now he had one more ace up his sleeve. His action – brave or irresponsible, depending on one’s standpoint – confirmed my growing suspicion that Ekman was a contemporary Nordic trickster figure: always moving (‘sailing’), ironically predictable in his shifting away from expectations, crossing boundaries that were not conventionally crossed, and yet always keeping a firm eye on the broader Zeitgeist.18

From a sociological standpoint, we should avoid the temptation to over-dramatize Ekman’s significance – to feed his own myth-making: after all, he had merely been the leader of what by African or Latin American standards was a mini- rather than mega-church, with around 2500 congregation members, located in an obscure corner of the global charismatic map.

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