Hefner Publishes Article on David Martin & Global Pentecostalism
Robert Hefner, Professor of Anthropology and of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a memorial piece in Nations and Nationalism on the research of British sociologist of religion and nationalism, David Martin.
As Hefner writes in his piece, titled “Religion as raft in a stormy sea: David Martin and the study of global Pentecostalism,” Martin was a premier sociologists of religion in the 1960s and 1970s, with the publication of several pathbreaking essays on Christianity and secularization in Western Europe. In 1985, his research on Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism in the global south was the first international project sponsored by the newly formed Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at BU.
Hefner describes Martin’s book that came of the CURA sponsorship – Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (1990) – and how a generation later the book remains one of that field’s finest. He also described the unique perspective Martin provided to the field of sociology as well as his personal interactions with and view of Martin and his research.
An excerpt:
Martin’s analyses invited readers to take a momentary analytic leap and recognize a common humanity and existential dilemma in the mostly poor Pentecostals he described. He wanted readers to experience and respect something of the converts’ perilous passage in that stormy sea. He hoped we might also recognize something of the quiet determination that lay behind the believers’ fevered lashing and empathize with their efforts to, somehow, get their raft and their loved ones through it all.
The full article can be read online in Volume 27, Issue 1 of Nations and Nationalism. Upon Martin’s passing on March 8, 2019, Hefner published an in memoriam piece further in which he discusses the scholar’s lasting legacy.
Robert Hefner has directed 19 research projects and organized 18 international conferences, and authored or edited nineteen books. He is former president of the Association for Asian Studies. At CURA, he directed the program on Islam and civil society since 1991; coordinated interdisciplinary research and public policy programs on religion, pluralism, and world affairs; and is currently involved in two research projects: “The New Western Plurality and Civic Coexistence: Muslims, Catholics, and Secularists in North America and Western Europe”; and “Sharia Transitions: Islamic Law and Ethical Plurality in the Contemporary World.” You can read more about Professor Hefner on his faculty profile.