Christian Devotional Practice in Contemporary Africa

Contemporary Christian devotional practices vary widely across the continent, sharing some features across the entire religion while also clearly demarcating denominational boundaries. Drawing from religious studies, praxeology, and aesthetics of religion, this chapter first explores the embodied and affective aspects of devotional practices in conjunction with the variety of beliefs inscribed in the multitude of different churches. The chapter provides an overview of some of the more widely practiced embodied rituals that establish and mediate divine presence in the here-and-now of the everyday. The chapter concludes by situating Christian devotional practices in an analytical framework of modernity and (post-)secular subjectivity.