When Historiopraxy Becomes Heritage

This chapter discusses the original ethnographic research in Sweden that led to the development of historiopraxy and compare the concept with other ways of characterizing Pentecostal time that have contributed to the anthropology of Christianity. It then extends the applicability of historiopraxy in two ways. First, by examining how it is manifested within a new ethnographic context—that of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria, a movement operating under very different historical and cultural circumstances to those that marked the emergence of the Word of Life in Uppsala, Sweden. Second, by showing how historiopraxy encourages a focus on an area of temporal practice usually ignored in studies of Pentecostalism: that of believers’ understandings of religious heritage. The chapter shows how the production of such heritage provokes not only deep ambivalence but also the development of novel forms of historiopraxy as the Pentecostals studied in this chapter face a fundamental dilemma: how to direct transformative impulses not only towards non-saved others, but also towards the history and achievements of the already redeemed self.