A Thousand Eruptions

This book describes the most significant religious development in Melanesian history, namely, the explosion of innumerable charismatic revival movements across the entire region during the 1970s. Bursting forth out of a religious context marked by colonial and mission domination, these intense eruptions powerfully and proudly showcased a brand new, local Christianity articulated as an ecstatic pursuit of the imminent Second Coming. Many of the most influential anthropological studies of Christianity in Melanesia are historically built upon this watershed, but until now there has been no full-scale description of the regional upheaval or of why it occurred. Innovatively utilising the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari, the book conceptualises this plenitude of frenetic religiosity as the varied executions of a specific set of forces stipulating the rapid demonstration of metaphysical security. The revivals were, first and foremost, a swift assertion of existential stability in the face of heightened crisis. Drawing upon the dovetailed ideas of diagram and assemblage, the book shows how this ontological directive, activated by the depredations and vulnerabilities produced by the rise and fall of colonialism in Melanesia, set in motion the immensely creative construction of each individual movement through the migration of a bewildering variety of elements out of existing local, regional, and transnational contexts. As the book portrays, this strain towards safeguarding the basic foundations of life produced a cornucopia of determined, vigorous, and deeply emotional quests for immediate salvation.