heir Martin Luther King will soon come: expectations of ethnoreligious revival of Roma, and the ideology of empowerment through conversion.
Abstract
In my paper I am going to connect notions of ethno-religious empowerment with Christian Faith movement theory of empowerment through conversion (especially Faith and Prosperity gospels) (Cole 2010, Coleman 2000, Gifford 1991 and 2000, Meyer 2001 and 2007), and Latin American protestant rhetoric of bringing marginals in the centre of moral revival of whole societies (Martin 1993, Mosher 1998). First, there is an expectation that the empowerment of Roma should take a similar path to US black civil rights movement, expressed most notably in the sigh that Roma still do not have their Martin Luther King.
Czech Roma are also encouraged to seek their Martin Luther and the spread of Romani Charismatic and Pentecostal churches among them has already been seen by commentators as a sign of ethno-religious revival which could possibly lead to positive developments – improving morals, „giving a spark“ to unmotivated underclass, unifying people without strong sense of ethnic belonging. Secondly, this expectation from the public meets with the ideology of empowerment and healing through conversion and faith promoted most notably by Faith movement ministries.
The Roma congregation in Czech-German borderlands where I did long-term ethnographic fieldwork was inspired by the Faith movement and thus strong expectations have been raised regarding prosperity, healing and possibilities of general improvement of the life situation of adherents. Most of these did not fulfil, however, and I will try to show how the adherents and the congregation leaders coped with the failures.