This thesis develops an ecclesiology of participation in Pentecostalism by utilizing the concept of the prophethood of all believers as a theological and hermeneutical device to articulate how the laity can fully take part in the ritual life of the church. Pentecostalism as a liturgically diverse tradition composed of hierarchical and democratic types of churches that reflect both episcopal and non-episcopal ecclesiological models has created ambiguity in how the doctrine of the prophethood of all believers and the egalitarian nature of (...) the church should be understood. Based on a perspective informed by pneumatology and Pentecost, this project provides a means to theologically convey how greater participation can take place in Pentecostal communities of worship through every believer’s empowerment with the Holy Spirit. The idea of the prophethood of all believers is projected onto the dominant rituals of the Pentecostal liturgy through an altar hermeneutic that allows for all members of the worshipping community to have a transformative encounter with God in dynamic fellowship with others. What results is a truly egalitarian view of church that directs entire communities of faith towards participation in Pentecost through the Spirit. Through critical analysis of and constructive theological engagement with the Pentecostal liturgy, the chapters of this thesis contribute to a better understanding of what is meant by “the altar” in the rites of Pentecostal worship. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis contribution emphasises the importance of conditions of production and relations of production in Discourse Studies. It argues that rather than constituting an extra-discursive realm that simply belongs to the economic sphere of a social formation, conditions and relations of production present a veritable concern for Discourse Studies. They constitute two central concepts of Marxism, and grasp two intertwined processes that assure the survival of a specific mode of production. It is not only the conditions of production that need to (...) be reproduced under certain relations of production. It is also these relations themselves that need to be reproduced discursively and ideologically. Hence, conditions and relations of production and their reproduction are fundamentally material-discursive. In the early days of discourse analysis in France, both concepts and a Marxist take on production constituted an important point of reference. Here, the conditions of production of discourse were more than the setting, context or the situation semiotic material is produced in. In today's Discourse Studies, however, conditions and relations of production are often conceived of as the ‘material other’ of discourse, and are rarely scrutinised explicitly on the theoretical, analytical, and political level. We argue that such an understanding not only obfuscates the materialist heritage of Discourse Studies. It also contributes to a depoliticised understanding of research, in which the conditions in which discourse is produced are strangely separated from the broader conditions and relations of production in late capitalism. (shrink)

This article seeks to reinterpret the process of state and class formation in “peripheral” societies—notably Syria—through a contextualized reading of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire influenced by the approach of Political Marxism (PM). In light of PM’s claim that capitalism did not emerge in France until the late nineteenth century, it draws a picture of post-revolutionary French society in which the legacy of the precapitalist Absolutist state still determined the nature of ruling class reproduction and class struggle, centered on the state apparatus (...) as the principal source of appropriation. These insights on the nature of ruling class appropriation and the centrality of the state are then applied to the case of post-Ottoman Syria, uncovering parallels with class struggles in post-revolutionary France rooted in the “Jacobin” politics of a state-dependent bourgeoisie of officials and officers. It proposes to rethink the contested moments of transition in terms of “alternative modernities” that developed in the absence of generalized capitalist relations of production. (shrink)