Converting Houses into Churches: The Mobility, Fission, and Sacred Networks of Evangelical House Churches in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In this paper I examine the processes and politics associated with the formation of evangelical house churches in Sri Lanka. In doing so, I show how the sacred space of the house church is constructed through the development of sacred networks, which emerge when a group of Christians assemble for prayer and worship. Sacred networks grant the house church an important degree of mobility, but they also encourage church fission. Whilst the house church enables evangelical groups to grow in hostile environments like that of Sri Lanka, it is often a superficial form of growth that is unsustainable in the long term. To conclude, I suggest that an understanding of sacred networks can help inject a sense of scalar dynamism into the study of contemporary religious movements.

Planning with Resurgent religion: informality and gray spacing of the urban landscape

“…Religious buildings and discourse provide a focal point for the social integration of minority groups with other groups, and for the recognition of minority groups by the state. For example, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, evangelical Christian groups convert private houses into churches as a way of resisting and overcoming both formal and informal forms of repression by the state (Woods, 2012(Woods, , 2013. The recently constructed Essalam Mosque as a "mega-mosque" in southern Rotterdam clearly demonstrates how marginalized groups engage in a process of feeling 'at home' in their city through constructing religious buildings that are then often contested by majority groups (Tamimi Arab, 2013a, 2013b.…”

The floating churches of Volgograd: River topologies and warped spatialities of faith

“…Raivo's analysis highlights a whole range of temporal and functional displacements (including the reuse of ordinary farms) that enabled a sense of continuity and communal identity within the Orthodox tradition, where sacred space is bound to particular ontological and material qualities. On a different note, Orlando Woods () explores the spatial and functional dynamism of Sri Lanka's house‐church movement through a networked understanding of sacred space. Woods dwells on the politics of converting domestic space into sacred space, to saliently capture the emergence of informal, transient and mobile centres of religious activity for evangelical Christian groups.…”

“…First, through the recourse of archival practices in geography (Cresswell, ; DeLyser, ; Dwyer & Davies, ), we dwell on creative reuse as an alternative modality to upcycle the materiality and documentary capacities of things, beyond the linear entrapments of historical or functional redundancy. Second, we suggest that aligning the discussion of creative reuse to ongoing conceptualisations of sacred spaces (Holloway, ; Raivo, ; Woods, ) contributes to a better appreciation of their various place‐bound and transient incarnations. Third, we show how via creative reuse the floating churches of Volgograd enabled mobile cosmologies/theologies that rely on topological arrangements of fixed points and shifting spatialities.…”

Making “Unofficial” Sacred Space: Spirit Mediums and House Temples in Singapore

“…“Unofficially” sacred spaces, according to Kong, include “indigenous sacred sites, religious schools, religious organisations and their premises (communal halls), pilgrimage routes (apart from the sites themselves), religious objects, memorials and roadside shrines, domestic shrines and religious processions and festivals ” (Kong , 226, emphases added). As Kong () and Woods () have noted, there has been a widening understanding of sacred space from “official” sites to include “unofficial” sites that involve religious activity. Woods conducted a study of evangelical house churches in Sri Lanka, showing how individuals established such sacred spaces through the creation of sacred networks that are constructed through collective rituals of prayer and service (2013).…”

“…Material objects have been noted to be part of the way in which the sacred is produced. Veronica della Dora's () example of how the transportation of sacred icons across national boundaries (Egypt to the United States) was also representative of the “reconfiguration of sacred space” (Woods , 1064). As Woods noted of della Dora's findings, “space is a product of global and local flows and can be transposed upon different places through the movement of material objects” (2013, 1064).…”