Page 81 - Key Words in Religion Media and Culture

64 J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

prayers the journey to the European and North American “paradises” are
made possible.
In her groundbreaking work in this field, Gerrie ter Haar is emphatic that
religion is central to the existence of African communities. This position
challenges previous definitions of African immigrant communities in terms
of their ethnic identities. The result of defining African migrant communities
in terms of their ethnic identities is that “groups of migrants who consider
themselves bound by a shared religious faith may be defined by others in
their new homeland as connected primarily by a common ethnic origin” (Ter
Haar 1998: iii). This position, which is challenged by Ter Haar, amounts to
a misunderstanding of the critical and almost non-negotiable role that non-
Westerners in general and Africans in particular assign religion in community
formation. In the precarious immigration environment in the Western world
today, religion is for many African immigrants “an outstanding way of
coping with difficult surroundings” (Ter Haar 1998: iv). There are many
ways in which immigrant churches express the sense of community gained
from practicing their faith in the Diaspora. One of these is the giving of
testimonies. This involves sharing personal stories of God’s deliverance
amid the uncertainties of life in Europe. Gerrie ter Haar’s explanation of the
relationship between religion and community among African immigrants in
the Netherlands is representative of such communities elsewhere:

While giving testimony [in church], individual witnesses are surrounded
by friends and fellow-believers who were close to them in their time
of trial. They are a visual representation of the moral support needed
in these circumstances. For example, a person may have applied for a
residence permit and visited the immigration police for months, without
making any progress. If one day the request is unexpectedly granted by
the authorities and the applicant provided with the precious documents,
this turn of fate is ascribed to divine intervention. …There are abundant
stories of divine intervention in seemingly hopeless cases form a source of
inspiration to those who are still waiting for a solution to some intractable
problem or negotiation with the government.
(Ter Haar 1998: 45)

Thus, the immigrant church is now the context within which Africans and
Latin Americans demonize and fight immigration authorities. At one such
prayer service in Chicago during the 2006 Easter service, the immigration
authorities in the United States were all “soaked” in the blood of Christ that
they would be restrained from “touching” any soul connected to the African
Christian community whose status was irregular. These ways of expressing
faith within community keep religion alive in African life and existence.