Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Illustrations -- Abbreviations -- The Research Design -- A Short Political History of Australia -- Introduction to the Research -- Learning to Yarn -- A “Corroboree” of Literature -- Methodology -- Research Findings -- The Aboriginal Pentecostal Network -- “There’s a Christian Welcome Here”: Worship Practices -- Narrating the Self and the Collective -- Individual Well-being and Worship -- Social Engagement Practices -- Linking Worship and Social Engagement -- Summary and Conclusions -- Reflecting on Interaction Ritual Chain Theory -- Final Conclusions -- Back Matter -- Interview Questions -- Glossary -- References -- Modern Author Index.

Worship and Social Engagement in Urban Aboriginal-led Australian Pentecostal Congregations: (Re)imagining Identity in the Spirit provides an ethnographic account of three Australian Pentecostal congregations with Aboriginal senior leadership. Within this Pentecostalism, Dreaming realities and identities must be brought together with the Christian gospel. Yet current political and economic relationships with the Australian state complicate the possibilities of interactions between culture and Spirit. The result is a matrix or network of these churches stretching across Australia, with Black Australian Pentecostals resisting and accommodating the state through the construction of new and ancient identities. This work occurs most notably in context of the worship ritual, which functions through ritual interaction chains to energise the various social engagement programs these congregations sustain.