AIDS, Spiritual Insecurity and Religious Enthusiasm in Africa

Abstract

The connection between the AIDS epidemic and the efflorescence of religious ‘enthusiasm’ (construed in both classical and contemporary senses) in Africa in recent decades is best understood, this paper argues, by reference to a concept of ‘spiritual insecurity’. The article offers a general description of the condition of spiritual insecurity and argues that it is best studied within a relational realist paradigm. The article presents a critique of the concept of ‘belief’ as commonly used in the social science of religion, arguing instead for an opening of the study of social relations to include the universe of relations within which people experience the world, including their relations with entities such as spiritual beings that might otherwise be considered virtual.