How does global Christianity relate to processes of globalisation and
modernization and what form does it take in different local settings?
These questions have lately proved to be of increasing interest to many
scholars in the social sciences and humanities. This study examines the
tensions, antagonisms and outright confrontations that can occur within
local Christian communities upon the arrival of global versions of
fundamentalism and it does so through a rich and in-depth ethnographic
study of a single case: that of Pairundu, a small and remote Papua New
Guinean village whose population accepted Catholicism, after first being
contacted in the late 1950s, and subsequently participated in a
charismatic movement, before more and more members of the younger
generation started to separate themselves from their respective catholic
families and to convert to one of the most radical and fastest growing
religious groups not only in contemporary Papua New Guinea but
world-wide: the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. This case study of local
Christianity as a lived religion contributes to an understanding of the
social and cultural dynamics that increasingly incite and shape
religious conflicts on a global scale.