1 - Of Hearts, Visions, and Pentecostal Subjects

Summary

This chapter explores Pentecostal conversion as both an affective and a political process. It considers the kind of subjects young urban Pentecostals are called upon to become: organised, enterpreneurial, armed not only with a transformed heart but with a ‘vision’ for their future and a ‘strategic plan’. This subject both converges with and diverges from the RPF’s attempts to create ‘ideal’ subjects who are able to participate in the country’s post-genocide development. While some young Pentecostals benefited from such self-making, others became disillusioned. Instead, they highlighted the limits of the Pentecostal project and its inability to deliver the bright future they felt they had been promised.