Charismatic Churches, Revivalism and New Religious Movements

In this chapter, we describe recent developments on the ‘religious scene’ in contemporary Melanesia. Whereas this region for a long time has been dominated by mission-originated churches, so-called ‘mainline churches’, in the last three decades or so the religious scene has undergone a rapid change. We now see, both in rural and urban contexts of different parts of Melanesia, a proliferation of Charismatic and Pentecostal churches, as well as until now rather unknown religious forms in the area, such as Islam and the Bahá‘í movement.