The Church Building: A Sanctuary or a Consecrated Place? Conflicting Views between Angolan Pentecostals and European Presbyterians

The African diaspora is partly shaped through religious institutions, such as the migrant churches. Angolans, like other Africans, when building a new life in the Netherlands, find new ways to gather in church communities. Since these communities need housing, the existing church building is a place of encounter between established and migrant church communities. Far from approaching African diaspora as Africans facing problems in a host environment, this article states that in the encounter between locals and migrants at least two parties are challenged in their comfort zones. Taking a conflict between the Angolan church Igreja do Espirito Santo and the Presbyterian Holy Chapel in Rotterdam as a case study, it is argued that the material aspect of this shared place of worship is an enlightening perspective for studying this cross-cultural encounter. This article consists of three levels of analysis, namely of theological differences, differences in aesthetical appraisal of the building and differences in standards of purity and pollution.