Above the skyline

In 1994, the year of South Africa's transition to democracy, a church was launched - the first of its kind in Africa. The Hope and Unity Metropolitan Community Church, led by the charismatic Reverend Tsietsi Thandekiso, appealed to lesbian and gay Africans in search of a spiritual home. Above the Skyline provides a detailed ethnographic study of this unique church community. Graeme Reid shows how the church created the possibility of an integrated cultural identity for gay and lesbian Christians in an African context. By adopting the rhetoric, style and rituals of Pentecostal worship, the church provides a powerful counter-narrative to persistent claims that homosexuality is 'un-Christian' and 'un-African'.