Pentecostal Power and The

PENTECOSTAL POWER AND THE HOLY SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM: RE-IMAGINING MODERNITY IN THE CHARISMATIC COSMOLOGY* Elsie Lewison Department of Geography University of Toronto [email protected] In his 1999 book The Desecularization beginning in the last decades of the of the World: Resurgent Religion and World twentieth century. With some estimates Politics, Peter Berger—a widely published quoting over five hundred million adherents, sociologist of religion—renounced his own, it “may be the fastest expanding religious 3 former position that religion would lose movement in the world today.” ground with the rise of a pluralistic, modern The experiences of globalization—in age. Pointing out that the world seems to be the form of technological modernization and “as furiously religious as it ever was,” he the conflation of geographical space through understatedly observes that, “To say the population and information flows—and least, the relation between religion and more specifically neoliberal globalization, modernity is rather complicated.”1 Indeed, entailing the “deeply problematic 4 the orthodoxy of Max Weber‟s commodification of everything,” the „disenchantment of the world‟2 has retrenchment of the social welfare state, and increasingly fallen out of favor in face of huge flows of speculative investment mounting evidence to the contrary. Among capital, have effected tremendous ruptures in 5 the most impressive disputants has been the lives around the globe. In many contexts, Pentecostal movement, which has economic and cultural globalization has led experienced explosive global growth to significant social restructuring and introduced new measures of status and value in the form of material accumulation and consumption—concurrent with an * I would like to extend special thanks to my friends increasingly „macrocosmic‟ orientation.6 Far and key informants, who chose to remain anonymous, in Kibale, Nanyuki, Elangata-Wuas, from the predictions of secularization theory and Mbeya as well as throughout my research, for that modernity would make the world “more opening their thoughts and worlds to me with rationally comprehensible and sincerity and generosity. I would also like to thank my advisor John Galaty for his support and insights and to extend appreciation for the constructive comments and suggestions of an anonymous 3 Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: reviewer. Global Charismatic Christianity, (Cambridge: 1 Peter Berger, “The Desecularization of the World: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14. A Global Overview,” in The Desecularization of the 4 Scott Prudham and James McCarthy, “Neoliberal World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Nature and the Nature of Neoliberalism,” Geoforum, edited by Peter Berger, (Washington: Ethics and (vol. 35, 2004), 276. Public Policy Center, 1999), 2-3. 5 Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell, “Neoliberalizing 2 Weber, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Space,” Antipode, (editorial board, 2002), 380-404 Capitalism," in A Reader in the Anthropology of 6 James Fernandez, "African Religious Movements: Religion, edited by Michael Lambek, (Malden, MA: The Worst or the Best of All Possible Microcosms," Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 51. Issue: A Journal of Opinion, (vol. 8, no. 4, 2000), 50. Symposia, 3, 1 (2011), pp. 31-54. © The Author 2009. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved. Lewison | 32 manageable,”7 factors such as economic and emotionalism and principles of radical political crises and the mystification of equality, which ignore and overstep bounded wealth distribution have generated social geographies, as well as its violent sentiments of disorientation and discourses of good and evil, have made it a disempowerment. As Jean and John potent and often disconcerting presence in Comaroff observed at the turn of the wider society throughout its lifetime. Its millennium, the triumph of global capitalism powerful and flamboyant presence in the has been accompanied by a proliferation of public sphere, built on its evangelical occult practices, money magic, and charge, makes it a religion that takes up prosperity gospels that constitute space—a religion that is very much „in‟ and “enchantments… of a decidedly neoliberal „of‟ the world. This dynamic relationship economy whose ever more inscrutable with its surrounding environs has played a speculations seem to call up fresh specters in key part in generating Pentecostalism‟s their wake.”8 In East Africa, the ferocious appeal in today‟s religious marketplace. rise of Pentecostalism in the last decade of Significantly, Pentecostalism has shown the 20th century represents one such remarkably ability to adapt in pace with a „enchantment.‟ The movement has found rapidly changing world, transposing novel new niches of demand for meaning, value systems, challenges and opportunities community and livelihood in a rapidly onto its basic cosmology of personal modernizing society and has embedded itself salvation. The movement‟s cosmology and within the ruptures and fissures that congregations give order and meaning to neoliberal globalization has wrought.9 complex and erratic global processes. It In comparison to the publicity of provides direction and a supportive arena for contemporaneous religious movements— individuals to advantageously reinvent their specifically different forms of political everyday lives and provides a means of Islamism—Pentecostalism has, at least until effectively re-imaging one‟s place in relation recently, expanded largely under the to contemporary processes of globalization. Western academia‟s radar. Its force has only In light of individual, national and recently come to be widely acknowledged continental failures to succeed, particularly despite, or perhaps very much because of, its as reflected in the mainstream media, ubiquity within the Western world itself. Yet Pentecostalism presents believers with a it is by no means a quiescent or passive chance to make a „complete break‟ with the religion. Its embrace of ecstatic past. Its international community of the saved provides the believer with a new form 7 Peter Berger, "Reflections on the Sociology of of self-definition that is firmly founded in a Religion Today," Sociology of Religion, (vol. 62, no. direct, personal relationship with God. The 4. 2001), 443. Pentecostal identity does not necessarily 8 Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, “Millennial negate all others, but rather supersedes them, Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming,” allowing individuals to redefine their place Public Culture (vol. 12, no. 2, 2000), 292. 9 As Berger succinctly notes, “Modernity, for fully- within the wider world on the basis of understandable reasons, undermines all the old equality and personal agency. certainties; uncertainty is a condition that many My intention here is to explore some of people find very hard to bear; therefore, any the ways in which these themes play out in movement (not only a religious one) that promises to the lives of East African Pentecostals today provide or to renew certainty has a ready market.” Here I want to explore what it is about and, in doing so, draw several conclusions in Pentecostalism in particular that has made it so regards to the movement‟s astounding successful in this regard. Berger, Desecularization, 7. 33 | Lewison growth in the past several decades, on both a Wide discrepancies in statistics and regional and global scale. I will focus on measures of growth reflect this difficulty of three key ways in which Pentecostalism definition.11 While Pentecostalism‟s allows believers to develop a sense of emphasis on experience and practice impels empowerment by re-situating themselves in us to look not to doctrinal but rather relation to the surrounding world. First, I experiential evidence for definition, this look at the transformation of the individual‟s leaves us with a vast scope of—often relationship to a global-capitalist cosmology mutually contentious—movements. and existing social and geographic Furthermore, in the analysis of the global boundaries. Second, I turn to the role of the scope of modern Pentecostalism, attempting localized space of the congregation. Finally I to draw a linear, historical development of examine the appeal of Pentecostalism‟s re- the Pentecostal or charismatic movement is territorialization of the global public sphere also highly problematic. Our present through the assertion of a trans-local concern lies not in distinguishing a „true‟ or community of spiritually „radical equals.‟ „historical‟ Pentecostalism but rather in The paper draws on experiences from time examining the appeal of its spent in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in multidimensional contemporary forms. In 2009. While there I participated in a number framing our analysis of the contemporary of church services and spoke with a variety discussion—particularly concerning power of individuals over the course of five relationships and issues of cultural- months. While the congregations that I imperialism—it is useful to examine visited ranged from small, rural churches Pentecostalism‟s various histories and with straw covered floors to large urban trajectories. This includes both the histories auditoriums equipped with printed banners of „classical‟ Pentecostalism‟s North and projector, my language constraints American origins as well as the independent limited interviews to English speakers, and interdependent rise of Pentecostal-like which led to a predominance of younger, charismatic movements across Africa. male

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