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.
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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 interviewees with at least minimal education. Development of Classical American Pentecostalism Historical Development of Pentecostalism The origin of Classical American In tracing the history of Pentecostalism Pentecostalism is usually mapped to the Los we are faced with the challenge of first Angeles based Azusa Street Revival in 1906. defining the movement, a challenge made Initiated with three days and nights of loud difficult by its highly decentralized structure praying and rejoicing in a small private and emphasis on charismatic leadership.10
11 Barrett and Johnson‟s global statistics on 10 Robert Anderson, author of Vision of the Christianity suggest a figure of 544 million Disinherited: The Making of American “pentecostal/charismatics/neocharismatics” in 2002. Pentecostalism, has observed that “whereas classical David Barrett and Todd Johnson, “Annual Statistical Pentecostals usually define themselves in terms of the Table on Global Mission: 2002 (Statistical Data doctrine of „initial evidence‟, Pentecostalism is more Included),” International Bulletin of Missionary correctly seen in a much broader context as a Research (Refereed) (vol. 26, no. 1, 2002), 22. movement concerned primarily with the experience http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0 of the working of the Holy Spirit and the practice of 286-25052527_ITM. Johnstone and Mandryk on the spiritual gifts.” Allan Anderson, An Introduction to other hand, propose a far more conservative estimate Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity of 345 million “Charismatics” including 115 million (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14. “Pentecostals.” Anderson, Introduction, 11. Lewison | 34
home, the revival expanded rapidly, drawing Its coming into being, its reason people from a wide variety of social and d‟etre, and all its longings are owed to economic backgrounds and placed strong this outer world . . . The hostile emphasis on national, as well as surrounding must be defeated, not for international evangelism.12 The revival drew the sake of power, but for the sake of significant influence from American survival. The community must (re)- Methodism, which “stressed personal gain ground in order for its members liberty… and it extended its offer of to come into being.15 religious power and autonomy to the „dispossessed,‟ to women, African Pentecostalism‟s roots in both Americans and the poor.”13 As we will see Methodism and African American echoed in contemporary incarnations of Christianity nurtured a dynamic relationship Pentecostalism, Methodism gained with the outside world—defined by both particular popularity among the newly hostility and participation—which plays a urbanized working class for whom it significant role in the appeal of the provided “opportunities for leadership and contemporary movement. social respectability” as well as everyday As Pentecostalism grew in numbers, its lifestyles “well-suited to the disciplinary initial ability to bring believers together demands of the industrial order” that across the social spectrum was challenged actively promoted upward social mobility.14 by growing institutionalization, which led Classic American Pentecostalism was increasingly to racially divided congregations and alliances with also heavily influenced by African American 16 Christianity, which developed out of the fundamentalist evangelical churches. As a religious expression of slave communities. result, many Pentecostal churches “adopted This religious movement, while developing the patriotic values of the US American a similar emphasis on emotionalism and middle class. In many ways it changed from being a protesting „church of the poor‟ to „a salvation for the dispossessed, emphasized a 17 degree of isolation in which the religious conservative middle-class force.‟” In community was presented as an „invisible understanding this shift, it is important to institution‟ or friendly microcosm offering highlight the strongly individualistic equality and liberty through a transcendence character of Pentecostalism‟s message of of the slave identity. According to Katharina empowerment and equality, which tended to Hofer (2006), this Christianity was preclude social or political engagement on characterized by a mentality of the the basis of other forms of social identities. „suffering community‟ which she sees Pentecostal churches transcended the social shared by contemporary Pentecostalism and perimeters of race, gender, age, social class entailing an identity that develops explicitly or level of education as opposed to in opposition to the outside world. For Hofer, this shapes a religion wholly 15 Katharina Hofer, Implications of a Global concerned with, and defined by, its Religious Movement for Local Political Spheres: relationship to its environment. Evangelism in Kenya and Uganda (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), 183-184. 16 The fundamentalist movement arose largely as a 12 Allan Anderson, Introduction, 42 response to the charismatics, opposing the open 13 Allan Anderson, Introduction, 26 nonconformity of Pentecostalism with a scripturally 14 Robert Hefner, “Multiple Modernities: Christianity, centered intellectual discourse. Hofer, “Implications,” Islam and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age,” Annual 177-178. Review of Anthropology (vol. 27, 1998), 88. 17 Allan Anderson, Introduction, 54 35 | Lewison
challenging wider social orders from within Pentecostal churches were not racially these social spaces.18 Thus, when compared radical, avoiding specific identification with with the concurrently developing Black and the established black community. Assertions Liberation Theologies19—which so clearly of equality were couched in the idiom of the embraced their African American spiritual, rarely emerging into the overtly foundations—even „Black‟ American political stance of their theological rivals.20
Development of African Pentecostalism 18 Harvey Cox, Fire From Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of The history of Christianity in Africa has Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Reading, MA: been one of tremendous diversity, hosting a Addison Wesley Publishing, 1995); Donald Miller vast array of denominations, movements, and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism: The storefront congregations as well as New Face of Christian Social Engagement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). autonomous preachers and holy-men and 19 Liberation Theology took shape in Latin America in women, particularly in the case of the 1960s and was described by Gustavo Gutierrez, Pentecostalism. The Pentecostal landscape is one of the movement‟s most prominent thinkers, in made up of early mission churches, a his 1971 Teologia de la liberacion. Largely Catholic complex array of splinter congregations, in origins, the movement drew on Marxist and dependency theories of exploitation and uneven independent charismatic movements and development and emphasized a „liberating praxis of congregations as well as more recent groups the poor‟ that sought to critique the socio-political connected with international NGOs and the structures that create poverty. Black Liberation or charismatic leaders of mega-churches. Black Theology similarly emerged out of a social The independent charismatic movement context, developing in tandem with the Black Power movement in the United States movements of the African Instituted articulated in a National Committee of Negro Churches (AICs) are often cited as Churchmen black power statement released in 1966 precursors to the African Pentecostal and later, famously, in James Cone‟s 1969 Black movement. AICs emerged across Africa Theology and Black Power. Like South American primarily out of African Christians‟ growing Liberation Theology, Black Theology identified frustration with the racism and exploitation critically engages with histories of subjugation and 21 the meaning of racial and social identities in relation of the early, mainstream mission churches. to faith. It was a thoroughly engaged form of This frustration and desire for independence theology that advocated for African American concerned not only the missionaries‟ liberation from white oppression and was closely tied monopolization of faith and theology but to the civil rights movement. Black Theology also social institutions and infrastructure as perceived itself in solidarity with liberation 22 movements in Africa and other areas of the Third well. Early western-based Pentecostal World and played a significant role in the anti- missionaries also had a significant impact in Apartheid struggles in South Africa. Rebecca Chopp many areas across the continent. In contrast and Ethna Regan, “Latin American Liberation to the AICs‟ assertion of independence in Theology,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology Since 1918, opposition to Western control, these edited by Davis Ford (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), 469-484; Dwight Hopkins, “Black Theology of Liberation,” in The Modern 20 Hofer, Implications. Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology 21 Adrian Hastings, A History of African Christianity, Since 1918, edited by Davis Ford (Malden, MA: 1950-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), 451-468; Tinyiko 1979). Sam Maluleke, “African Theology,” in The Modern 22 Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, “The Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology Colonization of Consciousness,” in A Reader in the Since 1918, edited by Davis Ford (Malden, MA: Anthropology of Religion, edited by Michael Lambek Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), 451-468. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002), 493-510. Lewison | 36
congregations tended to remain under the contemporary televangelists. It preaches a strict oversight of their mission founders. message of this-worldly prosperity through European and North American churches faith alone, often emphatically highlighting maintained direct control over these tithes and church donations as the proper congregations for decades. In cases where manifestation of personal faith. Often official leadership had been surrendered to interpreted as an implicitly instrumentalist local community members, overseas funders tool—used by leaders to manipulate preserved power through their management believers and promote church growth and of local finances, yet their influence personal enrichment—many students of the surpassed mere financial control. African movement, like Gifford, tie this increasing pastors frequently received training in the success to the gospel‟s American capitalist US or Canada and congregations often relied mentality as it found fertile ground in the on imported teaching material for local „boom years‟ of the 1960s and 1970s when training. Largely due to these close ties to “„success through a positive mental attitude‟ Western partner institutions, these churches was the rule” and Pentecostalism was have “developed in tune with North becoming increasingly tied to growth- American Pentecostalism.”23 oriented American commercialism.25 A final prominent aspect of Development of Neo-Pentecostalism contemporary Pentecostalism is the rising
Near the middle of the twentieth tied of international missions and faith-based century, a number of enterprising Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Pentecostal preachers such as Oral Roberts that developed out of the late twentieth foreshadowed a new generation of century merger between the fundamentalist nondenominational churches that grew to evangelical and Pentecostal communities. prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. In This growth came out of post-Cold War describing this new movement, the term international aid policies that favored non- “neo-Pentecostal” began to be used state funding mechanisms and combined interchangeably with the general term with the rise of a new generation of charismatic or, later, neo-charismatic. These enterprising missionary efforts represented churches gained explosive popularity in the by organizations such as the „church growth movement‟ (found in Africa as „AD 2000 last two decades of the twentieth century. 26 Indeed, “the networks of independent and Beyond‟). While this international churches were soon the fastest growing mission has drawn much of its funding from segment in the Pentecostal and Charismatic North American sources, it is important to movement in the English-speaking world, highlight that Pentecostalism has become spreading to become hundreds of international in a far more fundamental way. independent global networks.”24 As Anderson (2004) notes, Pentecostalism One of the most influential aspects of has “become globalized in every sense of the neo-Pentecostalism is the related word” demanding that we “make more development of a theology widely known as the „prosperity gospel‟ or gospel of „health 25 Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role and wealth.‟ It emerged in the Bible belt of (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 39- 40. the U.S. and drew on the teachings of 26Gifford, African Christianity, 42. See also, David Maxwell, “Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty? Pentecostalism, Prosperity, and Modernity in 23 Hofer, Implications, 181. Zimbabwe,” Journal of Religion in Africa (vol. 28, 24 Anderson, Introduction, 156. no. 3, 1998), 350-373. 37 | Lewison
visible and accessible the „non-western‟ striking similarities to successful CEOs. One nature of Pentecostalism without example is the Living World Outreach overlooking the international importance of (“Winners Chapel”) of David Oyedepo, the movement emanating from North which in 2001 held the Guinness record for America.”27 the largest auditorium in the world.32 Neo- With the rise of neo-Pentecostalism in Pentecostal and charismatic churches have the 1980s, Africa witnessed an upsurge of appealed particularly to young, educated Pentecostalism and charismatic fervor and urban people with women tending to make growth. By the 1990s it had become up a significant portion of the membership. “undoubtedly the salient sector of African University and secondary school students Christianity.”28 According to statistics, in have been a primary motivating force of the the year 2000, 20 percent of the populations new religious movement in many African of Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi claimed countries.33 Academics and professionals membership to Pentecostal/charismatic have become increasingly important in the Christianity in addition to 14 percent in Pentecostal movement and tend to represent Kenya, 11 percent in Nigeria, 10 percent in a majority in para-church business Ghana and Zambia, and significant fellowships.34 Yet, in the tradition of older populations in many more countries Pentecostal and charismatic churches, new including the DRC, South Africa and Pentecostal congregations continue to have Uganda.29 Yet perhaps even more indicative significant bases among the less well off. In of the strength of the movement is its urban areas, a single mega-church will infiltration into the daily life of many frequently draw membership from a full African cities and communities. Its “vitality spectrum of social classes, while small store of practice, high visibility in the public front churches in slums cater to the urban space, and the intensity of the debate caused poor. New generation Pentecostal and by its diatribe against traditional religion, charismatic churches are a formidable cultural practices, and the alleged presence in many rural areas as well, as compromises by other forms of urban mother churches spawn rural branches Christianity,”30 has, as Gifford (2004) notes, and entrepreneurial individuals set up led to a „paradigm shift‟ in African autonomous rural congregations. Christianity. Indeed, along with the explicitly new churches, many previously Pentecostalism and Modernity
existing churches, took on new identities 31 Recent scholarship has called into more in line with the charismatic aesthetic. question the usefulness of abstractions like One of the most notable manifestations modernity and globalization in the social of the movement has been the emergence of sciences. In a recent article, Harri Englund the previously mentioned international and James Leach cast a critical eye on what mega-churches. These are often centered on they term the „meta-narrative‟ of modernity, the personality cult of a charismatic leader, most of whom are highly educated bearing 32 Miller and Yamamori, Global. 27 Anderson, Introduction, 15. 33 In his The End-time Army: Charismatic Movements 28 Gifford, African, 33. in Modern Nigeria Matthew Ojo illustrates the 29 Ogbu Kalu. African Pentecostalism: An pioneering activities of Christian Nigerian University Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, students and, in them, locates the source of the 2008), 5. modern day born-again movement in Nigeria. Kalu, 30 Kalu, African, 6. African. (p. 90) 31 Anderson, Introduction; Kalu, African. 34 Kalu, African. Lewison | 38 specifically as it functions in the exercise of on the part of social scientists but anthropological fieldwork. They lived-in realities), and to develop a acknowledge the viability of contemporary shared language which makes possible concerns to “„situate‟ the local and the comparison between different cases as particular in „wider‟ contexts”35 and the well as debate among social efforts of scholars of modernity like Arjun scientists.38 Appadurai (1996) who argue that anthropologists in particular should not Admittedly constrained by the scope of “„assume that as they approach the local my own fieldwork, which was regional- as they approach something more elementary, opposed to community-specific, in my own more contingent, and thus more real than life analysis I lean toward Appadurai and seen in larger-scale perspectives‟…”36 Yet, Meyer‟s perspectives that allow for analysis they also argue that anthropologists using within wider contexts. Indeed, like Meyer— the trope of modernity as an organizing who was struck by “the strong emphasis principle run the risk of sidelining a specific placed on the wish to be „modern,‟ to „make a complete break with the past,‟ to be „in community‟s “own contexts for 39 ethnographic understanding.”37 control of oneself,‟ etcetera” that she found Such an argument against the use of in Ghanaian Pentecostal discourse—I found modernity or globalization as an organizing that the symbolisms of modernity and principle could be similarly applied to my globalization was as much present for current attempt to map the growth of a neo- Pentecostals as it was for me in regards to Pentecostalism onto a generalized developing a „context for ethnographic experience of „modernity‟ and globalization. understanding.‟ Thus in this analysis of the Yet, as Birgit Meyer responds to Englund Pentecostalism, perhaps imperfectly, but I and Leach‟s criticism of her scholarship on think usefully, categorized as „neo,‟ I will contemporary Pentecostalism in Ghana: demonstrate how the rising popularity of the movement lies in believers‟ ability to I consider “modernity” productive for rearticulate fundamental aspects of the my work because the notion enables Pentecostal creed in the context of shared, me to get beyond a view of cultures as novel challenges and opportunities. These separate, bounded entities standing by were, by and large, defined by those I themselves (without, however, losing interviewed through the idiom of sight of cultural specificity), to globalization and development. I will thus consider the history of encounters approach the topic of modernity from the between Western colonial agents and emic perspective, particularly as it has been local people from a critical perspective articulated through the gospel of prosperity beyond the modernization paradigm, and enabled Pentecostals to own the concept to take into account actual global by molding it to local needs and desires. entanglements and similarities in On the other hand, in our analysis of the postcolonial conditions (the “wider Pentecostal „neo‟ we need not confine contexts” alluded to by Englund and ourselves exclusively to the post-modern Leach are of course not abstractions particularism of Englund and Leach.
35 Harri Englund and James Leach, "Ethnography and 38 Birgit Meyer, "'Make a Complete Break with the the Meta-Narratives of Modernity," Current Past.' Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Anthropology, (vol. 41, no. 2., 2000), 225. Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse'", Journal of 36 Englund and Leach, “Ethnography,” 236. Religion in Africa, (vol. 28., 1998,) 241. 37 Englund and Leach, “Ethnography,” 237. 39 Meyer, “Make a Complete Break,” 241. 39 | Lewison
Ferguson (2006) has, like Meyer, noted that capitalism, consumption becomes the terms like globalization have had real, fundamental “measure of wealth, health and functional impacts on populations across the vitality”43 at the expense of class and other globe, particularly in economically and „natural‟ hierarchies.44 Through newly politically marginalized areas.40 In light of promised social mobility, the principle of these “actual global entanglements and consumption provides the individual not similarities”41 we can broaden our scope of only the freedom, but also the onus to inquiry to situate how emic articulations of demonstrate success and self-worth through modernity are produced through their
relationship with contemporary global (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, processes and shared experiences—i.e. Inc., 1991). Harvey Cox details an elaborate globalization—enabling us to examine the comparison of liberal capitalist dogma and worldview dynamics of the movement‟s international to the faith structures of Judeo-Christian religions. He scale. Noting the concentration of notes that opening the business sections of major journals he found that, “behind descriptions of market Pentecostal growth in the global South, Cox reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the (1995) points to the significance of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand relationship between globalization, narrative about the inner meaning of human history, development and the neo-Pentecostal why things had gone wrong, and how to put them movement. These will be the primary factors right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption.” of modernity that I draw on in describing the Harvey Cox, “The Market as God: Living in the New changing needs and concerns of Pentecostal Dispensation,” The Atlantic Monthly (vol. 283, no. 3, individuals in East Africa and the ways in 1999), 18-23. which Pentecostalism has been able to, or 43 The Comaroffs expand that in social theory been redefined to, address these concerns. consumption “has become a prime mover” becoming the “factor, the principle, held to determine The Pentecostal Cosmology definitions of value, the construction of identities, and even the shape of global ecumene.” Comaroff Several authors have argued that in our and Comaroff, “Millennial,” 294. This conception of consumption, particularly as it becomes a means of contemporary historical „moment,‟ global not only achieving class mobility, but also of economic liberalization has allowed articulating identity in the realm of global exchange, neoliberal capitalism to promote a novel resonates with force in prosperity theology. cosmology of its own.42 In the kingdom of 44 Ruth Marshall-Fratani explains Appadurai‟s concepts in the context of Nigerian Pentecostalism, noting how his sense of „neighborhood,‟ i.e. „local‟ 40 James Fernandez points to the very real impacts of identities and social relationships become harder to „globalization‟ that occurred through colonization. He maintain and reproduce as a result of the ways in notes, “whatever the impact of the various cultural which “identities are imposed and manipulated by the superstructures, Africans were being brought more or Nigerian state, but also related to economic crisis and less successfully (or more or less forcibly) into new the strains it puts on local networks and social maintenance systems—those of mercantilist relationships, increased rural-urban migration, and capitalism, with emphasis upon economic perhaps most importantly, the ways in which the individualism, consumption, wage labor, a global images, ideas, commodity forms and competitive reward system, and taxation without technologies, have been absorbed by local culture. As evident redistribution.” James Fernandez, “African Appadurai argues, in this context identity appears less Religious Movements: The Worst or the Best of All and less as something tacitly accepted and Possible Microcosms,” Issue: A Journal of Opinion reproduced as „natural,‟ and more and more a (vol. 8, no. 4, 2000), 51. question of conscious choice, justification and 41 Meyer, “Make a Complete Break,” 241. representation.” Ruth Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating 42 See for example, Comaroff and Comaroff, the Global and Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism,” “Millennial”; Robert Nelson, Reaching for Heaven Journal of Religion in Africa (vol. 28, no. 3, 1998), on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics 299. Lewison | 40
material.45 Cosmologically, Pentecostalism‟s services, the spirits of poverty and prosperity theology‟s assertion of this- unemployment were addressed at particular worldly evil and salvation framed in a length.47 This threat not only applies on a language of modernization and development personal level, its influence can extend to provides a theological framework for wider physical geographies. A traveling making sense of a world of non-transparent Nairobi-based evangelist portrayed his city, wealth flows and massive inequality. Its en masse, as under the influence of the message of individuality and rebirth Devil. America‟s victory over Saddam provides a novel discourse in which Hussein, on the other hand, was attributed to individuals are able to transcend former divine national favor,48 as was Israel‟s „traditional‟ geographic and social space continuing defense from its hostile Muslim cursed with poverty and backwardness. It neighbors.49 This becomes a matter of has held particular appeal for populations of particular concern for middle and upper young, forward looking individuals seeking class populations, who, despite success to leave behind the failures of their nations‟ within their own communities, feel pasts and embrace the bright possibilities of constrained in the international sphere by technological modernity and material nation-level marginalization.50 Pentecostal prosperity. In the context of globalization, prosperity theology and demonology are this imagery has become pervasive in drawn on to explain generalized third world popular culture through, for example, the failures with sentiments that “economic omnipresent music of Akon and Jay-Z, who collapse is a sign of national sin.”51 This was provide the pounding soundtrack to Nairobi an idea echoed by many East Africans, who bus rides, or in American shows like saw economic and social failures as the Desperate Housewives or 24 carried on KTN, the leading television network. Images of affluence are further brought home through the dominance of the tourism based on the work of Derek Prince, one of the fathers industry that caters largely to wealthy of contemporary Western demonology. 47 Westerners. Service Gospel Celebration Centre, 17/05/09. 48 Service God‟s Victory Centre, 22/02/09. In neo-Pentecostalism, a discourse of 49 Service Winning Faith Outreach Centre, 19/04/09. demonology is used to account for economic “Pentecostalism‟s fierce rejection of all forms of failure and dispossession. Demonic forces socio-cultural practices which are seen as particularly are immediate and omnipresent. One young „Nigerian,‟ „traditional‟ and „local‟ express not only a pastor told me that a primary activity in his form of socio-political critique which emphasizes individual agency—it is individual sin and the congregation was that of the exorcism of personal rejection of Christ that opens up the space in demonic spirits manifesting their forces which the failure of the nation is manifested—but through poverty, illness as well as troubles also reinforces its resolutely „modern,‟ transnational at home or in the work place.46 In many character.” Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating,” 288. 50 The professional classes were often the ones hit the hardest by the economic crises of the 1980s. “Some 45 Comaroff and Comaroff, “Millennial.” have argued that the collapse of the economies 46 It is perhaps important to underline that this encouraged many professionals to seek solace in a emphasis on the material presence of the devil and spirituality that proffered the prospects of recovery.” demons is by no means limited to African Kalu, African, 138. Pentecostals. One of the British missionaries whom I 51 These are the words of Filipino preacher Jun met was, in fact, by far the individual most involved Vencen. Steve Brouwer, Paul Gifford and Susan with demonology of anyone I spoke with. He Rose, Exporting the American Gospel: Global mentioned conferences that he had attended in the Christian Fundamentalism (New York: Routledge, UK and presented involved theological arguments 1996), 83. 41 | Lewison
results of divine displeasure.52 Eunor Guti, source of value is palpably the wife Zimbabwean Pentecostal church problematic. If scholars have been ZAOGA leader, Ezekiel Guti, expressed the slow to reflect on this fact, people all logic as such: over the world—not least those in places where there have been sudden People are trying to give help to third infusions of commodities, of new world persons. They find third world forms of wealth—have not. Many persons do not prosper. Money is have been quick to give voice, albeit being poured in a bucket. It's being in different registers, to their poured in a bucket that has holes. perplexity at the enigma of this Nothing is being achieved. Billions wealth: of its sources and the and billions of dollars have been capriciousness of its distribution, of poured out. Hallelujah! But nothing is the mysterious forms it takes, of its happening in Africa. Africa is slipperiness, of the opaque relations remaining under the Spirit of 53 between means and ends embodied in Poverty. it.54
This sentiment reflects the frustrations Pentecostal pastors will often address introduced by the vast complexity of modern subjects of international inequality and the day economic systems, which function to mystification of wealth in their sermons. obscure the relationship between production America in particular has come to embody and wealth. As East African economies—as this enigma of wealth. As one pastor put it, well as those of developing countries across “Wealth does not come through labor… the globe—have been integrated into the look around you, many people who labor global marketplace they become more prone very hard are still poor, the wealthy people to international market fluctuations and don‟t labor, rich men in America are not cycles of poverty. As Jean and John sweating, all they do is sit and think. Just Comaroff point out in their article think!”55 “Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a The rise of prosperity theology, and its Second Coming”: implied divinization of the language of
Crisis after crisis in the global modernity and progress, has promoted the economy, and growing income concurrent demonization of the backward disparities on a planetary scale, [make] and „traditional.‟ A number of pastors made it painfully plain that… the neoliberal reference to the worship of traditional stress on consumption as the prime religions as one source of bad energy. One spoke of the need for new revelation as the old knowledge was “stinking” (ananuka). 52 Comaroff and Comaroff, “Millennial,” 298. This sentiment was poignantly expressed me by one young 54 Equality has similarly been tied to millenarian safari guide who, sadly surveying Lake Elimentaita‟s expectations of dispensation and material modernity declining flamingo population, mentioned to me that in the cargo cults of Papua New Guinea. As Andrew it was because of the violence following the failure of Lattas notes, “these movements sought to realize a the 2007 national election. In response to my inquiry new age of equality with white people, with as to why, (I had been expecting a decline in food Melanesians sharing the cargo that villagers saw availability or changing migration patterns) he said arriving on European ships and planes.” Andrew simply, “We made God angry.” The post-election Lattas, Cultures of Secrecy: Reinventing Race in violence was frequently raised as the source of Bush Kaliai Cargo Cults (Madison: University of misfortunes including the current drought. Wisconsin Press, 1998), xi. 53 Maxwell, “Delivered,” 360. 55 Service Winning Faith Outreach Centre, 19/04/09. Lewison | 42
Another spoke of the presence of curses, colonial essentialization and degradation of which arose from ancestral worship of the traditional, it is important to note the demons and have been carried down many extent to which the current level of hostility generations. He noted that curses continue to toward the traditional marks a break with be very prevalent and, echoing the that of the older AICs. These churches demonization of the old asserted that jealous tended toward a transposition of Christianity members of the older generations often onto traditional beliefs, offering Christianity curse their young successful children.56 as a better alternative for addressing Hofer quotes a number of other Pentecostal preconceived phenomena, such as evil preachers in Kenya and Uganda who spirits. Pentecostalism today, on the other reiterate the concern of trans-generational hand, is much more outspoken in its attack curses.57 on African traditional religion as an Attention to the past within discourses institution and defined social space and of modernization is not unique to draws heavily on new, Western-based, Pentecostalism. Marshall-Fratani (1998) scholars of demonology, such as Derek points to a need for individuals and Prince. The difference is particularly collectives to domesticate and subdue the highlighted between neo-Pentecostalism and past in order to embrace ideas of linear „Ethiopian‟ AICs which evolved in a progress via human agency. She goes on to consciously African response to mission note that Pentecostalism‟s attentive, albeit racism. The significance of this shift in negative, acknowledgement of the past attitude toward the traditional reflects an “provides a version of „modernity‟ which is increasing urgency for change and „complete more compelling and more accessible.”58 break with the past‟ that seems to be felt by While contemporary Pentecostals seem to many members of the younger generation. draw on a long history of mission and While providing a means for understanding misfortune, the cognizant moral structure of the Pentecostal 56 This strongly echoes Derek Prince‟s „curse cosmology also supplies hope for this- theology‟ whose writings are often referred to and worldly, miraculous salvation through this sold across Kenya and Uganda. Hofer, Implications, 185. break with spaces and narratives of failure. 57 For example, “Though people suffer as a This promise is more than Fernandez‟s consequence of their personal sin, they could also „opiate option‟ in which elites allow suffer due to the sins of their parents, grand parents “religious microcosms their microcosmic and great grand parents.” And a prayer: “Dear Father, sphere of influence for the compensations I present the whole of my family members before they provide an otherwise disgruntled you. I command every manipulation in my family to 59 manifest… I come against all the demons of populace.” As opposed to a surrender of manipulation on assignment in my family.” Hofer, responsibility, or internal retreat, it is Implications, 188. envisioned as an active assertion of self- 58 Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating,” 292. Note that, in determination and rebirth into a larger world the case of Africa in particular, this process of the invention of tradition and domestication of the past and the transcendence of former has been institutionalized through vehicles like the microcosms. An unmediated relationship colonial state and missions. Western missionaries with the divine and access to potent miracles today continue to arrive with a highly distorted has been one of the prime movers of the understanding of „traditional religions.‟ One religion since its inception in Azusa Street. Pentecostal missionary from England, seeming to draw largely on Egyptian mythology, spoke Today, for East African Pentecostals, this dismissively of the „native beliefs‟ in which people worshipped „things with crocodile heads‟. 59 Fernandez, “African,” 51. 43 | Lewison
doctrine of personal salvation, equality This revealed understanding of success, before God and control over one‟s destiny, bears distinct similarities to capitalist has become all the more important in light imagery, which portrays entrepreneurial of promised social mobility contradicted by insight as the sacred bearer of progress and experienced inequality and lack of growth. One of the best illustrations of this opportunity. The Pentecostal theology connection was observed in the Winning reaffirms the believer‟s, literally, „God Faith Outreach Center in which a young given‟ right to divinely dispensed success energetic preacher told a story about a manifest in material evidence. The fellow minister who, one day during service, allegation of equal opportunity pledged in was moved by the power of the Lord. capitalism—its destruction of social class Pointing to a young man in the and traditional barriers to mobility—is congregation, he declared „you are receiving reinvigorated in this cosmology. a holy revelation.‟ The revelation Thus, in services disadvantage is never immediately (physically) struck the young an acceptable barrier to both trying and man and was received in the form of an idea, succeeding. A traveling preacher in one of an inspiration to manufacture Fords rather the more progressive churches I attended than repair them. This idea propelled him to asserted that “some people make excuses for instant success. He is now in London, with a themselves, they say, I am too short or I am billion dollars „flowing to him‟. In this story, black, I can‟t do this thing. I can‟t approach divine revelation is explicitly related to this white woman because I‟m a black man. Henry Ford‟s classic example of You are wrong! All you need to do is stand entrepreneurial success. This connection of in your place with God, because with God, divine and entrepreneurial insight was you can achieve anything!”60 In another echoed across congregations. “Do you see service I attended, located in rural Kenya prosperity or poverty? When you look at a with a congregation for whom accessing tree what do you see? Do you see a guitar, education is a significant weight, the pastor do you see a factory?” 63 “Divine revelation assured them, “winning is not about physical is new insight. In times of new challenges, strength, a paper degree or certificate. It‟s times of new technology, we need new not about what you know, its about knowing revelation. We need new revelations to meet and understanding God, knowing that your the challenges of new times.” 64 resource is God!”61 Similarly, in a less well- to-do church in rural Uganda, a young The Pentecostal Congregation
preacher in a smartly pressed shirt and a While their cosmology functions to lay short silver tie declared in English (with the groundwork for Pentecostals‟ orientation partner echoing him in rapid translation to within the metaphysical universe— Rotoro) „even people who cannot speak providing existential explanations and English now will be able to rise to solutions—the Pentecostal congregation prominence… you see people who used to provides a means of translating these walk, now they ride in cars, even in 62 principles and values into everyday life. In planes!” contemporary East African Pentecostalism, the congregation acts as a microcosm of an idealized, insulated, modern world in which 60 Service Vineyard Church, 24/05/09. 61 Service God‟s Victory Centre, 22/02/09. 62 Service Kyanyawara Christian Fellowship, 63 Service Gospel Celebration Centre, 17/05/09. 02,01,09. 64 Crusade Gospel Outreach Centre, 30/04/09. Lewison | 44
Pentecostals are provided with the “„born again‟ encapsulates a particular opportunity to redefine themselves in a new attitude towards agency and social change,” image. The microcosm provides legitimacy one which tends to fall in line with the to this experience through a direct and values of modern capitalist society.67 physical spiritual experience as well as As Dearman (1974) notes, the technical, logistical and emotional support to usefulness of the concept of „dominant become successful individuals both in their values‟ can be dubious.68 This is particularly religion and in the wider world. We will true when coupled with the ambivalence of explore how this process of self re-definition the concept of modernity. Yet, even without occurs in the context of conversion, the imposing a value set from an objective experience of the service as well as in the standpoint and instead drawing on activities of para-church organizations. Pentecostals‟ own self-reflections, it was For the Pentecostals I spoke with, clear that they themselves saw their conversion to their religion was generally conversion as a means of conforming their referred to as a turning point, marking a lives to the image of a disciplined, revolution in all spheres of life. The aspects successful professional—an image often that this transformation took were generally described as Christ-like.69 Indeed, biblical abstinence from alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, greater sexual discipline, and a 67 “Mediating,” 285. change in social circles as they moving away 68 65. Dearman ultimately bases her study on the from dangerous influences. While the legitimacy of a set of dominant American values, but extent to which the average Pentecostal‟s she does allow for some controversy, noting she is daily life in fact conforms to these principles making a “Kierkegaardian leap of faith” in doing so. is debatable66 and, of course, varies among Marion Dearman, “Christ and Conformity: A Study of Pentecostal Values,” Journal for the Scientific individuals, there is significance in their Study of Religion (vol. 13, no. 4, 1974), 439. reflective understanding of conversion as 69 David Smilde explores the „instrumental‟ aspect of such a rupture and opportunity. This Pentecostal conversion—belief as a means of perception reflects Marshall-Fratani‟s (1998) achieving an external ends (economic prosperity, assertion that the Pentecostal conversion is discipline or economic success)—in Venezuelan Pentecostalism. Smilde points to the common “a model for the construction of identity” in inability of social scientists to reconcile the strategic, which the choice is wholly dependent on self-serving benefits of Pentecostal conversion and its individual impetus. In this regard, becoming integrity as a genuine culture of belief. He counters this dilemma arguing that “the Pentecostal narrative predicates the act of believing in such a way that the 65 This information was primarily supplied by male individual is not the only or even the most important Pentecostals, less women referred to their conversion agent in the [act of conversion]” thus, “by experience as such a drastic change in their everyday emphasizing God‟s agency, the individual minimizes lives, emphasizing more their newfound closeness his own responsibility for the belief thereby with God. From several secondary interviews, increasing its external validity.” This process occurs however, I learned that a wife‟s conversion to through by the convert “[working] through his or her Pentecostalism frequently leads to domestic strife as memories‟ to highlight God‟s agency,” specifically in women gain confidence through religious arguments the identification of „testimonies‟ of the work of God and language to critique their husbands. It is not in their lives, something I encountered in the stories uncommon for this to lead to divorce. of many Pentecostals with whom I spoke. I would 66 Many of the non-Pentecostals I spoke with tended to further highlight how this „narrative play‟ is be skeptical in regards to how much Pentecostals embedded in the aforementioned Pentecostal actually practice what they preach. Several spoke of cosmology of an immediately present and active personal experiences of hypocrisy while many physicality of the supernatural in which worldly pointed to the opulent lives of prominent preachers events and actions, including one‟s own, are an and Pentecostal politicians. embodiment of the ultimate war of good and evil. 45 | Lewison
figures, pictured as successful were often The pastor is key to the development drawn upon in the illustration of Godly and progression of the service. He sets the behavior as pastors told stories highlighting tone and the energy level while clearly business acumen and wise investment. evoking the immediacy of divine presence Pentecostal services are attended in highly that is building within the congregation. professional wear that expresses exuberance Many crusades and services are led in and success as opposed to the demure English with an interpreter translating to conservatism that is often found in mainline Swahili or another local language. This services. This is particularly true among the process is often incorporated into building younger generation. Young women are congregational energy by providing a rapid- attired in ostentatious sequined skirt suits; fire echo to the preacher‟s proclamations. men are dressed in sharp jackets with Sermons are delivered at intense decibels brightly colored shirts and ties. This with frequent shouts of „Halleluiah!‟ and formality of dress seems to be generally „Praise the lord!‟ Congregations are roused maintained beyond church and into with calls for response such as „Who wants believers‟ everyday lives. to have a revelation today?‟ causing people The central function of the to raise their hands or rise to their feet to call congregation is to provide the location and out in eager affirmation. Importantly, as activities of the church service. The effort mentioned above, pastors draw on images of and thought that Pentecostals give to their the Spirit as being present „all around‟ and appearance in church attendance is the pastor himself becomes the epicenter of representative of the veneration they hold divine activity. This can be tangibly felt and for this act. This is unsurprising given that physically passed along to members through the everyday transformations required by the the periods of personal healing. Pentecostal conversion are ultimately This physical experience is supported grounded in the all-important need for the with messages of empowerment and convert to “ensure, through his thoughts and individuality. Members are told, “You are deeds, that he is a fitting vessel for the special, you are important!” One pastor 'infilling' of the Holy Spirit, an event which elaborated saying, “You can be anything you is centralized and brought to fruition in the desire. You don‟t need to conform to get it, sphere of the Pentecostal service.70 It is the you don‟t need a certain hairstyle; you don‟t service that seems to encapsulate and act out need to wear your pants down below your the heart of the religion‟s appeal. It does so butt like „Fifty Cent‟. When we sing a song, by providing the vehicle and space in which you must understand the reason we sing the the material expression of divine favor is song, it is because we are unique.”71 Pastors fulfilled. It is here where the Pentecostal assure their congregations that “God wants finds physical proof of the individual‟s you to succeed, to be useful in his immediate access to God and where the kingdom.”72 This emphasis on divinely dictated equality and empowerment empowerment is echoed in the structure and of all believers is realized. activities of the congregation, which often offer tangible support to this sentiment. The principle of democratic access to God is reflected in the congregation‟s David Smilde, “Skirting the Instrumental Paradox: encouragement to all members to become Intentional Belief Through Narrative in Latin American Pentecostalism,” Qualitative Sociology (vol. 26, no. 3, 2003), 323, 327 71 Crusade Gospel Celebration Centre, 17/05/09 70 Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating,” 285. 72 Crusade Gospel Outreach Centre, 30/04/09. Lewison | 46 involved in church leadership and activities. a team of official ushers. They display large, Many of the young, specifically male, often colorful, printed banners and posters. Pentecostals with whom I spoke had become Tables selling merchandise are set up and involved in church leadership shortly after manned near the front doors. These set ups conversion. Many of them spoke of the are complemented by conspicuous displays newfound confidence they received through of modern technology. The presence of a these engagements. keyboard and sound system—powered by a Many individuals I spoke with had not church-owned generator in rural been able to continue their education past congregations—is nearly ubiquitous and secondary or even primary school. For frequently rises to the level of a five or six ambitious young people church often piece band equipped with electric guitars, seemed to offer a substitute for this lost drum kits and soundboards.73 opportunity. Sermons—magnified intensely Pentecostal use of the media has through overloaded sound-systems—will become particularly important, both in its often adopt aspects of a formal university usefulness for evangelism, as well as in its lecture, as pastors make points in a emblematic ownership of this key symbol of numbered outline or employ the services of technological modernity. In the early years an assistant to record the sermon in point of the movement, the media, particularly as form on a presentation board. Crusades used by Western-based televangelists, present themselves as educational played a key role in the spread of a opportunities. “Gospel Outreach Ministry particularly American form of contemporary Presents 11th April ‟09 School of Pentecostalism. However control of the Ministry…Come with a Bible, Note Book, medium has been diffused as technology Pen…” read one poster. The latter request is, becomes more widely accessible. Radio, in fact, hardly necessary. Particularly in which represents a less expensive and more more wealthy areas worshipers arrive extensive alternative to television in East equipped like students attending lecture, Africa, is an important means of local carrying several prayer books, notepads and religious dissemination. One young pastor pencil cases. During service, many in the from rural Uganda with whom I spoke was congregation take attentive notes. When tenaciously proud of maintaining a one hour asked what drew him to his church, one weekly evangelism radio program, despite young man referred to what he learned from the high financial and labor costs. Another the traveling preachers from Nairobi who localization of the media has occurred gave lessons on business as well as religion. through the increasing popularity of In addition to the confidence that recording church services. In many more leadership activities instill in Pentecostal urban and middle-class services one is members, there is also an element of skill confronted by young men with large building that congregations provide their cameras and tripods stationed prominently in members. Through their extensive embrace the center aisle or roaming through the of technology and the imagery of modernity, congregation for close ups. They are young Pentecostals, particularly migrants members of the „media ministry,‟ one of the from rural areas, become versatile in the many church organizations run by the language and tools of the professional business world. An atmosphere of 73 Hofer notes, perhaps humorously but quite professionalism is clearly displayed in sincerely, that, “A Pentecostal church can do without crusades and services, which are manned by a cross or shrine but not without a sound system.” Implications, 11. 47 | Lewison
congregation, which provide access to success, have led some outsiders, including technological and organizational skill many East Africans, to criticize Pentecostals building. For Pentecostals, media, as for operating their churches as businesses. Marshall-Fratani points out, becomes Indeed many thriving Pentecostal leaders would not necessarily dispute this claim, a mode of appropriating modernity, although they would assert that the end goal and the material and symbolic goods it is, of course, for the glory of God. The offers… we may see pentecostalism as business aspect of the church is in tune with an example of one of the the goals and spirit of the movement itself. „micronarratives‟ and other expressive In many cases, the congregation becomes a forms which allow modernity to be nexus of business entrepreneurs. One pastor rewritten more as vernacular called on the congregation to view the globalization and less as a concession upcoming crusade in financial terms, “think to large-scale national and 74 of the conference as a business deal, choose international policies. to partner your business with the God of our
church, this is a partnership that will pay As we have seen, the congregation thus 76 provides a space, both physical and off.” I met one young woman who was psychological, where Pentecostals can build doing just this, looking to partner the skills and confidence to succeed in the wider services of her internet company with the world. Yet, the support of the congregation church for the conference. She also offered does not stop at the church doors. Many her services to me and mentioned that I pastors actively engage with their could contact her through the church. With congregations in the search for opportunities its production-focused attitude and in the outside world. Some congregations consumerist bent, the Pentecostal movement made announcements of local job openings. has helped to foster a wide range of Pastor Paul of the Gospel Celebration Centre dependent industries in East Africa announced an opening for a position in a including design services, music stores, media producers, publishing industries and large Insurance Company and went on to 77 proudly state that the company had come much more. This business focus of the specifically to him because they knew that movement has generated appeal among “our church produced people aggressive in professional and academic classes. These sales.”75 Pastors read encouraging individuals also tend to make up the primary testimonials from people who had succeeded membership of para-church business in finding employment through their faith as organizations—such as Full Gospel well as supportive congratulations to Business Men‟s Fellowship International, members who had, for example, been able to Women‟s Aglow, and Gideons obtain a visa to visit Europe or been chosen International—which have “simply exploded into many parts of the continent within the to attend an international business 78 conference. last two decades.”
The professional trappings of Pentecostal services, their striking employment of technology and advertising
as well as their emphasis on financial 76 Service Gospel Celebration Centre, 17/05/09. 77 Kalu notes this is particularly true in relation to megachurches, which have sprung up in more urban 74 Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating,” 299. areas, African, 135. 75 Service Gospel Celebration Centre, 17/05/09. 78 Kalu, African, 125. Lewison | 48
The Pentecostal Community
Having examined the ways in which mentality of Hofer‟s „suffering community‟ Pentecostalism lays a foundation for the functions to solidify this metaphysical rebirth of the individual through a divide. Yet, as Marshall-Fratani (1998) groundwork of cosmological doctrines— emphasizes, today—primarily as a result of realized in everyday life in the local space of the transnational mediation of the religion— congregations—we now turn our attention to this community has taken a fundamentally the place of this individual in the wider different form. The transnational aspect of Pentecostal community. In contemporary this new identity has been particularly Pentecostalism, the decentralized, important in the East African context, in international character of the movement and which the relationship between Christian conflation of geographical space through the and African identities has been an arena of mechanisms of globalization, has radicalized persistent contestation. While Spirit and the Pentecostal convert‟s „break with the Holiness Churches—Sundkler‟s „Zionist‟ past‟ by providing new avenues for self- tendency—isolated themselves in closed definition over and above previous communities, African Ethiopian churches, identities.79 Here we will explore the on the other hand, emphasized a specifically novelties and importance of the wider African ownership of Christianity. The East Pentecostal identity and the ways in which it African Pentecostals with whom I spoke, shapes Pentecostal relations both on the however, were eager to leave behind both local and international levels. For isolation and marginalization. For them, the contemporary East Africans, not only has international character of Pentecostalism this re-spatialization of identity allowed for provided a profound source of pride and novel agency in the formation and location confidence, not due to a desire to become of the self in the wider world, but through less African (or Kenyan or Maasai, etc.) but the provision of this opportunity, rather as a chance to gain an identity as both Pentecostalism has become a site in which African and more than African: to be able to Africans and populations of other nations of assert themselves as equal members of a the global South are able to contest wide-reaching, globally powerful narratives of dependency and international community. marginalization. In the East African context, As we have seen, Pentecostalism wields Pentecostalism‟s complete break with the a powerful blow to established social past is not necessarily an eradication of spaces.80 The absolute polarization of good previous identities. Drawing on Appadurai‟s and evil in their cosmology outweighs any idea of the imagination as constitutive of worldly castes or segregations, and the modern subjectivity, Marshall-Fratani notes that the Pentecostal conversion‟s “projection on a global scale of images, discourses and 79 Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating.” ideas about renewal, change and salvation 80 As Englund points out, “The belief in the opens up possibilities for local actors to omnipresence of the Devil is, when combined with incorporate these into their everyday the belief in one‟s own salvation, a source of 81 formidable social critique. It dismisses conventional lives.” In this sense, the break rather terms of social critique—wealth, complexion, nationality, gender—as irrelevant and replaces them with unflinching confidence in a sharp distinction 81 Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating,” 290. Later she gives between God and the Devil.” Englund “Christian,” a more detailed illustration of how the seemingly 96. unnecessary use of televisions and mediating 49 | Lewison
allows for membership in a novel „de- Francois Bayart‟s (2000) „extroversion‟ of localized‟ community which, through the cultivated dependency. Bayart questioned decentralization of the Pentecostal the unidirectional power flow in African imagination, generated in part through the dependency, asserting that aid relationships growing amount of locally produced media are manipulated by „big men‟ seeking to and materials, allows the individual secure funds for their own projects. Yet, as revolutionary power to reinvent and, Englund (2003) found in his research with importantly, relocate the self in the wider Malawian Pentecostals, “Pentecostal world. extraversion secures membership in a global The principle of „radical equality‟ community as much among the donors as underlying the Pentecostal community among the recipients of assistance.” Englund shapes an international support network, goes on to note that: built on fundamentally different principles than that of the prevailing charity [Malawian Pentecostals] are less likely relationships of international aid and to advance any form of inferiority as a development. By identifying the divine as ploy to cultivate external links. When the sole source of grace, Pentecostalism they draw wealthy missionaries‟ depersonalizes acts of charity and challenges attention to their material poverty, the dominance structures of aid they do not envisage themselves as relationships. As one Englishwoman perpetual poor relatives but as wealthy offering charity from a home congregation missionaries‟ relatives in the Spirit whose poverty is a scandal in an put it, “Don‟t thank me, this is God‟s doing, 83 not mine.” The pastor reiterated this otherwise equal relationship.
sentiment, assuring her that “We will pray While this redefinition of aid and that God will enable your people in England support has allowed African Pentecostals to to continue to partner with this 82 tap into available resources without being congregation.” While this marginalized as dependent, it is important to depersonalization functions to empower note that in many cases Third World recipients of Pentecostal aid flows, these Pentecostal churches have demonstrated relationships also do not conform to Jean remarkable ability to maintain economic independence. The scale and direction of technology within services functions in the creation Evangelical aid flows are often of this wider „de-localized‟ identity: “The 'breach' 84 between past histories, everyday realities and the misrepresented in literature on the subject. promises of 'development' is narrowed not only in On one end of the spectrum, mega-churches Pentecostal discourse, but the very spaces where and their celebrity preachers such as Benson people come to worship reflect a conscious project of Idahosa, Duncan Williams and Mensa creating modern, functional spaces and forms of Otabil, have proven spectacularly capable of association. It is not simply the way these spaces are 'delocalised,' with their emphasis on cleanliness, self-sustenance and now represent some of order and punctuality, the use of modern technology the largest Pentecostal churches in the such as computers, electrical instruments, video world. On the other hand, some individual recorders, televisions, but the way in which, in congregations simply don‟t have access to particular through the use of modern media, a sense of 'delocalised' community is created, one in which members are 'brothers' and 'sisters' in Christ before 83 Harri Englund, “Christian Independency and being members of different age groups, ethnic groups Global Membership: Pentecostal Extraversions in and social classes.” Marshall-Fratani, “Mediating,” Malawi,” Journal of Religion in Africa (vol. 33, no. 292. 1, 2003), 69. 82 Service Vineyard Church, 24/05/09. 84 Kalu, African. Lewison | 50
international resources. Others—either as a interviewees rebuked me for assuming that result of negative interactions with Western their pastors travelled abroad only for missionaries85 or desire to demonstrate training. Several of the Pentecostals I spoke church success86—actively avoid seeking with, all young ambitious men involved in foreign aid. As Kalu notes, “some of the leadership positions with their churches, incautious literature canvassed Western brought up the subject of diversity in sources of funding and dependency models relation to the evangelism. I believe that this even as many African churches struggled to topic strikes at the heart of what membership promote independence by paying in the wider Pentecostal community meant honorarium to visiting pastors.”87 Similarly, for them. One friend glowed with sudden I drew negative reactions from a number of animation when I inquired as to why Pentecostals when asking about missionary international connections might be sponsorship. In a conversation about foreign important. He explained: visitors, an assistant preacher at the Gospel Celebration Centre quickly dismissed the You heard what our pastor said about topic of foreign funding, assuring me that everyone being unique? I believe that their church “does quite well.” He said that we all have a different way of if a visiting minister can‟t pay for himself, packaging the gospel; some will see it his church finds a way to sponsor them. and share it differently. You see, This brings us back to the subject of the someone will come from Canada to Pentecostal command to „go forth‟ into the Kenya and they will explain it one world and African Pentecostals have been way and it will speak to this person, remarkably successful in this regard. In their who has never heard before. A Kenyan success we find yet another means of will go to Canada and reach this disputing narratives of marginalization and person. This is why God has made us dependency. Pentecostalism‟s growth in all different and why exchange is so East Africa (and throughout the developing important. world) has opened an arena in which even the vast material resources of the developed My friend‟s sentiments echoed his world are seen to have failed to out compete pastor‟s earlier assertion to the youth service the determination and skill of their African that “You can go into America without counterparts. Today, African preachers are letting America into you!” Meanwhile, for increasingly transposing this skill into the another of my Pentecostal friends, the international sphere. The term „reverse flow‟ validation of diversity seemed to displace has arisen in response, referring to the concerns of wealth disparities. In a growing number of immigrant churches and conversation about global inequality I asked itinerant evangelists who have felt the call to him if he thought everyone should be equal. bring the gospel to counter the failing 88 He thought about it and said well yes, but morality of the West. Many of my God liked difference. “That is why you are white and I am black.” For my friend and his 85 Harri Englund, “Christian Independency and Global diverse array of brothers and sisters „united Membership: Pentecostal Extraversions in Malawi,” in the blood of Christ‟ across the globe, the Journal of Religion in Africa (vol. 33, no. 1, 2003). 86 Kalu, African. 87 Kalu, African, 139. goes beyond the black manifest destiny to evangelize 88 Miller and Yamamori, Global. Kalu (2008) notes, Africa to the ultimate mandate to rescue the global “In Pentecostal rhetoric, many pastors reclaim the north where Christianity is declining.” Kalu, African, mandate to cross-cultural evangelization… The cry 288. 51 | Lewison
significance of the Pentecostal principle of conditions.”90 A sentiment by no means equality lies not only in an ecclesiological relegated to the developing world—as the promise of future wealth and prosperity, but truly global scope of the contemporary in an ontological assurance of human movement indicates. Dissatisfaction in an equality spanning all manner of geography historical moment of millennial capitalism and diversity. and consumption-driven individualization echoes across continents, uniting us in Concluding Thoughts shared experiences of dislocation and disempowerment. Contemporary The riotous expansion of Pentecostalism Pentecostals have appropriated the failing in recent decades can be understood in its promises of progress and development. They relationship to processes of globalization; have seen them revived through the specifically, in its liberating ability to descended Spirit, manifestly present in the traverse and transcend social and beating heart of the Pentecostal service. In geographical space to orient and empower this revival, Pentecostals not only find hope believers within a chaotic and unpredictable for a more prosperous future but, perhaps world. The experiences of Pentecostal more importantly, assurance and confidence believers who I met contest popularized in their personal equality and agency today. discourses of religion as opiate or brainwashing. In its relationship to the modern world, Pentecostalism does seem 90 Karl Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel‟s able to “complement the technical order and Philosophy of Law,” in Sociology of Religion: A enrich it.”89 Yet its import is deeper than Reader, edited by Susanne C. Monahan, William A. mere social functionalism. Pentecostalism Miola and Michael O. Emerson (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), 15. speaks more to Marx‟s less referenced
image of religion as “the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
89 Fernandez, “African,” 50. Indeed Fernandez sees a degree of irrationality, or belief as crucial to the acceptance of „rationalization.‟ He argues, “The reason and purposiveness of the technical order, for their part, inevitably rest on images of right order which paradoxically are difficult or impossible to generate by reason alone—archetypal images that are found in mythical narrative and reiterated in millenarian expectation.” Fernandez, “African,” 50.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
List of Locations
Agape Hope Centre Gospel Celebration Centre Gospel Outreach Centre Lewison | 52
God‟s Victory Centre Kyanyawara Christian Fellowship Nanyuki Vineyard Church Winning Faith Outreach Centre
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