Abstract
AbstractNigerian Pentecostalism continues to assume many of the externalities of popular culture in the country, creating a unique composite of spirituality and secular entertainment. In an emergent trend, church leaders invite popular entertainers into church services and other church-related events with the declared aim of energizing their congregations. Where does the imperative in Nigerian Pentecostalism to outsource the work of inspiration to performers and jesters come from? What light does the embrace of Nigerian Pentecostalism and popular culture – the theological and the theatrical – throw on both these worlds? Triggered primarily by these questions, and mobilizing insights and analogies from the economics of religion, this article analyses strategies of evangelization enacted by Pentecostal leaders in a context of religious saturation. It is argued that, given the strictures of a changing religious marketplace, the unique convergence of spirituality and entertainment, as encapsulated by this trend, is a function of spiritual entrepreneurs’ need not just to retain the patronage of existing religious consumers but also to attract new ones. Licensed by the foundational liberalism of the Nigerian Yorùbá world, a Pentecostalism that is accepting of popular culture generates new spiritual and artistic forms.
Highlights
Le pentecôtisme nigérian continue d’assumer beaucoup des externalités de la culture populaire dans le pays, en créant un composite unique de spiritualité et de divertissement profane
Posters like the one that had just quite literally arrested me are a ubiquitous fixture of the visual economy of Nigerian Pentecostalism (Ukah 2008); I had zipped past several that day as I conducted my business around the metropolis
Something about this particular billboard was atypical, my being momentarily transfixed by it. It was an invitation by Christ Embassy, Ibadan North, for a ‘Special Ibadan Night of Bliss’, and, as far as religious billboards on Nigerian highways and in the urban landscape go, it was run of the mill
Summary
Le pentecôtisme nigérian continue d’assumer beaucoup des externalités de la culture populaire dans le pays, en créant un composite unique de spiritualité et de divertissement profane. I argue that the main explanation for the convergence of Nigerian Pentecostalism and popular culture, as symbolized by the trend of inviting comedians and entertainers into church services and other religious events (more on which presently), is the imperative for product differentiation in a saturated and ultra-competitive religious marketplace.
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