‘We Are Soldiers in God’s Army’: Spiritual Warfare and Adoption of Military trope in Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in Southern Africa

Abstract

Abstract Spiritual warfare is an important part of everyday life and rituals in Pentecostal churches in Africa and beyond. In Pentecostal parlance, the world is constructed and construed as a battleground between born-again Christians and Satanic forces. This article examines the ways in which Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in Southern Africa adopt and utilise military metaphors and trope in their everyday rituals and practices of spiritual warfare. Drawing on qualitative ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews among three Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe and South Africa, we argue that militarised metaphors are deployed as important symbolic and material weapons in the spiritual warfare against the devil and demonic forces. In the fight against the demonic, Pentecostal prophets and pastors cast themselves as the commanders, general and majors, leading an army of Christ. This army’s role is to defeat Satan and his demonic forces and expand the kingdom of God before the second coming of Christ.