AbstractThis article investigates how teenagers in the Pentecostal Church, particularly the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), distinguish between religion and spirituality. In addition to presenting the findings of this study, the article compares the teenage participants’ perceptions of these constructs to the findings of previous researchers, including Overstreet [“Spiritual vs. Religious: Perspectives from Today’s Undergraduate Catholics.” Journal of Catholic Education 14, no. 2 (2010): 238–262], Smith and Denton (Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005) and others. The study was carried out among 27 teenagers, aged between 13 and 15, who attend the RCCG, which is one of the Pentecostal denominations in England. Critical analysis of the interpretation of religion falls into these categories: substantive and functional beliefs and practice, ordinary classification, and legalistic rules of do’s and don’ts. Similarly, spirituality falls into the categories of personal belief in and connection with God, the outward expression of religion, and mystical experience. Similar to the extant researchers, the majority of the participants made a clear distinction between religion and spirituality, while the remainder argued that the terms are too closely intertwined to draw a clear distinction between them. © 2018, © European Pentecostal Theological Association 2018.

AbstractUrban cities in the sub-Saharan Africa have witnessed unprecedented transformation because of the proliferation of religious orders within the social landscape. From Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon to Uganda, religious practitioners are actively involved in the spatial transformation through the construction of sacred spaces or prayer camps. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) typifies one of the several examples of African Pentecostal denominations with transnational status in 200 countries across the world with the hub of its international office situated at the Redemption Camp, Mowe, Nigeria. The sacralisation of forest areas spanning 1600 ha of land has redefined religious institutions such as RCCG as perhaps one of the largest owners of private estate in Nigeria. However, there seems to be an intentional replication of the Redemption Camp, Mowe across Nigeria as well as across the Atlantic as part of the RCCG missionary enterprise. This study aims to utilise the ethnography of the Redemption Camps in Nigeria and Floyd, Texas, United States. The theoretical framework of social worlds is employed to examine the dynamics of religious creativity, innovations, contextual challenges of place-making involved in creating Redemption Camps across borders by the leadership of RCCG through the appropriation of religious capital of its community of sentiments.

AbstractInternational and African discourses on the HIV/AIDS pandemic and intervention neglect the role of religion and religious organizations. Social science perspectives in tackling health and disease neglect religious doctrines and faith central to worldviews and praxis of religious groups. Both aspects are important for religious groups and individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. Informed by a religious studies paradigm and through the religious ethnography of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Nigeria and the Diaspora, this article demonstrates mechanisms employed by African Pentecostals to combat the epidemic and provide support for infected members. The RCCG conceptualization of disease and healing is central to understanding responses and measures in combating HIV/AIDS.

AbstractThe last three decades have witnessed a rapid proliferation of African Christian communities, particularly in Europe and North American diaspora, thus resulting in the remapping of old religious landscapes. This migratory trend and development bring to the fore the crucial role, functions and import of religious symbolic systems in new geo-cultural contexts. The trans-national linkages between African-led churches in the countries of origin (Africa) and the "host" societies are assuming increasing importance for African immigrants. The links and networks that are established and maintained between these contexts are of immense religious, cultural, economic, political and social importance. This suggests how African Christianities can be understood within processes of religious transnationalism and African modernity.Based on extensive religious ethnography undertaken by the author among African Christian communities in Europe, the USA and Africa in the last 17 years, this book maps and describes the incipience and consolidation of new brands of African Christianities in diaspora. The book demonstrates how African Christianities are negotiating and assimilating notions of the global while maintaining their local identities.

AbstractAfrican Pentecostal churches are becoming increasingly important in Britain where they are growing at a time when mainstream Christianity is in decline. Originally functioning as social and religious support networks for African migrants, their growth has been stimulated by a conscious missionary agenda. Recently, there has been a shift towards a more holistic understanding of mission in some African churches, which includes social ministry and political action. The focus of this article is the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), a transnational Nigerian Pentecostal denomination with close to 400 congregations in Britain. It suggests that the RCCG's social orientation has been influenced by its internal theology, its Pentecostal experience and its external social context. It explores the way it has articulated and implemented its social vision in a multicultural and fragmented society.

AbstractDiscusses the origins and progress of the Pentecostal movement among the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria. Factors that contributed to the conversion of the Igbo to Christianity; Significance of the Civil War to the development of the religious revival; Details of revival message and strategies used for preaching.

AbstractIf you walk into any airport bookstore in Europe or North America and head for the section selling advice on how to succeed in business, in relationships, or simply in life there is a good chance that you will find books by Joel Osteen. His bestsellers include Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day (2009) and Making Wise Choices: Your Decisions Determine Your Destiny (2005). But Osteen is not just a successful author of self-help books; he is also a televangelist renowned in charismatic circles around the world for his prosperity message and for being the head pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. His father, John, founded Lakewood Church in the late 1950s and in the process shifted theological positions away from southern Baptism toward a more charismatic, Pentecostal orientation. Arguably, though, Joel has made a still more significant transition in his career, and one that is rarely achieved even in the noisy, confident world of contemporary American televangelists and prosperity preachers. For he has reached a stage at which he not only holds the interest of self-confessed believers - and there are quite a few of those, as Osteen’s services are beamed out from Houston to some 100 countries each week - but has also visibly penetrated a global, secular market such as that represented by airport bookstores, which must appeal to generic rather than specifically Christian tastes. Osteen now inhabits a similar niche to that which Norman Vincent Peale made his own in the middle of the twentieth century by offering variations on a theme of positive thinking. He was featured as one of ABC News’s “Most Fascinating People of 2006,” and he has had the dubious pleasure of being interviewed on CNN by Piers Morgan. Presidential candidate John McCain called him “inspiring.” In sum, his appeal goes far beyond religion. When I see Joel Osteen’s books for sale at airports I often think back to the first interview my colleague Katrin Maier and I did with a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in London (RCCG). © Cambridge University Press 2017.

AbstractThis article revisits central questions arising from Pentecostal actors' development practices. These were raised during the final panel discussion of the 2014 GloPent conference on "Pentecostalism and Development". The four panel participants, all development actors from various organisational and religious backgrounds, considered whether Pentecostal approaches to development work are distinctive, as well as identifying various benefits that can be gained from the engagement of Pentecostal churches in development and some challenges that arise during collaboration between development actors and Pentecostal churches. The discussion was conducted through two rounds of statements by the panel participants, complemented by editorial comments and reflections. It concludes that neither the Pentecostal approach to development nor Pentecostal churches' links with development actors are necessarily distinctive. However, more exchanges are needed between Pentecostal organisations and their members, development practitioners working with Pentecostal churches and scholars of the Pentecostal movement to improve development work among Pentecostals, links between Pentecostals and other development actors and scholarly awareness of the most salient issues. © Equinox Publishing Limited, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX.

AbstractThis article is an attempt to show how the spaces in which African Christians in Amsterdam can move are produced by the mapping of various actors and the geographies that are created based on these maps. It fi rst situates and describes a Nigerian-initiated Pentecostal church within global cultural flows, in relation to Nigeria and in relation to the Netherlands. In the view of many African Pentecostals, Europe, and by extension the Netherlands and Amsterdam, are territories which should be won back for Jesus. Subsequently, I show how 'producing the local' is crucially important to the goals of this church and how this relates to mapping and the production of religious geographies. The last part of this paper analyses how one particular location of this church, namely the South East of Amsterdam, shows up on a very diff erent map that pinpoints this neighbourhood as a centre of Nigerian crime. In both cases, maps turn out to be a powerful means to mobilise money and people to produce long-lasting results. © Koninklijke Brill NV, 2009.

AbstractAfter an explosion of conversions to Pentecostalism over the past three decades, tens of millions of Nigerians now claim that “Jesus is the answer.” But if Jesus is the answer, what is the question? What led to the movement’s dramatic rise and how can we make sense of its social and political significance? In this ambitiously interdisciplinary study, Ruth Marshall draws on years of fieldwork and grapples with a host of important thinkers—including Foucault, Agamben, Arendt, and Benjamin—to answer these questions. To account for the movement’s success, Marshall explores how Pentecostalism presents the experience of being born again as a chance for Nigerians to realize the promises of political and religious salvation made during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Her astute analysis of this religious trend sheds light on Nigeria’s contemporary politics, postcolonial statecraft, and the everyday struggles of ordinary citizens coping with poverty, corruption, and inequality. Pentecostalism’s rise is truly global, and Political Spiritualities persuasively argues that Nigeria is a key case in this phenomenon while calling for new ways of thinking about the place of religion in contemporary politics.

AbstractThis study examined strategy that could be developed to address the issue of gender inequality in the priesthood of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria. Though in the church, women were included in the priesthood but there is no true representation especially at the highest cadre of the priestly hierarchy in terms of gender. The need for more women to participate in the priesthood is informed by the fact that women constitute majority in the population of the church. Using both the primary and secondary source of data collection, the findings of the research revealed that the highest level of the priesthood in RCCG is still largely controlled by men. Women are making steady progress as Parish, Area and Zonal Pastors, though the gap is still wide. Some of the factors that was identified as the reasons for the disparity include, the negative attitude of women, motherhood, genetics basis for sexual role and the culture of most ethnic group in Nigeria that is gender stereotyped. Based on the findings, a model of priesthood for offices and duties for females was proposed to improve female participation in the priesthood. The offices and duties to be allocated for female in the model was specified in order to solve some of the problems for poor representation of women in the priesthood. In the light of the study, it was recommended that the admission of women into the priesthood of RCCG would guarantee wholeness in Christ. The research also contended that Theological institutions and Tertiary Education should include gender issues in their curricula. © Medwell Journals, 2010.

AbstractThe proliferation of religious spaces is a relatively recent development in Nigeria. Nowadays there are more than a hundred religious camps belonging to different religious groups in the country. The most popular of these camps, the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is located 42 kilometres outside of Lagos and measures several thousand acres. Although initially not designed as such, developments in and around Lagos have compelled the managers of the Redemption Camp to present it as an urban alternative to the city of Lagos, which is generally deemed chaotic. The prestige of this camp and its activities have led to expansive urban development that involves the creation of numerous residential estates stretching from Lagos to beyond the Redemption Camp. Based on a recent ethnographic study of the Redemption Camp, this article argues that the process of urban expansion in and around Lagos is propelled by an aggressive form of religious revival that transcends the borders between economics, spirituality and territorial conquest. This article thus illustrates how church-driven, religio-urban developments follow a different logic of city making than often presumed by theorists of African cities, who generally neglect the religious forces that inform urban transformations in Africa. © 2016 Urban Research Publications Limited

AbstractThis paper explores the complex, dynamic and multifaceted transformations in Africa’s religious field through a critical and comparative investigation of two high contrast prayer camps (Miracle Cities), their histories, functions and activities and ownership. The study is based on the ethnography of Prayer Camps in two African cities, Lagos (Nigeria) and Kampala (Uganda), one Pentecostal in orientation, the other, neo-traditionalist in character. The Redemption Camp/City, owned by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is the largest landmass dedicated to the production and consumption of religion in Africa. The Faith of Unity religious movement, founded by Omukama Ruhanga Owobusozi Desteo Bisaka in Western Uganda, is a neo-traditionalist religious group dedicated to the reinvention of an ‘original’ African spirituality. The paper describes ‘Miracle Cities’ as entheogenic, competitive spaces, symbolic resources and complex social worlds that re-inscribe the importance of space, place and location in the conceptualisation and performance of salvation in Africa. © 2018, © 2018 The Institute of Social and Economic Research.

AbstractThe last three decades of the 20th century was a period of momentous social, economic, political and religious turmoil in many African societies. Nigeria is a prime example. Although the economic transformations of this period were perhaps bigger than other kinds of change, religious shifts probably had more remarkable social effects. One particularly noticeable development was the emergence of a new strand of Pentecostalism that serves as a source of political power and as a vehicle for economic mobilisation. Embedded in a theology of materialism and a redefinition of 'money', this new ideology found a fertile ground among local and global corporations struggling to cope with problems such as a devalued currency and political corruption and instability. Using data from ethnographic research on the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), with more than 10,000 congregations worldwide, this chapter shows how the near economic meltdown of the last decades of the 20th century precipitated a massive religious (re)engagement with economic structures and practices in Nigeria. Copyright © 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

AbstractThis study documents the history and growth of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). The RCCG is a pentecostal church in Nigeria, established in 1952, but was little known until the 1990s when it came into national prominence. It was founded by Josiah Akindayomi who was converted form Yoruba religion into the Church Missionary Society (CMS). He left the CMS to join the Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S), one of the emerging African Independent Churches (AICs). From here, he founded his own independent church which in subsequent years developed into a pentecostal church. The RCCG is one of many pentecostal churches existing in Nigeria. Although some research exists on Nigerian Pentecostalism, there is almost nothing on the RCCG. The present study presents a case study which deals with Pentecostalism in Nigeria and tries to relate it to globalisation discourse. It is the first such study from Africa. Its contribution is in providing a case study on a religious group that also relates to contemporary processes which, some scholars have argued, have side-stepped Africa (Brouwer et al. 1996; Gifford 1998; 2001; Cooper 2001). It builds on, and follows the scholarly tradition of Peel (1968; 2000); Hackett (1987; 1989); Marshall-Fratani (1998). These scholars have worked on the Nigerian religious sphere by combining History of Religions and social scientific approaches. The study is made up of three parts. Part one is composed of the historical section comprising chapters 2 and 3 which includes the biographies of the founder of RCCG and his successor. Part two is the descriptive section which is made up of chapters 4, 5 and 6. This section focuses on organisational structure, institutions, doctrines and rituals of the RCCG. Chapter 4 presents the organisational structure of the church at the present period. It also discusses some of the para-church groups, schools, media use, finance and the place of women in the church. Chapter 5 examines the belief system while chapter 6 presents the ritual activities of the church. Part 3, which consists of chapter 7, is the theoretical reflection on our case study. While the RCCG has grown by reinterpreting its doctrines in line with local social, economic, political and cultural situation, part of its appeal to a broad spectrum of people, groups and organisations is its marketing strategies as well as its relationship with global economic players such as Coca-Cola company, Procter and Gamble, a wide range of manufacturing companies, banks and other financial institutions which provide scarce human and economic resources for the church’s social, religious, economic and political mobilisation in Nigeria. Die Studie dokumentiert die Entstehung und Entwicklung der Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). Die RCCG ist eine pentekostale Kirche in Nigeria. Sie wurde 1952 gegründet, war aber recht unbekannt, bis sie in den 1990er Jahren nationale Berühmtheit erlangte. Sie wurde von Josiah Akindayomi gegründet, der von der Religion der Yoruba zur Church Missionary Society (CMS) konvertierte. Er verließ die CMS, um sich der Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) Bewegung, einer der afrikanischen unabhängigen Kirchen (African Independent Churches, AIC), anzuschließen. Vor diesem Hintergrund gründete er seine eigene unabhängige Kirche, die sich in den nachfolgenden Jahren zu einer pentekostalen Kirche entwickelte. Die RCCG ist eine von vielen in Nigeria existierenden pentekostalen Kirchen. Es wurde zwar schon viel zum nigerianischen Pfingstkirchentum geforscht, zur RCCG liegt jedoch fast nichts vor. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt eine Fallstudie vor, die mit dem Pfingstkirchentum in Nigeria befasst ist und versucht, dieses mit dem Globalisierungsdiskurs in Beziehung zu setzen. Es ist die erste Studie dieser Art über ein Beispiel aus Afrika. Ihr Beitrag liegt darin, eine Fallstudie über eine religiöse Gruppe zu präsentieren, die an gegenwärtige Prozesse anknüpft, von denen manche Wissenschaftler behauptet haben, dass sie Afrika umgangen hätten (Brouwer et al. 1996; Gifford 1998; 2001; Cooper 2001). Sie baut auf der wissenschaftlichen Tradition von Peel (1968; 2000), Hackett (1987; 1989) und Marshall-Fratani (1998) auf und setzt diese fort. Diese Forscher verwenden in ihren Arbeiten zu den nigerianischen Religionen eine Kombination von religionshistorischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen. Die Arbeit besteht aus drei Teilen. Der erste Teil bietet eine allgemeine Einleitung, in der der historische Kontext, die Forschungsgeschichte, die Fragestellung und der methodische Ansatz dargestellt werden. Der zweite, umfangreichste Teil bietet zunächst einen historischen Abschnitt (Kapitel 2 und 3), der die Biographien des Gründers der RCCG und seines Nachfolgers enthält. Der zweite Abschnitt (Kapitel 4-6) ist deskriptiv und konzentriert sich auf die Organisationsstruktur, Einrichtungen, Lehrsätze und Rituale der RCCG. In Kapitel 4 wird die Organisationsstruktur der Kirche zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt vorgestellt. Einige der para-kirchlichen Gruppen, die Schulen, die Verwendung von Medien, die Finanzen und die Stellung von Frauen in der Kirche werden ebenfalls diskutiert. In Kapitel 5 wird das Glaubenssystem untersucht, während in Kapitel 6 die rituellen Aktivitäten der Kirche dargestellt werden. Der dritte Teil, der aus Kapitel 7 besteht, enthält die theoretische Reflexion über unsere Fallstudie.

AbstractCambridge Core - African Studies - Nigerian Pentecostalism - by Nimi Wariboko