On the theologico-theatrical: popular culture and the economic imperative in Nigerian Pentecostalism

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.