Pentecostal intimacies: women and intimate citizenship in the ministry of repentance and holiness in Kenya

ABSTRACT

This article explores the intersections of gender, sexuality and citizenship in the context of one prominent neo-Pentecostal movement in Kenya, the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness (MRH) led by the charismatic Prophet David Owuor. Employing the concept of intimate citizenship, the article analyses, first, how MRH engages in a contestation of intimate citizenship in the contemporary Kenyan public sphere, especially in relation to women’s bodies. Second, it examines how MRH simultaneously configures, through a range of highly intimate beliefs, practices and techniques, an alternative form of intimate citizenship defined by moral purity and concerned with a political project of moral regeneration. Coining the notion of ‘Pentecostal intimacies’, the article provides insight into the reasons why so many people, especially women, are attracted to MRH, and hence it interrogates the liberal frame in which intimate citizenship is usually conceptualised.

KEYWORDS:

• Pentecostalism
• Christianity
• intimate citizenship
• sexual citizenship
• women
• Kenya

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. http://www.highwayofholiness.us/his-sons-no-more/ .

2. http://www.highwayofholiness.us/his-sons-no-more/ .

3. David Owuor, “The Wedding of the Lamb”, Repentance and Holiness Magazine 4:1 (2007).

4. David Owuor, “Sack Cloths and Ashes and the Wailing Women”, Repentance and Holiness Magazine 6 (2009), 2.

5. “The Man Who Baptized Raila Odinga. Exclusive Interview with David Owuor”, in Arise Africa Magazine 2009.

6. The MRH website is full of prophecies relating to countries all over the continent and the world.

7. E.g. see http://www.highwayofholiness.us/special-announcement-the-lord-shows-his-prophet-the-holy-church-entering-heaven-prophet-dr-owuor/.

8. David Owuor, “The Wedding of the Lamb”, Repentance and Holiness Magazine 4 (2007).

9. David Owour, “Overcoming Sexual Sins”, https://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WLZW77NX (accessed 19 January 2018).

10. Fieldwork notes Damaris Parsitau (2016).

11. Fieldwork notes Damaris Parsitau (2016).

12. Fieldwork notes Damaris Parsitau (2015).

13. Informal conversation with Catherine (pseudonym) in June 2017 in Nakuru.

14. Repentance and Holiness Magazine 7 (2010), 31.

15. https://www.nation.co.ke/Features/DN2/Faith-healer-or-prophet-of-doom/-/957860/1690928/-/1m3pwez/-/index.html .

16. “The Rapture of the Church: The Mighty Vision the Lord God Gave Dr Owuor”, Repentance and Holiness Magazine, vol. 1 (2006), 13. https://www.slideshare.net/franciscogurreanozaleda9/vol-1repentance-magazine-the-rapture-by-prophet-d-owuor (accessed 19 January 2018).

17. Ibid, 22.