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ABSTRACT
Based on ethnography conducted in Lagos, one of the foremost pentecostal cities in the world, this article coins the interconnected concepts of ‘Pentecosmopolis’ and ‘pentecosmopolitanism’ to account for forms of cosmopolitanism that are shaped at the intersection of Pentecostalisms and urbanisms. These concepts highlight the dialectical role of Pentecostalisms in the cosmopolitization of urban sociospatialities, and of urbanisms in the cosmopolitization of Pentecostalisms. This article disbands the ideas of Pentecosmopolis and pentecosmopolitanism into two interconnected sub-concepts of ‘pentecosmopolitan spatiality’ and ‘pentecosmopolitan sociality’––of ‘pentecosmopolitan sociospatiality’. Against the background of marginality in scholarship, I examine the cosmopolitization—the diversification and contrastification—of sociospatial symbolisms, practices and relationalities taking shape in the city at the behest of Pentecostalisms, and in Pentecostalisms at the behest of the city.
Acknowledgements
This article has benefited from mentorship conversations that I have had with Prof. AbdouMaliq Simone and from the assistance of Dr. Olabode Philips Orelaja during fieldwork in Lagos. I thank Prof. Brigitte Reinwald and her coordination team for the unwavering support they have given to me in my research project – Networked Religiocities: Transnational Urban Religious Flows in Africa - which they are coordinating under the auspices of the Volkswagen Foundation Funding Initiative: Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities in sub-Saharan and North Africa – Knowledge for Tomorrow. I would like to appreciate Prof. Karl Von Holdt and his administrative team at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand for providing administrative support for my research project. Acknowledged also are the contributions of the two anonymous reviewers whose contributions enriched this article. In spite of the valued influences of other people, any failings in this article remain my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Obvious Katsaura is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a senior fellow in the Volkswagen Foundation’s funding initiative: Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities in Sub-Saharan and North Africa – Knowledge for Tomorrow. Through this fellowship, he is pursuing a research project titled: ‘Networked Religiocities: Transnational Urban Religious Flows in Africa’. He is an urban sociologist whose current research interests are in, and at the intersections of, the fields of transnational urbanism, transnational religiosity, religious urbanism, urban politics and urban violence. Some of his works have been published in the following journals: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Culture and Religion, Urban Forum, African Identities, and Social Dynamics.
Notes
1 Hereafter Murtala Airport.
2 This is a pseudonym.
3 The MFM international headquarters is located in Onike-Yaba. Onike-Yaba is a neighborhood in the Mainland area of Lagos. It is an old suburb in its looks and appears to be quite densely populated.
4 The RCCG’s international headquarters is in Mowe-Ofada, Ogun State––about 41 kilometers from Lagos center––along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Its national headquarters is in Ebutte-Metta, one of the several ‘slum neighborhoods’ of Lagos Mainland.
5 The Winners Chapel is headquartered in Sango, Ota, in Ogun State. Ota is the capital city of Ogun State, in Southwestern Nigeria. It is noteworthy that the Winners Chapel headquarters is located about 43 kilometers from the Lagos City center. Winners Chapel Nigeria is not to be confused with the Accra, Ghana, headquartered Winners Chapel Ghana (WCG), which is a separate pentecostal organization.
6 These are the earlier pentecostal churches originating in the nineteenth century, mostly in the United States of America.
7 White garment spirit churches or Aladura churches in the context of Nigeria.
8 Benin City is the capital of Edo State, in Southern Nigeria.
9 I am not using the concept of pentecostal ecology in the sense of biophysical environmentalism, as used by scholars such as Tallman (2008), but in the sense of the diversity of religious, social and spatial relationships that emerge in the city as a result of the presence and processes of Pentecostalism.
10 Hereafter Deeper Life or DCLM.
11 Ikotun-Egbe is a ‘typically’ low-income neighborhood located in the Alimosho local government area of the city of Lagos.
12 This is a worship and prayer program that takes place on every first Friday of every month from 7am to 12pm, with a focus on prayer and deliverance. Hereafter abbreviated as PMCH in this article.
13 Pastor David, Prayer City, Magboro, 11 October 2017.
14 Elijah is a Jewish Biblical prophet figure and powerful miracle worker who is recorded to have lived during the 9th century BC in the northern kingdom of Israel.
15 Ecumenism is a concept that indicates the unity of world Christianities, and in this case it accounts for the unity of a variety of Pentecostalisms.
16 Father Gabriel, Onike-Yaba, 16 October 2018.
17 ‘Nigerian Pentecostalisms’ are particularly analysed as having incorporated elements of ‘indigenous traditions’ into their cosmologies (Adogame Citation2010, 479).
18 Perhaps, the idea of the religious marketplace captures the choice and vibrancy that characterizes the Lagosian religious landscape (Wuaku Citation2012; Ivakhiv Citation2003).
19 Interview, Yaba, Lagos, 19 September 2018.
20 See http://www.mountainoffire.org/about, accessed on 26 January 2018.
21 See https://dclm.org/about/pastor-w-f-kumuyi/, accessed on 26 January 2018.
22 See https://www.scoan.org/blog/2010/08/26/tb-joshua-biography-everything-big-starts-little/, accessed on 10 February 2018.
23 See https://www.informationng.com/2018/01/bishop-david-oyedepo-tops-forbes-list-richest-pastors-world-net-worth-150m.html, accessed on 29 May 2018.
24 Along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, there is also a prayer camp for the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church Worldwide (CSMC) - a Nigerian church which is within the ranks of African Initiated Churches (Aladura churches) that are commonly categorized as ‘white garment’ churches (cf. Janson and Akinleye Citation2015; Mohr Citation2015; Dada Citation2014, 21). Rather interestingly, the Lagos-Ibadan expressway is home to an Islamic prayer camp established by a charismatic Islamic movement, the Nasrul - Lahli - I - Fatih Society of Nigeria (NASFAT) (Janson and Akinleye Citation2015, 550). The charismaticization of Islam as an expression of its need to appeal to an urbane membership is viewed as a response to religious competition that is arguably propelled by the astronomical rise and popularity of Pentecostalism (Obadare Citation2016). The religious diversity observable along the ‘spiritual highway’ arguably indicate religious cosmopolitanism, the reality of religious tension notwithstanding.
25 For instance, in Nigerian popular media, especially in Nollywood films.
26 Wariboko (Citation2014), coins the concept of ‘charismatic city’ to capture the significance of charismatic Christianity, of the pentecostal mode, in the production of city-ness or of the urban experience.
27 Homes have been adorned with pentecostal signage and are increasingly used as ‘house churches’ or simply as pentecostal meetings spaces – becoming the cells of the burgeoning pentecostal institutions and (infra-) structures. Urban public space also becomes loaded with pentecostal signage. These range from pentecostal billboards and all sorts of pentecostal advertisements (Ukah Citation2008).
28 See http://www.mountainoffire.org/about, accessed on 10 February 2018.
29 Interview, Mr. Lawal, Yaba, Lagos, 20 October 2017.
30 In both services, Dr Olukoya ministers, unless if he is not around or available.
31 Field notes, 18 October 2017.
32 There is quite a tough screening process for people to book into the SCOAN guest houses. These have to be people coming with a clear issue—a health, spiritual or financial problem—that deserves the personal attention of Prophet T.B. Joshua. SCOAN, in countries where it is quite popular, such as in South Africa, has planted coordinators who facilitate people’s travels to SCOAN in Lagos for multiple purposes ranging from healing, deliverance, fellowshipping, breakthrough in life, to all manner of human problems. Foreigners will have to go through SCOAN coordinators from their countries.
33 Conversation, Olaitun, 18 September 2017.
34 Conversation, Tawanda, Ikotun-Egbe, 20 September 2017.
35 Negative socialities are undesirable, or (potentially) dangerous forms of interaction and, conversely, positive socialities entail cordial and desirable forms of interaction; in this case among and between spirits, people and objects in the city.
36 See https://www.pressreader.com/nigeria/thisday/20170709/281496456318369, accessed on 12 February 2018.
37 Interview, Pastor Pele, Yaba, Lagos, 17 October 2018.
38 Writing in the context of the Zulu of South Africa, White (Citation2013, 139) argues that ‘relations of mutuality with ancestral spirits are crucial to the lives of many people.’
39 SCOAN has only one branch in Nigeria and another branch in Accra, to complete the set of its branches in the world.
40 Of course, in addition to televangelism, TB Joshua and the church engage in various forms of evangelism by travelling to various parts of the world to preach, teach, prophesy and heal.
41 As Nigerian films are popularly known.
42 Digital Satellite Television (DStv).
43 According to MFM founder and general overseer, Dr. D.K. Olukoya, ‘Mammon is the devil’s salesman. He is the controller of the demons of greed, selfishness and financial failure’ (Olukoya Citation1998, 9). Mammon is believed to give people money while taking over their ‘souls’ and condemning them to ‘hell fire’ (Olukoya Citation1998, 9).
44 Legends on the existence and powers of dangerous mystical creatures in African contexts, including in African cities, are common.
45 Conversation, Kehinde, Onike-Yaba, Lagos, 5 October 2019.
46 Conversation, Pastor Babatunde, 5 October 2017, Yaba, Lagos.
47 ‘Collective personal prayers’ involve the simultaneity of communion and individuality in the practice of prayer, as normally practiced by pentecostal congregants.
48 Observation, Onike-Yaba, Lagos, MFM Headquarters.