Living in the end of days: risk, anxiety, subjectivity and the devil in a Trinidadian village

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Trinidad, this paper examines how the framing of a particular apocalyptic future provided a moral commentary and model for wellbeing in contemporary everyday life. Changing social, political, and economic circumstances and relations had brought a range of new risks and anxieties into daily life. These more recent problems originating from beyond the village (such as climate change, criminality, inequality, pollution, neglect by the State) could not be resolved through working with obeah spirits as might have been used previously for more local issues, or through the long-established Catholic and Anglican churches. Instead evangelical Christian cosmology and practices gave a means of making sense of such issues and for protecting oneself. The development of a strong individual relationship with God connected individuals to a greater power and a global community, framing such problems not only as the work of the Devil but as evidence of the coming of the End of Days. Political protest or attempts at wider change were futile therefore; individuals should focus on their own practices to develop a strong relationship with God. Health and wellbeing relied on an individualised and deep relationship with the Holy Spirit. This was developed through practices that both drew on, and helped create, a type of neoliberal logic and global subjectivity to understand and live within current times, evangelical Christianity promoting ways of living without anxiety in the present through understandings of an apocalyptic future.

Keywords:

• Evangelical Christianity
• the body
• Trinidad
• Cosmological understandings
• risk and anxiety

Electric fans whirred and clattered. Papers used as makeshift fans flapped. As we sat in rows facing the front of the church, two people stood to address the congregation, one after the next, to tell us what ‘walking with Jesus’ meant to them and the positive impact living with and feeling a continual connection with Jesus had on everyday life. We bowed our heads in prayer and thanked God and Jesus for being present in our lives and for their strength and guidance. As heads rose, pages shuffled as we searched through our hymnbooks for the lyrics to ‘I must tell Jesus’. We sang loudly and clearly over the sound of the electric fans; ‘I must tell Jesus all of my trials, I cannot bear these burdens alone…’. This service, like almost all those I attended at the Seventh Day Adventist church and at other churches in this village in north-east Trinidad, strongly focused on dealing with difficulties in daily life and relieving our everyday anxieties. This focus on how we might better live today in order to manage the troubled times in which we found ourselves was also seen as fundamental to our futures.

Changing social, political, and economic circumstances and relations had brought a range of new issues to everyday life in the village. Such problems were difficult to deal with through older cosmological tools and frameworks such as Anglicanism, Catholicism and obeah (Caribbean sorcery), while evangelical Christian understandings held more promise and addressed these issues directly. I focus here on a profoundly important evangelical discourse within the village during the period of my fieldwork (between 2011 and 2012); the coming of the End of Days and the position of the individual in relation to this. Or, as this might also be framed, how to understand the contemporary world and live within it. This focus on the future end of current times had important consequences for how people lived in the here-and-now, and is embedded, I argue, within particular conceptualizations of future risk and individual responsibility while providing a means of addressing everyday stresses and anxiety. Such discourses became a guide to ‘living well’ within, and despite of, modernity through drawing on a logic inherent to modernity itself.

Contemporary Devil-made problems (pollution and criminality, for example) were resolved and understood through more novel (to the village at least) evangelical Christian understandings. Evans Pritchard’s famous dictum that ‘new situations demand new magic’ (Evans-Pritchard 1937, 513), has been drawn on by authors such as Comaroff and Comaroff (1999) in considering how problems of modernity have been addressed cosmologically, and here we might frame changing socio-political circumstances as a ‘new situation’, and evangelical Christianity as the ‘new magic’ being used to address this (although in drawing a parallel between evangelical Christianity and magic in relation to this dictum, I use ‘magic’ here to refer a particular framework and logic through which the cosmological is understood). However I also wish to present a more nuanced relationship between ‘situation’ and ‘magic’. What cultural work might this ‘new magic’— the discourses and practices around evangelical Christianity as present in the village— actually do? How might this demand a new cultural ‘logic’? And how might both new problems and new ways of dealing with these contribute to, and indeed develop from, wider cosmological understandings in a dynamic and interactive way?

My questions are provoked by a somewhat similar approach taken by Bielo (2007) whose work challenges the simplistic relationship often presented in work on the health and wealth-based ‘prosperity gospel’ where faith and success are placed in a straightforward causal relationship. Through detailing the cultural logic within ‘born-again personhood’ in U.S. Christian businessmen (which draws on U.S. models of effective business practices and psychology), another understanding of how these American Evangelicals ‘imagine financial success’ can be presented (2007, 336). We find that faith and prosperity are embedded in distinct cultural understandings so that evangelical Christian ideas of prosperity and faith develop from, and imbue, a particular framing of the world in different contexts. The question then becomes: How does evangelical Christianity in this context shape how people understand the world and their position in it? I argue that evangelical Christianity provided a strong, yet relatively flexible, framework through which everyday life could be understood and negotiated, and anxiety relieved. This had particular salience in understanding and dealing with the changing socio-political circumstances that people in the village found themselves in and the disorder and disruption they experienced.

The argument that evangelical forms of Christianity offer particularly salient modes of understandings for living within contemporary life and its problems is an approach also pursued by other anthropologists focusing on evangelical Christian movements. Velho (2006), for example, suggests that evangelical Christianity ‘thematises’ modernity through recognizing and responding to wider social, economic and political changes. As Corten and Marshall-Fratini (2001) suggest, Pentecostalism (the focus of their work) is ‘a discourse within modernity but about modernity’ (2001, p4), malleable enough to adapt and respond to different contexts while simultaneously providing a stable narrative which gives a ‘solid anchorage for individuals in a frightening sea of possibilities and frustrations’ (2001, p4). In this context I suggest that more than just ‘thematising’ modernity, evangelical Christian discourses embed within individuals a particular neoliberal logic integral to modernity itself, building a particular type of personhood or subjectivity that allows people to deal with the changing life circumstances they find themselves in.

Such changes to individual subjectivity and means of dealing with life’s anxiety and stressors become relevant questions as medical anthropology increasingly moves away from focusing mainly on illness to examine health, the wider circumstances contributing to and threatening health, the impact of globalization and neoliberalism on health and individual responsibility for health, conceptualisations of the body and notions of selfhood, and actions taken to improve mental health and everyday wellbeing. Indeed the role of evangelical Christianity and other religious forms in contributing to, and running alongside health, illness and wellbeing are highly pertinent given the growth of these new religious and spiritual forms that, in directing people how to live well, cover similar ground to new public health approaches. This paper focuses on local practices, discourses and responses in relation to modernity and evangelical Christianity in this Trinidadian village at this particular period of time. In doing so, I illustrate the interconnectedness of neoliberal constructions and evangelical Christianity and their localisation in time and place, rather than viewing these as singular monolithic concepts replicated in the same way globally. I examine how these concepts are lived in the everyday, shaping, and being shaped by, people’s daily practices, and explore the development of a localised ‘neoliberal logic’— a building of a particular rationality and selfhood that shifts individuals from local to global neoliberal subjects. Individual position, agency and (moral) responsibility within this and in relation to other agents (e.g. reliance on and the agency of the State, God and the Devil) were central to these constructions, and were produced and shaped by, I argue, evangelical Christian practices such as prayer, interpretations of events as Devilish interference and discourse around the coming End of Days.

Evangelical Christianity for contemporary living

Referring to a process from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Paul Connerton describes modernity as ‘the objective transformation of the social fabric unleashed by the advent of the capitalist world market which tears down feudal and ancestral limitations on a global scale’ (Connerton 2009, 4). This process has particular relevance to the Caribbean, given its history and place in slavery and global trade (Miller 1994). Anthropologists such as Daniel Miller (1994), Comaroff and Comaroff (1999, 2000), and Peter Geshiere (2000), illustrate the ways in which modernity is materialized and experienced differently in different contexts, while remaining part of, and situated in relation to, wider world markets. Local experiences of modernity are connected to changing modernity elsewhere, so rather than thinking of modernity as a singular object, we can talk of different modernities that are interwoven and connected. It is worth noting too that not everyone within the same society may experience modernity in the same way—my examples are not only specific to Trinidad but to a particular area and time-point (Lynch 2020).

Within this wider framing of modernity, I focus here on the growth of neoliberalism from the mid-1980s and its related logic. I use ‘neoliberal’ to refer to a type of capitalism, and, following David Harvey (2005), economic theory and philosophy of practices that are part of a geographically-spread hegemonic project. This (through discourse and policies), aims to bring all human action into the domain of the market, with the idea that ‘well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework, characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.’ (Harvey 2005, 2).

As Ortner (2016) notes, anthropological approaches to neoliberalism typically focus either on neoliberalism as a form of economic system and examine the impact of related policies, or situate neoliberalism as a type of governmentality and explore its different forms in different contexts. Ortner stresses the overlap between these however, so while I focus particularly on subjectivities and self-making processes, neoliberalism as economic policy (and its outcomes) is an important accompanying thread. Rather than being coherent and stable, neoliberalism comes together in diverse ways in different times and spaces (Hoffman, DeHart, and Collier 2006). Crucially however, neoliberal rationality is an achieved state, created through various state policies but requiring engagement and enactment of neoliberal concepts of agency (Gershon 2011, 538). Neoliberalism requires active participation therefore, and it is the participatory work of neoliberal self-making through evangelical Christian subjectification, and how this impacts on dealing with the difficulties of everyday life, that this paper explores.

The Trinidad census (2012) notes that affiliation with the Pentecostal, Evangelical and Full Gospel churches more than doubled between 2000 and 2011, while the popularity of older fundamentalist denominations such as Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses has also increased (CSO 2012). Such data fit into a general trend of the worldwide growth of evangelical forms of Christianity (Coleman 1998; Robbins 2004b), which has been noted particularly in post-colonial settings and among those at lower socio-economic levels of societies (Robbins 2004b). Like (neoliberal) modernity, evangelical Christianity also differs across contexts in configuration, content and in relation to time, and is informed by and informs local understandings and experiences. As such, its central concerns—the features of its message, narrative and practices upon which greatest importance is placed—may also differ. Locally, of greatest concern was the Devil—active, visible and connected to the coming End of Days.

Evangelical Christianity, neoliberalism and modernity then are relatively fluid categories, culturally situated and composed but linking to wider concepts, movements and flows elsewhere. These are not discrete, solid and bounded concepts but emergent and always in the process of change, coming together in forms particular to time and place. Neither modernity nor Christianity were ‘new’ to Trinidad or the village, however contemporary socio-economic and political circumstances and an evangelical form of Christianity were more novel. During my time in this coastal village, the figure of the Devil was referred to often in conversation, and felt through his impact and actions. This active Devil was strikingly absent from previous ethnographies of the area by Herskovits and Herskovits (1947) in the 1930s and Roland Littlewood (1993) in 1980-1982. Accounts from people locally also suggested that the tangible presence of the Devil was a relatively recent phenomena; the Devil had always been there but was more present and active in these contemporary times.

The local area used to be a thriving centre during the British colonial period, growing much of the nutmeg, citrus and cloves produced in Trinidad. Since the closure of the estates however, opportunities for local employment had significantly waned. Many younger people had moved to the capital and to Trinidad’s business and industrial zone to find work, the largely informal employment in the village being mostly non-commercial fishing and small-scale agriculture. CEPEP, the government employment scheme, had initially employed many local people after the closure of the estates, but this had been cut significantly over the years since Independence in 1962. Older people’s pensions often sustained households, as well as the money and goods sent back by those who had left the area, including people who now worked in the USA.

Through the history of slavery, colonialism and migration to Trinidad, different populations have brought different religious practices to the island so that particular ethnic groups have also been associated with particular religious affiliations. The vast majority of village residents were of Afro-Trinidadian descent and virtually all were Christian, and this was a key part of local identity. Other parts of Trinidad had more mixed or Indo-Trinidadian populations and the government at the time of my visit was viewed as Indo-Trinidadian and therefore largely Hindu. Because of this, the government was viewed as not representing or caring about those locally. The local area was also one of the poorest in Trinidad and geographically cut off. The long winding road that led from more central parts of the country (and was the only route to the region) was in extremely poor condition and much of the sea wall that had protected this area of the coast was sorely in need of repair. As a result, those in the village saw themselves as marginal in socio-economic, political, and geographical terms in relation to the rest of Trinidad.

The local area had a reputation in Trinidad for obeah use and being where one might find an obeahman/woman to work on ones behalf. Obeah can be described as ‘hybrid’ or ‘creolized’ beliefs particularly related to African activities and religious elements characterised by ritual invocations and festishes (Fernández Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert 2011). In the village in contemporary times, these practices were seen as devilish, and associated with the life of earlier generations and older people. As I will discuss, such beliefs and practices jarred with evangelical Christian processes of individual self-control and the making of global subjects, appearing unsuitable and unfit for living a life in neoliberal circumstances. Indeed, identifying the local area with obeah also reinforced this as ‘backwards’ and marginal in relation to the rest of the State.

While many people did not attend church, eight churches of different denominations could be found in or nearby this village of less than 2000 people: Catholic, Anglican, two Spiritual Baptist churches with different approaches, Independent International Baptist Church, Seventh Day Adventist, Evangelical and Pentecostal. There was much cross-over between the churches— family members and friends might be affiliated to different denominations, people often changed their affiliation through their lifetime, and some regularly attended more than one church. While there were some differences in practice between difference churches (e.g. the Adventist church holding Saturday as the Sabbath and asking its members not to wear circular jewellery), as well as within the same church (e.g. different levels of importance placed on the need to avoid wearing circular jewellery), similarities (e.g. the importance of daily prayer, and developing an individual relationship with God) were found across churches and in those who did not attend services. Denominational differences were not always clear therefore, both in relation to activity and cosmological understandings. Outside the churches, evangelical Christian influences were frequently present. The Pentecostal radio station was one of few locally available, and evangelical-based shows were broadcast on other stations also. Evangelical Christian music played in many houses whichever church inhabitants attended, as well as in communal places such as the village internet café. People read books and leaflets from evangelical Christian groups and watched Pentecostal and Evangelical television shows. Personal spiritual experience was seen as more important than church attendance or involvement. Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, there were broad cosmological understandings that were largely shared by local people, as Meyer (1999) also found in her work in Ghana. Many of these appeared to be influenced by evangelical Christian approaches as well as general Trinidadian understandings. As such, a broadly evangelical Christian framework could be identified which people referred to, acted within, and interpreted events through, even if this might seem to go against the dogma of particular denominations.

The devil in the village

Discourses about everyday difficulties and the coming of the End of Days, and the ways in which the church and village were situated in relation to global and local issues were evident in Adventist services. The service referred to above, for example, skipped through a range of different time periods and places that illustrated the greatness of God’s work and how to live a good Christian life; the virtuous act of a girl from Mongolia who had left university to travel around the rest of her country singing with a Christian choir, Englishman Charles Darwin’s 19^th century sinful view of evolution that would lead those who believed in this to be damned when it came to Judgment Day; how prayer meetings had led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The power of prayer and the importance of engaging in this regularly were the key messages of this service, and we were told that praying aloud keeps your mind focused on God, that ‘Satan trembles at the sound of fervent prayer’ but not to be afraid as God sends a host of angels in response. Indeed ‘feeling powerlessness is a trick of the enemy’ (the Devil), which can be combated through prayer and a close relationship with God. ‘What change can we make to the village and by extension to Trinidad [through prayer]?’, Brother Johnson asked us, and then added; ‘In the point of time we are living in, we really want to see God working for us’. Current times were particularly difficult and trying, which clearly indicated the nearing of the End of Days. To help us deal with this, we were directed to find an allotted time each day to be alone with God, to read the bible allowing the Holy Spirit to ‘impress’ on our minds, to learn to pray aloud and to organize small groups for weekly prayer meetings. Regular prayer, giving your life to God, and following God’s words were ways of living through difficult times, and of regaining some control and means through which to deal with the ultimate cause of these; the Devil.

Like many of the church services I attended, references to the Devil and to Judgment Day were not far away, even if they weren’t the focus of the service. While some services were more explicit about this (for example, Pentecostal deliverance services where demonic spirits were cast out from those suffering), the Devil and the coming End of Days also entered into services in smaller ways— in the background of other church concerns but still present. The support that God and Jesus gave people were mentioned regularly, and services often looked outward to international events, both current and historical, and referred to being part of a global Christian church. However it was the Devil who emerged as the strong immediate force to be dealt with, the cause of many of the problems those in the village now found themselves in.

The Devil was present in life in the village beyond church services also, entering discussions about why children had done badly in school (possession by devilish spirits), the behaviour of people in the village who drank a lot (oppression by devilish spirits), increased murder rates across Trinidad (devilish influence on individual’s minds), success of particular businessmen (they had sold their souls to the Devil in exchange for wealth and success), collapse of and poor condition of local roads (politicians in league with the Devil who were neglecting to care for the State), as well as the causes of earthquakes in Japan and car crashes on Trinidad’s busy roads. The Devil was at work within individual bodies and in material objects— he was busy in the village, in the State and internationally. He was a serious force intervening in everyday life across the globe. Indeed, it was through the ways in which I was told that the Devil was active that changing social, political, and economic circumstances and relations, and the new issues they brought to everyday village life, became particularly visible.

The coming of the end of days

Daniel was one of the few men who regularly attended the Adventist church. He was not a church elder, did not attend every service but also did not ‘backslide’— a term meaning that he did not attend church for a long time and move into non-Christian ways. He lived with his wife and worked various informal handyman jobs to earn a living. Always polite and respectful, he did not involve himself too deeply in church social networks and gossip, and his accounts of daily life were typical of many people I spoke to in the village, whichever church they attended. Speaking to me at his home, Daniel told me he had attended Baptist church as a boy but stopped going when he left home and didn’t return to church until he was in his 50s. The decision to return to church had occurred when he was listening to a programme about those who had died in the Haiti earthquake and he thought how terrible it was and how he should serve God before he died. This thought had played on his mind for a week. He went to some of the different churches in the village eventually arriving at the Adventist church, which is where he realized God had directed him. He had been part of the church for two years, and it had made his life much easier he told me. Since joining the Adventist church, Daniel had put God at the top of his list in everything he did so that God could direct him. Before starting work each day, Daniel asked the Lord (through prayer) to give him direction, health and strength, and in this way he could get work done better, faster and without complaint; ‘We should not complain as it makes work harder for ourselves, we should just get the job done’, he told me. He liked the Adventist church as it had lots of ‘man’ rules—rules for mankind, rules for living, and for protection.

As well as the appreciation of clear rules through which one could live, understand, and accept the world, Daniel raised many of the key features of the broadly evangelical Christian framework held by local people whichever church they belonged to. This included the ongoing battle between God and the Devil. While God was stronger and in ultimate control, the Devil was always present and created anything negative. Central to this was the understanding that the current circumstances that people found themselves in was evidence of the coming of the End of Days, the time when Jesus would return to lead his army into battle against the Devil and his followers: Judgement Day. In the run-up to this event, the Devil would be more active on the earth and this was a level of activity that my interlocutors were aware of on an almost-daily basis. The increased rate of crime in Trinidad and perceived failure of the justice system was ‘proof’ of this, and indeed there was a national State of Emergency declared for a number of months to address the spiralling murder rate while I was in the field.

High rates of crime and criminality was just one of the problems experienced locally that previous generations had not had to face. Other symptoms of a broken society were evident in the way that young people treated their elders, the lack of steady employment available, the irresponsible and uncaring actions of the Indo-Trinidadian government, and a negative perception of the region by others in Trinidad. However issues beyond Trinidad also caused concern in the village. Changes to the climate were evident locally as in recent years the distinction between the dry season and the rainy season was less clear, and this affected crop growth and practices. People also felt exposed to global dangers, such as worldwide financial recession, natural disasters, and dominance of nefarious government agencies (such as the CIA) and international big-business (such as drug-companies). Other issues included risks to health from chemicals in the air and the sea, and sprayed on food or in the water. There were fears about illnesses created by the CIA (such as HIV/AIDS), medicines that were controlled and poisoned, and national and international leaders and celebrities that evidently worshipped and were being led by the Devil.

Newspapers, pamphlets, internet films and websites provided evidence of devilish activities, and were spread within churches and social groups. Current news stories were frequently understood through such idioms so that these evangelical Christian narratives were reinforced on a daily basis. Some international events were given explicit biblical interpretation, such as the growth of the European Union being foretold in the Bible as the Twelve Tribes of Israel gathering before the End of Days (Joel Robbins (2004a) notes similar understandings amongst his Baptist interlocutors). A member of the Adventist church gave me DVD copies of short documentary-type films that made explicit links between news stories and devilish influence. These flicked and cut between different news topics and images, interspersed with an accompanying commentary and powerful music detailing the role of the Devil in producing the coming End of Days; in one an excerpt of planes crashing in the Twin Towers in New York on September 11th 2001 was followed by reports of hundreds of dead squid being washed up on a beach in California, pictures and reports of an earthquake in Indonesia and sinkholes in Bosnia and Italy. Bible verses were cited to back up the points being made in the commentary, followed by news reports of strange sounds and lights being seen above Bratislava in Slovakia, bubonic plaque in Madagascar, river water turning red in The Netherlands, a cliff fall in France, landslides in China, and more bible verses indicating how all such events have been foretold as part of the End of Days. A range of different news reports, including American celebrities, international political actions, the global food industry, or changing weather conditions we related by those in the village to a wider direction the world was heading in, as Daniel told me;

‘[these are] things that the Lord speaks of, these are the days we are living in, we are getting close… [we]can see in the bible these are some of the signs…The teachers can’t do anything or the older generation, [it] will get worse, just as coming up to the End of Days.’

The wider understanding of contemporary problems as part of the coming of the End of Days, gave a rationale, an ongoing trajectory and a vision of a better future for those living in precarious times in a situation they otherwise had little influence over. It situated this broad range of issues within a wider history and in relation to a clear future. As Joe Masco (2014) notes of the distilled images of nuclear war that were drawn on in the USA during the Cold War, a complicated problem can be presented as solidified and simple through clear images and narratives. Apocalyptic thinking makes known what is unknown, and unknowable from our own experiences, and this future orientated thinking changes, and gives direction as to, how one lives in the here-and-now.

Dealing with the coming of the end of days

Crime and criminality was frequently at the forefront of Daniel’s thinking; ‘The crime rate in Trinidad is now very high. There are natural disasters elsewhere but we have violence and crime’. He reflected on the dangers more frequently encountered by previous generations but were now less prevalent; people sending an obeah spirit to you to do you harm and the ‘older heads’ [older people] in the village using magic to turn into nefarious creatures. These previous dangers, and the problems and stresses of everyday life in the village and surrounding area—love and family, money, employment, and legal issues—were dealt with through various specific means embedded within daily living and frequently possible without leaving the immediate locality. Spiritual creatures could be kept away by vigilance about where one went, when and with whom, and what one did there, as well as specific practices to keep particular spirits away. However the key means to influence success and misfortune in previous times was largely undertaken through Catholic rituals or obeah work.

Obeah uses spirits to improve ones own position and/or to hold others back and obeahmen/women could be paid to provide a talisman to help an individual win a court case or stop their partner ‘horning’ (cheating on) them, to remove forms of spiritual affliction and spirits put on by others, or to put a spirit on someone else in order to harm them. Many successes and misfortunes people suffered were understood to be a result of obeah interference—the fisherman who caught many fish while others caught very few was likely to have used obeah to make a deal with a spirit encouraging fish to jump into his net, and/or had ‘tied’ the boats of other fishermen to stop their nets from catching fish. Misfortune caused through obeah was a person-to-person interaction therefore; fisherman A working against fisherman B. However obeah was not a sufficient explanation for, or protection from, the more global problems that the village found itself increasingly facing. Pollution of the ocean could not be resolved through working with obeah spirits for example. These were complex problems, many of which originated from elsewhere and lacked a clear individual source. In such circumstances it was not clear on whom to send and/or remove a spirit from—you cannot put a spirit on the CIA. Obeah was not effective against such issues and local malevolent forces were of less concern. Something far bigger was at stake and required a broader and more sustained approach.

Daniel had a half-brother who stole and was part of the local drug trade, and Daniel prayed for him daily. Daniel noted that people committed crimes due to the home they grew up in, their lifestyle, and the company they kept, however he also told me that ‘the Devil finds work for idle hands’. As the conversation continued, it becomes clear that this was no metaphor for Daniel. The Devil and evil spirits were all around us he told me, present in everyday life. Some people worked with these nefarious spirits, which led them to commit crime. They allowed such spirits into their lives by not giving themselves to God; ‘…when not serving the Lord [you are] serving the enemy…it is your choice whether to follow the Devil’, he told me. Daniel’s criminal brother was therefore being led, or was possessed, by the Devil. God had given humans agency to follow God or the Devil, whether to behave morally or immorally, and therefore whether they were opening themselves up to the Holy Spirit or to devilish spirits, as Daniel’s half brother had done in stealing and working in the drug trade. These constructions not only gave a way of understanding the world but allowed individuals to act effectively within this. Not choosing to follow God was the individual’s own fault and, like Daniel’s brother, people were therefore somewhat responsible if they suffered at the hands of the Devil.

Devilish practices and Devil-led behaviour of increasing numbers of individuals in Trinidad were of great concern in the local churches, and many collective prayer sessions and sermons referred to this. While prayer was seen as a key means through which this could be restrained as far as possible, the situation was also viewed as inevitable given the coming closeness of the End of Days. A fundamental message that came from the churches, and more broadly within the community, was that given the inevitability of the situation, individuals should focus on themselves, their own morality and their own spirituality—to just get on with it, as Daniel states—rather than attempting to make changes at the government, national or international level. Such attempts at larger change were futile and energy was better expended on personal development. There were few calls to fight for change therefore, and much talk of personal spiritual growth.

Personal growth and reflection, and the focus on self this entailed, were thus key to managing the many everyday life problems that people encountered. Daniel was clear about how these should be dealt with; ‘follow God’s law, he will make things easier for you’. God would protect you from all evil if you asked him in prayer. As we did in Adventist services, we should ask for God’s guidance and protection and through daily activities we should build a relationship with God to protect ourselves from the Devil’s influence. Like others, Daniel attended to his actions to live as a good Christian and prayed several times a day to develop an in-depth and personal relationship with God. Through personifying the cause of all such problems through the single figure of the Devil, a clear focus for redress was created, and a need for effective protection from devilish interference required. Evangelical Christian narratives, church services and practices gave means through which people could connect to God and His protection. Focusing on ones morality and building a deep relationship with the strongest of all spirits, and maintaining this through regular prayer and constant self-reflection to ensure one was living as a good Christian and remaining close to God, were ongoing activities that individuals could undertake in everyday life.

In his examination of the decline of magic and changing religious beliefs in English history, Keith Thomas (1991) suggests that witch-beliefs were attractive as they enabled redress through a personalization of misfortune, explaining particular, rather than general, adversity. Thomas compares witchcraft (and magic) to Christianity, which instead provided ‘a guiding principle, relevant to every aspect of life, magic was simply a means of overcoming various specific difficulties’ (1991, 761–2). Therefore while obeah interventions might prove useful for individually-generated and experienced misfortune, broader and less specific risks—general problems which were both currently present and on the future horizon—could not be resolved through these magical means. Instead of local forces it was now these national and international powers which were at work in the village and rather than being at the mercy of general and external forces, evangelical Christianity offered a close link to God who was referred to as ‘the ultimate obeahman’. Appealing to and forming a strong relationship with God was one of the few things that people locally could do about their situation that might give them a degree of safety in unpredictable times. The individual relationship that evangelical Christianity emphasized through its practices also allowed any individual to protect themselves without relying on others, and provided a means for safety and protection without having socio-political or economic power. Anxiety was therefore unnecessary and indicated lack of faith and/or insufficient Christian practices—as I was told, anxiety comes from the Devil. Evangelical Christianity provided a form of ‘comprehensive cover’ from all problems, individuals needing only to focus on a relationship with God to be protected from all issues.

Risk, responsibility and relations: modernity and evangelical Christianity in precarious times

Through the examples above, the contemporary period of modernity, termed ‘high’ or ‘late’ modernity by theorists Anthony Giddens (1991) and Ulrich Beck (1992), can be seen to have had three key impacts on the local level. Firstly, it has brought new dangers previous generations have not had to face such as worldwide recession, climate change, pollution and dominance by particular international associations and corporations. Secondly, it has produced different relationships and new responsibilities, for example between the individual and the State. These new relations have brought new positionalities, for example, individuals needing to take-up a stronger and more dominant role, while the State is less active. As a result, old frameworks of understanding and trust have been broken down, leaving the individual with choices, decisions and responsibilities. Lastly, this neoliberal modernity has created closer ties and links to international relations and an awareness and interaction with the wider world, so that people locally felt they were part of a greater global system. These three features are similar to those identified by theorists of modernity elsewhere and the so-called Risk Society thesis (Beck 1992). Beck and Giddens note that risk is a characteristic of late modernity and, they argue, creates a ‘risk society’ where public knowledge and debates about risk and the riskiness of everyday life, as well as the introduction of new types of risk previous generations have not faced, are part of people’s everyday life. This focus on risk promotes insecurity about individual social position and the ability to live in safety. While these theorists focus on Euro-American societies and have their own limitations, it is interesting to hold these up as a comparison to the Trinidadian context, not least because they also illustrate a significant difference.

The Risk Society thesis links modernity to feelings of being out of control, anxiety and high perceptions of risk, which increase insecurity about individual position in society, ability to live in safety and produces anxiety about the future ahead, (Giddens 1991; Beck 1992; Wilkinson 2001; Furedi 2007). However while the newer concerns that people felt in the village—pollution, climate change, increased criminality, lack of trust in State systems and institutions—fit into wider senses of unease and exposure to less personal and focused dangers, accounts from individuals in the village did not portray feeling out of control and anxious, nor that they were facing an unknown future. A cultural form in the figure of the Devil who embodied the disorder and disruption found in and beyond the State, allowed risks and anxiety to be tackled through evangelical Christian practices and alliance to an ultimate power. Furthermore, the End of Days gave a certain future, with the possibility of influencing whether one would be part of the chosen fighting for Jesus or left behind.

In this context therefore, evangelical Christianity provided a construction and explanation for new risks caused by modernity and gave people a way of dealing with their circumstances. Anxiety and disorder were incompatible with godliness—if God was on your side, it was impossible for the Devil to be successful. These understandings were not merely abstract; beyond representing disorder, the Devil was disorder, and the opposite of God, who was order. Through a focus on personal morality, the individual could keep themselves with God and with order, and keep away the Devil and disorder. State institutions (which were seen as ineffective and not working for people locally) were not needed as the individual focused on their personal individual relationship with God.

Evangelical Christianity also allowed an engagement with a risk orientation; a future-focused move from conceptions of misfortune towards dealing with potential risk. Risk differs from concepts of misfortune, describing future-orientated expectations of an event while misfortune describes something that previously occurred. Within the notion of risk is an implication of the possibility of something not happening allowing space for active avoidance, while in describing what has already past, misfortune does not allow for such choice. The End of Days future framework gave a certain final outcome but space before this with the possibility for making a difference. The tools gained from evangelical Christianity to live morally and connected to God allowed the possibility to improve one’s own position and avoid risks. People could become active participants in their future with anxiety allayed through preparation for future events. This change in orientation towards future risk through evangelical Christianity, as well as the personification of the Devil and the End of Days discourse, gave security and space for effective individual action without recourse to help from others, such as State institutions.

The growth and development of an individualist orientation has been seen as concurrent with the rise of risk culture. The risk society approach suggests a growth in individuals seeking to control and improve themselves instead of their social environment, the individual located as the seat of power with responsibility for dealing with risk. As illustrated above, individuals were responsible for their morality and had to monitor and maintain their own moral position. Unlike Catholicism and obeah, evangelical Christianity required no intermediary such as a Priest or obeahman to remove sin or a bad spirit. The inner discipline and focus on the self required within evangelical Christianity can also be linked to the end of the colonial period in Trinidad and subsequent perceived failure of State institutions—one should look after oneself, the Trinidadian State perceived as no longer willing, or able, to do so.

To some extent, the promises of Independence had not paid off for those locally, and State-level (and international) neoliberal policies stressed individual responsibility. These wider political systems were not challenged, an individual relationship with God being seen as more important and more effective than political revolution, the importance of individual morality beyond church affiliation also linking to this understanding of self. This form of Protestant cosmology brought in and drew on an internality, a focus on the self, personal development and self-scrutiny in a way that obeah (and Catholicism) could not. Evangelical Christianity, in focusing on an individual relationship with God and personal morality to avoid devilish disorder, reinforced neoliberal understandings of ‘risk’ and the position and role of the individual in relation to the State. Evangelical Christianity created responsibilised neoliberal subjects therefore, separate from state dependency, and who were able to negotiate local and global risks and anxieties.

This individualistic neoliberal logic and sense of responsibility can be found in evangelical Christianity elsewhere, evident in the previously mentioned ‘born-again personhood’ of Bielo’s Christian businessmen (2007), for example. However through mapping the specificities of evangelical Christian cosmology and practices, and the form of the prosperity gospel in this local setting, the ways in which these promoted a particular understanding of the changing nature of the world and provided an individualised means of acting within difficult circumstances becomes evident. This new framework for understanding brought a shift in cosmology and positionality, enabling those locally to become both subjects of modernity and active participants within it, engaging with a risk orientation as neoliberal subjects separate from state and with their own affiliations beyond the local. Evangelical Christianity here is therefore more than merely ‘new magic’, it reinforced new subjectivities. It ‘thematised’ modernity, as Velho suggests, but also provided new tools and a new logic to deal with the everyday life within modernity while maintaining space for other cultural logics to exist alongside it.

Conclusions

Cosmological understandings are situated both historically and culturally, emerging from particular contexts. Through the examples above, it is clear how these can change over time and in relation to situated influences. Newer concepts might be adopted, others might not, and existing understandings might be incorporated, reinterpreted, or fade away. Contextualising local cosmological understandings of the relationships and interactions between humans and spirit agents allows an interpretation of the development and key elements of these, and why they may be powerful modes of understanding the world, including changing contemporary times.

Cosmological understandings were not fixed or rigid but were partial and bitty, becoming clearer, more murky, or both, for individuals over time. Such understandings are better conceptualized as culturally relevant and historically situated assemblages rather than a cohesive belief system. The elements in these assemblages remain stable rather than permanent and as such are amenable to change and to holding potentially conflicting understandings. There was a broad move to a more decisive monotheism, but not completely—spaces for other spirits remained. While new situations demand new magic, neither these situations nor magic are static, and may be interconnected. In this context, modernity and evangelical Christianity are fluid and situated packages, concepts that are intertwined with each other as well as being linked to, but not exactly the same as, the configurations and experiences of modernity and evangelical Christianity elsewhere.

Here then, through discourses around the Devil, the coming End of Days and individual connections with God, anxiety, wellbeing and the relationship between individuals and the world was negotiated through neoliberal ideas of risk and personal responsibility, and was situated within wider international structures and processes. As well as being informed by evangelical Christian constructions, understandings of risk and self were built on and linked to local experiences—lack of local power and government involvement, exposure to dangers with sources beyond the local, and changing position of individuals in relation to the Trinidadian state. Such local experiences might be seen both as a result of, and response to, neoliberal economic policies, and position such policies and circumstances within a decidedly religious moral framing. This is not a simple relationship between modernity and evangelical Christianity therefore, but an embedded and entangled one, situated both within the local context and linked to global systems, dynamics and events.

Rather than taking place in the background, neoliberal logic—a key driver of modernity—requires an active shaping and participation in its cosmology. Evangelical Christian discourses, including an apocalyptic narrative, promoted this participation, allowing people to frame contemporary life in a particular way with tools to act within this, but also shifting them from being locally-focused to more globally engaged with a neoliberal perspective and agency. It was a new way of dealing with the world around them, a culturally embedded cosmological framework. New situations demanding new magic is only part of the story—here novel life circumstances also brought a shift in orientation and cultural logic. As well as way of people ‘doing’ modernity then, this form of evangelical Christianity was also a way of modernity ‘doing’ them. ¹

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to my interlocutors who allowed me to join them in participating in everyday life in the village and who shared their stories and histories. Ethical permission to conduct this work was granted by the UCL’s central ethics committee. I am grateful for the comments of audience members at the Medical Anthropology seminar at UCL in developing the paper, particularly Daniel Miller and Roland Littlewood, and to the paper’s anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Note

Notes

1 I am indebted to Daniel Miller for this helpful point.