[Pictured: David Oyedepo gives a sermon at his megachurch in Nigeria.]
By Titilayo Odedele
There is something going on with Pentecostal churches.
In a time of the ascendance of neoliberalism, bourgeois institutions have failed and most radical and revolutionary formations have been severely compromised. In contrast, Pentecostal churches have thrived, welcoming millions around the world into their fold and keeping most. Why?
To begin to investigate this, we must first understand our current context. Neoliberalism is a form of capitalism marked by constant and fundamental economic crisis due to the intensive relationship it has to accelerating the accumulation of capital through deregulation (broadly defined as loosening of government regulations on labor, companies, and the goods they produce, and the like) and market liberalization (the process of removing government regulations on markets specifically, like preventing popular ownership of national assets and ending public support, which enables widespread access to goods, etc.), among other processes which lead to widespread precarity.
One way of qualifying the crisis-prone nature of capitalism is by analyzing Kondratieff waves, a controversial but substantive conception of long waves of capitalist growth and stagnation believed to occur every 40-60 years. Some argue that these cycles have shortened in recent decades, particularly with economic stagflation (stagnation and inflation occurring at the same time) occurring more frequently than in waves past. Alongside these market conditions is the receding social cushion for most people in most countries as states retreat from service provision in the name of cost-efficacy, resulting in increasing precarity. As these crises produce unrest, the state responds with increased repression and surveillance, and the ideological and politico-philosophical domestication of everything—including social change—facilitating and normalizing capital’s seeming inescapable commodification.
Despite their pervasive power, influence, and supposedly empirically-sound requirements for debtor countries, the Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF and World Bank made promises that did not bring about prosperity for most of the world. Further failures of neoliberalism include an unprecedented amount of scientific knowledge about the climate crisis, to the demise of ecosystems, some island societies, and in terms of capitalist interests, futures for certain products and supply chains.
One would think that an economic system which fails to live up to its own promises would be unpopular, particularly in the places where its policies have had the most visible failures in terms of a declining quality of life for most people in a society. In most African cases, however, neoliberal capitalism is seen as a winning mode of economic organization which simply has not been applied properly. This is particularly the case in Nigeria, where I am conducting my dissertation research. Nigeria has been a strategic Western ally since independence, with its indigenous, political, economic, religious, and military elite coordinating with the U.S. and U.K. in particular in order to stomp out ideologies which promote alternative ways of organizing the economy, like socialism and communism.
In light of the failures of political, economic, and military powers in Nigeria, and the particular confluence of the three in its specific history of (mostly reactionary) military coups, it appears that religious elites are the final standing source of traditionally legitimate power. Though they have been aligned with other elites who have lost public trust, they maintain it. Pentecostal pastors in particular enjoy dedicated adherents, political and international patronage. David Oyedepo (Africa’s richest pastor), Enoch Adeboye, Jerry Eze, Biodun Fatoyinbo, Paul and Betsy Eneche, and many others have even become capitalists themselves. They all have churches that are aligned with the so-called prosperity gospel message, preaching that health and wealth are the exclusive signs of divine favor and alignment.
Somehow, these pastors have managed to grow their churches by transforming neoliberal values into moral imperatives which their congregants take seriously. How they have managed to avoid becoming objects of scorn, and indeed, become objects of respect and social honor despite contributing nothing that improves the material conditions of most of their adherent is what I will continue to investigate. As a Nigerian-American, I feel the need to respond to Walter Rodney’s call to the people of the Global South: to study our societies with a Marxist methodology, we need to undertake serious study of the ways in which imperialism hides itself and capitalism lives its afterlives. Only then will we begin to be positioned to end its vice grip on the Continent and the Diaspora, and surely beyond.
This phenomenon appears in other conservative (in a Marxist sense) countries like the U.S., Brazil, the Philippines, South Korea, South Africa, and others in the Western axis of military and economic domination. This case of capitalists running churches isn’t new, but I would contend that the historical mixing of factors which has led us to this particular version of capitalist Christianity are worthy of attention from radicals of all stripes.
Titilayo Odedele (she/they) is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Northeastern University. Their research interests include global connections of sacralization of neoliberalism, imperialism, Pentecostalisms in the Global South, and related topics. She enjoys spending time with her partner, siblings, and dog.
References:
Amin, Samir. Neo-Colonialism in West Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.
Amin, Samir. "Understanding the political economy of contemporary Africa." Africa Development 39, no. 1 (2014): 15-36.
Bayat, Asef. Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2017.
Han, Ju Hui Judy. “Shiting Geographies of Proximity: Korean-led Evangelical Christian Missions and the U.S. Empire.” In Ethnographies of US Empire, edited by Carole McGranahan, and John F. Collins, 194-213. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.
Ogunbadejo, Oye. "Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960-87." African Affairs 87, no. 346 (1988): 83-104.
Rodney, Walter. Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution. New York: Verso Books, 2022.
