HomeOld_PostsBible as a tool for spiritual alienation: Part Seven …may God forbid!

Bible as a tool for spiritual alienation: Part Seven …may God forbid!

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THE theology of pentecostalism places the main emphasis on the holy spirit, like on pneumatology as opposed to Christology, but the Pentecostals are divided as to the ‘status’ of this spirit between ‘oneness’ and ‘Trinitarian’ Pentecostalists, i.e. on whether the one God merely has three manifestations or somehow comprises three persons – a dispute whose significance escapes non-believers such as the present author.
What further characterises their views is the emphasis on glossolalia, (speaking in tongues) as a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
What may explain its obvious appeal to Africans is the emphasis on praxis over theory and personal experience over dogma and the fact that it has been undogmatic and flexible enough to allow for a ‘syncretic’ co-optation of many indigenous African beliefs.
Pentecostal services are thus generally very emotional, sometimes – inducing trance-like altered states of consciousness.
What may also make pentecostalism attractive to Africans are the promises of empowerment and even enrichment of the followers (reminiscent, in some respects, of the bizarre Melanesian ‘cargo cults’), which is surely something with an appeal to poor and disempowered Africans.
In many respects, pentecostalism, as many other forms of evangelism, is thus directed towards an improvement in this world rather than to the after-life, perhaps even biased towards consumerism.
Indeed, Pentecostal ministers seem to make a point of flushing their prosperity as evidence of their being blessed.
The funeral of the Nigerian preacher, Benson Idahosa, thus featured a specially imported coffin, a US$120 000 tomb and a funeral cortege of expensive cars while the possessions of his church (Church of God Mission International Inc) were inherited by his wife.
Part of the explanation for such wealth may be the skillful use which the pentecostal churches have made of such modern media as television and video, pretty much like in the US.
The pentecostal churches are thus catering for a ‘market’, implying they must meet some basic needs of their constituencies.
One of these needs may be related to the aforementioned beliefs in witchcraft, sorcery and spirit possessions prevalent in all African societies.
Rather than simply rejecting such beliefs as heathen, pagan or heretical, pentecostalism has arguably embraced and co-opted them, interpreting spirit possession as the presence of a demon, thereby being able to offer its services for exorcism and deliverance in the name of God.
It has even been persuasively argued by one of the most prominent students of pentecostalism, Birgit Meyer, that the religion has been able to ‘disenchant the market’, for example, to remove the spells sometimes believed to be attached to ‘economically unobtainable’ commodities, but thereby actually, paradoxically and probably inadvertently, contributing the enchantment of the economy in a baroque and extreme form of the “commodity fetishism” and alienation analysed by Hegel and Marx.
She further criticises pentecostalism’s ‘gospel of prosperity’ for substituting symbolic assistance to the economic plight of their congregations rather than the actual social work undertaken by many other churches.
She thus recalls a fasting service in the Lord’s Pentecostal Church in Ghana, where she heard ‘the pastor ask all members to rise, close their eyes and fill in a cheque in their minds which was then sent up to heaven; the people were assured that God would sign this cheque and that they would, in the future, receive the money requested – if only they believed’.
While a certain ‘placebo effect’ is perhaps conceivable (say, if this ritual instills hope in the believer, allowing him or her to undertake, sometimes lucrative, economic ventures), it is surely not the most effective form of poverty alleviation.
In the final analysis, we can see that the imposition of anything, be it culture or religion in this case, can constitute nothing, but a threat to the social fabric of the subject people.
Today the African family is torn apart by different foreign religions and the children of Africa no longer speak the same language at family, community, national, regional and continental levels – all because of religions imposed on us.
May Mwari forbid!

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