Asamoah (2005) African Charismatics PDF
Asamoah (2005) African Charismatics PDF
Asamoah (2005) African Charismatics PDF
Edited by
Paul Gifford
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Marc R. Spindler
University of Leiden
Deputy Editor
Ingrid Lawrie
University of Leeds
VOLUME 27
African Charismatics
by
J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2005
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Photo cover: Praying hands in front of the ‘Prayer Cathedral’ of the first
Charismatic Church in Ghana, the Christian Action Faith Ministries
International founded by Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams in 1979.
The Prayer Cathedral was officially opened by His Excellency John A. Kufuor,
president of the Republic of Ghana, in December 2002 (used with permission)
ISSN 0169-9814
ISBN 90 04 14089 1
Preface ........................................................................................ ix
Abbreviations .............................................................................. xii
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
Chapter One Pentecostalism in Context ............................ 9
Chapter Two Prophetism and Renewal .............................. 36
Chapter Three Demystification of Prophetism ...................... 64
Chapter Four Democratisation of Charisma ...................... 96
Chapter Five Salvation as Transformation and
Empowerment ................................................ 132
Chapter Six Salvation as Healing and Deliverance ........ 164
Chapter Seven Salvation as Prosperity .................................. 201
Chapter Eight African Charismatic Spirituality .................. 233
J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
April 2004
ABBREVIATIONS
1
Harold W. Turner, Religious Innovation in Africa (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1979), 80, 82.
4 introduction
2
Sjaak van der Geest, ‘Participant Observation in Demographic Research.
Fieldwork Experiences in a Ghanaian Community’, in A.M. Basu and P. Aaby
(eds.), The Methods and Uses of Anthropological Demography (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1998), 40.
6 introduction
3
Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, second edition (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1997), 141.
8 introduction
4
Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow
Press, 1987).
CHAPTER ONE
PENTECOSTALISM IN CONTEXT
1
Wilbert R. Shenk, Write the Vision: The Church Renewed (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity
Press International, 1995) 12.
2
David B. Barrett, ‘AD 2000: 350 Million Christians in Africa’, International Review
of Mission, vol. 59 ( January 1970), 39–54.
3
Duncan B. Forrester, ‘Christianity in Europe’, in Sean Gill, Gavin D’Costa,
Ursula King (eds.), Religion in Europe: Contemporary Perspectives (Kampen: Kok Pharos,
1994), 34–45.
10 chapter one
4
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea
of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, second edition (London: Oxford University
Press, 1950), 3.
5
Forrester, ‘Christianity in Europe’, 40.
6
Adrian Hastings, ‘Christianity in Africa’, in Ursula King (ed.), Turning Points in
Religious Studies: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Parrinder (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990),
208.
7
Unless stated otherwise, references to Africa in this work refer to sub-Saharan
Africa.
8
Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth
Century, second edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997).
pentecostalism in context 11
9
Gary B. McGee, ‘Pentecostal Phenomena and Revivals in India: Implications
for Indigenous Leadership’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 20, 3 (1996),
112–117.
10
Frederick J. Conway, ‘Pentecostalism in Haiti: Healing and Hierarchy’, in
Stephen D. Glazier (ed.), Perspectives on Pentecostalism: Case Studies from the Caribbean
and Latin America (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1980), 7–26.
11
Walter J. Hollenweger, ‘Intercultural Theology’, Theological Renewal, 10 (London:
Fountain Trust, 1978), 4.
12 chapter one
for Pentecostal Studies, refers to the fact that, despite the cultural,
ethnic, linguistic and theological diversities of those constituting
Pentecostalism, the movement has generated a global culture with
shared features.12 Thomas therefore suggests encouraging the diverse
voices from all parts of the world that make up the Pentecostal family
not only ‘to find a voice’, but also ‘to speak their own theological
language, making their own contributions to the larger Pentecostal
family’.13
In applying an intercultural interpretation to Pentecostal history
therefore, we depart from approaches to the study of Pentecostalism
that present African participants as mere clones, consumers or imi-
tators of innovations that originated outside their context. Religious
movements are invariably shaped by the cultural and political milieu
in which they arise. The intercultural perspective has implications
for what it means to be Pentecostal because it calls for a broader,
more inclusive definition of Pentecostalism than one finds in the
thinking of some Western authors. The following personal working
definition of Pentecostalism is given with the intercultural perspec-
tive in mind:
Pentecostalism refers to Christian groups which emphasise salvation in
Christ as a transformative experience wrought by the Holy Spirit and
in which pneumatic phenomena including ‘speaking in tongues’, prophe-
cies, visions, healing and miracles in general, perceived as standing in
historic continuity with the experiences of the early church as found
especially in the Acts of the Apostles, are sought, accepted, valued,
and consciously encouraged among members as signifying the pres-
ence of God and experiences of his Spirit.
Pentecostalism is a stream of Christianity that emphasises experience
and so those who seek ‘membership’ do not have to go through a
catechism. What has been outlined in the working definition above
may be profitably regarded as the ‘core beliefs’ that a person has to
affirm or identify with, albeit experientially, in order to be regarded
as a ‘Pentecostal’. In the praxis of religion, there are thoughts and
practices that are self-evident only to those who are part of a specific
religious culture. So if, for instance, during a Pentecostal meeting a
12
John C. Thomas, ‘Pentecostal Theology in the Twenty-First Century’, Pneuma:
The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, vol. 20, 1 (1998), 3.
13
Ibid., 10.
pentecostalism in context 13
14
Lamin Sanneh, ‘Translatability in Islam and Christianity in Africa: A Thematic
Approach’, in Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E.A. van Beek, and Dennis L. Thomson
(eds.), Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression (London: James Currey; Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 1994), 41.
14 chapter one
In Ghana, where this study was conducted, some churches are declin-
ing numerically and others are enjoying new leases of life in the face
of challenges from a context that has become religiously pluralistic.
Myriads of new religious movements, many of non-Christian prove-
nance, operate in Ghana and so the growth in Pentecostalism is only
part of a national religious stirring. In the face of this religious
advance and mosaic, the contention of this research is that, in terms
of religious and theological influence, Pentecostalism at the moment
represents the most cogent, powerful and visible evidence of religious
renewal and influence in Ghana. I would argue that even the new
lease of life being experienced by some of the older churches in
Ghana is explicable in terms of their, albeit recent, tolerant and open
attitude towards Pentecostal phenomena and renewal movements in
their midst. This proliferation of Pentecostal movements in African
countries like Ghana highlights an important dimension of Barrett’s
observations that has not, in terms of current developments, attracted
the same scholarly attention as his general prediction of Christian
growth. Barrett postulated that the phenomenal growth in African
Christianity would weigh more in favour of ‘younger’ churches than
the ‘older’ Western ones.15 In the Ghanaian context, the ‘older West-
ern churches’ refers to churches standing in historic continuity with
Roman Catholic and Protestant missions that evangelised the coun-
try from the late fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries respectively.
These churches include the Presbyterian (1828), Methodist (1835),
Anglican (1904) and Roman Catholic (1482; 1880) denominations.
The Western European missionary heritage of these churches is evi-
dent in their imitations of Victorian-style architectural buildings, and
their retention of traditional Western mission patterns of ministry,
clerical accoutrements, liturgical forms and hymnody, creeds, and
infant baptism and confirmation as the principal means of initiation
15
Barrett, ‘AD 2000: 350 Million Christians in Africa’, 50.
pentecostalism in context 15
16
Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 2.
17
David Barrett, ‘Signs, Wonders and Statistics in the World Today’, in Jan A.B.
Jongeneel (ed.), Pentecost, Mission and Ecumenism: Essays on Intercultural Theology (Frankfurt
am Main: Peter Lang, 1992), 189.
16 chapter one
18
Andrew Walls, ‘Towards Understanding Africa’s Place in Christian History’,
in John S. Pobee (ed.), Religion in a Pluralistic Society (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), 182, 183.
pentecostalism in context 17
19
Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edin-
burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 106.
20
Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping
of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995), chapters
4–8.
18 chapter one
new Pentecostal churches averred: ‘no one can predict the future;
our movement is like waves which break on the seashore. If the cur-
rent ones fade, God will bring “a new visitation.”’ To speak of cur-
rent trends in Ghanaian Christianity, therefore, is to speak not just
of growth, expansion and influence, but also of schism, erosion and
decline. Indigenous Pentecostal movements in Ghana have prolifer-
ated in three main waves, as follows.
Sunsum Sorè
The first wave of Pentecostal Christianity in Ghana, the Sunsum
sorè, began in spontaneous response to the meteoric rise and par-
allel activities of a number of African prophets whose magnetic per-
sonalities and campaigns of revival and renewal drew masses into
Christianity. In Ghana, these great religious stirrings began in 1914
with the visit to the coastal town of Axim of the ‘Black Elijah’ of
West Africa, the Liberian prophet, William Wadé Harris. Casely
Hayford, a leading barrister, merchant and Methodist layman who
not only witnessed the Harris revival but was also believed to have
received baptism at the hands of the Prophet, is quoted as drawing
this conclusion about the impact of Prophet Harris: ‘This is not a
revival. It is a Pentecost.’21 Prophet Harris himself is said to have
described his conversion in terms of ‘the Holy Ghost [having] come
upon me’.22 The reputation of Harris went before him as he toured
West African coastal towns demonstrating the omnipotence of God
through manifestations of divine power in dramatic conversions, heal-
ing, prophecy, and deliverance from evil spirits and faith in the mate-
rial symbols of traditional religiosity.
Wherever it has appeared, Pentecostalism seems to emerge with
a strong anticipation of Christ’s imminent return. To those who
heeded his message to abandon their visible signs of traditional reli-
gion, Prophet Harris ‘promised deliverance, from a future judgement
of fire and a time of peace, concord, brotherhood and well-being
which was to come with the impending return of Jesus Christ to
21
Hans W. Debrunner, A History of Christianity in Ghana (Accra: Waterville Publishing,
1967), 271.
22
David A. Shank, Prophet Harris: The ‘Black Elijah’ of West Africa (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1994), 57.
20 chapter one
23
Ibid., 6.
pentecostalism in context 21
behaviour using criteria that are ‘external to the system’ under study.24
The significant variations within the older independent church move-
ment in Africa have led to the use of such classifications as ‘mes-
sianic’, ‘nativistic’, ‘separatist’, ‘spiritist’, ‘millennial’, ‘syncretistic’ and
‘protectionist’ which may be described as etic. I share the view of
scholars interested in the study of religion who underscore the value
of both the etic and emic approaches in behavioural analysis. However,
the etic approach could serve to give the individual movement ‘a
functional reasonableness’ or even castigate it as possessing dysfunc-
tional aberrant characteristics. In dealing with the issue of nomen-
clature in the study of religious movements therefore, scholars like
Wach recommend that the intention, motivation and central religious
orientation of the innovators be considered important factors that
make such movements unique.25 For example, contrary to the church’s
view of the second-century prophetic movement Montanism as irri-
tant and heretic, the prophets themselves, Montanus and his two
female associates Priscilla and Maximilla, saw their task as bringing
to the Catholic Church a ‘lost Pentecostal springtime’.26
In Ghana the so-called AICs appear in the literature as ‘Spiritual
churches’, a designation intended to underscore their pneumatic ori-
entation. To that extent our view is that the Spiritual churches share
the ethos of Pentecostal movements worldwide. In Ghana the pop-
ular vernacular expression for these churches is Sunsum sorè, where
Sunsum is Spirit and sorè is worship or church. They belong to the
same phenomenological type as Nigeria’s Aladura (‘praying churches’)
and South Africa’s Zionist churches. In talking to leading partici-
pants, the impression one gets is that the vernacular designation
Sunsum sorè appears to be the best approximation that Ghanaian
AICs reached in the perception of themselves as re-living the bibli-
cal Pentecostal experience in an African setting. The pneumatology
of the Spiritual churches this study has in mind is rooted in the
24
Kenneth Pike, ‘Etic and Emic Standpoints for the Description of Behaviour’,
in Russell T. McCutcheon (ed.), The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion
(London: Cassell, 1999), 28–36.
25
Joachim Wach, ‘The Meaning and Task of the History of Religions, (“Religions-
wissenschaft”)’, in Russell T. McCutcheon (ed.), The Insider/Outsider Problem in the
Study of Religion, 86.
26
Christine Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 39.
22 chapter one
27
Christian G. Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana: A Study of Some ‘Spiritual’ Churches (London:
SCM, 1962), 135.
28
Ghana Evangelism Committee, National Church Survey Update: Facing the Unfinished
Task of the Church in Ghana (Accra: GEC, 1993).
29
The Church of Pentecost, ‘Reports for the 7th Session of the Extraordinary
Council Meetings’ (Koforidua, Ghana, 22–26 April 1999), Appendix 1B.
24 chapter one
30
For more information on the nature and activities of this organisation, which
was also active in Nigeria, see J.D.Y. Peel, Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the
Yoruba (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 63–71; Harold W. Turner, History
of an African Independent Church I: The Church of the Lord (Aladura), (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1967), 10–26.
31
Peel, Aladura, 66–67.
pentecostalism in context 25
32
The UK-affiliated Apostolic Church of the Gold Coast was granted limited
autonomy by Britain in 1965, and full autonomy in 1985.
pentecostalism in context 27
33
Donald E. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1.
pentecostalism in context 29
34
GEC, Survey, 1993.
30 chapter one
35
C.G. Baëta, ‘Some Aspects of Religious Change in Africa’, Ghana Academy of
Arts and Science: Proceedings 9–10 (Accra: GAAS, 1971–72), 60; Adrian Hastings, A
History of African Christianity 1950 –1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979), 248, 261.
36
The observation was based on following up spiritual churches studied in
Winneba in the mid-1960s: Robert Wyllie, The Spirit-Seekers: New Religious Movements
in Southern Ghana (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1980).
pentecostalism in context 31
Charismatic Ministries
A third discernible trend within Ghanaian Christianity, one that is
central to this study, is the rise, growth, and theological influence of
the CMs. The CMs have taken centre stage in Ghanaian Christianity
and clearly constitute its most significant development in the last thirty
years. The identifying features of the CMs include: a special attrac-
tion for Ghana’s ‘upwardly mobile youth’; a lay-oriented leadership;
ecclesiastical office based on a person’s charismatic gifting; innova-
tive use of modern media technologies; particular concern with church
growth; mostly urban-centred congregations; a relaxed and fashion-
conscious dress code for members; absence of religious symbolism in
places of worship; English as the principal mode of communication;
and an ardent desire to appear successful, reflect a modern outlook
and portray an international image. The CMs have virtually replaced
the Sunsum sorè as the growth area of independent indigenous
Pentecostal churches in Ghana. In the light of this development, some
recent publications in a way misrepresent modern Africa by the fre-
quent references to the older African independent churches as par-
adigmatic of indigenous Pentecostalism.37 It is our view that indigenous
Pentecostal thought forms have been reinvented in the CMs. Gifford,
who criticises Cox for seeing the older AICs as still paradigmatic of
African Christian independency, is himself not entirely correct in
asserting that the Charismatic churches have ‘seriously depleted’ the
membership of the AICs.38 The CMs undoubtedly may have siphoned
off some members from the Sunsum sorè. There are examples of
Sunsum sorè that have metamorphosed into ‘Charismatic churches’
in order to survive. However, as this study seeks to demonstrate in
chapter 3, the causes of the decline of the Sunsum sorè cannot be
explained simply in terms of a massive drift into CMs. A glance at
the demographic composition of the Sunsum sorè and CMs would
reveal that the two versions of indigenous Pentecostals have different
clienteles. Ghana’s CMs tend to attract significant numbers of stu-
dents, well-educated young people and professionals. The Sunsum
37
The studies I have in mind include Cox, Fire from Heaven (especially chapter
12) and John S. Pobee and Gabriel Ositelu II, African Initiatives in Christianity: The
Growth, Gifts and Diversities of Indigenous African Churches —A Challenge to the Ecumenical
Movement (Geneva: WCC, 1998).
38
See Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (London: Hurst and Co.,
1998), 111. For the criticism of Cox, see Gifford, African Christianity, 33.
32 chapter one
sorè, on the other hand, have an older but often worse educated
membership, with the churches often dominated by adult women.
In the midst of the plummeting fortunes of the Sunsum sorè, the
CMs have been proliferating very quickly. Writing in the 1960s,
Baëta was perceptive in observing that prophetism appeared to be
‘a perennial phenomenon of African life’ and the powers emanating
from it, healing, revelations, prophecy and the power to bless and
curse, may well recur in African Christianity from time to time.39
These phenomena are indeed recurring in Ghanaian neo-Pentecostal
movements. In that respect the theological orientation of the CMs
may not be as discontinuous with that of the Sunsum sorè as the
CMs themselves would like it to appear. In both movements we have
contextual expressions of Pentecostal Christianity, which historically
arise within, and therefore are shaped and driven by, different socio-
cultural, political and religious circumstances. We encounter in both
movements the same quest for the demonstrable presence of the
Holy Spirit and a desire to respond to the problems and frustrations
for which Africans seek answers in the religious context.
In this study the expression ‘renewal’ has been preferred to its coter-
minous expression ‘revival’ in endeavouring to articulate the import
of innovations occurring within Ghanaian Christianity. Revival, like
renewal, presupposes articulating a response to flagging zeal and spir-
ituality. However Ghanaian Christians often spoke of revival in terms
that connoted corporate episodic religious activity consciously organ-
ised to restore spiritual vitality. Most churches in Ghana claimed
they organised occasional revivals sometimes in the form of camp
meetings to create and enhance their spiritual capacities. Renewal, on
the other hand, makes room for spontaneity in both individual and
corporate experiences of continuous religious reorientation. Renewal
connotes not just a restoration of the individual to God from nom-
inal Christianity or unbelief. It also aims at the reformation of what
religious innovators may consider an inadequate ecclesiological belief
system in order to make it conform to biblical Christianity as they
39
Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana, 6–7.
pentecostalism in context 33
40
Vinson Synan, The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic
Renewal, 1901–2001 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 16.
41
Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God (London: SCM, 1953), 87–88.
34 chapter one
was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule
of life, but a visible community’.42 This visible community of God
or the church militant, Newbigin further notes, is made up of mor-
tals who share the failures and shortcomings of the human race. In
spite of this, God does not abandon his church although it may be
full of things utterly at variance with his will.43
The recognition by Newbigin that the visible church has strengths
and weaknesses is crucial for our understanding and appreciation of
the vicissitudes in the life of the church in African Christian history,
which has had its fair share of schisms, fission and eruptions. The
failures of the church may have occurred as a result of human sin
and depravity, but Newbigin points out that the grace of God remains
sufficient and his power is made perfect, even in the weaknesses of
the visible Church. In spite of the weaknesses that may be discerned
in the life of the African churches, they remain, for their members,
testimonies to the interventions of God in history. God is perceived
as a God of renewal who through his Spirit continuously renews the
body of Christ. It is Newbigin’s thoughts on Pentecostalism as renewal
that are directly relevant to our study:
When the Church becomes corrupt and its message distorted, God
does raise up prophets to speak His word afresh, and groups in whom
His Spirit brings forth afresh His authentic fruits. When these new
gifts can be assimilated within the old structure they serve to renew
it all. But when a break occurs and a new structure is formed upon
the basis of the particular doctrine of the reformer, or the particular
spiritual experience of the group, something essential to the true being
of the Church has been lost. The body which results is inevitably
shaped by the limitations which mark even the greatest individual
minds. It necessarily lacks the richness and completeness which belongs
to the whole catholic Church.44
This is the hypothesis upon which this thesis proceeds in discussing
‘current developments within Ghanaian Christianity’. Each of the
movements to be discussed is upheld by members as a divine inter-
vention in the continuous re-shaping of Ghanaian Christianity. The
attention being given to indigenous Pentecostalism must not be mis-
construed to imply that traditional mission Christianity has ceased
42
Ibid., 27, 29.
43
Ibid., 29.
44
Ibid., 74.
pentecostalism in context 35
45
John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and Christian Mission (London:
SCM, 1972), 27.
CHAPTER TWO
This chapter advances the view that although the Sunsum sorè may
be declining quantitatively as noted in chapter 1, their qualitative
impact on Ghanaian Christianity continues through an enduring reli-
gious and theological heritage. In other words, as Sanneh points out,
their diminishing presence has not erased their unique contribution
to Africa’s Christian story. This heritage, discussed below, has been
delineated under the following themes: the initiation of an effective
inculturation process; the normalisation of charismatic experiences in
Christian expression and worship; a more practical view of the nature
of salvation; the use of oral theology; and an innovative gender ide-
ology. I would argue that these emphases in Sunsum sorè spiritual-
ity mark the distinctive theological contribution of these churches as
indigenous Pentecostal movements to the story of Christianity in
Ghana.
Much exists in the literature concerning the ‘Africanness’ of the
Sunsum sorè. However, for the Sunsum sorè themselves their reli-
gious innovations and experiences are interpreted through a hermeneu-
tic of biblical historical precedence. This self-perception is shared
with Pentecostalism in its global manifestations and hinges on the
belief that biblical Christianity can be restored and that the same
signs and wonders that followed the apostolic proclamation of the
1
Lamin Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1983), 180.
prophetism and renewal 37
2
Harold W. Turner, Religious Innovation in Africa: Collected Essays on New Religious
Movements (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1979), chapter 14.
38 chapter two
3
In the area of academic publications, Turner has served us well with his excel-
lent collection and subsequent publication of bibliographical material on these
‘prophet-healing’ churches as he calls them. See Harold W. Turner, Bibliography of
New Religious Movements in Primal Societies (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1977).
4
Hastings, ‘Christianity in Africa’, 204.
5
Bengt G.M. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1961), 17.
prophetism and renewal 39
Effective Inculturation
which the Christian faith can speak to the African situation in rel-
evant idioms. One of the key attractions of the Sunsum sorè has
been their ability to take traditional cosmology seriously. The result
has been a relevance that African Christians did not find in the
Western, mission brand of Christianity.
Although ‘being African’ was not the primary motivation of these
movements, the Christianity of Ghana’s Sunsum sorè is an ingenious
synthesis of Ghanaian traditional and Pentecostal beliefs and prac-
tices. Both indigenous Pentecostals and mission churches firmly reject
traditional religious practices as evil and demonic. This attitude under-
lies the point that the Sunsum sorè represented a turning away from
traditional resources of supernatural support to seek refuge with the
God of the Bible. In the process of turning away ‘from idols to serve
a living and true God’,6 however, certain fundamental features of
traditional cosmology have been retained in the spirituality of inde-
pendent Pentecostal movements. In chapter 1, one of these was
identified as the belief in an ‘alive universe’ populated by transcen-
dent benevolent and malevolent powers. Against this backdrop, evil
is not generally accepted as an inevitable part of life. Events are
generally believed to be mystically caused and so divination plays a
crucial role not only in revealing the meanings behind misfortune,
but more importantly in prescribing the ritual means to counter their
effects. On the retention of ritual action in the independent Pentecostal
movements of Africa, Ray explains:
Most rituals are therefore assumed to have an efficacious aspect; prayers
and offerings not only say things, they are supposed to do things. The
performative force of ritual speech and action is assumed to attract
benevolent powers and repel malevolent ones . . . Yoruba go to their
shrines to seek cures for their ills, answers to their questions, and guid-
ance in their lives. This pragmatic, ritually centred view of religion . . . is
not only fundamental to Aladura Christianity, it is fundamental to most
other African independent churches as well.7
The provision of an adequate and relevant response to the pastoral
needs of any community depends on the church’s ability to under-
stand the community’s culture and recognise how it is related to and
6
Baëta, Prophetism, 135.
7
Benjamin Ray, ‘Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion’, Journal of Religion in
Africa, vol. 23, 3 (1993) 268.
prophetism and renewal 41
8
Shank, ‘Black Elijah’, 6.
9
Noel Smith, The Presbyterian Church of Ghana 1835–1860 (Accra: Ghana Universities
Press, 1966), 265–266.
42 chapter two
10
K.A. Busia, Report on a Social Survey of Sekondi-Takoradi (London: Crown Agents,
1950), 80.
11
Emmanuel Milingo, The World In Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for
Spiritual Survival (London: C. Hurst and Co., 1984), 24, 25.
12
W.Z. Conco, ‘The African Bantu. Traditional Medicine: Some Preliminary
Observations’, in Z.A. Ademuwagun et al. (eds.), African Therapeutic Systems (Waltham,
MA: Crossroads Press, for African Studies Association, 1979), 72.
prophetism and renewal 43
ing is also evident in Western mission theology, but not so with the
Sunsum sorè who, by contrast, take seriously belief in the power of
witches, evil spirits and other mystical agents of sickness. Evidence
of this shared attitude lies in the recognition of the potency of herbal
medicines and their subsequent incorporation into Christian healing.
The use of herbs as an effective therapeutic source in Africa pre-
dates contact with Western science and medicine. Prophet Harris
advised that converts should pray when they gathered, prepared and
administered herbs, and that people treated with such herbs would
be healed.13 Because of their largely unproven scientific effects and
Western influence on Africa—both secular and Christian—there exists
a very strong aversion to traditional therapeutic sources including
the use of raw herbs in the practice of modern medicine. The result
is that traditional herbal medicine has never been fully integrated
into medical practice on the African continent. By integrating tra-
ditional herbal medicine into Christian healing, the Sunsum sorè
challenged Western perceptions on the use of herbs.
This positive attitude to herbal medicine in Christian healing by
the Sunsum sorè has an ingenious Christological import. One of the
central theological themes identified as defining ‘the basic gestalt of
Pentecostal thought and ethos’ is the belief in ‘Christ as Healer’.14
Pentecostals affirm healing as being integral to the ministry of Jesus
and that of the early church, viewing it as an essential part of the
salvation mediated by Christ to humanity. In the African traditional
context, medicine and healing are important functions of religious
leaders. Consequently there is an inseparable link between the med-
ical function of traditional priests and their credibility in African soci-
ety. In the theology of the Sunsum sorè, the centrality of healing in
both Pentecostal and African traditional religiosity is affirmed. Christ
is not only Saviour, Baptiser with the Holy Spirit and the soon
Coming King, he is also Oduyefo Kese —‘Great Healer/Physician’.
Christ is Great Healer not just in the general Pentecostal sense of
bringing healing through verbalised prayer and the ‘laying on of
hands’, but he also infuses the herbs collected from the forest with
power so that their curative effects might be fully operative. In the
traditional context, the gods and spirits are those relied on for that
13
Shank, ‘Black Elijah’, 180.
14
Dayton, Theological Roots, 24, 173.
44 chapter two
15
Kevin Ward, ‘Africa’ in Adrian Hastings (ed.), A World History of Christianity
(London: Cassell, 1999), 223.
16
Eric J. Sharpe, Understanding Religion (London: Duckworth, 1983), 60.
17
Ibid., 61.
prophetism and renewal 45
18
Ibid., 68.
19
Baëta, Prophetism, 35.
46 chapter two
20
Peter Hocken, ‘The Significance and Potential of Pentecostalism’, in Simon
Tugwell et al., New Heaven? New Earth?: An Encounter with Pentecostalism (Springfield:
IL: Templegate Publishers, 1976), 22.
prophetism and renewal 47
21
Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1993), 70.
48 chapter two
and communication with and from the divine. For people seeking
pastoral care and counselling, God may even provide directions
through dreams and visions. In fact this normalisation of body, soul
and spirit is partly the reason for the name Sunsum sorè, because
for them the manifestations of the Spirit of God through bodily
movements is anything but abnormal. They are visible signs of God’s
presence among his people.
22
J.G. McConville, ‘Renewal as Restoration in Jeremiah’, in Paul Elbert (ed.),
Faces of Renewal: Studies in Honour of Stanley M. Horton (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson
Publishers, 1988), 15.
23
Ibid.
24
Baëta, Prophetism, 134.
prophetism and renewal 49
25
Allan H. Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Pneumatology and African Power Concepts:
Continuity and Change?’, Missionalia, 19, 1 (1991), 71.
50 chapter two
makes the cripple walk, makes the sick whole, and puts evil spirits
and witches to flight.’ Sunsum sorè Christianity thus mediated a
more relevant Christology for the African context by advocating a
spirituality that can answer questions regarding the nature of the
Christ who, although not physically present within the world, is con-
cerned, through his Spirit, with what happens in human endeavours.
Such practical Christianity is what the Sunsum sorè stood for, as
noted by Turner:
it is the independents who help us to see the overriding African con-
cern for spiritual power from a mighty God to overcome all enemies
and evils that threaten human life and vitality, hence their extensive
ministry of mental and physical healing. This is rather different from
the Western preoccupation with atonement for sin and forgiveness of
guilt.26
Through the articulation of an interventionist theology in which
Christ is able to minister to the existential needs of people, the phe-
nomenon of ‘half-traditional/half-Christian’ in popular Ghanaian
opinion came to be associated more with members of the mission
churches than with the Sunsum sorè. The message of the Sunsum
sorè does not exclude the basic notion of salvation as redemption
from sin. The personal testimonies of many of the founders of these
churches provide cogent evidence of salvation as being inclusive of
the experience of personal transformation through the redemptive
activity of God. Testimonies of ‘personality transformation’ generally
not only articulate radical inner changes in personality, but also often
culminate in a remission of chronic physical complaints. Habits like
excessive drinking and sexual immorality are also dropped. It is said
of one such founder that before his transformation and call ‘he
smoked, drank and danced, had several wives and ridiculed his
mother’s loud prayers’. His conversion came after restoration to
health through prayer following a prolonged illness.27 The messages
of African prophets as seen in the experience of Harris did carry an
awareness of the sinfulness of humanity and the need for conversion
and baptism as a means of avoiding God’s judgement both in this
life and in the next. The sweeping judgement that Sunsum sorè sote-
riology is entirely this-worldly thus fails to do justice to the inclusive
26
Turner, Religious Innovation, 210.
27
Birgit Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 112.
prophetism and renewal 51
28
David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1990), 163.
52 chapter two
29
Walter J. Hollenweger, ‘From Azusa Street to the Toronto Phenomenon:
Historical Roots of the Pentecostal Movement’, Pentecostal Movements as an Ecumenical
Challenge, Concilium (1996/3), 4.
30
Louis Brenner, ‘“Religious” Discourses in and about Africa’, in Karin Barber
and P.F. de Moraes Farias (eds.), Discourse and its Disguises: The Interpretation of African
Oral Texts (Birmingham: University of Birmingham Centre of West African Studies,
1989), 87–105.
31
Brenner, ‘Discourses’, 87.
prophetism and renewal 53
lies the ‘credo’ of the believing community. This pattern was evi-
dent in the life of the early church. Thus, following the release of
Peter and John, the Apostles joined together in prayer. They not
only acknowledged the sovereignty of God, but also asked to be
enabled to speak God’s Word with boldness. For maximum effect
the Apostles requested a confirmation of their word with miraculous
acts: ‘Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs
and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus’ (Acts
4:23–30). Dickson attests to Sunsum sorè prayers being offered with
much feeling and providing insight into the offerers’ understanding
of the Christian faith.32 For as Lupo points out, such extempore
prayer is extremely reliable as representing the testimony to the reli-
gious ideas of those who utter them.33 ‘Collective oral prayer’ with
worshippers ‘all praying at once’, mostly in the vernacular or as a
mix with glossolalia, a characteristic feature of Pentecostal piety, was
introduced into Ghanaian churches by the Sunsum sorè. Meetings
are ‘led by the Spirit’ rather than through a rigid programme. This
makes allowance for spontaneity and the intervention of the Spirit
through ‘speaking in’ and interpretation of tongues, narration of tes-
timonies and revelations, many of which may have been received
during singing and prayer, and the interjection of sermons with
appropriate lyrics and choruses.
Another means of oral theologising among the Sunsum sorè is the
lyrical music form ebibindwom, literally ‘music/songs of Africa’. In the
use of lyrics for worship, as Dickson points out, the initiator or can-
tor is expected to be familiar with the Bible and must also be ‘the-
ologically aware’ in order to be able to fit the song into the preacher’s
message.34 What Dickson does not say is that, especially in the Sunsum
sorè, the ability to be a cantor is considered a Sunsum akyedze, a gift
of the Spirit. Most of it flows from spontaneous compositions. Thus
any time a service is punctuated with a lyric, worshippers are aware
that in responding they participate in an initiative of the Spirit to
32
Kwesi A. Dickson, Theology in Africa (London: Darton, Longman and Todd,
1984), 115.
33
Alessandro Lupo, ‘The Importance of Prayers in the Study of the Cosmologies
and Religious Systems of Native Oral Cultures’, in Jon Davies and Isabel Wollaston
(eds.), The Sociology of Sacred Texts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 83–93.
For this particular point see pp. 86, 87.
34
Dickson, Theology in Africa, 109.
54 chapter two
sing the praise and extol the works and might of God. On the the-
ological import of the lyrics Dickson observes: ‘The language is con-
crete and expresses the thought of a God who cares for the person
in all life’s situations, both spiritual and physical: he saves not only
from sin but also from the dangers of childbirth.’35 Oral theology in
general, as the use of lyrics shows, takes the irrational aspect of reli-
gion seriously, allowing for spontaneity based on a view of God’s
Spirit as real and communicating with his people in worship. Such
spontaneity is a marked feature of Pentecostal spirituality that enriches
the nature of worship. In place of reliance on a fixed programme,
the Spirit can be manifested in tongues, songs and prophecies, giv-
ing worshippers a sense of the presence of God.
This Pentecostal heritage, the preference for oral theological com-
munication, became one of the hallmarks of the Sunsum sorè from
the movement’s inception. Although they are in physical decline, the
enduring influence of the Sunsum sorè is still evident through the
oral mode of theological communication that they pioneered in
Ghanaian Christian discourse. In their self-definition, these churches
regarded their emergence as the restoration of spiritual power and
fervour to Christian worship. Activities and signs regarded as evi-
dence of the presence of the Holy Spirit as given by Baëta include:
rhythmic swaying of the body, usually with stamping to repetitious
music, . . . hand-clappings, ejaculations, poignant cries and prayers, danc-
ing, leaping, and various motor reactions expressive of intense religious
emotion; prophesyings, ‘speaking with tongues’, falling into trances,
relating dreams and visions, and witnessing, i.e. recounting publicly
one’s own experience of miraculous redemption.36
In the spontaneous worship form of the Sunsum sorè, the Spirit is
expected to guide worship and lead it in unpredictable directions.
As evidence of the Spirit’s presence, these churches composed bib-
lically based choruses, often emanating out of personal religious expe-
riences and made up of a few easily memorised phrases. With these
choruses, accompanied by hand-clapping, drums, gourd rattles and
other local instruments, the Sunsum sorè revolutionised Christian
worship and influenced other churches in the process. Thus, at a
time when the mission-founded churches were more inclined to main-
35
Ibid.
36
Baëta, Prophetism, 1.
prophetism and renewal 55
37
Adrian Hastings, African Catholicism: Essays in Discovery (London: SCM, 1989),
37, 49.
prophetism and renewal 57
38
I.M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, second edi-
tion (London: Routledge, 1989), 15.
39
Bennetta Jules-Rosette, ‘Symbols of Power and Change: An Introduction to New
Perspectives on Contemporary African Religion’, in Bennetta Jules-Rosette, (ed.),
The New Religions of Africa (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1979), 7.
40
John Christopher Thomas, ‘Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An Experiment
in Pentecostal Hermeneutics’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology, Issue 5 (1994), 41–56.
41
Teresa Okure, ‘Women in the Bible’, in Virginia M.M. Fabella and Mercy
Amba Oduyoye (eds.), With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 56.
58 chapter two
role for women as agents of the divine will, Okure’s suggestions are
not too far removed from those of Thomas. For the issue of women
to receive the same treatment as the Gentile question, Okure calls
on ‘God-inspired leaders’ who, taking their cue from Paul, would be
able to demonstrate on grounds of Scripture ‘that the sustained prac-
tice of excluding women is in truth opposed to the expressed will of
God.’42 Okure argues that on the basis of Scripture it should be pos-
sible to discern what God’s will for women really is.43 Her summary
is instructive:
To continue to exclude women from certain Christian ministries on
the basis of reasons inspired by outmoded Jewish taboos is to render
null and void the liberation that Jesus won for us, and which allows
no social and ritual distinctions between male and female, Jew and
Gentile, slave and free, since all constitute one person in Christ (Gal.
3:26–28).44
Thomas adduces evidence to show that the Christian community
acting under the guidance of the Spirit had a significant role to play
in the interpretation of contentious doctrinal issues facing the early
Christians.45 The experience of the Jerusalem Council, according to
Thomas, shows how the mind of God is made known to the larger
community through testimonies about the work of the Holy Spirit
in manifestations even among uncircumcised Gentiles. Based on this
Acts 15 experience, however, Thomas concludes that stories from
Pentecostal publications and Pentecostal communities around the
world testify to the fact that God has allowed women to do the work
of ministry in the Pentecostal revival.46 Indeed, Martin notes that
Pentecostal women ‘are among the “voiceless” given a new tongue
in the circle of Pentecostal communication’.47 Thomas’s article is
instigated by the fact that even among the Pentecostals the situation
is far from ideal. Thus, arguing for what Okure calls the ‘divine will
concerning women’, Thomas calls for a more inclusive attitude to
women in ministry, just as the Gentiles were accepted as part of the
community of believers.48 A remarkable feature of the New Testament
42
Ibid., 47.
43
Ibid., 47, 48.
44
Ibid., 55.
45
Thomas, ‘Women’, 41–56.
46
Ibid., 52.
47
Martin, Tongues of Fire, 166, 181.
48
Thomas, ‘Women’, 54.
prophetism and renewal 59
49
Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Musimbi R.A. Kanyoro, ‘Introduction’, in Mercy
Amba Oduyoye and Musimbi Kanyoro, (eds.), The Will To Arise: Women, Tradition,
and the Church in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995), 1.
50
Lamin Sanneh, ‘The Horizontal and Vertical in Mission: An African Perspective’,
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 7, 4 (1983), 167.
60 chapter two
51
Baëta, Prophetism, 135.
52
See Emmanuel Martey, African Theology: Inculturation and Liberation (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1995), 76–78.
62 chapter two
53
Presbyterian Church of Ghana ‘Report on Prayer Groups and Sects’ (1966), 3.
54
Ibid.
55
Ibid., 4.
56
Methodist Church, Ghana, ‘Report of the Committee on the Life of the Church
to the Annual Conference’, Representative Session Agenda (Sekondi, 1969), 34.
57
Ibid., 35.
prophetism and renewal 63
Great Healer, come and touch me. Heal my ailments that my strength
may be renewed for your service. Lord I am deeply troubled; deeply
troubled by spiritual sicknesses, anxieties, and worries. To many places
have I been in search of healing; but none has been of help. Come
Lord, release me from these spiritual ailments and troubles; that I may
enjoy the health, strength, and vitality needed to serve you.
The Sunsum sorè have brought to bear on Ghanaian Christianity a
distinctive spirituality of Pentecostal quality. By yearning for this very
spirituality, their ardent critics affirmed the Sunsum sorè as offering
a relevant theological response to the religious needs of the Ghanaian
Christian. The TWMCs’ response has reduced the ability of the
Sunsum sorè to proselytise from their ranks. The factors making for
the decline of the Sunsum sorè form the subject matter of the next
chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
DEMYSTIFICATION OF PROPHETISM
1
C.G. Baëta, ‘Some Aspects of Religious Change in Africa’, Ghana Academy of
Arts and Sciences Proceedings 9–10, 1971–1972, 59–60.
demystification of prophetism 65
2
Turner, Innovation, 65.
3
Ibid.
66 chapter three
4
G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, trans. J.E. Turner (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 650, 651.
5
Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts: Then and Now (Carlisle: Paternoster
Press, 1996), 339, 340.
68 chapter three
6
Quoted in Michael Wilson, The Church is Healing (London: SCM, 1966), 17.
7
Ibid., 18.
8
Otto, Holy, 157.
demystification of prophetism 69
9
Ibid., 127.
10
Harold W. Turner, From Temple to Meeting House: The Phenomenology and Theology
of Places of Worship (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1979), 9, 10.
70 chapter three
her Church. The case of the Jesus Divine Healing Church can be
taken as typical of the rise, experiences and decline of the Sunsum
sorè in Ghana. The causes of their decline have useful lessons in
independent indigenous church history and for understanding aspects
of current developments within Ghanaian Pentecostalism.
The history of the Sunsum sorè has been fraught with difficulties
generally symptomatic of religious movements in crisis. Among these
the deaths of founders around whose strong personality the move-
ment is normally built, death and relocation of members, and oppo-
sition from established religion may all affect membership in negative
ways. Because the Sunsum sorè did not have their own facilities,
meetings oft Traditional Western Mission Churches often took place
in public school classrooms owned by traditional mission churches.
In Ghana, opposition to Sunsum sorè from TWMCs was carried to
the extent that some were banned from meeting on government and
mission school premises. For any religious movement, some loss from
‘natural causes’ is unavoidable. An instance is the 1970 Ghana Aliens’
Compliance Order in which aliens were asked to leave the country.
Nigeria was one of the countries most severely affected by the Order.
There was hardly a village or town in Ghana without a community
of Nigerians. Not only was petty retail trading in Ghana dominated
by them, but the gold mines and cocoa farms also depended almost
entirely on their labour. Given that a number of Sunsum sorè, like
the Church of the Lord (Aladura), had been initiated in that country,
many of the patrons were also Nigerians. A number of Sunsum sorè
lost members and some churches operating under Nigerian leadership
even had to close. As another example, in Ghana, leading Sunsum
sorè figures seeking secular privileges had themselves co-opted as
uncritical patrons of governments. Their integrity was called into
question when they gave tacit support to policies that were morally
suspect, socially disastrous, counter-productive or economically oppres-
sive. Subsequently, when ruling governments were discredited, the
image of churches and church leaders providing them with legitimacy
through uncritical allegiance was also severely dented.11 Furthermore
11
For a useful study on the relationship between various Ghanaian governments
74 chapter three
and independent churches and their leaders see John S. Pobee, Religion and Politics
in Ghana (Accra: Asempa Publishers, 1991).
12
Peter Hocken, The Glory and the Shame: Reflections on the 20th Century Outpouring
of the Holy Spirit (Guildford: Eagle, 1994), 12.
13
Ibid., 6.
demystification of prophetism 75
14
Bryan Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1982), 29.
15
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, ‘“Missionaries without Robes”: Lay Charismatic
Fellowships and the Evangelization of Ghana’, Pneuma: The Journal for the Society of
Pentecostal Studies, vol. 19, 2 (1997), 167–188.
76 chapter three
16
Allan Anderson, Moya: The Holy Spirit in an African Context (Pretoria: University
of South Africa, 1991), 8.
17
Bryan Wilson, Magic and the Millennium: A Sociological Study of Religious Movements
of Protest Among Tribal and Third-World Peoples (London: Heinemann, 1973).
demystification of prophetism 77
sense, then, the Sunsum sorè sought to show that in the Christian
context a prophet, minister, pastor or leader among God’s people
must above all else be a man or woman of the Spirit. Yet particu-
larly from a New Testament perspective and more so in Pauline
thought, those who used their gifts were expected to affirm the ulti-
mate reason for the gifts, which is, to build up the body of Christ
(Romans 12:3–8). It will be argued in the next chapter that this
‘democratisation of charisma’ accounts not only for the growth, but
also for the style of ministry that differentiates the Sunsum sorè from
the CMs. Historical developments within the Sunsum sorè clearly
show that the strong mediatorial style of ministry could be critical
to the survival of the religious organisation. The loss of the leader
who is the pivot of the group, as happened with Nyamekye’s church,
often throws the church into disarray. A similar trend was encountered
at the Life and Salvation Church at Winneba, one of the churches
studied by Wyllie in the late 1960s. The founder’s death in April
1998 immediately sparked a leadership crisis. The founder’s son tried
to succeed his father, but the church decided that the founder’s
grandson, Prophet John C. Pratt, was more suitable for the position.
This decision infuriated the son, Apostle Peter Paul Pratt, causing
him to secede from the Life and Salvation Church. According to a
leading pastor of the church, more than half of their members have
left the church altogether. A further group of fifty persons also broke
away in 1998 to form Life Chapel International, a move modelled
on Charismatic churches.
Such secessions tend to occur mostly when the leader dies and
those closest to him or her, whether relations or co-workers, begin
to struggle for control of a ‘spiritual empire’, often motivated by the
economic resources available to such a successor. A similar trend
was discovered at the African Faith Tabernacle Church, popularly
known in Ghana as ‘Nkansah’ after the founder Odeyifo James Nkansah.
The founder died in 1987 and a contest among his children, nephews
and grandchildren has generated at least five factions. A core group
that survived in Anyinam is now led by Odeyifo Nkansah II. The
other factions are United Faith Church in Accra, Christ Faith Church
at Akroso, Christ Faith Tabernacle in Accra and United Reformed
Church at Akim Oda. On the face of it, it may appear that the
many factions help the Church to spread, but, as my informant
pointed out, the splits put the credibility of all the factions into ques-
tion with the result that each of them is struggling to survive. But
78 chapter three
the local body of Christ is expected to survive the demise of its most
charismatic leader. In significant instances involving Sunsum sorè,
this has not been the case. The personal charismatic authority of
the founder ensured the group’s unity in her or his lifetime or active
years. Incapacitation or death often led to secessions, or, as evi-
denced by the case of Jesus Divine Healing Church, a gradual decline
until the church became extinct. In other words the fate of the
Sunsum sorè became tied to the personal fates of their founders and
leaders, thus making it difficult for individual churches to endure
beyond the survival of the ‘men and women of God’.
The case of the African Faith Tabernacle demonstrates how the
over-dependence on the charismatic gifting of the founders of Sunsum
sorè made such churches uncontrollably schismatic. Schism and dis-
sension could occur through uncontrolled legitimisation of commu-
nication with the divine through visions and revelations. A consequence
of such claims to exclusive ‘communication with God’ is that every-
one who so indulges may form a new church, a possibility that poses
a constant threat of cleavage within a religious movement. The threat
does not lie so much in the claims to new revelation as in the non-
availability of arrangements to verify such claims. The possibility of
falsehood in charismatic manifestations is the basis of John’s injunc-
tion to the believing community not to believe every spirit, but to
test spiritual manifestations in order to verify whether they are from
God, ‘because many false prophets have gone out into the world’
(I John 4:1). More often than not, secessionist revelations are only
a veneer for discontent resulting from organisational and relational
problems with founders of churches. In the process of constant fission
and mutation, a number of churches were formed which consisted
of very few members, and in not a few cases only family members
and close associates. Many such have ended up as footnotes in the
history of the independent indigenous Pentecostal movements in
Ghana. Such unavoidable schisms also affected the integrity of the
movement as a whole, and the ability of the Sunsum sorè to func-
tion as credible Christian churches continued to be in question.
In telling the story of the rise and fall of the Jesus Divine Healing
Church, the issue of accountability was raised. An important function
of the body of Christ is for each member to be accountable to the oth-
ers. In the experience of the early church, believers (including leaders)
were expected to be accountable to the community in the exercise of
ministry. Such accountability did not exclude actions taken under specific
demystification of prophetism 79
18
F.W.B. Akuffo, ‘The Indigenisation of Christianity: A Study in Ghanaian
Pentecostalism’ (Unpublished D.Phil. thesis: University of Oxford, 1975), 371.
19
The Mirror, Saturday, May 25 (1996), p. 3.
80 chapter three
20
J.P. Kiernan, ‘Prophet and Preacher: An Essential Partnership in the Work of
Zion’, Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 11, 3 (1976), 363.
21
Bridget Levitt, ‘A Case Study: Spiritual Churches in Cape Coast, Ghana’, in
Asempa Publishers (ed.), The Rise of Independent Churches in Ghana (Accra: Asempa
Publishers, 1990), 62.
demystification of prophetism 81
22
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 83.
82 chapter three
often blurred the dividing lines between Christian ritual and tradi-
tional divination methods. For both the diviners and prophets, mis-
fortune was not seen simply as part of an isolated and random
sequence of events. Crisis was usually traced to unusual occurrences
in the environment of the client. In Ghana, a number of prophets,
like witch-finders, have been prosecuted for the maltreatment of
alleged witches. In such ordeals the prophets and their churches have
taken the role traditionally assumed by divination ordeals and anti-
sorcery movements. The earlier story of Kwesi Prah, who murdered
his mother on suspicion of witchcraft based on prophetic revelation
and diagnosis, is paralleled by that of Edmund Debrah Fleischer
who took similar action based on divination. Fleischer, a 38-year-
old plumber of Adabraka in Accra, had not been on speaking terms
with his brother-in-law, Abekah Sikafo Minnow, for three years
because Minnow had sued him in court for an alleged assault. After
the court action, Fleischer suffered a stroke and travelled to the
Republic of Benin for treatment at a fetish shrine. According to the
diviner’s diagnosis, it was his brother-in-law who was the cause of
his ailment. He made partial recovery after that, only to be inca-
pacitated by another disease at the beginning of 1990. Fleischer made
another visit to the same shrine for treatment where the diviner
confirmed that his brother-in-law had been ‘hunting him spiritually’.
Fleisher was also told that whenever he found rashes around his gen-
itals it was an indication of imminent death. In October 1990 Fleischer
claims to have seen the rashes around his genitals and, fearing that
death was imminent, waylaid Minnow and poured raw acid on him.
The chemical completely disfigured Minnow. Subsequently Fleischer
was arrested by the police and prosecuted for the offence.23 In these
two instances, we are confronted with identical diagnoses, one by a
Christian prophet and the other by a traditional diviner, with both
leading to tragic consequences for the victims and their families.
Since crises are often diagnosed as caused mystically or through per-
sonal moral defects, the prophet is effectively involved in appor-
tioning blame and responsibility.
In Prophetess Nyamekye’s case, treatment often involved dispensing
some strengthening substance like water, oil or a herbal preparation
23
Vance E.T. Azu, ‘Man Sprays Acid on In-Law for Alleged Bewitchment’, The
Mirror (8 December, 1990), front page headline.
84 chapter three
to protect the victim from further mystical attacks. The result is what
Turner describes as the ‘innocuous use’ of holy water, oil or sand
as physical agents for divine healing.24 The church therefore loses
its significance as a place of fellowship as people come in with these
things in mind. The practice of dispensing such substances that are
meant for use as ‘extensions of faith’ is fairly widespread among
churches belonging to the Sunsum sorè tradition. In one church,
Wyllie reports the wide use of prayer cards that are consecrated and
sold by the prophet. This prayer card, when applied to afflicted parts
of the body, is supposed to bring healing. Another church made use
of sunsum anhwia, ‘spiritual sand’, also designated as akodze, armour.
There was also sunsum semina, ‘spiritual soap’, consisting of a com-
pound of ordinary bathing soap, selected herbs and blessed by the
founder to be sold to members. These substances, when consecrated
by the Prophet, may then be mixed with holy water to form a paste
and applied to diseased part of the body to effect healing.25 It is not
just the extensive use of such faith extensions that are often a source
of concern for critical observers, but also the fact that they consti-
tute a source of income for the prophets who bless and dispense
these prophylactics. This ritual use of aids to prayer has been the
source of much criticism of the Sunsum sorè. Ritual needs to be
repetitive in order to achieve designated ends. This requirement of
exact repetition, Smart notes, ‘gives great prominence to formulae,
and gradually to the notion that the formulae become effective in
themselves’ thus imparting a manipulative character to ritual.26 The
therapeutic effect of rituals in African religions is not in doubt.
However, there is danger in such rituals leading to what may be
described as ‘obsessive-compulsive behaviour’. Rather than being
helped, people become ensnared by the pattern of rituals. They thus
become dependent more on the power of the rite and the person
who prescribes them than on the God in whose name and in whose
power healing is supposed to be effectual. Similarly the recognition
of angels as God’s messengers may not be without biblical prece-
dent, but again Paul attacks the gnostic veneration of angels because
24
Turner, Religious Innovation in Africa, 167.
25
Wyllie, Spirit-Seekers, 47, 88.
26
Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (London:
Fontana Press, 1997), 73.
demystification of prophetism 85
27
Reginald W. Bibby and Merlin B. Brinkerhoff, ‘The Circulation of the Saints:
A Study of People Who Join Conservative Churches’, Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion, vol. 12 (1973), 273–283.
86 chapter three
By the time Nyamekye died in 1994, the religious field had also
become very competitive. The Methodists and Presbyterians at Agona
Nsaba had, in response to the challenge posed especially by the Jesus
Divine Healing Church, revived their own ‘renewal prayer groups’
and so were largely holding their own. The CoP was also flourishing
and informants pointed to the fact that a considerable number of
people had shifted allegiance from Jesus Divine Healing Church to
the CoP. Nyamekye’s assistant joined a new Charismatic church
briefly when the prophetess died but has subsequently relocated in
Accra.
28
Gordon D. Fee, Paul, The Spirit, and the People of God (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1996), 185.
demystification of prophetism 87
29
Patrick J. Ryan, ‘The Phenomenon of Independent Religious Movements in
Ghana’, Catholic Standard (15–21 March, 1992), 6.
88 chapter three
enrich her life.30 In effect renewal groups offer members of the tra-
ditional denominations the same spirituality—miracles, prayer, proph-
ecy and healings—for which they would otherwise have consulted
prophets or worshipped in their churches. This may not have halted
the drift altogether, but it definitely reduced considerably the numbers
of people who looked to the Sunsum sorè for spiritual support.
30
Methodist Church Ghana, Representative Session Agenda (1969), 35.
demystification of prophetism 89
31
Rodney Stark, ‘Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail’, Journal of Contemporary
Religion, vol. 11, 2 (1996), 137.
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid.
90 chapter three
34
Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1989), 188–189.
35
Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Trans-
mission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 87.
36
Leonard, A Giant in Ghana, 64.
demystification of prophetism 91
and attributed the growth and expansion of the CoP to the hard
work of the African agents of the church. Dissemination of the gospel
in the vernacular has been one of CoP’s strongest points. Thus until
the CoP introduced a handful of English-speaking assemblies in the
mid-1980s, the church’s services were conducted almost entirely in
the local languages of the places where they were located.37 This
vernacularisation, which is given expression in the use of locally com-
posed choruses and songs, the narration of personal testimonies, pub-
lic Scripture reading, and the preaching of sermons, helps to give
the CoP a certain appealing simplicity found neither in the Assemblies
of God nor in many of the TWMCs. Much of this vernacularisation
may not itself be new, considering that Sunsum sorè services are
also in the vernacular. Its import as a source of attraction to the
CoP is best understood against the background of the CoP’s wider
demographic and geographic appeal, and in the context of the dwin-
dling public image of the Sunsum sorè. The CoP’s institutional struc-
tures also provide it with an air of permanence and stability that
some Sunsum sorè do not have. Accessibility, vernacularisation and
a decidedly Pentecostal spirituality make the CoP a preferred alter-
native to the ‘discredited’ Sunsum sorè which geographically may be
located just a few metres away from a local CoP assembly.
One of the most important areas in which the CoP has gained
an edge on the Sunsum sorè, and thus supplanted the activities of
many prophets, is in the ministry of healing and deliverance found
both in the local assemblies and at the national level. In order to
avoid some of the excesses, suspicions and abuses surrounding the
healing practices of Ghanaian prophetism, the CoP has institution-
alised, integrated and therefore brought under the Church’s admin-
istrative control the activities of those of their number manifesting
the gifts of healing and deliverance. In the process, some of these
healers seceded to form their own independent churches. However
the healing camps set up and run by recognised CoP healers con-
tinue to function and they remain among the most popular and
37
The English-speaking assemblies were introduced to cater for people in the
urban areas who might not speak the local language or who simply preferred that
option. It was also an attempt to provide a less conservative setting for younger
members who, as a result of the forces of modernity, had difficulty in identifying
with some of the CoP’s traditional restrictions, which included the covering of hair
by women, and the separation of men and women in church seating arrangements.
92 chapter three
respected in the country. The sick and afflicted from across denom-
inations patronise these CoP residential healing facilities as alterna-
tives to what the Sunsum sorè offer. The ministry of the CoP has
therefore helped to demystify ‘Prophetism in Ghana’ by hastening
the move of the Sunsum sorè from the centre to the periphery of
Ghanaian Christianity. This is not just because the CoP is offering
the same ‘services’, but also because they are doing so from a more
respectable position with institutional structures to cater for abuses
which undoubtedly occur.
Added to these, the CoP and CMs practise a degree of encapsu-
lation regarding association of their members with the Sunsum sorè.
Rambo uses ‘encapsulation’ with reference to a conversion strategy
in which the converted are discouraged from contact with the ‘out-
side world’ by creating ‘self-contained worlds’ through which the
process of conversion may be strengthened.38 Encapsulation may be
physical, a practice where members are isolated, as in the case of
the early missionary communities for local Christians called ‘Salems’
in Ghana. It may also be social, with converts being encouraged to
adopt patterns of lifestyle that limit significant contact with ‘out-
siders’.39 What the CoP and CMs practise in relation to the Sunsum
sorè is what Rambo refers to as ‘ideological encapsulation’ in which
members are inoculated against alternative or competing systems of
belief.40 Interviews conducted for this study, sermons, and deliver-
ance services in the CoP and CMs reveal that ‘ideological encapsu-
lation’ takes the form of vicious attacks on the Sunsum sorè as occult
and spiritist churches who manipulate their followers and drive them
along the paths of evil spiritual bondage. Those joining the CoP or
CMs from a Sunsum sorè, as will be shown in chapter 6, are thus
required as part of the conversion process to undergo a symbolic
severance from their former religious associations through the min-
istry of deliverance. The ideological encapsulation is part of the
demonisation of African religious culture and its strong denunciation
in Ghanaian Pentecostal hermeneutics as a ‘demonic doorway’. Be-
cause of the assimilation into their worship of certain practices, rit-
38
Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1993), 103–108.
39
Ibid., 106.
40
Ibid.
demystification of prophetism 93
41
Christian Messenger, August 1965.
42
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1976), 112.
94 chapter three
43
In 1989 for example, the PNDC government disbanded the 500–member
Onyame Sompa Church (God’s true worship) of Prophet Kwabena Ekwam for vari-
ous offences including alleged illicit affairs with some married female members. A
number of victims corroborated the accusations, and the government subsequently
acted on it.
demystification of prophetism 95
44
Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 157–158.
CHAPTER FOUR
DEMOCRATISATION OF CHARISMA
1
Juan Sepúlveda, ‘Reflections on the Pentecostal Contribution to the Mission of
the Church in Latin America’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology, Issue 1 (1992), 100.
2
Through the 1970s, Oral Roberts’s religious programmes were broadcast on
Ghana television, and continued until 1982.
democratisation of charisma 97
3
Paul Gifford, ‘Ghana’s Charismatic Churches’, Journal of Religion in Africa, vol.
24, 3 (1994), 241–265.
98 chapter four
The three names mentioned at the beginning of the chapter are rep-
resentative of some of the key personalities and associated factors
that directly spawned the CMs in Ghana. Oral Roberts represents
the North American (foreign) factor, Benson Idahosa the African
inspiration and model, and Duncan-Williams the local person and
pioneering founder of a Charismatic ministry in Ghana. These new
independent churches cherish the different transnational and inter-
national streams and networks to which they belong. There may be
an undeniable foreign, mainly North American, inspiration behind
the efforts of African neo-Pentecostals in general. In Ghana this inspi-
ration is particularly evident in its Bible School culture and media
consciousness. This influence is the basis for recent conclusions that
the CMs are an American importation.4 Brouwer, Gifford and Rose
4
Gifford is one of the main proponents of this view. See Gifford’s various pub-
democratisation of charisma 99
deny that the Christianity evolving through the CMs ‘is a genuinely
African construct, arising from African experience and meeting African
needs’.5 Contrary to this view, I would argue that the CMs reflect
modern African ingenuity in the appropriation of neo-Pentecostal
Christianity enamoured with a repertoire of global, mostly American
neo-Pentecostal techniques, style and strategy in organisation and
expression. In Ghanaian eyes, North America, with its technological
superiority and material abundance, epitomises modernity. For a reli-
gion that seeks to be modern and preaches material abundance as
a sign of right standing with God, as the CMs do, what comes from
America is a great source of enchantment and inspiration. The core
of the message of Ghanaian CMs is not American as such. It is the
way it is expressed that betrays a predilection for the style of American
media evangelists.
The internationalism of the CMs is in one sense an inevitable
consequence of religious globalisation. Technological advance makes
possible the flow of ideas from one culture to another, producing,
as Wilson observes, ‘a new kind of relativism in men’s thinking’.6
The mass media play a crucial role in this by revealing models and
styles from other contexts which may easily become the norm for
similar movements elsewhere. In October 1998, Ron Kenoly, the
celebrated African-American gospel singer, was invited to hold a
gospel concert at the Christ Temple of the International Central
Gospel Church, Accra. The event, dubbed ‘Make Us One’ and spon-
sored by the local JOY FM radio station, attracted about 3,000
Christians, mainly from the charismatic sector. It affirmed the global
view that the CMs take of their movement and the inspiration they
receive from their international leanings. For in Africa’s charismatic
movements the use of the media, Hackett points out, acts as ‘a tool
of expansion’ and ‘a reflection of globalising aspirations’.7 Preaching
8
For a study on the phenomenon see Gerrie ter Haar, Halfway to Paradise: African
Christians in Europe (Cardiff: Cardiff Academic Press, 1999).
9
J.P. Kiernan, ‘Modernity and the African Independent Churches in South
Africa’, Journal of African Christian Thought, vol. 2, 1 (1999), 20.
democratisation of charisma 101
chance that all the churches in question have either ‘global’ or ‘inter-
national’ in their names. In Ghana the popular ones include Inter-
national Central Gospel Church, Global Revival Ministries, Word
Miracle Church International, Resurrection Power Ministries Inter-
national and Living Praise Ministries International. The existence of
the CMs may therefore be interpreted in ‘incarnational’ terms. This
in our thinking means paying attention to the diffusion of global
influences, but, more importantly, highlighting the authenticity of the
CMs as part of the indigenous innovation in the appropriation of
(Pentecostal) Christianity in a modern African context.
Some work has been done on the origins of the CMs. Samuel
Adubofour’s unpublished Ph.D. thesis, ‘Evangelical Parachurch
Movements in Ghanaian Christianity’, is the product of extensive
research on the evangelical personalities and parachurch movements
whose activities have contributed in no small measure to the rise of
the neo-Pentecostal movement in Ghana.10 Kingsley Larbi’s study,
‘The Development of Ghanaian Pentecostalism’, complements Adubo-
four’s work. Larbi pays considerable attention to the development of
indigenous Pentecostal churches that have come from a classical
Pentecostal background. The historical section of Larbi’s work on
the CMs deals mainly with the particular case of the International
Central Gospel Church. The work of the two researchers may be
considered ‘emic’. They are not only participants in some of the
Christian traditions they discuss, but their respective works are also
based on very useful primary data obtained through extensive fieldwork.
Much of what follows comes from personal fieldwork material and
acquaintance. References are also made to the two theses in an
attempt to arrive at a synthesised summary of the collective history
of Ghana’s CMs.
10
See Samuel Adubofour, ‘Evangelical Parachurch Movements in Ghanaian
Christianity: c. 1950 to Early 1990s’, Ph.D. thesis: University of Edinburgh, 1994.
102 chapter four
11
For the Nigerian story, see Matthews A. Ojo, ‘The Growth of Campus
Christianity and Charismatic Movements in Western Nigeria’, unpublished Ph.D.
thesis: University of London, 1986.
12
John Stott, Evangelical Truth: A Personal Plea for Unity (Leicester: Inter-Varsity
Press, 1999), 15–39.
democratisation of charisma 103
SU and GHAFES
The tremendous influence of the SU in particular on Ghanaian
Christianity is evident in how the movement’s name and affiliation
with it became conterminous with conservative evangelicalism. SU
fellowships from the 1960s became the main nondenominational
Christian organisations operating in Ghana’s post-primary educa-
tional institutions. In the secondary schools, they were known as SU.
In the tertiary institutions they were known as the Ghana Fellowship
of Evangelical Students (GHAFES) and belonged to the global
International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). In order to
sustain the evangelical persuasion of SU and GHAFES members as
they settled into working life, around the early 1960s some of the
former graduates initiated home fellowships mainly for prayer and
Bible study. These were mainly urban-centred and attracted former
members of SU and GHAFES from the various institutions of learn-
ing who were now in employment. By the late 1960s to the early
1970s, the home fellowships had grown and so were transformed
into what eventually became known as Town Fellowships. In pur-
suance of the principle of ‘responsible church membership’, Town
Fellowships met outside regular church worship hours. Members
came mainly from traditional mission churches to augment their spir-
itual life, deepen their knowledge of the Bible and share fellowship
with like-minded evangelical Christians. Such spirituality was felt by
participants to be absent from the very denominations which evan-
gelicals had been encouraged to stay in and help revitalise. The
impact of the evangelical fellowships was also felt in workplaces as
members of Town Fellowships organised lunchtime prayer and Bible
study meetings for their colleagues.
Through the 1970s, it became evident that members of SU and
its affiliate organisations were becoming increasingly Pentecostal in
character and orientation. Emphasis was increasingly on the baptism
of the Holy Spirit with the experiences of speaking in tongues, prophe-
cies and healing miracles. This was particularly evident in the activ-
ities of these groups on university campuses, where religious life and
activity enjoyed freer expression. A gap thus gradually developed,
and widened with the years, between official SU policy on the Holy
Spirit and what was being experienced at the grassroots by the gener-
ality of members. One of the main activities of GHAFES is the
annual university mission, a major evangelistic outreach programme
104 chapter four
13
Billy Graham, ‘The Holy Spirit’, in The Collected Works of Billy Graham (New
York: Inspirational Press, 1993), 367–368, 369.
democratisation of charisma 105
14
John Goldingay, ‘Charismatic Spirituality: Some Theological Reflections’, Theology
(May/June 1996), 179, 180.
15
Ibid., 183.
106 chapter four
16
Sundkler, Bantu Prophets, 17, 18.
17
Wilbert R. Shenk, ‘The Contribution of the Study of New Religious Movements
to Missiology’, in A.F. Walls and W.R. Shenk (eds.), Exploring New Religious Movements:
Essays in Honour of Harold W. Turner (Elkhart, IN: Mission Focus, 1990), 191.
democratisation of charisma 107
18
Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals: The Charismatic Movement in the Churches
(London: SCM, 1972), xxviii.
108 chapter four
talents that lay dormant or, in the case of those who were not believ-
ers, had been channelled into playing in hotel dance bands and at
bars. Second, the musical instruments they employed were at the
time condemned by the traditional Christian community as unsuit-
able for Christian worship because of their use in secular places and
for profane purposes. The teams travelled to other African countries
and created an awareness within African Christianity of the poten-
tial of disseminating the gospel in modern cultural idioms. They also,
through the incorporation of diverse musical abilities into Christian
service, underscored the fact that the spiritual gifts available to God’s
church need not be limited to those specifically mentioned in the
New Testament. If there is validity in Cox’s belief that the roots of
both jazz and Pentecostalism are to be found in Africa, then the
evangelistic style of the music teams of the 1970s and 1980s repre-
sented a great and ingenious recovery for Ghanaian Christianity.19
Following this tradition, music using modern Western instruments
now defines the very substance of worship in Ghana’s CMs. Pastor
Mensa Otabil of the International Central Gospel Church once
remarked that the efforts of JWI over the years marked what he
referred to as ‘a major revolution’ in the way Christian worship is
conducted in Ghanaian churches. In a souvenir brochure to mark
the Silver Jubilee of JWI, Otabil also wrote as follows: ‘This is not
an anniversary for you alone but for the entire Body of Christ. Your
contribution will continue to remain in the annals of church history
in Ghana.’
19
Cox, Fire from Heaven, 148.
democratisation of charisma 109
Through Agbozo many in our generation got fired up and carried the
brand. In the classical Pentecostal churches, speaking in tongues was
sporadic and limited. In SU, where most of us had been trained, speak-
ing in tongues was even opposed, but through Agbozo, many of us
were baptised in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues freely. He
encouraged us to use our spiritual gifts.20
Enoch Agbozo claims a Presbyterian parentage. He was ‘born again’
in 1968, and his conversion was followed by baptism in the Holy
Spirit which was manifested in speaking in tongues. Following this
experience, he had brief stints with the Apostles Revelation Society
and later the Apostolic Church. Agbozo became a well-known figure
as an itinerant evangelist to schools, colleges and universities around
the country. In 1973, he established the evangelical/Pentecostal para-
church fellowship, Ghana Evangelical Society, based in Accra. The
main activity of GES was a weekly Friday all-night prayer vigil to
which scores of young people were attracted. GES vigils offered
opportunity not only for prayer, but also for Pentecostalist activities
such as Holy Spirit baptism accompanied by speaking in tongues,
baptism by immersion, the unrestrained exercise of gifts of the Spirit
and evangelism. This pneumatological emphasis was something that
Agbozo thinks the evangelical face of Ghanaian Christianity repre-
sented by the SU lacked. For, according to Agbozo, one his main
ambitions was to ‘Pentecostalise’ evangelicalism through the youth.
The exposure of young evangelicals to charismatic experiences thus
contributed to the growing dissatisfaction with SU restrictions on the
Holy Spirit, virtual marginalisation of the Spirit in the traditional
churches and the ‘ordered’ acceptance of spiritual manifestations in
classical Pentecostalism. These are the church traditions to which
many of the young people and students belonged. In 1980, Agbozo,
who was influenced somewhat by the American evangelist Morris
Cerullo, instituted a church for the growing number of GES all-
night vigil participants. These patrons of GES activities were people
who either remained ‘un-churched’ or were simply unwilling to go
to church because their spiritual experiences were unwelcome. In
Accra, some found ‘a place to feel at home’ at the Calvary Baptist
Church, then under the leadership of the charismatic African-American
pastor, Rev. Steve Williams. Agbozo called his initiative, ‘House of
20
Personal communication.
110 chapter four
21
Ruthanne Garlock, Fire in His Bones: The Story of Benson Idahosa (South Plainfield,
NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1981), 148.
112 chapter four
the young people had received, there was no place for them’. In
their dilemma, Duncan-Williams says,
Many of [the young people] came back to me, they did not know
how to fully use their baptism of the Holy Spirit in worship, so in
May 1979, I decided to give them a place to worship . . . we started
with Saturday afternoon revival meetings, but, after Saturday, there
was no where to go, they were lost because they had to go back to
the old churches.
As the pressure of the young people mounted and in his desire to
see the new anointing given the fullest expression, Duncan-Williams
finally decided to form a church:
In May 1980, I took a courageous move under divine guidance. I was
called to pioneer a new move of God, there was nothing like a charis-
matic church at the time, . . . I started the Sunday morning services
for the people . . . this was something nobody had done before, Enoch
Agbozo, did not have churches . . . so I gave the people going through
the Holy Spirit experience a place to worship and use their gifts.
In the years following this innovation, Duncan-Williams’s pioneer-
ing move was to have a tremendous effect on Christianity in Ghana
as his initiative inspired several other ministries. The message the
new CMs carried was very similar to that which media evangelists
like Roberts and Idahosa carried around the world. It was a mes-
sage that affirmed the goodness of God and his desire to work mir-
acles in the lives of believers. This message was proven through the
insistence on the need for personal encounters with God, the real-
ity of baptism of the Holy Spirit and the right that Christians had
to communicate with God and interpret Scripture without relying
on any trained theologians or spiritual leaders claiming arcane sources
of power.
22
Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism.
114 chapter four
23
Ibid., 157–158.
democratisation of charisma 115
With this polemic, the leadership of the new CMs deflated the SU
‘responsible church membership’ policy. Such polemics against SU
groups in particular were inevitable because of the gap between their
pneumatology and that of the CMs. The CMs thus encouraged peo-
ple to leave their ‘dead’ and ‘irrenewable’ churches, including asso-
ciation with parachurch organisations, and transfer their allegiance
to the burgeoning CMs. In each case the leadership claimed members
of fellowships wanted more than just a Bible Study group, a gospel
music group, a prayer fellowship, more than a non-denominational
evangelistic organisation: they wanted a church. Over the years the
CMs have increased through the formation of new churches, inci-
dental branches and splits. Splits do not always occur as a result of
differences. Most of the ‘splits’ occurring within CMs are controlled.
‘New visions’ to form churches are recognised as signifying an authen-
tic call from God. Potential leaders seeking to be independent may
therefore be sent away with special anointing services dedicated to
the purpose.
24
The takeover of missionary schools by the government began with Kwame
Nkrumah’s Accelerated Development Plan for Education in 1951. For full discus-
sion on this and its implications, see John S. Pobee, Kwame Nkrumah and the Church
in Ghana 1946–1966 (Accra: Asempa Publishers, 1988), chapter 5.
116 chapter four
25
Wilbert Shenk, ‘Mission, Renewal, and the Future of the Church’, International
Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 21, 4 (1997), 154.
democratisation of charisma 117
26
Cox, Fire from Heaven, 104.
27
For example, when American evangelists T.L. and Daisy Osborn visited Ghana
in 1984, Agbozo was away in Europe. One of his assistants had been nominated
to serve on the Osborn crusade planning committee. The pastor gave T.L. Osborn
the opportunity to give a series of teachings at GES. The focus of Osborn’s teach-
ing was that the Pentecostal experience must always and constantly be validated with
miracles, particularly by the leader. According to Agbozo, by the time he returned,
this teaching had resulted in secessions led by four members, out of which secessions
four charismatic churches had been started. In Agbozo’s estimation, this teaching
on miracles had the effect it did because, although the Holy Spirit was moving at
GES and House of Worship, Agbozo was not performing many spectacular miracles.
118 chapter four
28
At the time the leadership of Calvary Road Inc. insisted that their constitu-
tion did not permit them to associate with a church. They could not hold on for
long. A year or two after their former president had seceded to form the Living
Streams Ministries, Calvary Road itself became the Harvesters Ministries International.
democratisation of charisma 119
29
The practice is not unique to Ghana. See Cox, Fire from Heaven, 273, 276, 277.
120 chapter four
30
Joseph Eastwood Anaba, God’s End-time Militia: Winning the War Within and
Without (Accra: Design Solutions, 1993).
31
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratisation of American Christianity (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1989), 57.
democratisation of charisma 121
the Great Awakenings of the 1740s, the new religious reformers kept
faith with the political spirit of the times, and, according to Hatch,
relentlessly hammered the themes of sin, grace and conversion and
‘denounced any religion that seemed bookish, cold or formal’.32 These
religious developments occurred within the ambience of democratic
political revolutions. Consequently, much of the revolutionary rhetoric
crept into the language of new religious movements emerging at the
time.33
With reference to ‘revolutionary rhetoric’, it is ironic that the rise
of the neo-Pentecostal movement in Ghana coincided with the first
populist military insurrection led by Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings in
1979, the ‘June Fourth Revolution’. The period from 1978 through
1983 was one in which independent Ghana was confronted with one
of her harshest economic realities. The closing years of the Supreme
Military Council government following years of economic misman-
agement threw Ghana into economic, social and moral chaos. This
chaotic situation was not helped by severe droughts that resulted in
nation-wide bush fires, famine, poverty and squalor. The economy
was on the brink of collapse, and bribery and corruption had led
to widespread moral decay in Ghanaian society. Corruption became
virtually institutionalised during the General Acheampong era (1972–
1979) as it became increasing difficult to make ends meet without
acquiescing to its evils. ‘Kalabule’ (‘clear bully’, i.e., unfair advan-
tage?) crept into popular language as an expression for profiteering,
corruption, black marketeering, creation of artificial shortage of essen-
tial goods through deliberate hoarding and thereby aggravating already
galloping prices of scarce commodities.34 These were days in which
Ghanaians had to queue for necessities including milk, sugar, rice,
toiletries and fuel. The situation has been appropriately described as
‘sickening’. There was ostentatious display of ill-gotten wealth by a
few. Top officials including government functionaries issued ‘chits to
young women who paraded the corridors of power offering them-
selves for libidinal pleasures in return for favours’.35
32
Ibid., 71.
33
Ibid., 7.
34
Opinions are divided on what ‘kalabule’ actually means. Some think it is a
derivative of the Hausa expression kere kabure meaning ‘keeping it quiet’; others think
it is a corruption of ‘corner and bully.’ For these thoughts see, Joshua N. Kudadjie,
Moral Renewal in Ghana: Ideals, Realities and Possibilities (Accra: Asempa Publishers,
1995), endnote 94, 88.
35
Ibid., 31.
122 chapter four
Among the interpretations given for the hardship of the times was
the fact that it was God’s judgement on the country for the immoral-
ity of the government and nation, particularly the elite. Others inter-
preted the situation as a fulfilment of an Old Testament curse on
nations that fraternised with Libya as the revolutionary government
of Ghana was doing. The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi,
had become one of the strongest allies of Rawlings’s revolutionary
government. This was a strategic alliance. Rawlings had failed to
gain acceptance in the West, particularly the USA, so by identifying
with the Libyan revolution he managed to secure for Ghana scarce
logistic support, especially crude oil, from that country. Prophecies
abounded in those days with the unanimous theme that God was
calling Ghana to repentance. When seen in the light of Old Testament
salvation history the call to repentance had a measure of theological
credibility. A favourite scripture around which many prayer meetings
were initiated at the time was II Chronicles 7:13–14,
When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command
locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my
people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray
and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear
from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
It is to the credit of the Ghanaian Christian community in general,
and to the burgeoning neo-Pentecostal movement at the time in par-
ticular, that it drew attention to the spiritual implications of the trou-
bled times that had come upon the nation. But the general Christian
interpretation that the suffering was due entirely to the sins of the
nation and her leaders only served to divert attention from the eco-
nomic causes of the nation’s woes. This interpretation indirectly
served to absolve the government from assuming direct responsibil-
ity for the nation’s troubles.36 The Kutu Acheampong government
responded with a call to a week of national prayer and repentance.
It became public knowledge that the Head of State had also developed
an obsessive indulgence in superstitious consultations of spiritualists
and the acquisition of other occult sources in the frantic search for
solutions to the ills of the country and for his personal security.37
36
John S. Pobee, Religion and Politics in Ghana: A Case Study of the Acheampong Era
(Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1992), 7.
37
Ibid.
democratisation of charisma 123
38
The encouragement sought for and received from Daisy Osborn by the women
is particularly instructive. The Osborns were visiting Nigeria at the time when Daisy
received a letter from the Ghanaian Christian women requesting her to ‘come and
encourage us in our plight’. She responded and her visit led to a four-day revival
crusade in Accra in August 1983. It was after this that the small group of about
ten Christian women decided to maintain the group eventually culminating in the
formation of Women Aglow, Ghana. For details and history, see Kwabena Asamoah-
Gyadu, ‘“Missionaries Without Robes”: Lay Charismatic Fellowships and the
Evangelisation of Ghana’, Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, vol.
19, 2 (1997), 167–188.
124 chapter four
39
Anaba, Militia, vii.
40
Otabil has since recanted some of the harsh words spoken at the time. He
now acknowledges having gone too far in denouncing the traditional mission churches
during the formative years of the CMs.
democratisation of charisma 125
political development of Ghana.41 The fact that the CMs have been
able to evangelise only in areas where traditional mission churches
already exist is testimony to the important foundations that these
older churches have laid for the gospel. The attacks of the CMs also
overlooked the fact that the traditional churches were generations
old and that post-first-generation Christians almost inevitably tend
to build their Christianity around beliefs inherent in institutionalised
Christendom. In what is traditionally referred to as Jesus’ High
Priestly prayer, he asks his Father on behalf of the disciples: ‘May they
be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent
me . . .’ ( John 17:23). In other words, it is in the unity of the Christian
community that the world might come to believe in the integrity of
the mission of Jesus. By attacking a cross section of the Christian
community, the CMs created a gulf between themselves and the mis-
sion churches that did not help Christian witness in Ghana.
In God’s End-Time Militia, Anaba, like Otabil before him, compares
the CMs to the ‘regular army’, overthrowing the traditional churches
because of their complacency, compromise and ineffectiveness, just
as Rawlings had overthrown the military government of the Supreme
Military Council in the first coup and the democratically elected gov-
ernment of Dr Hilla Limann at his ‘second coming’. The CMs, on
the other hand, are likened to the Civil Defence Organisation (CDO),
set up by the Rawlings revolutionary government as a grassroots
paramilitary movement to champion the cause of the revolution.
Thus the standing prayer team of the Solid Rock Chapel is named
the ‘Striking Force’—a name borrowed from the still operational
anti-armed-robbery police squad. The real Striking Force of the
Ghana Police Force was set up during the heady days of the Rawlings
revolution to instil a tough approach into policing as the traditional
police had become corrupt, compromised and inefficient.
Anaba notes that, because the members of the CDO are selected
from the ordinary citizenry, they are better disposed to identifying
with the feelings of the people they are called upon to help. In a
euphemistic reference to the traditional churches, he says the ‘reg-
ular army’ is distant from the people. Their long period of training
and confinement to the barracks, he continues, separates them from
41
See for example, S.K. Odamtten, The Missionary Factor in Ghana’s Development
1820–1880 (Accra: Waterville Publishing, 1978).
126 chapter four
42
Anaba, Militia, 4–5.
43
Ibid., 4.
44
Ibid., 3.
45
An instance of this is the School of Theology and Mission of Central University
College and the Bible School of Christian Action Faith Ministries, where significant
numbers of lecturers are drawn from the Trinity Theological Seminary owned by
the traditional mission churches.
democratisation of charisma 127
Two main themes, also evident in the nature of the CMs generally,
may be delineated as recurring in the self-definition of these churches
as offered by Anaba. These are first, that God has raised the CMs
as his ‘end-time militia’ to empower members to fight Satan and the
forces of darkness, stumbling blocks to the world’s redemption.
Through victory over these forces, God’s people will be free to enjoy
the abundant life that God promises in Christ. The mode of artic-
ulating a response to evil is taken up in chapter 6 on ‘healing and
deliverance’. What concerns us here is how the self-definition of the
CMs marks out their concept of ministry as different from that of
existing Christian traditions, which is the second main theme evi-
dent in the definition outlined above. The people God has raised as
his ‘end-time militia’ are not trained specialists like priests but ordi-
nary men and women who through their experience of God’s Spirit
share in the work of ministry. The CMs thus constitute a new priest-
hood born of the Spirit. Through this ‘end-time militia’ God is sup-
posedly carrying out a revolution by ‘overthrowing human traditions
from the Church’. The reference to human traditions here has to
do with the over-concentration of ‘priestly power’ in the hands and
personalities of ordained clergy who may not necessarily be people
of the Spirit.46 By extension, such ‘democratisation of ministry’ includes
in principle the de-legitimisation of the reliance on what Eliade calls
hierophanies, that is, any special sacred places, sacred persons, pri-
vate home altars or any sacred objects and images considered to be
imbued with special capabilities to mediate the sacred or the pres-
ence of God.47
46
Anaba, Militia, 97, 100.
47
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Significance of Religious Myths, Symbolism,
and Ritual within Life and Culture (San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1959), 11–12.
128 chapter four
48
Anaba, Militia, 1.
democratisation of charisma 129
49
Ibid., 1.
50
James D.G. Dunn, ‘Ministry and the Ministry: The Charismatic Renewal’s
Challenge to Traditional Ecclesiology’, in Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. (ed.), Charismatic
Experiences in History (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1985), 81–101.
51
Ibid., 81.
52
Ibid., 83.
130 chapter four
why the principle of ministry in the CMs dispenses with the depen-
dence on mediatory services, ‘cultic’ centres and substances as sources
of spiritual power. This democratisation of charisma or ministry is
built on the dominant theological image in Pauline ecclesiology of
the church as the ‘body of Christ’. Here each member is expected
to function in his or her spiritual gift in order that ‘the body’ can
function charismatically (Romans 12:4–8; Ephesians 4:7–16).53 This
democratic, diffused and inclusive praxis of ministry is premised on
the Pauline meaning of charisma as functions, words, or actions that
contribute to the corporate life of the Charismatic community.54 Paul
not only highlights the diversity of spiritual gifts, he also emphasises
the role that every Christian has to play in their practical manifes-
tation and functioning. If charisma is not the preserve of a few, it
is also not, according to Dunn, restricted to particular sets of clearly
defined gifts, for ‘whatever word or act mediates grace to the believ-
ing community is “charisma”’.55 In practice the CMs create room
for the recognition of people who are specially anointed by God to
provide leadership by recognising the ‘regular ministries’ as listed in
Ephesians 4:11–12.56 The bottom line here is that in the midst of
the recognition of the ministry of those called to lead, practical
expression is also given to the ministries of the laity whose active
role in the body of Christ in the context of the shared experience
of the Spirit is duly recognised.
The democratisation of charisma, therefore, has made the style of
ministry in the CMs a task-oriented one. This style of ministry is
one in which, instead of relying on hierarchies of ministers or on
so-called extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, the laity have been mobilised
on the basis of their spiritual gifts and talents to minister in the
power of the Spirit in leading worship, personal evangelism, heal-
ing, deliverance and others. There is much reference in traditional
Western denominations to the priesthood of all believers and to the
ministry as belonging to the ‘whole people of God’. In spite of this
the ordained clergy in these churches hold a virtual monopoly over
things pertaining to ministry just as the prophets of the Sunsum sorè
53
Ibid., 82. See also Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle, pp. 553, 554.
54
James D.G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the
Character of Earliest Christianity, second edition (London: SCM, 1990), 110.
55
Dunn, ‘Ministry and the Ministry’, 82. Italics in original.
56
Dunn, Unity and Diversity, 112.
democratisation of charisma 131
SALVATION AS TRANSFORMATION
AND EMPOWERMENT
1
John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (London:
Macmillan, 1989), 14.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 133
Salvation in Context
2
Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective, 27.
3
Hick, Interpretation, 10.
4
Ibid., 14.
134 chapter five
this mission on his business card in the biblical verse ‘filling the earth
with the knowledge of his glory’ (Habakkuk 2:14). Such statements
articulating the visions of pastors for their ministries and found on
business cards are not uncommon among Ghana’s Charismatic pas-
tors. Another pastor expresses his vision as follows: ‘reaching Africa
and the world with the Word and strong Bible-based local churches’.
These mission statements are basically saying the same thing. For
most of those whose stories are examined as part of this study,
renewal comes in the form of salvation from sin and, in true African
understanding, from one’s spiritual enemies, that is the devil, evil
spirits, witchcraft and other such inimical forces who are only out to
‘steal, kill and destroy’ the children of God ( John 10:10). Subsequently
people testify to having been transformed and empowered to live
lives devoid of fear and intimidation from what the Bible refers to
as ‘rulers, authorities, powers and spiritual forces of evil in the heav-
enly realms’ (Ephesians 6:12). It is with a related vision in mind,
according to Pastor Otabil, that the church he founded was named
‘Central Gospel’. The International Central Gospel Church, like the
others, aims to restore to the world a renewed emphasis on the mes-
sage and nature of the Christian salvation that is central to the gospel
but which, like the experiential emphasis on the Spirit, lies neglected
in established Christianity. What this chapter and the next two do
is attempt to reconstruct the basic understanding of aspects of the
theology of salvation of the CMs, based on messages preached, songs,
testimonies, observations, publications, interviews and conversations
with participants.
Some of the most informative moments of this research have come
from observations made during times of ‘ministration’ and ‘praise
and worship’ at neo-Pentecostal gatherings. Ministration, as was
explained in chapter 4, refers to what happens at the climax of meet-
ings when people are prayed for, so that what is preached at any
particular gathering may have concrete effect in their lives. In other
words, the CMs encourage experiential participation in biblical or
doctrinal truths. Testimonies abound of people experiencing various
liberating signs and wonders during ministration. In one instance a
woman who had been infertile for five years of marriage claims to
have felt ‘something heavy’ fall out of her womb. It was discovered
later that in due course she did in fact give birth, which confirmed
her own interpretation of that experience.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 135
5
Juan Sepúlveda, ‘Pentecostalism as Popular Religiosity’, International Review of
Mission, vol. 78, ( January 1989), 82.
136 chapter five
Salvation as Transformation
The message of Pentecost is about salvation. For, according to Joel’s
prophecy, when the Spirit is poured out ‘everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord will be saved’ ( Joel 2:32). When asked about what
had changed since joining a Charismatic church, most participants
talked about having come to ‘know God better’. In almost all cases,
coming to know God better meant that participants in the CMs, by
confessing sins, by accepting Jesus as Lord, and by dedication through
inviting Jesus into their lives, had developed a new intimacy with
God through Christ. This new intimacy therefore results from what
the Charismatic message presents as a non-negotiable critical tran-
sition involving conscious commitment that transforms all loyalties.
The transition made from ‘the world’ to Christ is what was often
referred to in testimonies as being born again, saved or converted.
In conversion Jesus Christ, who, to adopt an expression from William
James, was originally on the periphery, now becomes the ‘habitual
centre of a person’s energy’.6 This new intimacy with Jesus, Charis-
matic respondents often asserted, was something they did not realise
in their previous religious affiliations. Most of the time, people talked
about having been baptised as infants, having been confirmed, and
having been regular as communicants and yet deep within them-
selves feeling that there was something lacking as far as relationship
6
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Penguin Books edi-
tion, 1982), 196.
138 chapter five
with God was concerned. The bottom line in Bishop Asare’s and
other such testimonies is that in the CMs salvation is expected to
be a decisive transition resulting in personal transformation, that is,
a new life with a new lifestyle. Paul sees this change, involving a
confessional commitment to the lordship of Jesus, as important and
expresses it variously as justification, redemption, liberation and free-
dom. Those who make such a commitment are described as citizens
of heaven and a new creation (Romans 5:9; Philippians 3:20; II
Corinthians 5:17). In the conversion experience the individual who
becomes born again, as Asare’s testimony seeks to indicate, casts off
old identities and through personal and social rebirth becomes incor-
porated into Christ as well as a new community of believers.
Thus salvation involves God’s response to human sin as well as
the way in which the saved relate to the world. So Van der Leeuw
speaks of conversion as constituting ‘new birth’ embodying an ‘inner
experience’ that must correspond to an ‘outer process’.7 The theo-
logical point being made by the CMs about the importance of such
testimonies emphasises that one cannot bring about ‘a new creation’
merely by being religious, joining a church as part of one’s parental
heritage or by being confirmed. It is more than paying church dues,
or tithes. This theological point is analogous to John’s injunction to
the Jews that, in the new dispensation inaugurated with the coming
of Jesus, their Abrahamic heritage counted for nothing and that to
enjoy the benefits of the kingdom they were required to ‘produce
fruit in keeping with repentance’ ( John 3:7–8). For the CMs such
religious duties as paying tithes and supporting God’s work are still
considered necessary, and are expected to be the natural outflow of
the experience of conversion and renewal. It is expected that renewal
will lead to new ethical principles. This meant for Paul bearing the
‘fruit of the Spirit’ and implied entering into a life that was radi-
cally different because it was empowered by the Spirit (I Corinthians
6:18–20; Galatians 5:16–24). The ethical rigor of the CMs, as we
will argue later, helps believers to deal with the moral relativism and
permissiveness of modern society. Testimonies abound of how the
religious experience of salvation has led to cessation from drunken-
ness, lies, cheating, quarrelsomeness, gossip, bribery, smoking, forni-
7
G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1963), 529.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 139
8
Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (London: Hurst and Co., 1998), 90.
9
Ibid. 89–90.
140 chapter five
10
Luther P. Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine, ‘Five Factors Crucial to the Growth
and Spread of a Modern Religious Movement’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
vol. 7, 1 (1968), 32.
11
Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism, 72.
12
Margaret Peil and K.A. Opoku, ‘The Development and Practice of Religion
in an Accra Suburb’, Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 24, 3 (1994), 208, 211.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 141
13
Robin Horton, ‘African Conversion’, Africa, vol. 41, 2 (1971), 86–108; ‘On the
Rationality of Conversion’, Parts I & II, Africa, vol. 45, 3 (1975), 219–235, 373–399.
14
Birgit Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 109.
15
Ibid., 161–162.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 143
16
Otto, Holy, 19, 20.
17
Frances Young, ‘Salvation and the New Testament’, in Donald English (ed.),
Windows on Salvation (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1994), 35–36.
18
John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission
(London: SCM, 1972), 37.
144 chapter five
19
John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, revised edition (London: SCM
1977), 260.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 145
20
See for instance C.G. Baëta, The Relationships of Christians with Men of Other Living
Faiths (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1971).
21
Kwesi A. Dickson, Uncompleted Mission: Christianity and Exclusivism (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 4.
22
See my study, ‘Traditional Missionary Christianity and New Religious Movements
in Ghana’, especially chapter 4 on the neo-Hindu movement, Sai Baba.
146 chapter five
ing case because, on the one hand, neo-Pentecostals do not find the-
ologically acceptable the central place that icons and the mediation
of saints play in Roman Catholic theology. On the other hand,
Roman Catholics have in response to a growing and almost uncon-
trollable phenomenon tried to accommodate neo-Pentecostalism within
their ranks through the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement.
23
For this see Peter Hocken, ‘Charismatic Renewal in the Roman Catholic
Church: Reception and Challenge’, in Jan A.B. Jongeneel (ed.), Pentecost, Mission and
Ecumenism: Essays on Intercultural Theology (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992),
301–309.
148 chapter five
24
For examples from Latin America, see David Stoll, Is Latin America Turning
Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1990), chapter 2.
25
S.U. Erivwo, ‘A Consideration of the Charismatic Movement Among the
Urhobo and Isoko Speakers: 1929 To Date’, Orita, vol. 15 (1983), 26.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 149
26
Martyn Percy, Power and the Church: Ecclesiology in an Age of Transition (London:
Cassell, 1998), vii.
152 chapter five
27
David Maxwell, ‘“Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty?”: Pentecostalism, Pros-
perity and Modernity in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 28, 3 (1998), 354.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 153
28
Mensa Otabil, Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia: A Biblical Revelation on God’s Purpose
for the Black Race (Accra: Altar International, 1992), 12.
29
Ibid.
154 chapter five
Empowerment as Anointing
In the CMs, empowerment is also spoken of in terms of an ‘anoint-
ing’ that the Spirit bestows on the believer, especially those who are
called to lead. Although individual Christians are encouraged to seek
the anointing of the Spirit in addition to the baptism of the Spirit,
the leader is always expected to have the anointing in special mea-
sure. Anointing, it is thought, makes a leader’s ministry extraordi-
narily effective. One of the main proponents of anointing theology
is Nigerian Charismatic pastor David Oyedepo whose Accra branch
of Winners’ Chapel, established in Ghana in 1997, has become one
of the largest in Ghana’s capital. He writes that ‘every believer
requires the anointing for sustenance, performance, success, break-
through and fulfilment’. Levels of anointing, Pastor Oyedepo con-
tinues, also make the difference between the impact preachers make
on audiences and so ‘two people may preach the same message, but
have different results’.30 This is a view that Ghanaian Charismatic
pastors share. In Ghana people flock to Charismatic churches where
they perceive the anointing to be, and this was the explanation given
by some of those flocking to Winners’ Chapel. The line between
‘anointing’ and ‘power’ appears very thin indeed. The meaning is
best captured through occurrences that members of CMs ascribe to
the anointing. Consider, for instance, an incident narrated by Pastor
Mensah of the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministry when asked about
the meaning of anointing. On the last day of a week’s evangelistic
crusade he had felt spiritually and physically drained after much
preaching and ministration. On this final day, the crowd was thicker
than usual. Mensah managed to preach, but, finding himself lack-
ing the physical strength needed for ministration, he just shouted
through the microphone, ‘Lord! Release your anointing’. What fol-
lowed, he said, was screaming, falling, that is, being ‘slain in the
spirit’, shouting, loud piercing cries and spontaneous confessions of
sin, weeping and other pneumatic manifestations. Mensah explained
that through the anointing the Spirit accomplished what would have
30
David O. Oyedepo, Anointing for Breakthrough (Lagos: Dominion Publishing House,
1992), 63.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 155
31
Ibid., 173.
32
Anaba, Militia, 10–11.
156 chapter five
33
Ibid., 11.
34
Van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, p. 35.
35
Morris Cerullo, The New Anointing (San Diego, CA: Morris Cerullo World
Evangelism, 1975); Benny Hinn, The Anointing (Milton Keynes: Word Publishing,
1992).
salvation as transformation and empowerment 157
36
James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1998), 580, 581.
37
Ibid., 581, 582.
162 chapter five
38
Baëta, Prophetism, 6–7.
salvation as transformation and empowerment 163
39
Turner, Innovation, 98, 241.
CHAPTER SIX
1
Cheryl Bridges Johns, ‘“Healing and Deliverance”: A Pentecostal Perspective’,
in Pentecostal Movements as an Ecumenical Challenge, Concilium, 1996/3, 45–51.
salvation as healing and deliverance 165
2
Emmanuel Martey is author of African Theology: Inculturation and Liberation (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1995). He teaches at Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Accra.
Since returning to Ghana from his Ph.D. studies at Union Theological Seminary,
USA, Martey has identified very strongly with the ‘healing and deliverance’ movement.
166 chapter six
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to
pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And
the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord
will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore con-
fess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may
be healed.
On the basis of this and other passages referred to below, Ghanaian
proponents of the healing and deliverance phenomenon generally
believe firmly in a causal relationship between sin, the work of demons
and sickness. This is why healing is tied to deliverance. Deliverance
means more than exorcism, the expulsion of evil spirits. It has to
do with freeing people from ‘bondage’ to sin and Satan. To be ‘in
bondage’ could mean being possessed or merely being oppressed by evil
spirits. In the healing and deliverance hermeneutic, possession refers
to altered states of consciousness, conditions in which suffering or
‘unnatural behaviour’ is deemed to be the result of an invasion of
the human body by an alien spirit. In that condition the ‘executive
faculties’ of the victim come under the control of the invading spirit
or demon. Oppression on the other hand refers to suffering or frus-
trations in life, including insomnia, poor financial management, fre-
quent illness, failure to receive business contracts or even lack of
academic progress, all of which may be interpreted as resulting from
satanic or demonic activity. Victims of oppression may not neces-
sarily be possessed, although possession and oppression could occur
in the same victim. The difference between possession and oppres-
sion in healing and deliverance hermeneutic is often illustrated using
two incidents in the gospels. The Gadarene demoniac was possessed,
for he is described as ‘a man with an evil spirit’ and his actions
were involuntary. Subsequently Jesus actually casts out the evil spirit
(Mark 5:1–20). On the other hand the woman with a bent back is
described as having ‘been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years’.
Her infirmity is later attributed to Satan (Luke 13:16). In her case
however, the usual signs of uncontrollable behaviour associated with
the possessed are absent. The woman’s infirmity is thus often cited
as a classic case of satanic oppression (Luke 13:10–17).
premises with olive oil. Hours after this ritual, it is claimed, poten-
tial tenants came rushing, some even offering to pay more than the
asking price.
In healing and deliverance theology, sickness, possession and oppres-
sion have one thing in common: they are all perceived as instru-
ments of the devil in denying people, especially believers, the realisation
of God’s ‘fullness’ or ‘abundance’ of life in Jesus Christ. If the radical
experience of new birth does not bring fruitfulness and prosperity to
the Christian, or the Christian continues to live in fear, then he or
she may be under a curse.5 Derek Prince defines a curse as:
something like a dark shadow or an evil hand from the past—oppress-
ing you, pressing you down, holding you back, tripping you up, and
propelling you in a direction you do not really wish to take. It is like
a negative atmosphere that surrounds you which seems to be stronger
at some times than others but from which you are never totally free.6
This is a view shared by the Ghanaian exponents of the ministry of
healing and deliverance. One of them, Rev. Fr Kwaku Dua-Agyeman,
advises Christians going through ‘inexplicable problems’ not to con-
sole themselves with the idea that ‘it is a cross’ they are bearing or
liken their difficulties to ‘Paul’s thorn in the flesh’. Initially ordained
as an Anglican priest, Dua-Agyeman is the founder of Rhema World
Outreach Ministries, based in Kumasi, Ghana. His view is that
repeated failure in life, poverty, indebtedness, terminal illness, infer-
tility, failure to secure a suitable spouse and other such conditions
do not glorify God in any way. Suffering, he thinks, is at variance
with the nature of the God ‘who gives us all things to enjoy.’7 This
widely shared view among deliverance experts carefully avoids biblical
passages in which suffering is not taken away, but the victims are given
grace to endure it. A recent experience at a ‘Breakthrough Meeting’
for business people at the Christian Action Faith Ministries may serve
to illustrate this point. The message for the evening was delivered
by a leading member, described as a ‘successful businessman’. His
message stressed reorganisation, re-planning, and re-channelling of
5
So write Frank and Ida Hammond, The Breaking of Curses (Plainview, TX: Impact
Christian Books, 1993), 17.
6
Derek Prince, From Curse to Blessing (Ft. Lauderdale, FL: Derek Prince Ministries
1986), 16–17.
7
Kwaku Dua-Agyeman, Covenant, Curses and Cure (Kumasi, n.p., 1994), 13.
170 chapter six
8
The Challenge Enterprises Limited is a parachurch organisation originally set
up in 1956 by the Sudan Interior Mission and in 1975 passed to a Ghanaian man-
agement. It sells Bibles and other Christian literature, mostly imported from Western
Europe and North America, at discounted prices. Challenge Enterprises has outlets
throughout Ghana and also runs a film ministry for schools, small towns and vil-
lages. They also serve as local agents for the daily Bible reading aids of Radio Bible
Class.
salvation as healing and deliverance 171
the organisers, has been to equip Christian leaders for ministry, focus-
ing on ‘prayer and renewal’. In practice however, the emphasis has
been on ‘healing and deliverance’. Participation in the ‘prayer and
renewal’ conferences is trans-denominational and aims at introduc-
ing church leaders and pastors to the dynamics of spiritual warfare.
Speakers are normally international personalities renowned for their
involvement in the ministry of spiritual warfare. Recent names have
included Mark I. Bubeck and Sam Tippit from North America and
the Nigerian Charismatic lawyer Emeka Nwankpa.
The prominence of the healing and deliverance phenomenon has
also been heightened by the availability of local and foreign publi-
cations on the subject. The management of Challenge Enterprises
acknowledge that such books are very popular with their Ghanaian
customers. In 1988, Nigerian evangelist Emmanuel Eni’s Delivered
From the Powers of Darkness, in which he recounts his involvement with
the occult and the spiritual underworld, became a bestseller in Ghana.9
A number of the pastors of Charismatic churches, including Bishop
Matthew Addae-Mensah of Gospel Light International Church, who
trained in Nigeria with Archbishop Benson Idahosa, returned from
there as strong exponents of the healing and deliverance hermeneu-
tic. Parachurch movements like the Full Gospel Business Men’s
Fellowship International and Women Aglow also provide the plat-
form for the dissemination of the ministry of healing and deliver-
ance message.
9
Emmanuel Eni, Delivered from the Powers of Darkness, second edition (Ibadan:
Scripture Union, 1988).
172 chapter six
mermaid and supposed head of the marine spirits with whom satanic
covenants are made, is especially prominent in such testimonies.
Maame Wata, who is portrayed as having a female upper body with
the tail of a fish, is often referred to in Ghanaian neo-Pentecostal
hermeneutic as the ‘Queen of the Coast’. She prefers her spirit to
be embodied in women. Such women usually display an insatiable
greed for worldly goods and entice men with their charming beauty
only to bring them to ruin. It is thus not uncommon to find the
Maame Wata spirit, sometimes cast as the ‘spirit of Jezebel’ (I Kings
19:2; 21), being cast out of women at deliverance services.
Evangelist Vagalas Kanco, founder of The Lord’s Vineyard Ministry
based in Accra, is one whose testimony is very much in demand in
Ghana. He is widely known as a leading healing and deliverance
practitioner. Evangelist Kanco runs his own permanent offices where
one daily encounters queues of up to 200 clients waiting for a con-
sultation. In his testimony, Kanco is keen to emphasise his non-
Christian background before conversion. He comes from a village
named after a god, Vea. The god originally belonged to his ances-
tors, a situation which, according to Kanco, should make anybody
a sure candidate for deliverance. The god was famous and people
travelled from across the country and beyond to consult it. In tra-
ditional religions, as Lewis points out, ‘shamanship and spirits are
part of the clan patrimony’.10 Thus Kanco’s father became the cus-
todian of Vea, and by the age of six Kanco himself had been ini-
tiated as one of the agents of the deity. He emphasised in our
interview that his mystical powers so increased that by the age of
nine he could turn himself into anything from snakes to butterflies
to do evil.
Kanco attributes his present status as an evangelist who has all
the material things he needs to the grace of God: ‘it is grace that
has brought me this far.’ In Kanco’s testimony he emphasises how
many people do not understand grace because they grow up under
Christian parents: ‘many do not understand grace because they were
privileged children; you do not understand grace because your phys-
ical circumstances have not changed.’ To underscore the work of
grace in his life, Kanco in a personal testimony contrasts his impov-
10
I.M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, second edi-
tion (London: Routledge, 1989), 47.
salvation as healing and deliverance 173
11
For a useful study on the resort to juju and diviners by politicians in the search
for position and power in Africa, see Rosalind Shaw, ‘The Politician and the Diviner:
Divination and the Consumption of Power in Sierra Leone’, Journal of Religion in
Africa, vol. 26, 1 (1996), pp. 30–55.
salvation as healing and deliverance 175
may turn round to harm those who go for them. In healing and
deliverance hermeneutic, associations with the wrong kind of super-
natural powers are also considered to have a wider effect. Families,
descendants and nations become vulnerable and susceptible to the
influence of demonic powers and curses when leading members
employ medicines and the occult for protection.
With regard to his former clients, Kanco’s attack on the prophets
and prophetesses of Sunsum sorè is particularly vicious. The leaders
of ‘koliko’ churches, as he calls the older independent churches, came
for medicine from him for their activities. The choice of the term
‘koliko’, puppet, in reference to Sunsum sorè is meant to signify that
the churches in question manipulate their clients by spiritual means.
Because of their perceived proximity to traditional religious prac-
tices, particularly in their employment of ritual symbolism, Sunsum
sorè rituals are looked upon with suspicion as conduits of demonic
intrusion into people’s affairs. Such accusations against the Sunsum
sorè are fuelled by the introspective confessions of ‘converted’ prophets
who claim to rely on occult powers to attract a following. One such
convert is Pastor Cobbinah. He claims that, before he made the
transition as a Sunsum sorè prophet to set up the Redeemed Grace
Ministries, he used to invoke spirits to help him deal with problems
of his members. Pastor Cobbinah claims to have acquired this craft
from a Muslim cleric. Muslim clerics in the African popular imagi-
nation are considered to be reliable sources of potent medicines for
spiritual protection and other accomplishments. His transition there-
fore, according Cobbinah, involved deliverance from his previous
state as an ‘occultic prophet’. Testimonies at healing and deliver-
ance meetings commonly recount similar stories relating to rituals
through which people claim to have contracted demons. The vari-
ous objects employed as aids to healing in the Sunsum sorè are per-
ceived as serving only to initiate ‘the ignorant into the waiting hands
of Satan’ through ‘demonic covenants’.12
Other evil and satanic activities Kanco claims to have practised
include preparing medicines for wives wanting their rivals destroyed,
rivals and girlfriends requesting the minds of husbands to be turned
against their wives, making people go mad and afflicting people with
incurable diseases like epilepsy. Epilepsy in particular, perhaps because
it is characterised by fits and seizures, and also because Jesus dealt
12
Dua-Agyeman, Covenant, Curses and Cure, 3.
176 chapter six
13
Steven Feierman, ‘Struggles for Control: The Social Roots of Health and
Healing in Modern Africa’, African Studies Review, vol. 28, 2/3 (1985), 77.
salvation as healing and deliverance 179
14
Kwaku Dua-Agyeman, Doorways to Demonic Bondage (Kumasi: Payless Printing
Press, 1994), 3.
180 chapter six
is those who overcome who may benefit from the privileges of well-
being that believers are entitled to. Altogether such moral failures
are believed to be signs of curses in peoples’ lives. They are issues
that must be reversed through deliverance because they do not tes-
tify to God’s goodness. In taking such a strong stance of morality,
advocates of healing and deliverance articulate a response to the
moral relativism found in modern Western thought and what is seen
as compromised ethical standards among members of traditional mis-
sion churches.
Territorial Spirits
The symptoms of demonic oppression are not restricted to individ-
uals and families. Satanic forces are also believed to hold power over
specific geographical areas. The books of former Fuller Theological
Seminary professor Peter Wagner have contributed immensely in
exposing this idea of ‘territorial spirits’ in African Christianity. The
principal biblical reference to the existence of such spirits is Daniel
10, where the impression is given that demonic spirits influence the
affairs of nations. Their oppressive influence is observable in national
economies like those of African countries where socio-economic, moral
and political problems are explicable in terms of their activities. A
leading local exponent of this ‘collective bondage’ theory is Nigerian
Charismatic lawyer Emeka Nwankpa, whose book Redeeming the Land
is available in Ghana. Nwankpa interprets I John 5:19, ‘the whole
world is under the control of the evil one’, to mean that Satan has
expanded his hold over the earth by deploying his principalities and
powers in the world. In so doing, Satan is supposed to have strength-
ened his hold over families, communities, cities and in particular
African nations.15 When demons have such a tight grip on the affairs
of nations as a result of defilement through idolatry and moral per-
version, the land ‘vomits out its inhabitants’ and so Africa’s sons and
daughters have become economic migrants in other countries.16
The suggestion is that countries stay poor not because of struc-
tural injustice or bad governance but because of a ‘spirit of poverty’
visited upon nations by demons. Thus topics on a flyer inviting all
15
Emeka Nwankpa, Redeeming the Land: Interceding for the Nations (Achimota, Ghana:
African Christian Press 1994), 9.
16
Ibid., 78, 85, 100.
salvation as healing and deliverance 181
Christians to a prayer vigil for Ghana included prayer for ‘any threat
to God’s agenda for this nation [Ghana]’. African countries are con-
sidered particularly vulnerable to the influence of demons and curses
because of the performance of rites and rituals associated with tra-
ditional religion. Many neo-Pentecostals have subsequently called on
the government of Ghana to abolish the traditional practice of pour-
ing libations during state functions. Ghana’s socio-economic difficulties,
according to this theory, could only be reversed through some sort
of national deliverance. It is notable that these views are held not
only at the popular level, but also by some leading academics who
identify with certain strands of neo-Pentecostal belief. Thus Nigerian
theologian Chris Oshun argues that Nigeria’s present difficulties, and
indeed those of African nations generally, are explicable in terms of
the activities of evil powers. He thus strongly advocates what he calls
a ‘power-approach’ to resolving his country’s socio-economic prob-
lems: it is only by countering ‘the powers and principalities’ through
the power of the gospel and the employment of such ‘spiritual ammu-
nition’ as fasting and prayer that Nigeria may receive the needed
healing.17
Demonic Doorways
Individuals, families, communities and nations come under the influence
of evil powers through what are referred to as ‘demonic doorways’.
‘Demonic doorway’ is a term for areas of moral vulnerability that
open doors to demons—or ‘spiritual gate-crashers’ as one author
calls them.18 Reference has already been made to curses, which
according to healing and deliverance exponents are a major demonic
doorway. Curses, it is believed, become operative when people live
in disobedience to God’s word (Deuteronomy 27 and 28) or they
may be pronounced by others upon people who have wronged the
one pronouncing the curse. Curses can also take effect through ‘neg-
ative confessions’, as when people talk about poverty or death in
relation to themselves even when they do not mean such statements.
Those who bury medicines on their properties also risk exposing
17
Chris O. Oshun, ‘Spirits and Healing in a Depressed Economy: The Case of
Nigeria’, Mission Studies, vol. 25–1, 29 (1998), 32–52.
18
John Richards, But Deliver Us from Evil: An Introduction to the Demonic Dimension
in Pastoral Care (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1974), 130.
182 chapter six
19
Dua-Agyeman, Covenant, Curses and Cure, 5.
salvation as healing and deliverance 183
20
A Birmingham newspaper reported that 17 American TV stations have taken
a decision to boycott a cartoon series God, the Devil and Bob. The series allegedly
depicts God as ‘a beer-swilling hippy’, and ‘an ageing baby boomer’ who enjoys a
pint and sports sunglasses. Groups said to be campaigning against the series include
the American Family Association who among others are complaining against episodes
featuring dance nights in hell. Birmingham Metro, Monday, March 20, 2000.
21
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, revised edition (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 3.
22
Opoku Onyinah, Ancestral Curses (Accra: Pentecost Press, 1994), 8.
184 chapter six
23
Advocates of the inclusive approach include Jean-Jacques Suurmond, Word and
Spirit at Play: Towards a Charismatic Theology (London: SCM, 1994), 198–203; Amos
Yong, ‘“Not Knowing Where the Wind Blows”: On Envisioning a Pentecostal-
Charismatic Theology of Religions’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology, Issue 14 (April
1999), 81–112.
24
Thomas J. Csordas, The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 43.
salvation as healing and deliverance 185
25
Emmanuel Milingo, The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for
Spiritual Survival (London: C. Hurst and Co., 1984), 39–41.
26
Milingo does not discount the possibility of demons assuming the identity of
deceased relatives. Ibid., 41.
186 chapter six
27
F. Graf, ‘Aphrodite’, in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van
der Horst (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995),
118–125.
188 chapter six
28
John Bowker, Problems of Suffering in the Religions of the World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1970), 81.
29
Hans Schwarz, Evil: A Historical and Theological Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1995), 42.
190 chapter six
30
For this meaning of shalom, see F. Martin, ‘Healing, Gift of ’, in Stanley
M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee (eds.), Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Move-
ments, sixth printing with corrections (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 350.
salvation as healing and deliverance 191
31
For a useful discussion within a social scientific context see Birgit Meyer,
‘Commodities and Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption
in Contemporary Ghana’, Development and Change, vol. 29 (1998), 751–776.
192 chapter six
32
Ibid., 767.
33
Peter Gleeson, ‘Church Upset by Voodoo for Lovers’, The Times (11 February
1999).
salvation as healing and deliverance 193
34
Television programme, ‘Video Nasties: Violent Video Games are Turning
Children into Killers’, UK Channel 4, 3 March 2000.
35
This is evidenced in the setting up of INFORM (Information Network Focus
on Religious Movements) in Great Britain. This organisation set up with govern-
ment support and headed by Eileen Barker, an expert in new movements, ‘came
into being as the result of a conviction that a great deal of unnecessary suffering
has resulted from ignorance of the nature and characteristics of the current wave
of new religious movements in the West’. Eileen Barker, New Religious Movements: A
Practical Introduction (London: HMSO, 1989), vii.
194 chapter six
36
John C. Thomas, The Devil, Disease and Deliverance: Origins of Illness in New Testament
Thought (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 31.
salvation as healing and deliverance 195
37
Ibid., 71.
196 chapter six
38
Steve Hunt, ‘Giving the Devil More Than His Due’, in Lawrence Osborn and
Andrew Walker (eds.), Harmful Religion: An Exploration of Religious Abuse (London:
SPCK, 1997), 56.
salvation as healing and deliverance 197
39
Emmanuel Y. Lartey, In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care
and Counselling (London: Cassell, 1997), 9, 40.
40
Emmanuel Y. Lartey, Pastoral Counselling in Inter-Cultural Perspective: A Study of
Some African and Anglo-American Views on Human Existence and Counselling (Frankfurt am
Main: Peter Lang, 1987), 81, 82.
198 chapter six
41
Nwankpa demonises the IMF as a ‘demonic doorway’ through which Satan
oppresses the African nations. Nwankpa, Redeeming the Land, 45.
salvation as healing and deliverance 199
42
John S. Mbiti, ‘Theological Impotence and the Universality of the Church’,
in Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky CSP (eds.), Mission Trends No. 3:
Third World Theologies (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), 18.
43
Ibid.
200 chapter six
with evil such that the full measure of God’s salvation may be made
possible underscores an inseparable link between the pneumatology
and soteriology of African Pentecostal movements leading Anderson
to refer appositely to African Pentecostal theology of salvation as a
‘pneumatological soteriology’.44
44
Allan Anderson, with Samuel Otwang, Tumelo: The Faith of African Pentecostals
in South Africa (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1993), p. 66.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SALVATION AS PROSPERITY
1
The name of this programme has now been changed to ‘Living Word’, the
same as that of Otabil’s television broadcast on Sunday evenings. For a useful and
informative study of Otabil’s programmes, see Marleen De Witte, ‘Altar Media’s
Living Word: Televised Charismatic Christianity in Ghana’, Journal of Religion in Africa,
33.2 (2003), pp. 172–202.
202 chapter seven
2
Paul Gifford, ‘Prosperity: A New and Foreign Element in African Christianity’,
Religion 20 (1990), 373–388.
3
Matthews A. Ojo, ‘Charismatic Movements in Africa’, in Christopher Fyfe and
Andrew Walls (eds.), Christianity in Africa in the 1990s (Edinburgh: University of
Edinburgh Centre of African Studies, 1996), 106.
204 chapter seven
4
D.R. McConnell, A Different Gospel, updated edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1995), 4.
5
Ibid., ix, xx.
6
In the early 1960s, Allen claimed the power to lay hands on people who con-
tributed to his ministry and to bestow on them the ‘power to get wealth’. Osborn
is acknowledged as one of the first Pentecostal preachers to openly cite his lavish
lifestyle as proof of God’s blessing. Brouwer, et al., Exporting the American Gospel, 24.
salvation as prosperity 205
designer made. In short God wants his children to have the best of
everything.
Making extensive references to biblical passages including John
10:10 and Psalm 35:27, Otabil noted that Jesus gives ‘abundant life’
and ‘God delights in the well-being of his children’, but it is the
devil who brings affliction, for ‘the one who gives abundant life and
well-being is not the same person who afflicts’. In biblical prosper-
ity, according to Otabil, God gets sad when the wicked use money
to do evil. God’s will, he notes, is for the righteous to have money
so they can use it for good purposes. Referring to another favourite
prosperity passage, Galatians 3:7–9, Otabil interprets the ‘blessings
of Abraham’ to mean the divine provision that God makes for his
children in order that they may not lack anything in this life. Elsewhere
Pastor Anaba advances similar thoughts, noting that believers ‘can-
not be paupers in a world created by our heavenly Father’. He
writes, ‘we are the seed of Abraham’, for, ‘when Abraham received
the promise of possession from God we were in his loins’.7
7
Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession, 10.
8
Kenneth Copeland, The Laws of Prosperity (Fort Worth, TX: Kenneth Copeland
Ministries, 1978); Gloria Copeland, God’s Will is Prosperity (Fort Worth, TX: Kenneth
Copeland Ministries, 1974); Kenneth Hagin, How God Taught Me about Prosperity
(Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1985). Titles from Ghana match the inter-
national trend. They include: Michael Essel, Three Things to Do with the Word to Prosper
(Accra: Grace Outreach Church, 1993); Eastwood Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession:
Dislodge the Enemy and Possess the Land (Accra: Design Solutions, 1996); Duncan-
Williams, Destined to Succeed.
salvation as prosperity 207
9
Essel, Three Things to Do with the Word to Prosper, chap. 2.
10
Duncan-William, Destined to Succeed, p. 41.
208 chapter seven
11
Jim Bakker, with Ken Abraham, I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking
Journey from PTL Power to Prison and Beyond (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers
1996).
12
Ibid., 3.
13
Jim Bakker with Ken Abraham, Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse (Nashville,
TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), 5.
salvation as prosperity 209
14
A traditional West African flowing gown normally with extensive embroidery
worn over trousers and a top made with similar fabric. They come in different fab-
rics but those worn by some charismatic pastors are the very expensive ones, often
more expensive than Western suits.
15
The Watchman, January 25–February 7, 1998.
16
Eastwood Anaba, Elevated Beyond Human Law: Through the Fruit of the Spirit (Accra:
Design Solutions, 1995), 60.
210 chapter seven
based on the shared belief that if believers must live well the ‘anointed’
of God must live even better. Giving in the CMs can therefore be
very personal and reciprocal. Followers give money and gifts to pas-
tors in proportion to material blessings they believe they have received
or hope to receive from God through the ministry of such pastors
and their churches.
Based on the theories and teachings outlined above, three main
theological emphases may be gleaned from the ‘gospel of prosper-
ity’ hermeneutic: (1) the positive endorsement of material wealth and
consumerism as a sign of God’s blessing; (2) God’s blessing as based
on the principles or laws of ‘sowing and reaping’, that is, blessing
comes through giving; and (3) the belief that the ‘power of positive
confession’ is important for the realisation of prosperity.
17
Duncan-Williams, Destined to Succeed, 1, 2, 24, 25.
18
Ibid., 62.
19
Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession, 45.
salvation as prosperity 213
are days purposely set aside on which cash offerings and other gifts
are collected for pastors. At the Solid Rock Chapel the set date for
appreciating the founder, Christina Doe Tetteh, had been duly adver-
tised on a front banner: ‘Come and let us appreciate Mama Christy’.
In prosperity theology it is also taught that God literally takes the
wealth of unbelievers in order to enrich believers. The reason, it is
believed, is so that wealth may be channelled into supporting evan-
gelistic schemes. Since unbelievers may be unwilling to do this, God
intends to deprive them of their wealth and give it to believers. A
theology of social concern does not seem to be part of the equation
here. For the CMs, wealth is meant for evangelism. Carried to its
logical conclusion, this hermeneutic suggests that God exists to serve
the monetary needs of believers in order that his kingdom might
expand. Morris Cerullo in particular teaches that the only ones God
can use to finance the end-time harvest are his children, ‘his chosen
vehicles of financial blessing’.20 This is a theme that was present in
Otabil’s prosperity series in which he consistently noted that many
of the people God uses to expand his work are rich. This line of
thought on prosperity in which it is considered contrary to God’s
purpose for unbelievers to be rich is also present in the works of
Pastor Anaba. Unbelievers, according to Anaba, have ‘possessed the
land’ illegally but this illegality must be broken, hence the title of
his book Breaking Illegal Possession: Dislodge the Enemy and Possess the
Land! He teaches that, in this era of the worldwide commitment of
the church to evangelism, ‘the church must have the material pos-
sessions and wealth needed to propagate the Kingdom of God’.21
The understanding is that wealth in the hands of unbelievers pro-
motes Satan’s agenda, but God is putting ‘the land’ back into the
hands of his chosen people: ‘Believers must move in quickly to take
possession. God is rearranging things to favour his people.’22
20
Morris Cerullo, Total Provision, Continual Supply: God’s Promise for his People (San
Diego, CA.: Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, 1990), 18.
21
Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession, 46.
22
Ibid., 49.
214 chapter seven
23
Copeland, God’s Will is Prosperity, 37.
24
Ibid., 35.
salvation as prosperity 215
25
Gordon D. Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels (Beverly, MA:
Frontline Publishing, 1985), 3.
216 chapter seven
26
Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 370.
27
Ibid., 394, 395.
salvation as prosperity 217
But as John the Baptist consistently warned, with the coming of the
Lord entry into the kingdom will no longer depend on natural
Abrahamic ancestry, but upon the purifying presence of God’s Spirit
(Matthew 3:7–12). In Paul’s argument, Christ redeemed humankind
from ‘the curse of the law’ in order that, through him, the ‘bless-
ing of Abraham’ might be available to all by faith. This promised
blessing is what Paul interprets as ‘justification’ and the experience
of ‘the Spirit’, for all who are in Christ. By editing out Galatians
3:14b, and interpreting the ‘blessing of Abraham’ in a materialistic
sense, the CMs not only misinterpret and misapply Scripture but
also miss a crucial message that Paul intended to pass on regarding
the role of the Spirit in salvation.
Our second difficulty is with the idea of ‘sowing and reaping’.
The view that God takes money from unbelievers to enrich believ-
ers in order to enable the latter to evangelise is ardently preached
without regard to restrictions placed by Jesus on the material pos-
sessions his disciples needed for their mission (Matthew 10:8–10).
There is no indication at all that the preaching of the gospel depended
on raising cash for grandiose evangelistic schemes with flamboyant
lifestyles to match. There is no indication that the early church
requested people to contribute to their ministry. The ministry of the
apostles was directed at simply allowing the Spirit to work through
them in order to reach those who were hurting. In prosperity teach-
ings, God’s ability to put into effect his missionary agenda has come
to depend on money in the believer’s pocket or bank account. This
is a very limited view of God that misrepresents his purposes. In
thinking this way, the prosperity exponents challenge not only the
principles laid down in the Bible concerning evangelism, but also
the basic right of the unbeliever to own wealth. As the two texts at
the head of this chapter serve to demonstrate, the Bible does not
entirely discount God’s ability to bless his people in concrete terms.
For example, in response to Peter’s blunt question regarding the
rewards of discipleship, Jesus promised a ‘hundred fold’ return in
homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields, ‘in this present
age’ (Mark 10:29). However, even if this is interpreted literally, as
some proponents of prosperity theology would like to do, it need
not be lost on readers that the promise of rewards for discipleship
in that passage is only half the story. The positive rewards promised
by Jesus were to be accompanied by ‘persecutions’ also to be realised
in ‘this life’. Elsewhere the Lord spoke to Ananias about how he
218 chapter seven
will show the newly converted Paul ‘how much he must suffer for
my name’ (Acts 9:16). We will argue that this aspect of being Christian
remains untouched by the ‘health and wealth’ message. Indeed, in
their preaching the apostles had categorically reiterated the words
of Jesus to new converts: ‘we must go through many hardships to
enter the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22). Much of Pauline theology
is also built around knowing Christ and the fellowship of his sufferings.
For it is in ‘becoming like Christ in his death’ that the resurrection
may be attained (Philippians 3:10–11). The Bible has not said that
material abundance is evil. But riches are denounced as a potential
distraction that prevents people from putting God first in their lives
(Mark 10:17–25).
This theology of giving could also be manipulative. During offering
time at a service at Solid Rock Chapel, the pastor held a separate
bowl in her hand and requested all those offering above 20,000 cedis
(about £5 then) to drop them in her bowl. The impression created
was that they stood the chance of enjoying greater blessings. One
key reference for the prosperity hermeneutic is Malachi 3. Here the
prophet draws attention to Israel’s responsibility on which the people
seemed to have reneged. If Israel would fulfil her part by faithfully
discharging her obligations of tithes and offerings, Malachi promised
that God would prove himself faithful. God does prove himself faith-
ful and he expects believers not to forget this. However, it is also
true to say that God’s faithfulness issues more out of his uncondi-
tional love, grace and mercy than as a response to works. Isaiah’s
cry was, ‘come, buy and eat! . . . without money and without cost’
(Isaiah 55:1–2). The problem is that Malachi 3 and related passages
have been translated into formulae, as the banners indicate, in which
people have a right to expect God to deliver once they give.28
Against the backdrop of rising unemployment, poverty and the
severe economic circumstances under which people subsist, it is
difficult to come to terms with the fact that not even the poor are
exempted from the principle of giving to God if they wish to reap
their blessing. As Duncan-William notes, even in impoverished con-
ditions ‘God needs something from you in order to bless you’.29 Yet
Isaiah’s invitation was directed at those ‘who have no money’. The
28
Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels, 10.
29
Duncan-Williams, Destined to Succeed, 52.
salvation as prosperity 219
main reference for this teaching is Elijah’s encounter with the widow
of Zarephath (I Kings 17:7–16). The thinking is that just as Elijah
requested the widow to ‘invest’ her last pot of oil irrespective of her
impoverished circumstances, so does God expect the poor of today
to ‘invest’ whatever they have as a test of his faithfulness. For accord-
ing to Anaba, ‘the principle of giving and receiving applies to all
men and is valid under all circumstances. Whether you are poor or
rich, if you practise it, you get blessed, but if you don’t, you are not
blessed.’30
In effect, people are thought to be poor because they do not give
money to God. The teaching generally ignores the fact that some
of the causes of poverty are beyond the control of both the poor
and Third World governments like that of Ghana. To be fair to
Pastor Otabil, who is arguably one of the most respected among
Ghana’s Charismatic pastors, he does recognise that some of the
causes of poverty may be beyond the control of Ghanaians. Among
these causes, the consequences of the implementation of World Bank
and IMF structural adjustment economic policies are criticised severely.
Unfortunately, the concession that some of the causes of poverty
may be beyond people’s control is overshadowed by the insistence
that true Christianity must result in material prosperity. If the teach-
ing does work, one wonders why the churches themselves do not
cater for the poor in their midst in order to be beneficiaries of God’s
prosperity. Jesus gave considerable attention to lepers, to despised
women and other marginalised people and even warned that those
who do not give to the needy will experience eternal damnation. In
effect Jesus wanted his followers to give to the poor, not take from
them. From this Ronald Sider concludes that ‘if centrality in Scripture
is any criterion of doctrinal importance, the biblical teaching about
God’s concern for the poor ought to be an important doctrine for
Christians’.31 The teaching that people are poor because they do not
give to God is an antithesis to Jesus’ saying that people should for-
give even their enemies since God does not discriminate between
the righteous and unrighteous in providing rain and sunshine (Matthew
5:45). Another text cited in support of the principle of ‘sowing cash’
30
Anaba, Breaking Illegal Possession, 29.
31
Ronald Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1997), 64.
220 chapter seven
and ‘reaping cash plus other material blessing’ are Jesus’ words that
those who give will reap in abundant measure (Luke 6:38). In the
context of the Sermon on the Mount this passage seems to be a log-
ical conclusion to Jesus’ admonition to the disciples to refrain from
judging, condemning or holding others’ offences against them. To
read that it refers to putting money in someone’s ministry is to read
it out of context. This is better placed in Matthew where the say-
ing ‘the measure you use, it will be measured to you’ is linked directly
with the warning against judging others (Matthew 7:1–2). In fact
Matthew (7:3) seems to suggest that everybody has a fault: ‘Why do
you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no
attention to the plank in your own eye?’
It is not out of Christian character to give to good causes know-
ing that God expects the Christian to be a blessing to others in need.
The compassion shown by the Samaritan, according to Luke, was
meant as an example to be emulated by all. In fact, James points
out that ‘pure and faultless religion’ acceptable to the Father must
include caring for ‘orphans and widows’ ( James 1:27). However, no
similar principle is perceived to be at work in the prosperity teach-
ings. MacDonald has attacked this strategy as a modern form of the
Gehazi-Simon syndrome in which attempts are made to put mone-
tary value on the grace of God.32 Gehazi attempted to collect gifts
originally refused by his master, the prophet Elisha, following the
healing of Naaman (II Kings 5:15–27). Simon, the New Testament
corollary, offered money to the apostles for the ability to lay hands
to impart the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:9–24). That in both cases the cul-
prits were punished severely—Gehazi with leprosy and Simon with
blindness—are indications of the seriousness with which their actions
were considered. It is instructive for such a theology to note that
acceptable religion, according to James, in addition to the care of
orphans and widows, includes keeping one’s self ‘from being pol-
luted by the world’ ( James 1:27). The insatiable desire for wealth
does not make this possible and this forms the basis of Paul’s coun-
sel that those ‘who want to get rich fall into temptation’ as ‘the love
of money is a root to all kinds of evil’ (I Timothy 6:9–10). Those
who overlook such scriptures stand in danger of bringing shame on
32
W.G. MacDonald, ‘The Cross Versus Personal Kingdoms’, Pneuma vol. 3, 2
(1981), 33.
salvation as prosperity 221
33
The Ghanaian Chronicle, 3–9 May 1993.
222 chapter seven
34
William W. Klein et al., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word Publishing,
1993), 387–388.
35
David Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological
Terms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 196.
36
Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels, 4.
37
For this assessment, see the following: Tom Smail et al., Charismatic Renewal:
The Search for a Theology (London: SPCK, 1995), 133–151; Robert Jackson, ‘Prosperity
Theology and the Faith Movement’, Themelios, vol. 15, 1 (1989), 16–24; MacDonald,
‘The Cross Versus Personal Kingdoms’, 26–37.
salvation as prosperity 223
38
Ofosu Adutwum, ‘African Traditional “Psalms” of Confidence’, Trinity Journal
of Church and Theology, vol. 1, 1 (1991), 13–21.
39
Laurenti Magesa, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 195.
40
Allan Anderson, ‘The Prosperity Message in the Eschatology of Some New
Charismatic Churches’, Missionalia, vol. 15, 2 (1987), 80, 81. Italics in original.
224 chapter seven
41
William Barclay, Ethics in a Permissive Society (London: Fontana Books, 1971), 150.
42
The level of opportunities in education is a case in point. In Ghana’s tertiary
educational sector, places are so limited that only about a third of those who hold
the required entry qualification gain admission. It is therefore not uncommon to
hear people testify to how God has helped them, their children, or perhaps a rela-
tion, gain university admission.
43
Barclay, Ethics in a Permissive Society, 150, 151.
226 chapter seven
44
Envelopes given out at a service in August 1998. One million cedis was approx-
imately £300 at the time. At the time this figure amounted to three months’ salary
of a university lecturer.
45
Evelyn Underhill, Worship (London: James Nisbett, 1936), 16.
46
Peter McKenzie, Hail Orisha! A Phenomenology of West African Religion in the Mid-
Nineteenth Century (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), 4.
salvation as prosperity 227
47
Underhill, Worship, 9.
228 chapter seven
48
MacDonald, ‘The Cross Versus Personal Kingdoms’, 33.
49
Dickson, Theology in Africa, 189, 190.
salvation as prosperity 229
the reason for the insistence that the Charismatic leader must embody
the fruits of prosperity. The view taken in this matter is that there
is a deep-seated desire among leaders of nascent Charismatic churches
to be counted with the religious, social and politically powerful of
modern society. In Ghana some Charismatic leaders appear to rel-
ish the prospect of being seen in the company of powerful members
of the ruling government. Our concern here is that patronising the
government weakens the ability of Charismatic leaders to challenge
those in power on their record of economic mismanagement and
human rights abuses. The standard and model of leadership is not
that of the humble Christ, identified with the poor and marginalised,
but that of the powerful of modern society. This is the only way to
explain the recent rush for honorary doctorates, the desire to be
seen in expensive automobiles, the public endorsement of govern-
ment and the enthronement as bishops in grand and ostentatious
ceremonies to which leading government functionaries are invited.
In justifying the expensive gifts received from members, Duncan-
Williams refers to society’s standards and expectations of its leaders
and executives:
Society is fully aware that the man of God would be stronger and
better composed riding in a good car rather than waiting endless hours
at the bus-stop. Society takes care of its chief executives to ensure that
they are up-to-date and healthy to take crucial decisions with accu-
racy. Society provides the best for its leaders to show them forth as
examples.50
Duncan-Williams is not alone in this belief that a pastor’s lifestyle
should be comparable to that of any chief executive of a modern
business concern. Otabil was also the beneficiary of a Mercedes-car
given by his congregation as a birthday present. In response to the
question of why a more modest car was not chosen, Otabil noted:
The Benz . . . serves as the amplification of the personality of the pas-
tor because the pastor does not just occupy a spiritual position. He is
a source of inspiration to the people he meets who do not relate to
him as a pastor but relate to him on a certain level. So if the church
grows to a certain social standing and wants the pastor to be able to
meet people that he comes across with that kind of dignity then I
think buying a Mercedes-Benz car is nothing of a big deal.51
50
Duncan-Williams, You are Destined to Succeed, 144.
51
Interview in The Mirror, May 6, 1989.
230 chapter seven
52
John Stott, The Essential John Stott: The Cross of Christ; The Contemporary Christian;
combined edition (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999), 266.
53
Ronald Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, 20th anniversary edition
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997), 64, 65.
232 chapter seven
and potentialities they could maximise their talents and enhance their
own value as human beings.
However, encountering the Cross of Christ also transforms the
very centre of our being, giving the Christian a new courage to face
the perplexities of suffering. With this understanding of suffering,
Jesus endured temptations and the apostles rejoiced at the thought
of ‘being counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name’ (Acts
5:41). In other words, suffering does not always go away as the pros-
perity gospel seems to suggest. On the contrary, through the Cross
Christ gives the Christian the capacity to endure. For it is ‘to him
who overcomes’ that the right to sit with Christ in God’s eschato-
logical kingdom is offered (Revelation 3:21). In a country like Ghana
where the barren are objects of public derision, and conditions like
poverty and unemployment are rife, prosperity teaching leaves large
sections of the community in limbo. God may be doing other things
in the lives of people that cannot be quantified in material terms.
However, because such ‘goodness and mercies’ of God may not be
considered paradigmatic, it leaves many people ‘without a testimony’.
For large sections of the Christian population, their experience of
God may not be the presence of tangible blessing at all. It may lie
in the grace received to be able to endure in a certain time of cri-
sis, or to do without something that they needed. It might lie in the
grace received to be able to cope during grief or even to care for
a terminally ill patient. There are many who continue to endure
marriages where the other partner is an alcoholic or has been unfaith-
ful in the marriage and that is their testimony. There is thus a clear
imbalance at the heart of the prosperity hermeneutic.
The obvious difficulties raised by the message of prosperity should
not be allowed to obliterate the fact that within Ghanaian Christian
history the story of these churches is indicative of a great rediscov-
ery of which the church stands in need. They demonstrate that
Christianity has much to do with experience, and a God who is as
much concerned with providing their needs in this life as he is with
the Christian’s eschatological end. The error of Simon Magus who
attempted to pay money for the ability to impart the Spirit sadly
continues to be made by some in the Pentecostalist movement today.
The Charismatic churches are no exception to this, but there are
signs that many of their leaders are learning with the years.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
David Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary
Religious Movements (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1968), xix.
2
John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God (London: SCM 1972), 54.
234 chapter eight
withered and perished, in other areas there have been life, vitality
and renewal within Ghanaian Christianity. The impact of renewal
is evident through the enormous effect that indigenous Pentecostal
spirituality is having on Ghanaian Christianity as a whole. Inspired
by the Sunsum sorè, who are now in decline, and heightened by
the forceful impact of CMs, we have seen how the singing of cho-
ruses during worship, hand-clapping, drumming and dancing, mass
spontaneous prayer and ‘praise and worship’ sessions are now part
of non-Pentecostal services in Ghana. Thus one of our major findings
has been that in the midst of weaknesses, deviations, abuses and con-
troversial theological pursuits within indigenous Pentecostal move-
ments, there has also been renewing and re-energising.
In the process of renewal, neither the impact of indigenous Charis-
matic figures whose personal visions and psychology shape their
movements, nor the effects of the contextual cluster of economic,
social and cultural factors that give the movements their unique char-
acter, are to be denied. However, in the midst of the precarious
existence in which the Western church finds itself, the cause of the
gospel, I believe, has been advanced and preserved through the ebul-
lience, dynamism and ingenuity of independent Pentecostal move-
ments in Third World countries like Ghana. Responses offered by
Ghanaian Pentecostals regarding what they considered to be the
main attraction for them about their ‘new churches’ may be expressed
in the word ‘relevance’, by which they meant Christianity that was
practical. In the Ghanaian context, as is evident from our discus-
sions, to speak of ‘practical Christianity’ or what is considered ‘the-
ologically relevant’ is to speak of a God whose power is unsurpassed
and who practically manifests his presence in the experiences of his
people. These manifestations, meant to serve as proofs of God’s via-
bility and ‘distinguish his people from all other people on the face
of the earth’, are evident in personal transformations, healings, deliv-
erance from evil which opens the door to the realisation of life,
longevity and prosperity. We have pointed out that there is undoubt-
edly a deficient appreciation of the role of suffering in such theol-
ogy. Job called his wife ‘foolish’ for her inclination to curse God in
suffering. His response to calamity was: ‘Shall we accept good from
God, and not trouble?’ ( Job 2:10). However, it is also true that,
from a biblical perspective, suffering is viewed as a great evil and
God promises to intervene in the sufferings and misfortunes of his
people: ‘A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord
african charismatic spirituality 235
delivers him from them all’ (Psalm 34:19). For Ghanaian indigenous
Pentecostals, if God is on your side, you must have something to
tender in evidence for it. Such practical Christianity, adherents of
Pentecostalism claimed, was absent from the spirituality of mission
churches to which many originally belonged. The focus of the renewal
initiated by Ghanaian independent Pentecostals has been to respond
to what they consider the external formalism, ‘power failure’ and
spiritual emptiness associated with traditional mission Christianity.
What follows is an attempt, in line with the intercultural approach,
to string together the distinctive spirituality that defines Ghanaian
Pentecostalism as one member of a global family.
First, the spirituality of Ghanaian Pentecostal renewal affirms God’s
existence and presence. This research has provided opportunities to
observe and listen to Ghanaian Pentecostals speak about their faith,
express it through prayer, song and dance, and live it out in daily
life. A striking thing about this encounter has been the intense con-
viction with which such spirituality has been expressed. Whatever its
failures may be, Ghanaian independent Pentecostalism cannot be
faulted on the attention it draws to the importance of experience to
Christian faith and life. Speaking within the context of faith, the
writer of Hebrews notes that ‘anyone who comes to [God] must
believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek
him’ (Hebrews 11:6). Here, a bare assent to God’s existence is con-
sidered insufficient unless it is joined by active faith. In their spirit-
uality, indigenous Pentecostals consistently affirm that the God in
whom they have come to believe is not a figment of someone’s imag-
ination, that he indeed exists, and that he is real because he fulfils
his promise of re-birth for those who believe in the saving power of
Christ, to give them a new tongue, heal the sick and deliver the
demonically possessed and oppressed. It is only a ‘living God’ inter-
ested in the everyday concerns of his children who can also make
his mind known to them through prophecy, visions and dreams. It
was also striking to see how such belief in the reality of God had
influenced and been incorporated into popular Ghanaian imagination.
Thus in Ghana, car bumper stickers carry biblical and religious slo-
gans like ‘Angels on guard, keep off ’ and ‘Satan is a loser’. A num-
ber of small businesses also advertise their ventures in religious
language: ‘Anointed Hands Hairdressing Saloon’, ‘Jesus is a Winner
Restaurant’ and ‘Blessed Hands Tyre Repair Services’. What makes
such spirituality distinctive is that the African traditional heritage
236 chapter eight
3
Lamin O. Sanneh, ‘New and Old in Africa’s Religious Heritage: Islam, Christianity
and the African Encounter’, in A.F. Walls and Wilbert R. Shenk (eds.), Exploring
New Religious Movements (Elkhart, IN: Mission Focus, 1990), 64.
4
Mike Afrani, ‘God is Serious Business in Ghana’, New African Magazine ( July/August
1997), 37.
african charismatic spirituality 237
5
Allan Anderson, ‘Global Pentecostalism in the New Millennium’, in Anderson
and Hollenweger, Pentecostals After a Century, 215.
238 chapter eight
6
J.I. Parker, Serving the People of God (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 83.
african charismatic spirituality 239
7
Anderson, ‘Global Pentecostalism in the New Millennium’, 222.
8
The real name of Leslie ‘Tex’ is Leslie Buabasa. Leslie and his wife Emily are
the pastors in charge of the Christian Action Faith Ministries branch at the Sakumono
Estates, Accra.
9
Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Edin-
burgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 761.
10
George Arthur Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 11 (New York: Abingdon,
1955), 494.
240 chapter eight
Newman, both former Methodists, whose singing gifts are now recog-
nised as special ‘ministries’ within the Charismatic family and beyond.
In Matthew’s account, Jesus begins the parable of the talents by
referring to ‘a man’, a master, ‘who called his servants and entrusted
his property to them’ (Matthew 25:14–30). Whatever the talents in
this parable signify, one of its underlying messages is that just as the
master required the servants to account for their stewardship, so does
God entrust his children with abilities which must be usefully employed.
In the context of our discussion, natural abilities are the ‘properties’,
gifts of grace that God puts at our disposal, which in the fellowship
of believers could be used to minister to the common good of the
body of Christ. Here the intervention of God enables recipients to
make such gifts available for the Master’s use, for, ‘it is only the
coming of God’s Spirit that truly reveals the full potential of human-
kind’.11
Fourth, an important hallmark of the spirituality of the renewal
initiated by Ghanaian Pentecostals is the affirmation of worship as
an authentic encounter with God. During one service I observed,
the choir seemed unable to bring to an end a song originally meant
as preparation for the message (sermon). The last line, ‘when I con-
sider your ways, I feel like praising you till the end of my days’,
continued repeatedly in what appeared to be an involuntary man-
ner until suddenly some singers started shaking and screaming. Some
blessed the name of the Lord in words, whilst others just started
jumping around uncontrollably. The impact reverberated through
the congregation with some falling to the ground, having been ‘slain
in the Spirit’ as the experience is called. The message for the day
was not delivered at all. After about an hour of what would have
appeared to outsiders as a church service descending into chaos,
what had occurred was explained as being sufficient blessing for the
day. In spite of the incorporation of mission church elements into
their liturgical styles, the emotive, expressive and spontaneous nature
of worship in Ghanaian independent Pentecostalism remains one of
the main areas in which their spirituality differs from other Christian
traditions. Parker avers that to be ‘serious about the Holy Spirit’
Christians must rediscover the naturalness of three things that modern
believers in the West rarely see as natural: worship, evangelism and
11
Hocken, ‘The Significance and Potential of Pentecostalism’, 23.
african charismatic spirituality 241
12
Quoted in J.I. Parker, Celebrating the Saving Work of God: Collected Shorter Writings
of J.I. Parker, vol. 1 (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1998), 207.
13
Ian Cotton, The Hallelujah Revolution: The Rise of the New Christians (London:
Warner Books, 1995), 19. Italic in original.
14
Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, 1.
242 chapter eight
15
Harvey Cox, ‘Foreword’, in Anderson and Hollenweger (eds.), Pentecostals After
a Century, 10.
16
Peter L. Berger, A Rumour of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the
Supernatural (New York: Doubleday, 1969), 100.
african charismatic spirituality 243
17
Ibid., 98.
18
Ibid., 75, 76.
19
The Good News Training Institute was established by Ghanaian Independent
244 chapter eight
churches of the Sunsum sorè category in 1971. Its aim was ‘to help students improve
their understanding and knowledge of the Word of God, and their effectiveness as
the followers of Jesus Christ’.
20
The first consultation, at which this author was present, took place at Leeds
University in September 1997 under the theme ‘The Significance of the African
Religious Diaspora in Europe’. The organising team included Roswith Gerloff and
african charismatic spirituality 245
Kevin Ward of Leeds University and Rev. Jerisdan Jehu-Appiah of the Musama
Disco Christo Church, London. See Roswith Gerloff, ‘The Significance of the African
Christian Diaspora in Europe: A Report on Four Meetings in 1997/8’, Journal of
Religion in Africa, vol. 29, 1 (1999), 115–120.
21
More often than not, the movements have no idea what has been written
about them. For example, Gifford relies extensively on the work of Ghanaian heal-
ing and deliverance exponent Aaron Vuha in his analysis of the phenomenon. But
the first time Vuha heard of Gifford and the fact that his work is of scholarly inter-
est was when this author told him about it during our interview. Vuha wrote to
me, ‘I shall like to read what has been written because although I have been doing
this work for sometime now, I have not had the privilege to discuss my successes
and failures with any academic. I hope that you will also not treat us the same
way.’
22
Dickson, Uncompleted Mission, 1.
246 chapter eight
with his people. Paying the latecomers the same as those recruited
earlier establishes the principle that the owner of the vineyard reserved
the right to do what he wanted with his resources. God’s grace goes
to the undeserving, in this context the latecomers; it is humankind’s
inclination to compare on merit that creates displeasure. The expres-
sion ‘mushroom churches’, initially used of the Sunsum sorè, and
now widely used of the CMs by those outside these groups, is meant
to castigate independent Pentecostals as churches ‘recruited at the
eleventh hour’ and not having much to offer. As in the case of the
elder brother of the prodigal son, there is much grumbling about
the prominence of the CMs in modern Ghanaian Christianity. In
our judgement, if God has indeed chosen these movements to renew
the flagging spirit of his church, there is no need to be envious of
God’s generosity. Rather they should be assessed on the basis of
what their presence is saying to the church as a whole: that renewal
does not occur through the revision of inherited traditions. It comes
by being open to the Spirit of renewal, God himself.
Second, seeing God’s Spirit and grace as being at work outside
one’s own Christian tradition raises the prospects for co-operation.
The responsibility for ecumenical co-operation that must be shared
is only possible if the contribution made by others is recognised and
appreciated. In Ghana, the Sunsum sorè pioneered renewal by bring-
ing a new lease of life into Christianity. Without the efforts of con-
servative evangelicalism, the CMs may perhaps not have had much
to build on. They therefore need to recognise that their own mis-
sion has been made ‘easier’ by those employed earlier who bore ‘the
burden of the work and the heat of the day’ (Matthew 20:12). Much
ground had already been prepared by the established Christian
churches before the emergence of indigenous Pentecostals. So if those
‘early comers’ need a heart of love to appreciate what God is doing
through the latecomers, the latecomers must also appreciate that
whatever success they are reaping comes by grace not by merit.
Historic churches need to be appreciated for their groundbreaking
efforts in mission and the Sunsum sorè need to be appreciated as
the unsung heroes of renewal within Ghanaian Christianity. I con-
tend that if churches in Ghana were able to see themselves as co-
workers in the Lord’s vineyard, bridges could be built for purposeful
co-operation.
Finally I would add a word on the implications of the intercul-
tural approach to Pentecostal history. As far as Christian mission is
african charismatic spirituality 247
23
Lamin Sanneh, ‘Gospel and Culture: Ramifying Effects of Scriptural Translation’,
in Philip C. Stine, Bible Translation and the Spread of the Church: The Last 200 Years
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 13.
24
Such an understanding of Pentecost from a holistic perspective is said to have
been at the heart of the Azusa Street revival of William J. Seymour. According to
Hollenweger the ecumenical understanding was responsible for the missionary growth
of the movement. Walter J. Hollenweger, ‘Priorities in Pentecostal Research’, in Jan
A.B. Jongeneel (ed.), Experiences of the Spirit (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991), 10.
25
Jean-Marc Éla, African Cry (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1980), 111.
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Audio-Visual Sources
Copeland, Gloria, 110, 204, 206 n. 8, education, 1, 115 n. 24, 117, 126, 225
214 n. 42
Copeland, Kenneth, 204, 206 n. 8 empowerment, 3, 129, 132–133, 135,
cosmology, 40, 42, 176 141, 149–150, 152, 154–155, 157,
covenant, 17, 48, 144, 169 n. 7, 172, 159–160, 163, 201, 244
175, 175 n. 12, 176, 182 n. 19, Episcopalian Church, 29
188, 194, 197, 207, 211, 221 Essamuah, Samuel B., 63
Cox, Harvey, 17, 17 n. 20, 31, Ethiopianist churches, 22
31 nn. 37–38, 108, 108 n. 19,
117, 117 n. 26, 119 n. 29, 242, fasting, 67, 72, 114, 155, 166 n. 2,
242 n. 15 181, 226
cults, traditional, 41–42, 48, 184, 188, Ferguson-Laing, George, 111–112
204 FM stations. See radio
Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship,
deliverance, 3, 19, 22, 49, 91–92, 98, 28, 171
106, 110, 112, 116, 127, 130, 133,
140, 142, 155, 164, 164 n. 1, 165, gender ideology, 36, 55, 57, 61
165 n. 2, 166–172, 175, 176–194, Ghana Evangelical Society, 108–109
194 n. 36, 196–199, 203, 222, 234, Ghana Evangelism Committee, 23
236–237, 245 n. 21 n. 28, 29, 66
demons, 17, 143, 151–152, 155, Ghana Fellowship of Evangelical
167–168, 173, 175–185, 185 n. 26, Students, 103
187, 187 n. 27, 188, 191–192, Gifford, Paul, x, 31, 31 n. 38, 97,
194–195 97 n. 3, 98, 98 n. 4, 99 n. 5,
devil, 50 n. 27, 128, 134, 142, 139, 139 n. 8, 140, 203, 203 n. 2,
142 n. 14, 143, 150–152, 166, 245 n. 21
169, 177, 179, 183, 183 n. 20, gifts, 7, 27, 31 n. 37, 34, 37, 46, 59,
192, 194, 194 n. 36, 196 n. 38, 63, 67, 67 n. 5, 68, 71–72, 75, 77,
206, 214 91, 94–95, 97–98, 104, 108–110,
diakonia, 52, 98, 239 113, 119, 126, 128–131, 135,
Dickson, Kwesi, 53, 53 nn. 32, 34, 54, 148–149, 152, 156, 159–160, 162,
145, 145 n. 21, 228, 228 n. 49, 188, 192, 211–213, 220, 223, 229,
244, 245, 245 n. 22 236–240
disease, 24, 41, 83–84, 143, 151, globalism, ix, 1, 2, 11–12, 15, 22,
175–178, 194, 215 n. 25, 218 35–36, 59, 98–101, 103, 191, 233,
n. 28, 222 n. 36, 224 235, 237 n. 5, 239 n. 7, 247
divination, 40, 49, 74, 83, 94, glossolalia, 11, 53
174 n. 11 God’s End-Time Militia, 120,
dreams, 22, 45, 47–48, 54, 57, 70, 120 n. 30, 123, 125–126
76, 179, 186, 207, 235 gospel music, 102, 107, 115
dress, 31, 64, 89, 119, 210 Graham, Billy, 104, 104 n. 13, 110
drumming, 146, 234, 241 Great Awakenings, 120
Dua-Agyeman, Kwaku, 169, 169 n. 7,
175 n. 12, 179, 179 n. 14, 182 Hagin, Kenneth, 204, 206 n. 8
n. 19 hand-clapping, 2, 54, 94, 234
Duncan-Williams, Nicholas, 96, 98, Harris, William Wadé, 19–20, 41, 43,
112–113, 133, 205, 206 n. 8, 207, 50, 57, 156
207, n. 10, 208–209, 211–212, Hastings, Adrian, 10, 10 n. 6, 30, 30
212 n. 17, 218 n. 29, 221, 229, n. 35, 38, 38 n. 4, 44 n. 15, 56,
229 n. 50 56 n. 37
Hayford, Casely, 19
ecclesiology, 22, 28, 97, 128–129, healing, 2–4, 7–6, 11 n. 10, 12–13,
129 n. 50, 130–131, 151 n. 26, 19, 22, 24–27, 32, 38 n. 3, 42, 42
159–160 n. 11, 43–44, 46–47, 50, 55, 63,
index 277
66–68, 68 n. 6, 69, 72, 74, 78, Jesus Divine Healing Church, 6, 66,
84, 86, 88, 91–94, 96, 98, 103, 68–69, 72–74, 78, 85–86
106–107, 110, 112, 116, 118, Jesus is Alive Ministries International,
127–128, 130, 133, 140, 143, 100, 139
149–150, 155–156, 158, 163–164, Joyful Way Incorporated, 107
164 n. 1, 165, 165 n. 2, 166–172, June Fourth Revolution, 121
175–177, 178 n. 13, 179–181,
181 n. 17, 182–184, 184 n. 24, Kanco, Vagalas, 172–177, 179,
185, 185 n. 25, 186, 189–190, 182–183, 185–186, 188, 190, 192
190 n. 30, 191–194, 196–199, 203,
220, 222–223, 228, 234, 236, 241, Larbi, Kingsley, 101
245 n. 21 Lartey, Emmanuel, x, 197, 197
herbs, 43, 84 nn. 39–40, 244
Hinduism, 4, 10, 145, 145 n. 22 leadership, religious, 27, 55
Hinn, Benny, 110, 156, 156 n. 35, Life and Salvation Church, 77
157, 204 Living Praise Ministries International,
Hollenweger, Walter, 8, 11, 11 n. 11, 101–111
15, 15 n. 16, 52, 52 n. 29, 107, Living Streams Ministries, 108, 117,
107 n. 18, 237 n. 5, 242 n. 15, 118 n. 28, 119
247 n. 24
Holy Ghost. See Holy Spirit Maame Wata, 171–173, 187
Holy Spirit, ix, 1, 7, 11–13, 15–17, Markwei, Ebenezer, 108, 117, 119
22, 27–28, 32–33, 33 n. 40, 35, Martey, Emmanuel, 61 n. 52, 165,
35 n. 45, 37, 41–44, 46, 54, 56, 165 n. 2
58–59, 62, 67, 67 n. 5, 68, 74, Mbiti, John, 198–199, 199 n. 42
74 n. 12, 76 n. 16, 79, 96–97, McKeown, James, 23, 25–26, 90
103–104, 104 n. 13, 105, 107, McKeown, Sophia, 23
109, 112–113, 116, 117 n. 27, media technologies, ix, 6, 31, 99 n. 7
118, 128, 132–133, 135, 139–141, mediation, 27, 36, 39, 76, 96–97, 118,
143 n. 18, 149–150, 153, 155–157, 128, 147
159, 162–163, 165, 184–185, 187, medicine, 24–25, 41–42, 42 n. 12,
194, 197, 216 n. 26, 220, 236–238, 43–44, 48, 68, 72, 171, 173–175,
240, 242–243 181–183, 205
Hour of Visitation Choir and membership drift, 62
Evangelistic Association, 110 Mensah, Stanley, 147
Mensah, Steve, 147–152, 154
Idahosa, Benson, 96, 98, 111, Mercedes-Benz cars, 209, 229
111 n. 21, 112–114, 148, 171, 204 messages, 6, 13, 50, 53, 55, 91–92, 95,
inculturation, 36, 39, 41, 61, 61 n. 52, 102, 119–120, 124, 132, 134, 150,
165 n. 2 153, 156, 160, 165, 202, 205, 215,
independent indigenous Pentecostal 226, 240
churches, 16–17, 23, 31, 33, 52, 73 Methodist Church, xi, 45, 62, 62
infertility, 66, 68–169, 190 n. 56, 66, 68, 88 n. 30, 116, 145
interculturalism, 8, 10, 11, 11 n. 11, Meyer, Birgit, 50 n. 27, 142, 142
12, 15 n. 17, 147 n. 23, 197 n. 39, n. 14, 191 n. 31, 192
233, 235, 246 Milingo, Emmanuel, 42, 42 n. 11, 185,
International Central Gospel Church, 185 nn. 25–26
99, 101, 108, 114, 124, 134, 201, millennialism, 21, 24
227 miracles, 12, 81, 88, 103, 111–113,
International Fellowship of Evangelical 117 n. 27, 139, 156, 214, 236–237
Students, 103 missions, xi, 14–16, 18, 23, 38, 45, 116
modernity, 9, 50, 64, 91 n. 37,
Jehu-Appiah, Miritaiah Jonah, 6, 245 99–100, 100 n. 9, 142 n. 14,
n. 20 152 n. 27, 178, 191–193, 248
278 index
Parachurch associations, 28, 101, 110 radio, 6, 110, 153, 168, 170 n. 8, 202,
Paul, 42, 48, 56, 58, 67, 76, 79, 84, 212, 214, 227
89, 95, 128, 130, 136, 138, 144, Rawlings, Jerry John, 121, 122–125
146, 156, 160–162, 169, 179, 184, renewal, 1–3, 8–9, 11, 11 n. 11,
187, 190–191, 194–196, 211, 13–15, 17, 17 n. 19, 18–19, 26,
214–218, 220–221, 228, 239 28–30, 32–33, 33 n. 40, 34–37, 39,
index 279
41, 48, 48 n. 22, 49, 61–62, 64, Sunsum sorè, 2, 6, 19, 21–23, 29–32,
74, 87, 95, 107, 112, 115–116, 36–51, 53–57, 59–82, 84–89, 91–96,
116 n. 25, 119, 121 n. 34, 129, 100, 106, 116–119, 128, 130, 132,
129 n. 50, 132, 134, 138, 146–147, 144, 158–159, 162–163, 165, 175,
147 n. 23, 149, 163, 171, 190, 222 189, 237, 242, 244 n. 19, 246
n. 37, 233, 233 n. 1, 234–238, 240,
242–243, 246–248 Tabernacle of Witness Church
renewal prayer groups, 29, 86–87 International, 98
revival. See renewal Tani, Grace, 20, 57
Rhema World Outreach Ministries, 169 televangelism, 1, 74, 111, 204
Roberts, Oral, 96, 96 n. 1, 98, 110, testimony, 35, 38, 53, 112, 125,
113, 204 135–136, 138, 144, 158–159, 172,
Roman Catholicism, 33, 87, 146–147 174, 176, 232
Tetteh, Christina Doe, 111, 114, 148,
salvation, 1, 3, 7, 11–12, 36, 43, 213
48–52, 56, 62, 64, 76–77, 80, 112, The Lord’s Vineyard Ministry,
116, 122, 132–135, 137–138, 171–172
140–143, 143 n. 17, 144, 149, 153, Town Fellowships, 103, 114
163–164, 166, 168, 176, 184, Traditional Western Mission Churches
189–191, 198–199, 202–203, 205, (TWMCs), 14–15, 17, 20, 38, 45,
211, 216–217, 225, 236, 245 56, 59, 61, 73, 104, 130, 165, 198,
Sanneh, Lamin, 13, 13 n. 14, 36, 36 227
n. 1, 59, 59 n. 50, 90, 90 n. 34, transformation, 3, 9, 45, 50–51, 114,
236, 236 n. 3, 247, 247 n. 23 129, 132–133, 135, 137–138, 141,
Satan, 42, 127, 136, 142–144, 143, 152, 163–164, 171, 206, 234,
150–151, 167–168, 171, 175, 177, 237, 239
180, 184, 195, 197, 198 n. 41, 213, translation, vernacular, 17, 22, 61
235 Turner, Harold, 3, 3 n. 1, 24 n. 30,
schism, 6, 18, 34, 65, 78, 233, 37, 37 n. 2, 38 n. 3, 69, 69 n. 10
233 n. 1 Twelve Apostles Church, 20, 29, 57,
Scripture Union, 102, 170, 171 n. 9 65, 69, 82
seed faith, 204, 212
sermons. See messages Van Dusen, Henry Pitt, 33
sexual morality, 89, 180, 193 videocassette tapes, 6, 157
Seymour, William J., 10, 11, 247 n. 24 visas, 70, 225
Solid Rock Chapel, 111, 114, 125, visions, 12, 22, 45, 47–48, 54, 57, 70,
213, 218 74, 78–79, 94, 104, 115, 120, 128,
soteriology, 3, 49–50, 60, 135, 137, 134, 234–235, 241
141, 166, 190, 200, 202 Vuha, Aaron, 168, 177, 182, 184, 188,
South Africa, 1, 21, 38 n. 5, 76 n. 16, 245 n. 21
100 n. 9, 200 n. 44
spirit possession, 11, 55, 57 n. 38, 172 Walls, Andrew, 16, 16 n. 18, 90 n. 35,
n. 10, 187, 241 203 n. 3
spirits, territorial, 180, 198 wealth. See prosperity
spirituality, 3, 7–8, 13, 17, 17 n. 20, Winneba, 6, 30, 30 n. 36, 66, 77
20, 32, 35–36, 38–40, 42, 44–47, Winners’ Chapel, 154
47 n. 21, 50–51, 54, 60, 62–63, witchcraft, 41–42, 44, 70, 79–80, 83,
87, 91, 102–103, 105, 105 n. 14, 93 n. 42, 134, 170, 177, 187,
106–107, 116, 129, 133, 139–140, 191–192, 198
153, 155, 164, 224, 233–236, Women Aglow, 28, 123, 123 n. 38,
240–241, 243, 247 171
Sundkler, Bengt, 38, 38 n. 5, 106, 106 Word Miracle Church International,
n. 16 101, 111, 135, 157
280 index
Wyllie, Robert, 6, 30 n. 36, 66, 77, youth, 31, 88, 98, 107, 109–110, 112,
84, 84 n. 25 116, 118–119, 133, 139