“Call me a Fanatic"
Spiritual Zeal, Scientific Scepticism and the Problems of “Belief”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.24628Keywords:
Belief, scepticism, Pentecostalism, African Christianity, scienceAbstract
Anthropologists have pointed to the politics at play in the uneven application of the term “belief” to describe different cultural representations of reality. They have observed that westerners sometimes reserve the term “belief” for the description of non-western epistemologies, while categorising their own perspectives, informed by theories of scientific empiricism for example, as “knowledge.” This is an important critique, so what to do when our non-western interlocutors insist on being called “believers?” This article considers the ideas of a Nigerian Pentecostal church who not only characterize their faith using the language of “belief,” but even aspire to be branded “fanatics” by outsiders. Drawing on the teachings of the church, striking congruences between the understandings of belief deployed by this group and by scholars of religion are brought to light, collapsing the distance between self-described African Christian “fanatics” and those who critically analyse them.
References
Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bell, Catherine M. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cannell, Fenella. 2005. ‘The Christianity of Anthropology’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11(2): 335–356. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00239.x
Chidester, David. 2018. Religion: Material Dynamics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520297654.001.0001
Chua, Liana. 2011. “Soul Encounters: Emotions, Corporeality, and the Matter of Belief in a Bornean Village.” Social Analysis 55(3): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2011.550301
Elisha, Omri. 2008. “Faith beyond Belief: Evangelical Protestant Conceptions of Faith and the Resonance of Anti-Humanism.” Social Analysis 52(1): 56–78. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2008.520104
Engelke, Matthew. 2002. “The Problem of Belief: Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner on ‘The Inner Life’.” Anthropology Today 18(6): 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.00146
Ewing, Katherine P. 1994. “Dreams from a Saint: Anthropological Atheism and the Temptation to Believe.” American Anthropologist 96(3): 571–583. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1994.96.3.02a00080
Feyerabend, Paul. 2010. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. Fourth edition. London: Verso.
Fitzgerald, Timothy. 1997. “A Critique of ‘Religion’ as a Cross-Cultural Category.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 9(2): 91–110. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006897X00070
———. 2003. The Ideology of Religious Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fountain, Philip and Sin Wen Lau. 2013. “Anthropological Theologies: Engagements and Encounters.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 24(3): 227–234. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12048
Geertz, Clifford. 1993. “Religion as a Cultural System.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 87–125. London: Fontana Press.
Harding, Susan. 1991. “Representing Fundamentalism: The Problem of the Repugnant Cultural Other.” Social Research 58(2): 373–393.
Horton, Robin. 1967. “African Traditional Thought and Western Science.” Africa 37(2): 155–187. https://doi.org/10.2307/1158253
Kapferer, Bruce. 2001. “Anthropology. The Paradox of the Secular.” Social Anthropology 9(3): 341–344. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2001.tb00161.x
Keane, Webb. 2008. “The Evidence of the Senses and the Materiality of Religion”. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 110–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00496.x
Keller, E. 2005. The Road to Clarity: Seventh-Day Adventism in Madagascar. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403977007_3
Kirsch, Thomas G. 2004. “Restaging the Will to Believe: Religious Pluralism, Anti-Syncretism, and the Problem of Belief”. American Anthropologist 106(4): 699–709. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2004.106.4.699
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lakatos, Imre. 1978. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers. Edited by John Worrall and Gregory Currie, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621123
Latour, Bruno. 2011. “Fetish—Factish”. Material Religion 7(1): 42–49. https://doi.org/10.2752/175183411X12968355481935
Lemons, J. Derrick, ed. 2018. Theologically Engaged Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198797852.001.0001
Lienhardt, G. 1961. Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lindquist, Galina, and Simon Coleman. 2008. “Introduction: Against Belief?” Social Analysis 52(1): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2008.520101
Lopez, Donald. 2000. “‘Belief’.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by M. C. Taylor, 21–35. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Luhrmann, T. M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. https://doi.org/10.24260/alalbab.v1i1.16
Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The Invention of World Religions, or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226922621.001.0001
Needham, Rodney. 1972. Belief, Language, and Experience / Rodney Needham. Oxford: Blackwell.
Okere, Alexander. 2020. “Nigerians Must Shun Sin to Enjoy Prosperity, God’s Intervention—Interview with Olukoya, MFM General Overseer.” Punch Newspapers, 4 January 2020. https://punchng.com/nigerians-must-shun-sin-to-enjoy-prosperity-gods-intervention-olukoya-mfm-general-overseer/
Olukoya, D. 2009. “Not By Bread Alone.” https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/not-by-bread-alone-daniel-olukoya-sermon-on-bible-truth-136829.
———. 2011a. “The Hem Of His Garment.” https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-hem-of-his-garment-daniel-olukoya-sermon-on-experience-156882.
———. 2011b. “The Madness Of Faith.” https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-madness-of-faith-daniel-olukoya-sermon-on-faith-156802.
———. 2011c. “Thorns Of Life.” https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/thorns-of-life-daniel-olukoya-sermon-on-christian-disciplines-157087.
———. 2011d. “Looking Unto Jesus.” https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/looking-unto-jesus-daniel-olukoya-sermon-on-faith-157664.
———. 2011e. “Power Of The Emptiers.” https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/power-of-the-emptiers-daniel-olukoya-sermon-on-affliction-157669.
Pouillon, Jean. 1982. “Remarks on the Verb ‘to Believe’.” In Between Belief and Transgression: Structuralist Essays in Religion, History and Myth, edited by Michel Izard and Pierre Smith, translated by John Leavitt, 1–8. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richman, Naomi. 2019. “Entangled Genealogies and False Dichotomies: Anthropology, Theology, and the Post-Secular Paradigm in World Christianity”. The Journal Of World Christianity 9 (1): 61–74. https://doi.org/10.5325/jworlchri.9.1.0061
———. 2020. “Machine Gun Prayer: The Politics of Embodied Desire in Pentecostal Worship.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 35(3): 469–483. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2020.1828506
———. 2021. “Homosexuality, Created Bodies, and Queer Fantasies in a Nigerian Deliverance Church.” Journal of Religion in Africa 50(3–4): 249–277.
———. 2022. “After Rupture: Visions of History, African Spirituality and Theological Repair in Nigerian Pentecostalism.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 33: 383–395. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12451
———. 2024. “From Exorcism to Deliverance: The Rise of a Megachurch Phenomenon.” In Routledge Handbook of Megachurches, edited by Chad M. Bauman, A. Adogame, Damaris Parsitau and Jeaney Yip, 156–178. London: Routledge.
———. Forthcoming. “Deliverance.” In Routledge Handbook of Megachurches, edited by A. Adogame, Chad M. Bauman, Damaris Parsitau and Jeaney Yip. London: Routledge.
Robbins, Joel. 2003. “On the Paradoxes of Global Pentecostalism and the Perils of Continuity Thinking”. Religion 33 (3): 221–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-721X(03)00055-1
———. 2006. “Anthropology and Theology: An Awkward Relationship?” Anthropological Quarterly 79 (2): 285–294. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2006.0025
———. 2007. “Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture: Belief, Time, and the Anthropology of Christianity”. Current Anthropology 48(1): 5–38. https://doi.org/10.1086/508690
———. 2020. Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rubenstein, Mary-Jane. 2012. “The Twilight of the Doxai: Or, How to Philosophize with a Whac-A-MoleTM Mallet.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 24(1): 64–70. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006812X634511
Ruel, Malcolm. 1982. “Christians as Believers.” In Religious Organizations and Religious Experiences, edited by J. Davis, 9–31. London: Academic Press.
Schaefer, Donovan O. 2015. Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822374909
Stewart, Charles. 2001. “Secularism as an Impediment to Anthropological Research.” Social Anthropology 9(3): 325–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2001.tb00157.x
