Spiritual authority and the transmisson of divine sensation in a Nigerian Pentecostal Church

Abstract

This article examines how, and to what effect, the members of a Pentecostal Christian church in southwest Nigeria construct authority through prayer, song and dance and sermons. During more than thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), I found that church members emphasised the palpable transfer of divine power from church service leaders to audience members. I explore how the sensual logic of worship performances renders service leaders spiritually authoritative in the eyes of their congregations. Further, I investigate the entangled relationship between authority produced through worship on the one hand and RCCG pastors' bureaucratic positions on the other particularly with respect to pastors' perceptions of the worth of their official roles.