Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa

Ezra Chitando,Adriaan van Klinken

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317166566
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Sexualität & Gender in der Religion

Issues of homosexuality are the subject of public and political controversy in many African societies today. Frequently, these controversies receive widespread attention both locally and globally, such as with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. In the international media, these cases tend to be presented as revealing a deeply-rooted homophobia in Africa fuelled by religious and cultural traditions. But so far little energy is expended in understanding these controversies in all their complexity and the critical role religion plays in them. Complementing the companion volume, Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa, this book investigates Christian politics and discourses on homosexuality in sub-Saharan Africa. The contributors present case studies from various African countries, from Nigeria to South Africa and from Cameroon to Uganda, focusing on Pentecostal, Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. They critically examine popular Christian theologies that perpetuate homophobia and discrimination, but they also discuss contestations of such discourses and emerging alternative Christian perspectives that contribute to the recognition of sexual diversity, social justice and human rights in contemporary Africa.

I Pentecostalism as a public religion

1 Sexual bodies, sacred vessels

Pentecostal discourses on homosexuality in Nigeria

Asonzeh Ukah

DOI: 10.4324/9781315571928-2

Same-sex marriage is an anathema to the will of God for human beings to be fruitful, replenish and multiply on earth; anything contrary to that is evil.

(Enoch Adeboye, RCCG General Overseer, January 2013)

The ‘will of God’ for Africa and for humanity is a theme that reverberates in contemporary African Pentecostal discourses; it is this nebulous and ubiquitous concept of the will of God that anchors the Pentecostal self-positioning relative to politics, economics and sexualities. Religion as the social structure that discerns and puts into practice the ‘will of God’ is at the forefront of reshaping social, political and economic life in Africa in the twenty-first century. The most profound change in sub-Saharan Africa in the last 150 years is religious in nature; it is the conversion of Africans from indigenous religious traditions to principally two aggressively competitive and monotheistic religions, Islam and Christianity. Political, economic or technological changes come only a distant second to the profound transformations and restructured worldviews, identities, personal and group self-understanding and perception which religious conversion precipitates. The religious worldview intimately reconfigures and interpenetrates political and economic practices and institutions. In plural societies such as those that exist in Africa, this scenario complicates rather than simplifies the ordering of social life. The role of religion in society is multi-faceted and dynamic; its functions vary from context to context and from one society to another. According to the German sociologist of religion Martin Riesebrodt (2010), while the functions of religion change from time to time, its promises of salvation and deliverance and power to deal with existential angst and human evil remain constant. When examined as sets of practices and beliefs related to superhuman powers, religions have the power to modify conduct and perspective on life, providing structures of meanings for adherents. Religion is a supplier of cultural norms and social identification that are often persistent over time. Religion is a source and world of power (Ellis and ter Haar 2004) that shapes the discourses and politics of sexualities in contemporary African societies. The discourses and debates surrounding homosexual practices, including the legislation protecting or criminalising gay rights, are strongly infused with religious ideas and ideals, inspirations and rhetoric (Tamale 2014). To understand the role religion plays in society, it is also important to factor in the possibility that, as a structure for meaning making, it is possible for religion to be manipulated by political authorities, individuals and special interest groups for a variety of causes (Aldashev and Platteau 2014, 588–590).

In many parts of contemporary Africa, with the resurgence of revivalist or renewalist Christianity, specifically Pentecostal-Charismatic churches (PCCs) and ministries, from the late twentieth century, politicians have attempted to channel religious zeal and moral strength into governance, to achieve numerical strength or legitimacy. Conversely, different religious groups constantly jostle for political patronage and the power to manipulate government structures in influencing policy-making procedures and outcomes. These two dynamics are at play in Nigeria, where since 1999, religion – specifically, Islamic Sharia and political Pentecostalism – has played an important role as a governance structure and mechanism.

In the past PCCs focused on the moral reformation of their members and on recruiting more people into their folds; in recent years, however, their focus has been on controlling state structures, accessing and management of public resources and managing public perspectives and perception. Increasingly in Nigeria, what some call ‘prophetic politics’ has evolved to play a pivotal role in the framing of social and legal policies (Yong 2010, 11–14). As the postcolonial Nigerian State confronts the challenges posed by the neoliberal economy, political instability (championed by the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast and the Niger Delta militancy) as well as diminished expectations of its citizens (as a result of massive, institutionalised political and economic corruption), prophets have emerged from within different religious traditions promising to fill the space left by the shrinking and failing state. The increasing loss of credibility in the political process by a large segment of the citizenry compels politicians to seek their citizens’ confidence and assurance by liaising with charismatic prophetic figures and relying on prophecies for state governance. In Nigeria, politicians are turning to prophets to reinvigorate the elusive political vision. Prophets – in the religious sense – are becoming increasingly imbued with creative political narratives that influence, for good or for ill, the political objectives and outcomes of controlling power and public resources. Political prophets and prophetic politicians share a common vision and goal, which in many instances is how to manipulate or manage and shape public perception and morality and to control public resources. This new mission of PCCs to influence policy partly explains the ongoing controversies surrounding homosexuality¹ in Nigeria and the role being played by the most important and most popular Pentecostal organisation in the country, the Redeemed Christian Church of God and its leader, Enoch Adejare Adeboye, which is the focus of this chapter.

Adeboye and political Pentecostalism in Nigeria

Enoch Adejare Adeboye is the most popular evangelical pastor in Nigeria, and perhaps in Africa. He is the head of the largest Pentecostal franchise on the continent, the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). He speaks with a soft, slow, baritone voice that invites to be listened to and taken seriously. Starting from the late 1990s, his constant refrain has been that Nigeria would be the greatest country on earth if Nigerians were to return to God by obeying God and doing God's will. Adeboye is ‘the oracle of God’, or so his numerous followers and admirers believe, in contemporary Nigeria. He tells Nigerian politicians that God has pledged to elevate the country to global prominence if politicians will keep the vows they made to God during the harsh years of military dictatorship. Adeboye is a religious leader who has close and mutually beneficial relationship with Nigeria's political and economic elites. He was an invaluable ally of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo; for a time he also acted as a mentor to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. Both of these politicians are frequent guests at the RCCG's expansive Redemption Camp, which the church presents as a site where heaven and earth meet, a most sacred and hybrid space. Nigeria's greatness is contingent on politicians and citizens carrying out the divine will.

The will of God is for the country to live a morally upright life and set a standard for other nations, such as ‘prodigal Europe’ and morally deficit Western nations, to follow. Over the decades since coming into the national and global limelight, Adeboye has consistently shied away from making comments on national political, economic or social issues. Adeboye is characteristically a non-social activist, unlike religious leaders such as Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie (Catholic), Peter Akinola (Anglican), Tunde Bakare and Chris Okotie (both Pentecostal-Charismatic). Rather than criticise public officials who mismanage public resources or weigh in on the side of the poor and oppressed, Adeboye attributes Nigeria's misfortune to the envy and design of Satan. According to him, he does not engage in public debates for fear of being misrepresented or making mistakes, and thereby misleading his numerous followers (see ‘Why I Rarely Make Public Comments’, 2013). Because he generally keeps silent on national matters, he does not engage with public controversies and so is not a polarising public figure.

When Adeboye, who generally shuns public and media controversies, weighs in on the side of the anti-gay coalition in the country, the issue must be extraordinarily important. In a speech delivered to the students and staff of the Obafemi Awolowo University in southwest Nigeria in January 2013, Adeboye made public and unequivocal what many had only then suspected to be his personal views and the position of the RCCG on same-sex relationships in Nigeria. Although the RCCG is actively pro-neoliberal economic practices and pro-rich, its moral perspective, specifically in respect of the management of the body and human sexuality, is deeply conservative, unabashedly anti-homosexual (Ukah 2008: 179–183).

Theoretically, the question of how religion and morality are linked is just as important as it is disputatious or contested. For evangelical Christianity, however, its force of action in Africa is the demand that a believer makes a complete break with the past, not just in the reconfiguration of a new worldview, but also in the force of practice which a new religion demands. The politics of a new ontology, therefore, is even more compelling for Pentecostal Christians. To be a new creation has multiple ramifications for an individual, one of which involves the politics of disciplining the body. Fasting, keeping vigils, avoidance of certain substances and foods or modes of dressing, the acquisition of new vocabularies are some of the ways in which Pentecostal religion produces a new self. Engaging in specific networks of relationships and avoiding some others, form ways of constructing a new being consistent with a new spiritual ideology that is in tension with life in this veil of pain and life in a future world of bliss. Since faith comes through hearing (Rom. 10:17), the words of a ‘wo/man of God’ are a very important instrument in the process of creating this new person. A wo/man of God is recognised by the quality of his/her words, which are believed to be testimonies to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Enoch Adeboye is the pre-eminent ‘man of God’ and ‘miracle worker’ within the Nigerian Pentecostal community (Bible-Davids 2009).

The perspective of Enoch Adeboye and the official position of the RCCG on same-sex relationships in Nigeria is important for many reasons. First, for the large and vociferous Pentecostal community in Nigeria, Adeboye remains the definition of Pentecostal orthodoxy in the area of doctrine. Perhaps with the exception of the late Benson Idahosa, no other figure has so dominated the Pentecostal landscape and for such a long time as Adeboye has done. He redefined Pentecostal success and power (socially, politically and economically) in the post-civil war decades in Nigeria. Many lesser-known religious leaders practically and literally mimic the doctrines and rituals of the RCCG and expend significant efforts in cloning what they perceive as the elements that account for RCCG's prominence. Second, the RCCG is a large franchise with many local congregations numbering nearing 20,000, with a self-reported membership of more than 5 million. As he is a leader so revered and considered by some followers as ‘God among us’, Adeboye's many Christian followers in Nigeria do not challenge his views on religious or social matters. To many of them, including prominent church leaders, his every word is canonical and sacred because he is the oracle of God. In their scheme, Adeboye is the material voice of God in a nation under moral distress and a world confused by the devil.

Adeboye's declaration of his position on same-sex relationships could not have come at a better moment than it did, in terms of the religion and politics matrix. On 14 January 2014, the Nigerian president, Jonathan Goodluck, signed into law a bill that criminalises same-sex relationships. Officially named the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, this law prohibits marriage or civil union by persons of the same sex and prohibits religious organisations from solemnising such a relationship. Further, the law criminalises the registration of gay clubs, societies and organisations, as well as the (direct and indirect) public display of same-sex amorous relationships. A disturbing aspect of the law, which to some people seems even more insidious than the overt aspects of criminalising alleged same-sex relationships, is that it turns everyone into a snitch who must inform on anyone, whether family members or not, who is known to be involved in same-sex relationships or promotes the same. The frightening reach of the surveillance state is constantly decried by many well-meaning citizens across the globe; the law secretly signed by the Nigerian president effectively inaugurated a surveillance society in Nigeria. With this law, everyday interaction among Nigerians brings home the threat of possible imprisonment through the pervasive eavesdropping of the state on normal social intercourse among ordinary citizens. Persons who contravene these provisions risk between ten and fourteen years of imprisonment. The debates generated before and after the signing of this Act are still to subside, yet very little light is shed on why a hitherto reticent religious leader came out openly to support a law that many deem unwarranted and unnecessary, considering the many challenges facing the country. Under the present political dispensation in Nigeria, this Act is perhaps the only political issue that a coalition of Muslims and Christians, as well as a significant number of civil society organisations in the country, have shown unanimous agreement (Oguntola-Laguda and van Klinken 2016). The sharia-dominated northern states of Nigeria had already prohibited sodomy prior to 2014; in the Christian majority south, however, the mission churches and the evangelical groups demonstrated a common understanding in their support for the new law. Among Christians, Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders and groups demonstrated the most virulent support for the criminalisation of same-sex relationships.

The Same Se...