ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between religion and transnational mobility from the perspective of religious media and the nexus of publicity and secrecy they produce. It does so by comparing the role of media in the movement of spirits in three types of religion in Ghana: charismatic Pentecostalism, neo-traditional African religion, and traditional spiritual practices.1 Following Ghana’s return to democracy in 1992 and the subsequent liberalization of the media, popular religious movements have increasingly adopted radio and television to assert public presence, spread their messages, and attract followers. Media have become a key constituent of the religious landscape and access to media has resulted in a hierarchy among the religions that has been particularly favorable to charismatic-Pentecostal churches. Their “media ministries’” constitute a Christian public sphere with cross-religious implications. Responding to calls for investigating how global fl ows of charismatic-Pentecostal mass media feed a globalized “culture of Pentecostalism” (Coleman 2000; Poewe 1994; Robbins 2004), this chapter shows how a transnationally circulating format of televangelism has become paradigmatic for Ghanaian charismatic churches’ media production. At the same time, such publicly visualized styles of worship, preaching, and body movement cross religious boundaries as they are appropriated outside Pentecostalism. Confronted with the recent charismatic-Pentecostal media outburst, Islamic and neo-traditionalist organizations increasingly feel the need to also enter the public sphere and compete for public presence. The case of the neo-traditional Afrikania Mission shows that in adopting visual media to promote African Traditional Religion (ATR)2 to “the public” as an African “world religion”, the movement draws on Christian, increasingly Pentecostal visual styles. Some work on Islam in Africa has hinted at the infl uence of Pentecostal styles and televangelism on Islamic movements and their media use (Larkin 2008; Schulz 2006). African traditional religions, however, have generally been placed outside the realms of public representation, media, and globalization (but see Chidester 2008), and hence, outside the infl uence of mass media Christianity. Mistakenly so, because
African traditional religion, and especially its revival, is equally embedded in the globalization of religion (De Witte 2009).
