The title Crash Realities point to the ideals of the Pentecostal Experience and its choice to promote all people—female and male—within the Pentecostal tradition. Crash Realities describe the women’s fate as dreams that burn like soap bubbles, leaving women with a sense of struggle to “become.” Crash Realities critique women’s efforts to realize the Pentecostal Experience as an ideology that, in practical terms, is rhetoric, falls short of collaboration, and leaves the Pentecostal tradition behind in achieving its true essence. I here echo this practice as a capitulator to the masculine logic and widespread dissatisfaction with the lack of inclusivity. There is a romanticization of the Pentecostalism experience as the full realization of the Pentecostal Experience is in continuous flight, at least for women.
Crashed Realities is an interrogation of the operatives of the day-to-day gender dynamics in Nigerian Pentecostalism, using the foremost mega-Church of God Mission International, Inc. (CGMi) as a model. Crashed Realities map out how a religious tradition that presents as egalitarian engages and perpetuates gender disparity, albeit in subtle ways. I do this with an awareness of the social and cultural dimensions of gender performances. I draw both from the everyday practices and theology of the people. Women’s marginalization based on their femininity is a weight that the woman has grappled with over time. In the Pentecostal tradition, egalitarianism is grounded and justified in the Pentecost Experience (Acts 1), where the Holy Spirit disrupted the everyday tradition in a gathering of both female and male bodies.
Crashed Realities mainly explores the gender dynamics in significant leadership positions and highlight the profound ambiguities of the impossible commitment to patriarchy that paradoxically makes the call to inclusivity more critical. I intend to show how Pentecostalism in Nigeria is committed to patriarchy and its deep visceral dive into male dominance that it shares with African Religious Traditions (ARTs). It, therefore, explores the complex web of interactions between Benin Religious Tradition and Nigerian Pentecostal Tradition related to gender dynamics. First, it illuminates the gender dynamics in the African (Benin) religion, a tradition and location the CGMi grew in, and how these “performances” continue to influence Nigerian Pentecostalism today. Crashed Realities capture the “drama” that played out in the wake of Mrs. Margaret Idahosa’s nomination as the archbishop of CGMi and the attempt by the male bodies to ‘erase’ Mrs. Idahosa from leadership and the pages of history in fascinating ways. The male church leaders opposed Mrs. Idahosa’s assuming the exalted office as presiding bishop. Invariably, the visibility of women and increased influence of Mrs. Idahosa may be considered positive progress in Pentecostal spheres showing that preaching the Gospel does not depend on gender but on one’s giftedness and willingness to embrace the call. But, to what extent will Archbishop Mrs. Idahosa’s leadership position be sustained in a tradition that claims to be egalitarian yet within a patriarchal culture? By giving more attention to the “drama” that shrouded Archbishop Margaret Idahosa’s consecration as presiding bishop, I show that elements of CGMi inhibit women’s participation and inclusion in authoritative leadership positions.
Crashed Realities contributes to African women’s religious history and the trajectory of gender dynamics within the Pentecostal tradition, which alleges that it is egalitarian. It opens a new vista for inquiring into the gender dynamics of Nigerian women in the Pentecostal tradition. The inclusion of gender dynamics in the study of African Religion and Pentecostal study extends the examination of the social-cultural construction to include women within authoritative positions in the church. This inclusion is noteworthy as it compels scholars and readers to explore the lived experiences of Nigerian Pentecostal women more profoundly. It also interrogates how they knit together the various strands that form their spirituality in ways that push for more life options for women and men. The interpretation of gender dynamics sparks a critique that broadens what they consider in the tradition and exposes the broader, much more complicated issue of gender inclusivity in practical terms.
This book is sustained by narratives and questions that appropriate a multidisciplinary approach derived from religion, theology, historical, sociological, ethnographic theories, and in increasing turn, gender analysis. It draws on the Church of God Mission International Incorporated (CGMi) as a lens to explore the gender play and politics that beset Nigerian Pentecostalism (NP), which claims to be egalitarian. It draws on rich interviews and observations to offer a cultured theoretical account of how male supremacy from the indigenous tradition impacts Nigeria’s (Benin) Pentecostalism (NP). This lively narrative exposes how Nigerian Pentecostals reproduce, re-enact, and practice gender inequality within the faith community, albeit in subtle ways.
To understand the questions and pin the view of participants’ reality and way of being in the world and facilitate engagement with such problems, I combined empirical research and participant observations in a faith tradition and a church I belong to. My membership of the CGMi offered me an “insider” perspective to develop a rapport with some church members and leaders. This way of engaging with research profited from and defied my sensibility as a Pentecostal churchwoman. The inquiry is empirical because it derives its evidence and moral description from practice, lived experience, active sense of life, Pentecostal (male or female) leaders, and members’ daily life. It explores practically the conception of beliefs by which Pentecostals live and hope to continue living with others.
This book throws light on NP and argues that it cannot make expressive gaits in modernity and religious development when the tradition famishes half its populace from credibly sharing in the religious and leadership spheres. The culture that sees women and their accomplishments as sheer add-ons of men, whose raison d’etre is to attend to its male members’ dictates, is existentialist and dissenting with genuineness. NP must take accountability for their inattentiveness to women’s participation and consider the gap created by leaving women out of significant leadership positions. Advancing the superseded and regressive culture of leaving women in the margins is chauvinistic. One-half of the Pentecostal populace cannot salvage the whole. By the way, why should the female member’s success threaten the male leadership in the Pentecostal sphere? Is Pentecostalism not egalitarian?
Besides challenging the academic taxonomy scholars have employed to compare the political postures of Pentecostals, I have also documented members’ self-understanding of their perspectives and stances toward gender dynamics and gender inclusion. Through engaging the voices and perspectives of CGMi members and leaders, this book encourages religious scholars to rethink the importance of spiritual beliefs and practice for Pentecostal women’s struggle for full participation in public ministry.
To bring this preface to an end, let me point my readers to some events across cultures that impinge on women’s erasure and thus question their equal personhood. Izoduwa, my 11-year-old daughter, shared her concern about this development. On December 6, 2020, she asked me: “How is it that women are not celebrated in their own right and thought of as leaders except if they marry a pastor?” She is not alone in her thought. What is new is that at her age, she already sees the disparity and scorn in the treatment of women in the religious space. A few days after Duwa expressed her concern, Dr. Jill Biden echoed a response (unknowingly to the many fears of Duwa). On December 13, she said: “Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished.” She made this statement in response to a Wall Street Journal op-ed of December 11, 2020, where Joseph Epstein referred to the “soon-to-be first lady as “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill-kiddo,” before “advising” “Any chance you might drop the “Dr” before your name?” Really?
Fascinatingly, Dr. Jill Biden has a doctorate in education and has been teaching for 36 years. But for Epstein, she was ‘fraudulent’ because an Ed.D., a Doctor of Education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation titled “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs” is not promisingly authentic. Epstein quoted “a wise ‘man’” as saying: “no one should call himself ‘Dr’ unless he has delivered a child.” As always, it is the ‘sacred man’ that is still “saying,” “re/directing,” and “charting” the course for the ‘profane woman’ to follow. Epstein had just showcased how dumb and ignorant he is for thinking that only those who deliver babies could be called a ‘Dr.’ And to think that the Wall Street Journal was not embarrassed enough is reprehensible. The re-joinder by the editorial page editor, Paul A. Gigot, which represents WSJ, expresses their chauvinism. It is also possible that all those who deliver babies must be men in the world of Epstein. Epstein’s comment, in my viewpoint, shows how ‘kiddo’ and uncivil he is. For example, Duwa is an intelligent ‘kiddo’ who already raises concerns about ideas that divide, relegate, and marginalize. In my view, Epstein’s goal is to erase Dr. Jill Biden from the historical hall of women who make significant accomplishments through their dint of hard work. This publication is one of the many examples that point to “double standards,” which I refer to in this book as the weight of femaleness that besets women’s accomplishments daily.
This attack is not the first attempt that erasure has been made on women. On April 1, 2009, a photo of two female cabinet members, Limor Livnant and Safa Landver, was taken. They appeared prominently front and center on the newly elected Israeli government’s shoulders, posing with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. Except in the published versions of the photos in two Orthodox Jewish newspapers, the Shaa Tona blanked out the women in their publication. Yated Neeman went a step further with its stunts to eliminate and swap the women with two male ministers in the photo and thus from the historical account. The newspaper rejoined with an apology and blamed their action on religious beliefs, which forbade publishing women’s pictures. For the Orthodox Jewish community, the Jewish law of modesty called Tzniut governs women. This tradition cannot expose women’s bodies in ways to draw attention, especially sexual. So, they erased women from historical photos because of the modesty code.
In a similar but unrelated event and location, an original photo captured the Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, seated at the table across from President Barrack Obama and other national security cabinet members on May 1, 2011. They were at the White House Situation Room monitoring the raid on Osama bin Laden. In a matter of days, the Di-Tzeitung, an Orthodox Jewish paper from Brooklyn, published another photo edition. Fascinatingly, it had erased the “war room women.” Shmarya Rosenberg noticed it on May 5, 2011, drew attention to this development, and probed the disappearance of the “war room women.” They had been erased, blotted, and masked out of the photo and out of history. What had occurred with the Brooklyn newspaper?
On another occasion, on October 14, 2016, Dr. Ben Carson, a former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, demanded that BBC presenter Katty Kay’s microphone be cut during a tense TV morning show interview on Donald Trump. On the same day, in another location, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, in another geographic area, said: “[my wife] belongs to my kitchen and my living room, and the other room.” He made this statement in response to his wife, Aisha’s, public criticism of his governance and leadership. Buhari’s comment reflected his mind about the role of women in public space. The president’s statement and other events identified above are typical of the patriarchal hegemony across cultures that continue to endorse male entitlement and gear towards marginalizing women.
I bring these “everyday encounters of derisions” to the fore to confirm that these practices are not unique to these particular media, political, cultural, and religious milieu. The foremost Benin historian, Jacob U Egharevba, envisaged this practice of erasure and appeared to have been a woman’s advocate in his day. He presented two females—Emose and Ororo—in his historical documentation as Obas in the Benin kingdom. Egharevba lent his voice to the idea that women and men shared leadership power in Benin (African) culture. Yet, women lost the leadership roles to patriarchal hegemony that presented leadership as the exclusive preserve of men who now guard leadership positions to exclude women from influential leadership positions. Today, these women have been erased from the list and halls of fame of Benin (Oba) monarchs; they have been wiped out and replaced by male cultural capitalists. The first impulse was to reframe the historical narrative in patriarchal terms and justify it based on the mythological and cosmological narratives that debase women. Still, in the same tradition, the Iy’ Oba (monarch’s mother) to date dresses in male chieftaincy attire. Her sexuality is shrouded. She is no longer a female but is considered a male chief. It is a requirement to erase everything that points to her femaleness. She becomes a “male” in her menopausal stage and is admitted into the exalted ranks of the male chiefs’.
If women’s erasure from history and their marginalization as leaders within the religious and political arenas is more evident today, one can only imagine how it was in the ancient world of the Benin (African) people, where oral literacy was the hub of the time. The locus of women’s suppression from historical accounts and leadership continues to be linked with their femaleness. Women bear this weight daily—the weight of femaleness accords inferiority and profanity to women’s bodies. Female bodies are considered unholy, profane, deficient, sub-human, shameful, deceitful, and therefore must be marginalized and controlled by the male human that is categorized as “holy” and “sacred.”
Crashed Realities raise some questions: shouldn’t believers’ “spiritual equality” be the cornerstone of the Pentecostal discourse on gender? A context where there is no difference between males and females according to Christian Biblical literature. For example, Acts of the apostles 10:34 says: “God is no respecter of persons” and Galatians 3:28 states: “in Christ, there is neither male nor female.” Unfortunately, this contempt is alive, and very much so in subtle ways. It is more problematic when it becomes a common practice in a Pentecostal tradition that claims to be egalitarian. Although Pentecostals embrace the concept of women’s leadership and claim to undo traditional barriers to women from becoming pastors occupying significant leadership positions, it is clear that the number of women in leadership positions is far fewer than their male counterparts who, in practice, still dominate the movement. Pentecostals lay claim to the “disruptive” activities of the Holy Spirit and do not follow the “dead” Orthodoxy presented by mission (Mainline) churches. The Holy Spirit’s disruptive tendency that does not support an “organized” order is now politicized to fuel the representation of women’s marginalization. Who can question what the Holy Spirit says? This “naturalization” process, as if it is not a social and cultural construct, makes it insidious and complex to discourse among Nigerian Pentecostals.