African Religion is not Demonic and Nogokpo cannot be a demonic headquarters: A Response to Archbishop Agyin Asare.

The Context
The founder of Perez Chapel International, the Archbishop Agyinasare recently incurred the wrath of the chief and people of Nogokpo of the Ketu South Municipality when he referred to the town as “the demonic headquarters in the Volta region”. Preaching in his mega church during a “Supernatural Empowerment Summit” the preacher inferred in his sermon that a near tragic event in Nogokpo was an attack from “witches and wizards.” In his words, “immediately we go to Nogokpo, Bishop Yaw Adu’s four-wheel drive, the tyre came out from under the car.” The inference was that “witches and wizards” from Nogokpo had caused this to happen after he asked one of his bishops to preach against during a church service in an adjoining town.

I’m not surprised at this characterisation of Nogokpo, a town associated with the Zakadza Shrine and the volta region at large as a spiritual powerhouse in the rhetoric of a Pentecostal Charismatic preacher. Pentecostal Charismatic Christians demonise “Other” religions, including Christian groups who do not subscribe to Pentecostalised Christianity.

It was however a pleasant surprise that apart from using social media platforms such as Facebook, the Chief, elders and people of Nogokpo held a press conference, refuted the demonic tag and called on the pastor to apologize or face their wrath.

Nogokpo and the Togbui Zakadza Shrine
Nogokpo (stay in peace in the Ewe language) is a small coastal town fringed with coconut trees on a beautiful sandy coastline that stretches from Aflao to Blekusu. Nogokpo is however not famous because of its pristine coastline and hospitable people, but because of the Togbui Zakadza Shrine, even though there are other famous shrines in proximity such as the Nyigbla shrine of Afife, and the Adzima shrine of Klikor. Zakadza, means night crocodile, a combination of the Ewe and Fon languages of Ghana and Benin respectively. It is held that Togbui Saba on his return from a spiritual journey to Dahomey (now Benin) brought Togbui Zakadza to Agbozume and eventually settled in Nogokpo. Togbui Zakadzai is a deity that is believed by the people who venerate him to be a powerful god of thunder of Yewe cult, like Thor, the hammer-wielding god in Germanic paganism associated with thunder or the powerful Shango, the legendary fourth king of the ancient kingdom of Oyo, whose power is imaged by thunder.

In southeastern Eweland generally the deity associated with Yeve cult is called So, the God of thunder. So, is believed to resides in the sky, and communicates through thunder and lightning and as such is also referred to as Dadagbe, Totobli, Tohono and Dzidegbe. These terms describe sounds derived from thunder.

In Ewe cosmology, Togbui Zakadza is a manifestation of So. with historical ties to shango of the Yoruba and the Dahomean hevioso. Further, Zakadza is believed to be So or Yeve (God) of justice who dislikes evil and strike dishonest people in society. In reference to the nature of So or thunder Gods in south-eastern Eweland, Geoffrey Parrinder writes.

The god So is believed to strike down the impious and to destroy the trees which witches use for their meeting in the night. Those people who are struck by lightening are not allowed normal burial, ‘the god has taken them,’ and their corpses are appropriated by the priests...So is not only an angry god casting down his axes on wicked people; it is also said that he owns the heavens, sends heat and rain, and gives fertility to men and to do their crops. 1961: 31-32)

In African religions generally, the Supreme Being (God) is both transcendent and immanent. Zakadza is a manifestation of Yeve, God. The Yeve cult like all pre-colonial African religions use spirituality as social regulatory mechanisms. Yeve cult among others regulates society in relation to morality, marriage, justice, death, economics, and education. These shrines observe annual festivals of ritual ceremonies. The rites observed at the Zakadza shrine for example has serious religious underpinnings meant to regulate infractions that can threaten the collective existence of the people. The rites are geared toward achieving the foremost goal of life preservation in the communities of South-eastern Ewe land and even beyond.

Before African societies became subjects of European colonialism, their religious specialists and spiritual philosophies functioned as checks and balances in systems of governance. “Religious specialists or elders with spiritual authority formed a counter-balance to rulers…They mediated the rights and claims of various groups, ensuring that power was not abused — in whatever terms it was understood locally.” Colonialism disrupted the regulatory function of religion as Europeans introduced Western systems of governance which separated the secular from the religious and attempted to relegate religion to the private sphere. The introduction of Western bureaucratic administration did not eradicate the belief in a religious cosmology. Rather than disenchant new forms of enchantment emerged. Many places such as Nogokpo are thriving despite the strong assault of Colonialism, globalisation, modernisation and Pentecostalisation of Christianisation on indigenous religio-cultural beliefs and practices.

There is in fact a renaissance of African religions in the broader context of religious revivals in Africa. There is a noticeable interest in reviving indigenous spiritualities among Africans, both in Africa and in the diaspora. As the effectiveness of state institutions continue to decline, African spirituality is gradually emerging as a public force outside the formal sphere.

Despite this revival, colonialism and perceptions of Western missionaries have had lasting impacts on how Africans, many of whom are now Pentecostalised Christians perceive African Indigenous spirituality. The civilising project of European colonialism and Western missionaries contributed to the demonisation of African religious beliefs and practices. In Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana, Birgit Meyer places the diabolisation of Ewe religion in historical perspective and show how local gods became evil spirits and got incorporated into Christian belief as demons. Through translation, German Piestist missionaries denounced Ewe religious beliefs as paganism and the work of the devil. Ewe religion had no concept of evil spirits. Spirits could be both benevolent or malevolent (good and bad). The demonisation of Ewe and African religions continue to receive attention particularly by Pentecostal Charismatic Christians who see themselves in a perpetual spiritual warfare with witches and wizards. Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity has thrived on the strong belief in mystical causality in African cosmology and preachers such as Agyin Asare who pay more attention to the devil, witches and wizards stand much closer to those adherents of Zakadza in Nogokpo, than to missionary Christianity. In essence both Zakadza and Agyin Asare are more interested in ridding society off evil spirits including witches and wizards. “Pentecostalism's increasing popularity thus stems from the fact that it ties into historically generated local understandings of Christianity.” Spiritual warfare and deliverance services are common among African pastors which are in themselves creative responses to the forces of globalisation by drawing on the bible and African worldview of spiritual causality. Behind this complex process of contextualisation is a form of dualism. “By presenting the Holy Spirit as a good and more powerful spirit, Pentecostal dualism allows its adherents to maintain their indigenous spiritual cosmology and even ritual engagement with traditional spirits through Christian spiritual warfare and exorcism.”

Agyin Asare and Togbui Zakadza’s shrine have many things in common, because they both hold a holistic worldview of the universe with no clear demarcation between the visible and invisible world. Also, Agyinasare and Togbui Zakadza are both negotiating the challenging remnants of Western Christianisation as well as the angst and discontents of modernity by drawing on the same worldview but applying slightly different spiritual rhetoric. While Pentecostal Charismatic Christians see the religious practices of indigenous religious practitioners as demonic their emphasis on deliverance and spiritual warfare places them closer to African religions than Western Christianity. Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Africa is an African religion and this might well be a misudnerstanding among siblings.

The Way Forward
The contemporary clashes between Christianity and African Indigenous religions are not new, they began with missionary Christianity. The contemporary revival of African religions means that diabolisation will be challenged and more confrontations such as is currently happening between Zakadza Shrine in Nogokpo and Archbishop AgyinAsare are bound to increase. There is the need for a robust interfaith dialogue. Unfortunately, Pentecostal Charismatic churches have not been the greatest of interfaith dialoguers. The Pentecostal academician, Tony Richie, has described the religious interactions in Pentecostalism as one that takes the form of “self-centered psychosis that alienates itself from any realities of divine presence beyond its own borders” which has often resulted in “ostracizing itself,” while “demonizing” Other religions. Ghana and for that matter Africa is a religious plural continent and Pentecostal Christians are called upon to develop their exclusivity in a way that respects and not denigrate “Other” faiths. This calls for a robust Pentecostal Charismatic theology of religions

Again, Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians see the world through the lens of good and evil spirits, God and Satan, good and bad. This dualistic worldview has had a negative effect of overspiritualisation of the world at the expense of rigor and rationality. Richie points out that they “recognizes that diabolical or demonic forces often deign to use religion—any religion, all religions—for perverse purposes.” To correct this, the Pentecostal Charismatic preachers such as Agyinasare ought to commit to learning about the religious Other, most optimally by dialoguing with them and not condemning them from his pulpit. Archbishop Agyinasare, please preach Christ and him crucified and leave the results to God. There is no need for role playing and showboating before God. When I worked for the Great Commission Movement of Ghana as a young evangelist, we had a simple axiom that reads, “Preach the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results to God.”

Rev Dr Kwame Ahaligah