05/02/2022
Brief and Inexpensive: Exorcism in a London Pentecostal Community
Nicholas Adams, University of Birmingham
At the end of the 1900s, the English Anthropologist Timothy Jenkins published a book called Religion in English Everyday Life. It attracted intense interest from my circle of friends and colleagues for a three reasons. First, it was an account of some fieldwork done in a suburban town near Bristol: it was located in a particular place and offered a lot of detail about it. Second, the word ‘religion’ does not actually appear as a guiding category in the study at all: instead, the focus is on practices of various kinds. Third, it made the bold claim that what are often named ‘religious’ practices are best interpreted as ways of making sense of the world and adapting to changing circumstances.
I want to put Jenkins’ description of small town English town to work in considering how to interpret and understand practices of deliverance in a Nigerian diaspora community in London.
Jenkins’ most arresting claim is this: the everyday practices of life in small towns often seem banal to city-dwelling theorists. What small town folk do often seems inconsequential and devoid of interest. In the case of his fieldwork in Kingswood, the townsfolk processed through the town once a year on a ‘Whitwalk’. It is because of the perceived banality that urban-based anthropologists prefer to do fieldwork in more exciting places where more unusual (to city-dwellers, that is) affairs are afoot. Jenkins issues a warning: do not be misled by what appears to be banal. One needs to learn to use the local categories, the concepts and ideas of the practitioners. More colloquially: just because it would be banal if you were to do it, that does not mean it is banal in any wider sense. And to put it very pointedly: if you take something to be banal and uninteresting, that may be a sign that you need to learn new categories, and to acquire a deeper familiarity with the lives of those whose practices you dismiss. And articulated as an encouragement, Jenkins says, ‘Be curious! Learn to find meaning in apparently inconsequential things.’
I want today to take this to heart. But I want to apply this excellent advice to the opposite problem. We are gathered at this symposium because something is happening in our communities that is the opposite of banal. The rise of deliverance ministry is not banal at all: it is interesting. Not only interesting: it appears exotic, fascinating, and compelling. Jesus in the Gospels from time to time does battles with demons, but for decades – in the wake of historical-criticism scholarship of the Bible – this was explained away as an artefact of the mentalité of the ancient world, a husk to be pried away from the kernal of the kerygma, a reflection of a worldview which no modern person would or could hold. But now, on our doorsteps, there are communities, often African diaspora communities, regularly doing battle with demons. How exciting! This brings long-dormant aspects of the Gospel vividly back to life for a jaded European palate and offers an opportunity to embrace a much more literal reading of the demon passages: Mark 1:21, Luke 4:31, Mark 5:1, Matt 8:28, Luke 8:26, Mark 3:20, Matt 12:22, Luke 11:14, Luke 4:41, Mark 9:14, Matt 17:14, Luke 9:37, Mark 7:24, Matt 15:21. Out with the new, in with the old.
Now I have no wish to pick a fight with literal interpreters of scripture. Indeed, I am concerned that the issue of deliverance ministry can become just another casualty of the culture wars. One’s position with respect to exorcism becomes a marker for where one stands in the battle between conservatives and liberals. If fighting demons becomes a proxy for fighting liberals, that will be a deep disappointment, a missed opportunity. It will also be a profound disservice to those communities for whom deliverance ministry is an ordinary part of liturgical life.
I don’t wish to pick a fight. But I do want to draw attention to a tendency to see deliverance ministry in general, and exorcism of demons in particular, as especially interesting. I do think it is interesting, for reasons that I will share in due course. But I want to suggest that just as the religious practices of small English towns are not banal, so the practices of diaspora communities are not exotic. If we find them exotic then this – to adapt Jenkins’ advice to anthropologists – may be a sign that we need to learn new categories, and to acquire a deeper familiarity with the communities who practise deliverance ministry. We will need, for the opposite reason, to be respond to his encouragement: be curious!
To help discharge this task, I have a piece of research to think with. This is a report of fieldwork done in a London Pentecostal community half a dozen years ago by the linguist Kirsty Rowan. Rowan published in 2016 an article with the title ‘“Who are you in this body?”: Identifying demons and the path to deliverance in a London Pentecostal church’. She did fieldwork in a London Pentecostal community in November 2013. The community had rented a 1,200 capacity theatre in the East End of London and pretty much filled it. This Nigerian diaspora community were linked to the home community via a live televised link. It was quite a long period of worship, and the deliverance ministry took place quite late on. Here is Rowan’s account directly:
Late in the afternoon, once sermons, talks, music, singing, and prayers have been performed and conducted, the London church is addressed from Nigeria by the ‘prophet’ of this church by a live televised link that is also streamed on the web. The ‘prophet’ informs the audience that he has specially sent blessed water to be sprayed on the congregants by the evangelists in London. It is after this address and the ‘prophet’s’ prayer that many members of the audience start to exhibit agitated forms of behaviour, which can be categorised as indexes of possession (Haustein 2011), such as vomiting, crying, falling to the floor, shaking, and convulsing. The evangelists’ attendants bring these individuals to the front of the theatre, but not onto the stage, and position them in a horizontal line. Other congregants who did not display this behaviour are invited to also join the ‘prayer line’ to receive the blessed water.
Starting at the beginning of the prayer line, the five evangelists take turns in dispensing the blessed water by spraying the participants in the face. The evangelists all have microphones and proceed to question one-by-one only those participants of the prayer line who recoil or react to being sprayed with the water. The attendants act as minders to assist with the physical safety of participants and the evangelists. The evangelists confirm the possession and perform the deliverance within a couple of minutes. Given the number of participants who join the deliverance prayer line, the evangelists must precipitate this ritual to allow all demon-possessed participants to be delivered within a prescribed timeframe.
Rowan’s professional interest is linguistic. So the detail of her analysis has as its focus the language used in the exorcism. She is particularly interested in the linguistic practices of both ‘evangelists’ and ‘participants’, and pays attention to questions of intonation, vocabulary and structure – especially the fact that the evangelists have a routine in which the same four questions are typically addressed to the demons: ‘who are you?’, ‘what have you done to this woman?’, ‘how long have you been there?’ and ‘how did you get in to her body?’, Once these questions have been answered, the demon is commanded to leave, in the name of Jesus and with the anointing water.
Rowan is also interested in rhythm: the Evangelist speaks, and the woman (the participants are nearly all women) responds. This rule is proved in the case of the participant named ‘Anna’, who is not familiar with the deliverance practices. Anna is in fact first in line for exorcism, but her case is presented last because it is anomalous. Because she is first in line, and because she is inexperienced, she does not know what to do. Anna talks over the evangelist – she does not wait for him to ask his questions but interrupts him - and does not answer his questions satisfactorily. The rhythm is disrupted. Instead of answering who the demon is, and instead of answering the question about what the demon has done, Anna’s demon repeatedly tells the evangelist to go away. Whereas for other participants the demons are named as Anger, Depression, Lust, Death and so forth, Anna’s demon remains unnamed.
Somewhat exasperated, or perhaps fatigued, the Evangelist cuts short the process. He does not ask how long or how the demon got there. Instead he abruptly declares the woman clean, in Jesus’ name, and Anna has to move aside for the next in line.
My interest is less in the linguistic details – fascinating though they are, and presented with exceptional clarity in the report – and more in certain features that are noted in general.
In this article, and in a companion piece published around the same time, jointly authored with Karen Dwyer (who has an interest in the linguistics of psychopathologies), Rowan makes a number of observations that are important for our purposes.
First, the service is well publicised on the web in advance, but no mention is made of deliverance ministry. It is not an advertised feature.
Second, no charge is made for attendance: it is free to attend (and there are over 1000 attendees).
Third, it is a brisk matter. Each deliverance lasts maybe two minutes. Certainly longer than distributing communion, but still pretty quick.
Fourth, the deliverance ministry is an ordinary practice with clear expectations for participants. The evangelists, the participants, and the demons, for the most part know their roles and for the most part play them fluently. Everyone gets in line, knows what to do, and gets on with it.
The anomaly case 'Anna' shows not only what the norms are, but the pragmatism of the exorcist in cutting things short, and getting through the line.
Rowan has an hour and 20 minutes of video of the deliverance portion, but some of this time is devoted, at the start, to identifying who needs deliverance. There are three phases to it. The first phase is the attendants noticing who is swaying or convulsing at the start of the process. Note that people do not sway or convulse until the prophet has announced that blessed water has been sent to be sprayed. They wait until it is time. Those who display these signs, and several others, are brought to the front. There is quite a number of people in a horizontal row. Five evangelists spray water in their faces. Those who react strongly are selected for deliverance – seventeen on this occasion – and then each one is processed in 2-3 minutes. It is efficient and quick.
These four features are interesting, although hardly exotic. It is not advertised, it is free, it is fast, and it has a simple repeated structure of questions, answers, and deliverance.
Its efficiency is particularly noteworthy. There are nearly 1,200 people in attendance. This is whittled down to seventeen deliverances in around 15 minutes through the expert diagnostic use of blessed water, and then a further 40-50 mins or so (by my rough calculation) to carry out seventeen deliverances.
What might we make of this?
This is a diaspora community from Nigeria within travelling distance of East London. The practice of deliverance is obviously a normal part of their worship: it does not even need to be advertised, and everyone knows what to do and when to do it. It is an ordinary, everyday practice – even the swaying, the convulsing, the vomiting, the falling to the floor. The existence of demons is no big issue. It is simply presupposed. Neither are demons a serious threat to the community or to the lives of those afflicted by them. They are quickly named, their ill effects are quickly identified, and they are quickly dispatched, restoring agency to the individual, and restoring the individual, now healed, to the community.
Diaspora communities adapt to changing circumstances in various ways: this hybrid event (in person and online – several years before Covid!) is one of many resources and, in the case of the event documented by Rowan, the presenting issue seems often to be women's difficulties with relationships, especially around questions of virtue and control. The purpose of the exorcism seems in part to restore reputation and to reassert the women's agency. Their responsibility for their difficulties is lifted from them and attributed to demons, who are banished. It is an engine for eliminating shame. It does this quickly and efficiently.
To circle back to the work done three decades ago by Timothy Jenkins, the practice of deliverance ministry in this diaspora community requires a certain curiosity about local categories and ways of making sense of the world, and in particular making sense of changes in the community, as when large numbers of people move from Nigeria to the area surrounding East London. These changes are often difficulty and, if this community is any guide, these difficulties often fall heavily on the shoulders of women and manifest in their relationships.
And to make the central point as directly as possible: it takes less time for an evangelist to cast out demons than it takes for a GP to see a patient on a busy Thursday morning.
Deliverance ministry is obviously a central and ordinary part of Nigerian communities and probably for many African diaspora communities in Britain. Whether it is a central and ordinary part of the life of the church for other communities is perhaps a matter for anthropologists. As for this theologian, I am grateful to Kirsty Rowan, Afe Adogame and others who document the beliefs, practices, and languages of diaspora ommunities who practise deliverance. There is much to learn from them.
If we are tempted to find these practices exotic, or if we are tempted to envy such communities for their proximity to the demon-battling Jesus of the Gospels, we should pause. But not only pause. We should listen to the encouragement of Timothy Jenkins: learn new categories; be curious!
