Everything Christianity Represents is being Destroyed on the Internet!: Pentecostalism and Platformization in Nigeria

This paper argues the trend of delegitimizing religion has a long history in Nigeria. What is different now is that Pentecostalism is, by its nature, a religion of dominionism that hardly brooks criticism. But rapidly expanding uses of Pentecostalism for “content-making" prey on religious resources. By subjecting the things of God to profane acts, they also transform social relationships to the faith. After analyzing a few instances of the ingenuity of Pentecostal critics who remediate their church-performances, I take an in-depth look at what this radicalism portends for the faith. For a society where both the edification and entertainment cultures have always been entangled, what does it mean when religion finds itself on the internet as a source of moral instruction and a disenchanting amusement?