The Texas Connection: Place, Faith and Institution in Nigerian Migration

This paper considers the importance of place in Nigerian transnational religion. It centers the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), a Nigerian Pentecostal institution, to examine how Nigerian faithways in the US are shaped across the Atlantic. The RCCG is one of the organizations that have positioned Nigeria as the hub of Pentecostalism in the world. Besides its Nigerian core in Lagos, the RCCG has its American core in Texas which has the largest population of Nigerians in the US. The existing connection between Texas and Nigeria creates a transcultural community sustained to a large extent by mobility. It posits that institutions and norms that migrants take with them do not always terminate at destination points but often become part of the continuous exchanges across certain nodes of movement. Using oral interviews, the paper argues that established migrant religious institutions are part of, and better facilitate, these exchanges.