Paper long abstract:

Taking as a point of departure Ghana's transition to a democratic constitution in 1992, this paper examines how the liberalization and commercialization of hitherto state-controlled media created new opportunities for the public articulation of religion. In contrast to mainstream churches, traditional religion, and Muslim groups, Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches adopted new media far more easily and skillfully. This paper discusses the implications of the public presence of Pentecostalism for debates about the nature and relevance of 'tradition', once the prime resource for the imagination of the nation. The central argument is that the turn to democracy entailed new possibilities for the articulation of religion, in particular transnational Pentecostal movements, and hence forces us to explore, empirically and theoretically, how religion and politics intersect in addressing their overlapping constituencies.