Mediating the Global and Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism

Abstract

MEDIATING THE GLOBAL AND LOCAL IN NIGERIAN PENTECOSTALISM* BY RUTH MARSHALL-FRATANI (School of Oriental and African Studies, London) Introduction: Transnationalism, the nation-state, and the media All world religions are 'transnational,' and have been since long before the idea of nation took on its modern significance as the priv- ileged space for the construction of political identity and a new form of 'imagined' community. Christianity in particular, despite its often intimate historical connections with the internal politics of nation-states, its multitude of denominational and institutional forms, has at its core an evangelical message which is to be spread to all peoples,