The Role of Spiritual Warfare in African Pentecostal Christianity: Implications for Believer Resilience and Church Practice Regulation (by the Interfaith Youth Team)
African Pentecostal Christians are increasingly partaking in spiritual warfare practices (SWPs) to stay resilient against their struggles while simultaneously being harmed by them (Twumasi-Ankrah & Kyereahene-Mensah, 2023). Pentecostalism is a denomination of Christianity that involves active faith through an engaged connection with the holy spirit (Marshall, 2016). SWPs, which come from this denomination and have gained popularity on a global scale, are characterized by intense physical movements (shouting, fighting, rolling on the ground). These actions are targeted towards evil spirits, with the eventual goal of helping believers to be alleviated from their respective crises. For example, many resorted to SWPs during the hard times of the Covid-19 pandemic (Benson, 2024). Daniel Olukoya, the Nigerian pastor and founder of the Mountain of Fires and Miracles Ministry (MFMM) popularized these practices since the church's opening in 1994. Since then, they have grown their presence to the point where they now have hundreds of churches with 100,000 to 200,000 thousand weekly visitors with ever-increasing prominence (Richman, 2020; Twumasi-Ankrah & Kyereahene-Mensah, 2023). While SWPs are intended to build resilience, which can be defined as the process of recovery from trauma (Rahill et al., 2016), many negatives have also sprawled as a result of this movement including the spread of diseases, sudden injuries, and negative thoughts (Twumasi-Ankrah & Kyereahene-Mensah, 2023).
Prayers have been, and are still used to stay resilient against struggle around the world, which was illustrated in the 2010 Haiti earthquake (Rahill et al., 2016). However, the methods that people go about doing so vary in large degrees of aggressiveness and unusuality, understanding how resilience is affected as a result of these changes is essential to make sure that they are helping, rather than harming this difficult process. There are both positive and negative physical and psychological effects that result from spiritual warfare practices, therefore, understanding the respective implications for both sides is necessary in order to understand if something should be done to either promote or limit these practices to some degree. Thus, this paper aims to address the following: What are the implications of spiritual warfare practices in African Pentecostal Christianity on the resilience of a believer?
Physical Effects of Spiritual Warfare Practices
Spiritual Warfare Practices can have physical benefits for believers, helping them stay resilient. For example, as illustrated in a study that examined the effects of prayer on different medical conditions, there was a positive relationship between prayer and physical health improvement, mortality and length of hospital stay, as well as pregnancy success rates (Simão et al., 2016). This indicates that prayer itself helps one stay resilient against their physical issues, i.e. if one was worried about the improvement of their health, their use of prayer would make them resilient, as it would allow them to get the result they want physically. It is important to note however that such results were found from different methods of treatment, far less intense and aggressive than SWPs. With that being said, since prayer is defined as having a connection to a divine force (Simão et al., 2016), this paper asserts that SWPs are similar in their nature of invocation and thus, such conclusions can be similarly applied to them as they were in the study. This also indicates though that many forms of prayer can garner these physical health benefits, not only SWPs. So, if there were any negatives to these practices, regulating them would not lose such benefits. To continue, the benefits of exercise, such as decreased hypertension, can come from SWPs (Twumasi-Ankrah & Kyereahene-Mensah, 2023). This indicates that the intense nature of the prayer leads to a benefit and that regulating their intensity would in fact decrease a believer's chance of getting such benefits, unlike the other positives mentioned that can come from all forms of prayer. It is important to note that this study was not empirically supported i.e. was not tested on actual SWP participants who likely could have experienced many other confounding factors in their niche form of exercise. Nevertheless, with such benefits taken into account, the act of praying can physically benefit a believer, which means that if one is trying to stay resilient against a physical issue, prayer itself can help them. This also highlights that prayer in general can have physical benefits that are not exclusive to SWPs.
While physical effects from SWPs can have positive benefits, their negatives mitigate them by causing direct harm to a believer's ability to practice resilience. This is illustrated by the fact that 100% of participants in a SWP study (in the MFMM) felt some form of sudden headache, dizziness, palpitation, or weakness as a result of the prayer (Twumasi-Ankrah & Kyereahene-Mensah, 2023). If one faces such symptoms, it weakens their consciousness, and in turn, their ability to stay focused on prayer. This indicates that strictly because of the intense nature of SWPs, their ability to use prayer as a means of resilience would be ineffective as they would be in a poor state while doing so. To add on, it was also concluded that due to the contact with saliva droplets, (80.6% of the sample size participants came in contact with) as found in the study of SWPs, plus the confined space and intensity of these practices there would likely be an increased spread of airborne diseases such as Hepatitis B and C, TB, and COVID-19 in enclosed areas (Twumasi-Ankrah & Kyereahene-Mensah, 2023). This means that if someone was trying to stay resilient against such diseases and used SWPs, their actions would actually be hurting this process instead of helping it. Consequently, the congregational and intense nature of the prayer leads to serious negative physical consequences that warrant a solution. Since these negatives have serious implications for a believer, it would be rational to dismiss exercise (and in turn decreased hypertension), a physical benefit that was dependent on the intensity of SWPs, as such physical benefits can be gained alternatively and are not worth the serious consequences that come from intensity which harm the resilience of a believer.
Psychological Effects of Spiritual Warfare Practices
To continue, Spiritual Warfare Practices can have psychological benefits for believers, changing the way they act, instead of how they simply physically feel. For example, in response to the devastating earthquake of 2010 in Haiti, many attributed their faith in God as an important tool in continuing to live their daily lives (Rahill et al., 2016) illustrating how a psychological belief was essential to the process of resilience as it allowed for the maintenance of a stable mind in harsh times. While prayer here did not have the same aggressive connection with God as in SWPs, it was simply trust in God that was essential for these changes which is consistent amongst both the Haitian and African practice of Christianity.
Furthermore, SWPs in North America (practiced in an attentive, but not necessarily intense manner like in Africa) have been shown to give believers more confidence in believing that their holy books are true (McAlister, 2016). This means that faith is psychologically increased through confidence, affirming that believers will understand God's plan of struggle for them. If one understands they are meant to struggle, then they are psychologically inclined to stay resilient, as they understand their trauma, and know that they will be relieved from it. This illustrates that the psychological benefits of SWPs are crucial for resilience but do not necessarily need to be practiced intensely, as benefits can be gained regardless.
Similar to the physical effects of SWPs, while there are positive psychological effects to them, their negative effects that can affect one's mind outweigh the positives. This is shown through the military-style language used by pastors to make believers aggressively fight the devil, diseases, and foes by advising followers to think about poking out eyes or destroying and breaking things (Richman, 2020). SWPs in Africa are taught in a way that specifically calls for aggressiveness and violence to invoke the divine. The psychological connection between God and violence could as a result translate to violence in the everyday life of believers. This illustrates the dark side of trying to practice resilience, as it potentially leads to actual violence which leads to further struggle. You cannot overcome trauma by creating more. So, in summary, the violent words of SWPs can inspire harmful psychological thoughts in believers, thus such words need to be moderated; in doing so, believers can keep the psychological benefits of resilience while dropping the negatives.
Church Regulation
Because of the negative physical and psychological effects of SWPs, African Pentecostal Churches should regulate the intensity of their practices to avoid decreased resilience in their members. The church establishes the framework for how they practice SWPs (Luka, 2023), this autonomy allows them to make decisions for the benefit of their members. If they were, say, forced to set rules regarding the practices enforced by the government or another absolute power, this would not be an appropriate solution. However, given this control, the church could regulate its practices to avoid the aforementioned negatives of SWPs. Less physical intensity, greater proximity between believers, the wearing of face masks, and a decreased level of intensity in word choice should all be taken into account by the church to help put an end to the greatest restraints to resilience as a result of SWPs.
It is important to note that churches like the MFMM have their core principles all based around violence in prayer (Butticci, 2013). This means that making changes would require a complete shift in their framework and would likely contradict what the church stands for, indicating the difficulty of the imposition of these changes. However, if they were to happen, possible ways could include a change in leadership, negative representation, or a big negative event (many deaths) to progress regulation. Other possible ways for regulation to be possible given how the African Pentecostal practice is currently run, could include new practices that regulate traditional SWPs and gain popularity, attracting members from large establishments like the MFMM to join their more calmer and sustainable approach to Pentecostal worship in Africa.
Necessity of Aggressive Prayer
Some may claim that aggressive prayer is required to stay resilient due to biblical teaching when it actually teaches against such extremes. Daniel Olukoya once said, “No soul that ever cried violently to God has been disappointed” (Butticci, 2013, p. 2). Such claims are often justified by bible verses that describe Jesus highlighting the importance of prayer, and the biblical figure of Daniel who partakes in warfare against Satan. This rationale claims that in Christian theology, it is necessary to aggressively seek divine intervention (Richman, 2020). However, as Koudah (2004) suggests, because the nature of the prayer involves such a great focus on the devil rather than Christ, aggressive prayer actually contradicts what is biblically accurate. Therefore, since trust and confidence in God are important to psychological benefit (as mentioned in a previous section), if one figures out that they are partaking in a practice that does not align with what they believe to be the word of God, they wouldn’t trust it, and thus it would not aid them in resilience.
Furthermore, the misconception of the need for aggressiveness in prayer is furthered by ideas of its necessity in the face of trauma. As a pastor from the MFMM said, “There was divine violence that canceled the violence of the pandemic,” (Benson, 2024, p. 5). This source asserts that to stay resilient, this form of violence is necessary. However, this is contradicted by other instances of the successful use of calmer forms of prayer to put an end to similar levels of great suffering, like the previously mentioned Haiti earthquake (Rahill et al., 2016). This paper does consider that if there is a belief that violent prayer is necessary, then that person may not believe in alternative forms of it. Nonetheless, this section states the objective actualities as to why an aggressive prayer is not necessary. Indeed, it does not benefit the resilience of believers.
Conclusion
The negative physical and psychological effects of SWPs will persist as long as they go unnoticed. Because of this, the rational solution to alleviate this struggle, and further the process of resilience could be to impose a regulation on physical intensity, proximity, and choice of words, while additionally suggesting believers to wear face masks. Ultimately, such changes eliminate the key negatives of SWPs, but preserve the positives (found in other forms of prayer), which ensures maximal benefit for the believer in their process of resilience.
References
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