It has also reinvigorated the figure of the militant Christian subject. While a conception of evangelism, conversion, and Christian life as a form of spiritual warfare (a struggle against the flesh, sin and death a purification in and through the Spirit and the blood of Christ) is central to a long apostolic tradition, nonetheless, globalized charismatic Christianity, with its now half a billion adherents (and still growing exponentially), has taken it from the margins of contemporary Christian orthodoxy to the mainstream of Christian practice, especially across the Global South. Whether we know it or not, we are all involved in this battle. Thus the “balance of power in world affairs”, as well as the everyday lives and ultimate destinies of individuals, peoples, and nations, are suspended upon the struggle in the noumenal realm between God and Satan, light and darkness, good and evil, Truth and the lie. The ends of spiritual warfare are a radical transformation of individual and collective existence through the piercing of the phenomenal veil of a material, fallen world with the knowledge acquired by the power and inspiration of Holy Spirit, the charismatic gifts promised by God to the repentant convert and announced by Peter at Pentecost. Holding sway over entire nations or territories, satanic powers seek to thwart the Christian at every turn, especially in their goal to realize the evangelization of the entire world, a necessary condition for the return of the Messiah. Satan and his demons are real, and they constantly intervene in the material natural world to nefarious ends. (Olukoya Citation2013a)įocused on the struggle to realize the “Kingdom of God” through evangelism, conversion and the persisting in faith of the saved, charismatic Christians across the world today know they are locked in an epic end-times battle with the demonic – “for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. Even if you do not like to talk about wars and bloodshed or violence, you have no option when it comes to spiritual wars because you are already involved. This battle is going on between negative and positive powers, evil and good, the real thing and the counterfeit, light and darkness, right and wrong. But whether you believe it or not, you are involved in that battle anyway.
There is a raging battle going on day and night between two opposing forces. Secondly, since the violence of spiritual warriors is mostly effected through their prayers and testimonies, we are led to question the place of an activist, pragmatist, or even performative model of truth for a political problematics of emancipation and democratization. In this global expansion, prayer as an embodied form of inspired speech is central both to the construction of militant subjects and the occupation of public space. First, the ways in which charismatic Christianity self-consciously and antagonistically constructs itself as a global force. Drawing on material from Nigeria and the United States, I briefly explore two related axes in order to bring to light the centrality of prayer conceived as a form of political praxis.
The paradigm of “global spiritual warfare” with its apocalyptic visions, violent language and its obsession with enemies, appears as a particularly polemical instance of Christian supersessionism and expansionism. This paper focuses on contemporary charismatic Christian practices of spiritual warfare and its techniques of warfare prayer.
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