Between stella and scepticism: Examining Nigerian Pentecostal response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The sentiment about the role of religion in society can be exaggerated, but the responsive culture of Nigerian Pentecostalism during the COVID-19 pandemic articulates how faith can be both “a balm and a risk” during a crisis. this article offers three dominant arguments on the responsive paradigm of the pandemic's influence on Nigerian Pentecostalism. the first is based on the significance of tension between the prophetic and the rational. In the second argument, the emphasis is on the appropriation of virtual sites as new spaces for religious performance, while the last argument addresses pandemic scepticism. In analysing panel data generated during the pandemic, this article examines how the stories of recoveries and pandemic scepticism were weaponized within Nigerian Pentecostal culture. Leaning on the transnational influence of Nigerian Pentecostalism and its connection with COVID-19 scepticism, this paper evaluates the role of Dr. Stella Immanuel's Hydroxychloroquine advocacy as a cure for the virus. By drawing parallels between her dispositions with that of white evangelical America, especially in the region of the Midwest and South, this paper concludes on shared, religious-related behavioural connections that strengthen the conversation around pandemic scepticism, politics of religion, and the religion of politics.