Homosexuality, Created Bodies, and Queer Fantasies in a Nigerian Deliverance Church

Bibliographic Data

ID3931933
AuthorsNaomi Richman (0000-0003-4463-0306, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London London UK, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume50
Issue3-4
Pages249-277
Publication date2021-11-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15700666-12340192
OpenAlexW3196024716
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited33

In recent years the use of 'gay cure' therapies by religions has become a major public controversy in the West. Deliverance, or exorcism, is pointed to as an example of a Christian practice used to try and change a person's sexuality. Pentecostal churches specialising in deliverance have become particularly popular on the African continent in the last few decades, where beliefs that homosexuality is immoral and un-African are also widespread. At the same time, public discourse about African attitudes to sexuality in the West tends to misunderstand the way religion contributes to cultures of heteronormativity in Africa. This article analyses how African deliverance churches view same-sex relations by investigating a large Nigerian deliverance church publicly accused of practising conversion therapies. It argues that the church's views on homosexuality derive from its theological understanding of human creation, and that there is more scope for queer expression than first appears

Exorcism · Heteronormativity · History of religions · Homosexuality · Human sexuality · Queer · Queer theory · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropology · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Gender Studies · Philosophy · Religious Studies

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