The Role of Pentecostal Churches as an Influential Arm of Civil Society in Ghana

Abstract

This paper argues that in its bid to mediate between the State and the social world by promoting discourse, Pentecostalism in Ghana has become a strong arm of civil society. The general distrust in the weak state in Africa projects church organizations in the limelight, thereby making Pentecostal churches, for example, wield power by exercising their authority in the public sphere by means of public discourse on individual success and wealth creation (business entrepreneurship), good governance, and national development. Pentecostalism achieves this by cultivating civil society strategies such as media presence, organizational and leadership skills. By these means it exerts social, economic and political influence over the Ghanaian polity. At the same time, however, the weaknesses of Pentecostal-based organizations are akin to those of the leaders of State institutions and political leaders, as the ills and sins of the society also apparently affect them