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

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Abstract

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 Christian 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.

Description

Keywords

gay-conversion therapies, Africa, homophobia, gay rights, deliverance, Pentecostalism, spiritual warfare, African sexuality

Journal Title

Journal of Religion in Africa

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0022-4200
1570-0666

Volume Title

50

Publisher

Brill Academic Publishers
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust [Grant number 1033344/Z/13/Z]