Churchgoing: Discerning Religious Fakery

Building on the discussion started in Chapter 1 of how invisible agents can shape young women’s lives, Chapter 2 focuses on how young women engage with Pentecostalism to realise auspicious futures. Calabar is well-known for its numerous churches, which render the city a highly competitive and cacophonous religious marketplace. The chapter details how young women, simultaneously enticed by and fearful of novel charismatic practices, must learn to navigate the city’s plural church landscape. Ever curious, young women are often left wondering whether, by attending certain ministries, they are unwittingly harming their attempts to realise the destinies they believe God has planned for them. Drawing on local discourses of ‘spiritual confusion’ and ‘fake pastors’, the chapter highlights how unknown forces might cause deep-seated anxieties in young women as they attempt to grow up but that doubts over what cannot be seen do not stop young women from participating in what they themselves see as questionable Christian practices.