I am often asked why anyone would want to pursue pastoring as a career. I think the answer is simple. In a social milieu in which the opportunity for upward social mobility is drastically limited, pastoring, as Karen Lauterbach’s study on Ghana confirms, and as I shall demonstrate, offers the young African agent perhaps the best opportunity of becoming ‘somebody.’ The more interesting question, in my opinion, and as I go on to show, is: Why wouldn’t anyone want to become a pastor, considering, inter alia, the relative ease of becoming one (barriers to entry ranging from low to nonexistent), the social prestige that accrues to the contemporary pastor, and the ethical indulgence granted to him based on the perception of his ‘anointing’? Pastoral Power, Clerical State argues that, given an environment in which anonymity is the equivalent of social death, pastoring is the ultimate repudiation of social invisibility. It is the ultimate prize in that unique social struggle that Adeleke Adeeko describes as the “pursuit of eminence,” the eminent not only receiving attention and certain social advantages but, most important, the ability to bypass the law to the point of practically becoming an exception to it.
That is why, even for many ordinarily successful professionals, it is no longer enough to secure excellence or renown in one’s chosen field. For example: In a growing number of cases, the university professor, and perhaps in his own case tacitly admitting a real degradation in status, still aspires to be a pastor, not just because of the awe that, he rightly calculates, spiritual authority commands, but precisely because of the tremendous social capital that redounds to the pastor. He rightly recognizes the social logic according to which doors otherwise close to other experts, including members of the intelligentsia, are flung open for the pastor, how the pastor, contra other kinds of ‘experts,’ tends to be given the benefit of the doubt, and how, in general, his person is crowned with a kind of spiritual and secular halo. In a status-conscious Nigerian society, being a pastor, it would seem, is the ultimate status- a place, ostensibly, beyond scrutiny or censure. Novelist Elnathan John has it right: “Being a pastor is one of the most rewarding things you can do as a Nigerian.” “Reward” here, as I go on to show, is not just financial, but includes a variety of social allowances and indulgences that technically place the pastor in a state of ecclesiastical exception.
Partly due to the aforementioned social regard accruing to the person of the pastor, and partly due to the opportunities for self-fashioning, not to mention accumulation, that the position licenses, the number of people claiming to be pastors has increased exponentially, leading to interesting public conversations on how to separate ‘genuine’ from ‘fake’ pastors. Other than to place this controversy in the broader Nigerian moral economy in which the ersatz permanently exists in tension—and contention—with the real, I have no interest in whether a pastor is genuine or fake. What interests me is the category—its appeal, its enchantments, and, staying with the theme of enchantment, why it casts such a powerful spell on the popular imagination.
