Ebenezer Obadare
Ebenezer Obadare is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA. He earned his doctorate in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2005, and has undergraduate and graduate degrees in History (1989) and International Relations (1992) respectively from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A former award-winning journalist, Dr. Obadare’s research interests include civil society and the state, religion and politics in Africa, civic service, and citizenship. He has published extensively on these subjects in leading refereed journals, among them Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE), African Affairs, Politique Africaine, Journal of Civil Society, Democratization, Patterns of Prejudice, Africa Development, Critical African Studies, Development in Practice, Journal of Modern African Studies, and Journal of Contemporary African Studies. He is the author of Africa Between the Old and the New: The Strange Persistence of the Postcolonial State (UNCW, 2008); Statism, Youth and the Civic Imagination: A Critical Study of the Nigerian National Youth Service Corps (CODESRIA, 2010); and co-editor of Encountering the Nigerian State (Palgrave, 2010) and Nigeria at Fifty: The Nation in Narration (Routledge, 2011).
Posts by Ebenezer Obadare
“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV).
In African Pentecostal circles, a lively and contentious debate about the meaning and ramifications of this passage persists. While there is general consensus on the spiritual renovation that a new member of the body of Christ is expected to undergo, understandings of and attitudes toward the 'old' traditions and ways of life vary. How should a 'born-again' dress, for instance?
Fueled by Faith: Driven by Prayer
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, once told his congregation about an extraordinary event that happened to him while on a road trip in Nigeria. He had left the city of Onitsha in the eastern Nigerian state of Anambra, and, as is frequently the case these days, the region and the rest of the country was in the grip of an acute petrol shortage. Because of this, he was unable to buy petrol for the car he was traveling in, as was his intention, in the adjoining city of Asaba, a short six miles away. By the time he arrived in Ore, about 134 miles from Asaba, his fuel indicator was firmly leaning toward “empty,” meaning that he had to get petrol for the car immediately. But then, something out of this world happened.
With the sheer proliferation of academic interest in different aspects of digital religion- Internet spiritualities, the use of chat rooms for religious services, religious blogging, the insinuation of religious elements into videogames, twitter, Facebook, et al- Prexting promises to illuminate the deployment of a specific mobile phone functionality for the performance and circulation of prayer.
In the aftermath of ‘9/11’, the assumption that adherents of evangelical Christianity and reformist Islam inhabit discrepant, permanently warring publics, has solidified. The dominant narrative is one of mutual antagonism, which positions these religions as foundational in major global conflicts.
