Transcripts of the Sacred in Nigeria

The concept of the sacred has been central to the academic study of religion since its inception. Classics like Rudolf Otto’s Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy) (1917) have discussed the sacred as the essence of religion. In recent years, authors like Talal Asad have argued that conceptual pairs like “sacred and secular” or “sacred and profane” emerge in conjunction. For most scholars, the sacred refers to something beyond or opposite the ordinary, physical world—something divine or spiritual or related to an ultimate concern.

In his new book Transcripts of the Sacred in Nigeria: Beautiful, Monstrous, Ridiculous, Nimi Wariboko takes a different approach. For Wariboko, the sacred does not mean a “transcendent other” (26) or “the usual categories of gods, deities, and spirits, natural or supernatural forces, or the ultimate concern of a people” (xi). Rather, he proposes a radical redefinition of the term. The sacred in Wariboko’s book  means “the universal set of possibilities available to a community or people” (1). The sacred involves “the supreme capacity of human beings to create and actualize potentialities” (41). Interacting with the sacred means creating possibilities that contribute to human flourishing—this is what Wariboko calls the “beautiful sacred”—or destroy the potential for living a good life—in Wariboko’s words, the “monstrous sacred.” He uses the phrase “transcripts of the sacred” to name the concrete ways specific societies deal with and think about the sacred.

Wariboko’s redefinition of the sacred is inspired by Richard Fenner’s article “Sociology and Religion” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (edited by Philip Clayton, Oxford University Press, 2008). In this article, the sacred is conceptualized in conventional terms, as referring to the supernatural and superhuman. However, Fenner argues that the sacred always refers to unactualized potentialities—to that which lies beyond the ordinary. Wariboko takes this link between the sacred and possibilities and equates the two in his redefinition.

Wariboko spends ample time on a (sometimes repetitive) discussion of his conceptual framework: it is the topic of his preface, the introduction, an interlude, and the first chapter of the book. He writes that he is “mindful of the complexity and diversity of the issues my redefinition (reformulation) of the sacred encompasses” (27) and warns readers who fail to let go of more traditional definitions of the sacred that they “might have a problem fully grasping the arguments in this book” (35).

But it is very hard to forget everything one has ever understood as sacred and radically redefine the term. Even Wariboko himself sometimes seems to get lost in a tangle of conflicting meanings of the sacred. He explicitly states that he does not want to equate the sacred with the realm of gods and spirits, but ultimately his use of the sacred does often imply an agent who grants possibilities—so why are the possibilities and not the agent at the core of Wariboko’s concept? For example, Wariboko observes that “there is this abiding illusion that the sacred can support, produce, or authorize what the heart desires” (2). Anyone who has noted the astounding growth of prosperity-gospel churches in Africa will recognize this sentiment. But, in this context, should the sacred not be translated as God, the entity that grants those desires? In a later chapter, Wariboko himself defines the sacred along these lines as “an entitative ultimate concern who (that) is the embodiment of possibilities and is revered (or celebrated) as capable of taking or giving life” (134).

Is the effort of redefining the sacred worth it? Transcripts of the Sacred discusses five different cases or transcripts that elucidate how the sacred plays a role in contemporary Nigerian religion, politics, and life in general. The case studies are presented with ethnographic detail: a description of Pentecostal services in which “hot prayer” is practiced (72-75), an analysis of sermons on Nigeria’s special position by Nigerian pastors (151-154), an account of current (online) discussions on religious topics such as tithing (176). Although sometimes anecdotal, these sections are effective in grounding Wariboko’s sometimes abstract philosophical and theological discussions in real-life contexts.

Each of these case studies, independent of the overall framework of reimagined terms, is interesting and stimulating to read. Wariboko’s analysis of the situation in Nigeria, both in its (Pentecostal) religiosity and its politics, is soberingly bleak. It is not surprising that Nigerians cling to possibilities and strive to find ways to actualize them if the government absents itself from creating opportunities for flourishing. The challenges discussed by Wariboko are not limited to the African continent. In his discussion of the phrase “it does not make sense, but it makes spirit” (105-111), used by Pentecostals to legitimize the sometimes-crazy demands of their pastors, Wariboko witnesses “the unraveling of the very structure of shared understanding that makes thought possible” (109). His analysis of this disruption of a shared epistemology fits with worldwide battles about what constitutes truth in the context of, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is also consistent with the trend of growing polarization.

Wariboko presents himself as writing on the intersection of many different disciplines. This multidisciplinary approach—“religious studies; cultural studies; postcolonial criticism; nondogmatic, nonconfessional theological theorization; philosophy; and African studies are disciplinary stakeholders in this study” (26)—means that a common vocabulary is lacking. It is for this reason that Wariboko feels the need to develop a new understanding of the sacred (26). In an attempt to clarify the redefinition of the sacred, Wariboko introduces the Kalabari concept So, first described by the anthropologist Robin Horton. So is a word for God, but also “refers to both destiny or directing destiny and the sum of possibilities available to the people” (44). If we need a new vocabulary to discuss postcolonial Africa, and if possibilities are so central to this context, why not choose the word So instead of “the sacred”? In the constituting disciplines of Wariboko’s study, words coming from Greek, Latin, French, or German are exceedingly common. Now would be a great time to add a word from a native African language to the mix.

All in all, Wariboko’s emphasis on the pervasiveness of the search for possibilities helps us to better understand religion, politics, and African life in general. The redefinition of the sacred as the universe of possibilities available to a community or people does not.

Johanneke Kroesbergen-Kamps is a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Johanneke Kroesbergen-Kamps

Date Of Review:

February 27, 2024