Pentecostalism and New Social Movements: ENDSARS Protests in Nigeria

Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing branches of Christianity in the world. In some regions it claims to be a significant player in political and public life. The number of Pentecostals is growing steadily in the countries of South America, Asia, and Africa. Studying the role of the Pentecostal mobilization potential in the protest movements can give deeper understanding of what is going on in these macro-regions as they play a significant role in the processes of global destabilization. The paper presents an analysis of the features of the ENDSARS protest movement, which took place in Nigeria in the fall of 2020. This series of protests was accompanied by a noticeable media campaign and had a pronounced religious character of the call and forms of protest actions. Young people were invited to participate in protest prayer meetings and processions. The protest actions that obstructed or blocked traffic were carried out on highways and objects of road infrastructure. Despite the participation of representatives of different religions, the movement was influenced by the religious rhetoric and practice of Pentecostals. An overview of politicization of religion and the spread of Pentecostalism in Nigeria, and the results of a multimodal analysis of digital videos associated with the ENDSARS movement are presented. The emphasis of the study was placed on the media content created by organizations and private users on social networks, video hosting services and blogs. The article provides a detailed overview of several typical examples of disseminated media messages, as well as an analysis of the religious leaders’ official statements and video messages. The presented analysis shows that the influence of Pentecostalism can spread beyond the confines of the religious community and become an actualizing and mobilizing factor for the general population, including followers of other religious movements.