Architecturations of Pentecostal Power: Contribution to a Sociology of Pentecostal Auditoriums

Abstract

This article examines Pentecostal architecture as an expression and apparatus of “Pentecostal power.” Referencing the “new” auditorium of the Deeper Christian Life Ministries in Gbagada, Lagos, the article analyzes the “architecturations”—expressions, materializations, and activations through iconic Pentecostal buildings—of Pentecostalism’s spatial, political, corporeal, symbolic, and economic power. This article coins and develops the concept of architecturations of Pentecostal power by predominantly undergirding it with Bourdieu’s conceptual tripartite of field, habitus, and capital. It contributes to embryonic sociology of Pentecostal architecture against a backdrop of its relative neglect in the literatures that have begun to recount Pentecostalism as an urban signifier.