6 - Gendered Transformations of Enchanted Calvinism in the Ghanaian Presbyterian Diaspora

Summary

This chapter is different in its scope than the previous five. While the prior five chapters are presented in chronological sequence, from the early nineteenth century to the (ethnographic) present, chapter 6 encompasses this entire time frame. While chapters 1–5 focus on how the Presbyterian Church of Ghana became enchanted in both Ghana and North America, chapter 6 takes enchanted Calvinism as a premise. Chapter 6 answers the questions what and why, explaining what form enchanted Calvinism takes in the United States and why it has taken this form.

More specifically, chapter 6 focuses on gendered transformations of enchanted Calvinism in the Ghanaian Presbyterian diaspora. At Grace Presbyterian Church, the deliverance practitioners are primarily men, and the spirit-possessed are exclusively women. In the Ghanaian Presbyterian diaspora, however, women have also become deliverance practitioners and some men have become spirit-possessed. Spirit possession is a phenomenon that entails spiritual agent(s) taking over a host's executive control or replacing a host's mind, therefore assuming control of a host's bodily behaviors and utterances. Spirit possession is one of the two primary ways that Satan can affect people, which in turn requires deliverance in Ghanaian Christianity. The other is spiritual affliction, where illness or misfortune is attributed to Satan. Within the Ghanaian Presbyterian community, spirit possession is also pathogenic or harmful and thereby integrally related to spiritual affliction.