[Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from a presentation by Professor J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu at our conference on journalism, ethics and religion in Accra. The full text is available for download at the bottom of the page.]

IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND MEDIA, a distinction needs to be made between ‘religion in the media’ and ‘media religion’. The two are related but not the same.

‘Religion in the media’ refers to situations in which ‘outsiders’ discuss, report, or put information about religion in the media. ‘Media religion’ on the other hand, refers to situations in which religious authorities, communities or their representatives either practice their religion through media or purposely place information about their activities in the media.

African traditional religions (ATR), unlike Christianity and Islam tend to be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to media reportage. The reason is that traditional religions do not have any central organizing authority. Every shrine or deity is autonomous. Thus much of what we know about ATR comes from outsiders. These outsiders include scholars of religion and journalists who may not necessarily believe or consciously subscribe to the teaching and practices of any deity.

The result is that the image of traditional religions has not been a very positive one. Since the missionary era of the early nineteenth century, there has been a gradual demonization of traditional religions as belonging to the realm of what the Akan of Ghana call abonsam, the devil. To come to Jesus Christ as preached and demanded in the Christian gospel, is to turn away from traditional resources of supernatural succor represented by traditional religions and culture.

Thus in the early years of the modern Pentecostal movement in Africa, some patrons were even pressured to drop indigenous names linked to deities. The situation was reinforced by testimonies of born-again pastors who spoke of pacts with the devil in their previous lives that enabled them to supernaturally harm others. In the following quotation, Gerrie ter Haar and Stephen Ellis, articulate what we learn from media representations of traditional religions and their functionaries:

Throughout West, central and southern Africa, rumors abound of people being killed by politicians and businessmen especially who believe that they can acquire powerful medicines with parts taken from a human body, and that these would help them to achieve material success. …These rumors are one aspect of a widespread preoccupation with evil and its manifestations in daily life. In markets all over the continent, pamphlets on the problem of evil, written by Africans and published locally are best-sellers. There are widespread accounts of a spiritual underworld where people may make money through contracts that promise worldly riches in return for a pact with the devil. Stories of witches and sinister ghosts and spirits are popular in television soap operas and video cassettes and are discussed in radio phone-ins.

The demonization of traditional religions as the sources of evil spirits and powers means its functionaries are also imaged in the media as agents of the devil and witches.

Witchcraft, Occult and Wealth

Media representations of traditional religions as the sources of dubious wealth and prosperity are reinforced not just by Christian conversion testimonies but also by general public belief in these things.

In African traditional thought, when things are overly successful, suspicions abound and there are stories of how wealthy people came into wealth by exchanging their manhood or in the case of women their wombs for riches. Such men become impotent and the women barren. Wealthy people with imbecile children are very easily suspected of exchanging the sanity of those children for their wealth.

Beliefs about the negative influences of ATR in African life are not helped by actual stories in the media that reinforce public rumors and perceptions.

For example the first Nigerian video film Living in Bondage was infused with a great deal of neo-Pentecostalist rhetoric of deliverance. In the video, Andy was a petty trader went for some money-making medicine through the suggestion of a colleague. At the shrine, Andy was expected to exchange the life of his new bride for the ‘instant wealth’ he sought. Andy’s wealth begins to disappear when his mother-in-law, following traditional religious beliefs, weeps at the graveside of her daughter asking her to take revenge on the one who killed her.

Living in Bondage accepts as true the local belief that rituals with human beings could produce wealth. At the same time, it sustains that Pentecostal Christian position that such wealth is from the devil and can turn against its beneficiaries just in the way that Andy’s life ended in ruins.

These story lines in African movies are sustained in the public imagination by its real occurrences that published in mainstream media.

In the last couple of months, a Ghanaian pastor has been jailed for allegedly abusing his biological daughter sexually and cleaning up the fluids with a handkerchief that he waves in church. The idea is that this was done on the instructions of some traditional religious functionary who is the source of his powers for ministry.

Two other powerful Ghanaian pastors were in the news when one accused the other of burying traditional charms on the grounds of his church ostensibly to neutralize his powers and to lure members away from the church into his own.

On Saturday November 21, 2009, The Spectator, an important weekend paper in Ghana reported with pictures that an eleven year old girl claiming to be a witch had used that supernatural power to ‘practically overturn’ the fortunes of her family. The writer, Douglas Akwasi Owusu, reported that during a session to exorcise the spirit of witchcraft from the girl at the Ebenezer Healing Church, ‘she delivered a live snake in the presence of hundreds of worshippers…’

Such stories are common in Africa's tabloids, but they are reported as factual material. In fact, The Spectator's editor took it upon himself to publish the following note as an introduction to that sensational story:

"Some of our readers have been skeptical about some recent stories we have published, stories that border on witchcraft and the mysterious.  Those stories are very true and our aim is to encourage those who are afflicted by evil and unfamiliar spirits to seek the face of God for salvation in any word-believing church.  The objective therefore is not to promote any church and we have no such intentions.  The following story is bizarre and might offend public sensibilities."

Here the distinction between ‘media religion’ and ‘religion in the media’ is blurred because although The Spectator is a government secular newspaper certain stories on religion like this one are reported from a position of belief.  The editor clearly demonstrates belief in the power of witchcraft and the ability of what he refers to as ‘word-believing churches’ to exorcise its powers out of people. 

Stories bordering on witchcraft and the occult have great commercial value and with the competitive nature of the newspaper industry, the temptation to endorse them out of commercial interest is difficult to resist. Large portions of the story simply feed into certain public perceptions regarding witches, pastors, powers and wealth.

Whether the circumstances surrounding this witchcraft and exorcism story are true or not is not the issue here.  The point is that such stories circulate widely in the media and they have contributed immensely to the negative image of traditional religions in the minds of the public. 

Here is how the writer reports the process of exorcism of the young girl's demon:

It was quite a different matter altogether when Patricia was sent to Prophet Osei.  The Prophet told them straightaway that there was a witches’ pot, a cowry in her stomach as well as a live snake in her private parts and the he would have to remove them before she could be completely exorcised. …The climax of Patricia’s exorcism was last week Friday, during the all-night service when a live snake was commanded out of her private part. Many of the large numbers of worshippers wondered how that long, big snake (about three feet long) could have lived in her parts for so long.

Traditional religion itself does not endorse witchcraft, but in the process of demonization, it is generally believed that those who seek help from those sources end up with negative supernatural powers like witchcraft. 

Besides, it is not uncommon to hear of rich women with snakes living within their wombs and expelling money through the vagina.  Many of these stories have been translated into films and thus reinforce public perceptions and beliefs about the sources of the wealth and powers of successful people in society. 

Conclusion

The media play a central role in providing the symbolic resources through which can make meaning of our social worlds and religion and spirituality are important parts of that meaning-making.   African traditional religions obviously have certain enduring values that were even recognized by Christian missionaries especially through the translations of the Scriptures into various vernaculars.
Unfortunately, the average religious functionary has been imaged in mainstream media as backward, dirty, dubious, and an agent of the devil to the neglect of other life-enhancing roles in traditional society.

Part of this image is self-inflicted because many of the stories surrounding the production of evil medicines for the destruction of life and the cheating of clients have proven to be real. 

As the Akan of Ghana would say, ‘when a sheep contracts a contagious disease, it spreads among the whole flock’.  In other words the negative image of one religious functionary could lead to the blacklisting of all traditional religious functionaries as cheats and charlatans.

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Professor J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu teaches at Ghana’s Trinity Theological Seminary.