33

Over the past ten years in Nigeria, as in other countries throughout Africa, one can observe changes in the social categories and representations of success and power, with the emphasis now on informal tactics associated with cunning and “getting by,” on the criminal, and, above all, on the occult and the supernatural. During the same decade, a new figure of social success and power has come to the fore in urban Nigeria—pastors of the new wave of Pentecostal churches. Associated in the past with poverty and sacrifice, the pastor’s role is now synonymous with wealth, prestige, and transnational and political connections. This paper analyzes the changes that have occurred in the Pentecostal imaginary over the past twenty years, and explores their implications for the Pentecostal community and for the popular imagination more broadly.