Page 204 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

Modes of Binding, Moments of Bonding 189

which Otabil builds his messages is: “Why are we in this mess?” His
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answer is: because of “our inability to modify our culture.” Otabil thus
pleads for a radical cultural transformation, first of all through educa-
tion. At the same time, he marks (and markets) his African consciousness
with an all-African name and an all-African attire. Otabil thus presents
an intriguing mix of born-again ideology, African consciousness, and
self-development discourse characteristic of management and consul-
tancy literature.
According to independent audience research (Research International
2003), Living Word is among the most popular TV programs. With half of
the TV3 audience watching on Sundays at 6 pm, it has an estimated audi-
ence of two million in Ghana alone. This media audience is much broader
and more diversified than the church membership. As Otabil’s message is
generally relevant, it is composed not only of born-agains, but of people of
various churches and religions, including many Muslims. Otabil’s use of
English and his appeal to the intellect and scholarly way of preaching limit
his “target audience” to the educated middle class. Although in terms of
age too the media audience is much broader than the church membership,
the public that Otabil addresses with his “life-transforming messages”
consists mainly of young, aspiring urbanites, who crave for a charismatic
role model who tells them that they have talents to develop and can be suc-
cessful and rich.
When Otabil preaches on Sundays, he thus at the same time addresses
the audience sitting in front of him in the Christ Temple auditorium and
the public of the Living Word broadcast. He told me that since his messages
reach new audiences through radio and TV he has changed his way of
preaching: he no longer talks to the Christian crowd in front of him, but
to a single person in his mind representing the Living Word public , a non-
Christian first-time visitor to the church. How do these different audiences
and publics and the modes of addressing them relate to each other? Let us
first turn to the people in the Christ Temple.

Christ Temple Community

Christ Temple events are much like theatrical performances in which the
audience also has a clearly defined part to play. The format of the two-
hour Sunday service has several stages and at each stage the communica-
tion between the performer and the over 4,000-head audience plays a
different role in connecting believers to the divine and in generating a
feeling of bonding among the congregation. The first half an hour is