Religious Songs and Nation-Building in Postcolonial Ghana

This chapter explores the intertwining role of music and religion in nation-building in postcolonial Ghana. Since Ghana’s re-democratization in the 1990s, several measures, including the enactment of laws and establishment of anti-corruption institutions, e.g., EOCO and CHRAJ, have been put in place to halt the debilitating effect of corruption on the nation. Nevertheless, corruption appears to be enduring and pervasive in the country. Kwame Gyekye has described Ghana’s corruption predicament as a moral challenge. This diagnosis resonates with the holiness theology of the Church of Pentecost (CoP). Since its founding in the 1930s, the indigenous CoP has grown to become the largest protestant denomination in Ghana. Through pragmatic reforms, initiated by its former chairman, Apostle Prof Opoku Onyinah in the 2010s, the CoP has reconstituted its strong emphasis on a holiness theology to engage in national discourses. Since 2018, the CoP has deployed music to align with the state to “root out” corruption. A part of this chapter’s aim is to critically analyze how the CoP is overreaching itself through the use of music to contribute to shaping the moral conscience of Ghana’s public sphere. Combining ethnographic research techniques such as in-depth interviews with church leaders and contextual analyses of CoP songs, the chapter explores the role of music in shaping Ghana’s public moral landscape. In addition, as the CoP integrates indigenous idioms into its music tradition, the chapter will nuance the usual and overly simplistic profiling of Pentecostals as hostile to indigenous cultures. Finally, the chapter examines linguistic choice through song and theology as the CoP broadens its frontiers through the translation of local songs into English and French to incorporate a broader audience.