Charles Ash
For decades we’ve been told the engines of US soft power were Hollywood, Silicon Valley, or fast-food chains. But the most potent weapon of American influence in the 21st century has been something far subtler and far older: the evangelical Christian church.
What began in the mid-late 20th century as a lively, seemingly inclusive movement – guitars instead of pipe organs, interracial fellowships, slick youth ministries – presented itself as a modern alternative to the “stuffy” mainline denominations. It offered music, belonging, and a sense of radical community. That was the bait.
Faith as Global Business Empire
Behind the altar call and the worship playlists, US evangelicalism functioned as a franchised model of faith entrepreneurship. Its pastors became celebrity CEOs; its “ministries” became media empires. And in the process, it exported US culture, politics and racial hierarchies across the globe, including into African countries hungry for a modern spiritual experience.
The result? Entire communities in Africa have aligned themselves, sometimes unconsciously, with US white-supremacist talking points. The most shocking manifestation is how some Black people publicly sympathise with or even champion figures whose policies and rhetoric are directly hostile to Black self-determination. The recent death of Charlie Kirk – a man who built his career on demagoguery, conspiracism, and anti-Black dog whistles – showed this in stark relief. Instead of seeing him for what he was, some Black admirers treated him as a martyr, as though his hatred of “the other” somehow didn’t include them.
But the damage runs even deeper. Fanatical Christian theology paradoxically keeps millions on their knees — literally. Instead of doing for themselves and exercising personal agency to solve material problems, congregants are encouraged to wail at the sky, tithe to the church, and pray to a white-skinned saviour for relief that never comes. In this upside-down moral economy, suffering is a test, poverty is a virtue, and the pastor is a gatekeeper to the divine ATM. Meanwhile, the megachurches flourish, pastors fly private jets, and entire communities stagnate while waiting for miracles instead of mobilising their own collective power.
Culture Wars as a Distraction
And while the US has Africans kneeling and praying to the sky, it has also succeeded in making us foot soldiers in its own culture wars. We’re out here fighting over abortion, LGBTQ rights, school curricula, and “family values” imported from America – none of which address the root causes of our own suffering. We’re distracted by moral panics and “values battles” that have nothing to do with African liberation or material well-being. The result? We’re not confronting the true source of our dispossession and prolonged, unceasing misery: Capitalism itself. Instead of organising together to solve local problems and build alternative systems, we’re fragmented, bickering over US culture-war issues, US grifters, con-artists, bullshitters and other irrelevant things while our resources and attention are siphoned off into the pockets of Empire and its coterie of white, racist, anti-black structures.
That is the real power of the evangelical church – not just in mobilising votes, but in neutralising self-determination. It can get entire populations to spend their time, money, and energy defending positions that harm them, while shielding the very economic and political systems borne in racism, that keep them disenfranchised. It exports a theology of submission and a political culture of distraction, turning believers into a loyal, predictable constituency for US soft power.
And it works. The same forces that built the Megachurch industrial complex (Big Church) helped deliver the White House to Donald Trump – TWICE. Religious fanaticism has proven to be one of the most reliable ways to get millions of ordinary people to rally behind grotesque leaders and vile ideas. It cloaks raw power politics in the language of salvation, morality and community service.
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Colonialism Rebranded for the 21st Century
In Africa, this is colonialism 2.0. Instead of gunboats and missionary schools, we get satellite feeds of American televangelists, prosperity gospel conferences, and “family” NGOs. Entire populations internalise a US-centric moral order, then act as foot soldiers in political fights that have nothing to do with their own liberation. It’s a psy-ops operation so brilliant it convinces Black people to fight for the agenda of their oppressors while thinking they’re defending God’s truth.
We should be honest about this: Christianity in its current evangelical form isn’t just theology – it’s infrastructure. It’s a global, franchised influence network with branding, customer-capture strategies and political deliverables. And until more people recognise this, it will continue to be the most successful vehicle for US soft power the world has ever known.
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The only antidote is clarity. See it for what it is. Question who benefits. Reclaim the spiritual, cultural and political autonomy that’s been outsourced to religious entrepreneurs. Until then, this psy-ops operation will keep running – and it will keep producing more Charlie Kirks, more Donald Trumps, and more communities cheering their own dispossession while they wait, on their knees, for a miracle that will never arrive.
