International Journal of Art and Art History

From Worship to Commodification: Wole Soyinka and Sanctity of the Sacred in Swamp Dwellers and Trials of Brother Jero
Canice Chukwuma Nwosu, Chinonye Marchie

Abstract
There is no gainsaying that, man found himself in a nebulous and unfriendly environment that made him resort to first of all, sympathetic magic and rudimentary buying and selling (commerce) that enabled him to survive amidst harsh economic and environmental conditions. Despite the centrality of commerce in the existential essence of man, it is not every product of nature and man that is valued on its commercial face value. Even though some goods are not assessed on their commercial values; these categories of products and services are by and large, indispensible in the existential essence of man. Worship in its sacredness is in the class of the latter and should not be packaged for sale. Unfortunately, commodification of worship has become stock in trade of religious leaders; to the extent that church leaders and the people of God have desecrated the sacred through commodification. Therefore, the problem of this study is to investigate the causes of commodification of worship, appraise its consequences on ethical orientation and sanctity of the sacred in the contemporary Nigerian society. The researchers anchor the study on Soyinka’s exploration of this subject in his Swamp Dwellers and Trials of Brother Jero. Furthermore, case study and content analysis approaches of the qualitative research method were adopted for the realization of the research objective.

Full Text: PDF       DOI: 10.15640/ijaah.v3n1a7