Added Series 3, Episode 11 of The UnShaw Podcast YouTube interview Pentecostalism and the CIA: Coincidence or Conspiracy? (2025) by Robert Shaw to the Videos category on the Secular Web.
In this half-hour or so discussion with Diana Jeater, Professor of African History at the University of Liverpool, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw reviews indigenous African belief systems and ancestor traditions from the early arrival of Christianity and Islam to the explosive growth of Pentecostalism in recent decades. Along the way, the interlocutors discuss how African spiritual practices shaped—and were reshaped by—colonialism, why Pentecostal megachurches have spread so rapidly, and even touch on the provocative idea that the CIA may have had a hand in it. The conversation uncovers just how much Africa has to teach us about the entanglement of religion, culture, and politics.