Africa’s Poverty and Its Neo-Pentecostal “Liberators”: An Ecotheological Assessment of Africa’s Prosperity Gospellers

Abstract

The preponderance of various forms of liberation-oriented gospels among Afi-ica's neo-Pentecostals, particularly prosperity "gospelling," sbould not be surprising wben one considers the contexts within which they emerge. However, their narrow focus on the accumulation of wealth and material things as that which liberates from poverty is rather bewildering. Drawing on data collected from neo-Pentecostals, this article examines the definition of prosperity and the theological basis for such teachings, probes the environmental sustainability of the narrow wealth-seeking attitudes of these prosperity gospellers, and examines the ecological adequacy of the theology of salvation upon which prosperity gospelling is founded. The article concludes that the option available to the prosperity gospellers is a quest for liberation from poverty that correlates with the Christian vision for both human welfare and the health of the natural world.

Religion and Sustainable Development in Africa: Neo-Pentecostal Economies in Perspective

“…While some posit a very positive contribution of Pentecostalism to socioeconomic development (CDE 2008;Myers 2015;Benyah 2019), others are more critical of such contributions (Meyer 2007;Gifford and Noguiera-Godsey 2011;Golo 2019). Some also question the contributions of neo-Pentecostals to environmental sustainability in Africa (Golo 2013;2014). Therefore, before we examine the contribution of the neo-Pentecostal economy to sustainable development in Africa, we intend to, first and foremost, draw attention to some of the developments within these economies that have been met with scholarly critiques, thereby questioning their potentials to contributing to sustainable development and economic transformation in Africa.…”

“…Religion & Development 1 (2022) 73-95 Third are concerns about the environmental sustainability of the neo-Pentecostal economy within a sustainable development paradigm, considering that the theologies of prosperity and the materialist attitudes and lifestyles they engender and enforce, as exhibited by many of the neo-Pentecostal leaders, are not environmentally sustainable (Golo 2013(Golo , 2014. The question whether the unrestrained material consumption that the neo-Pentecostal economy engenders is environmentally prudent and desirable in an era of global sustainable development agenda is worth posing (Golo 2013). Fourth, and finally, is the concern that many neo-Pentecostal churches spend a lot of productive hours engaged in church activities, thereby losing lots of economically productive hours to religious activities (Golo 2019).…”