Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana

Abstract

This article addresses the phenomenal success of pentecostalism, a global religious movement par excellence, throughout postcolonial Africa.

The Pentecostal Ethic and the Spirit of Development

“…This sense of collapse and despair was echoed in many African countries at this time (Akoko 2007, Maxwell 2005, Meyer 1998b). Despite their foreign roots, Pentecostal churches, unlike development NGOs, were a local, home-grown response to this situation.…”

“…And, as Jones' chapter (8) Africa, promises an 'economically advantageous redemption' (Bialecki et al : 1149. Salvation, in this view, can take place in this life because Jesus wants his people to enjoy abundance and prosperity (Akoko 2007, Marshall 1991, Maxwell 1998, Meyer 1998b, Ukah 2005, Van Dijk 2005. Churches that preach the prosperity gospel encourage their members to pray to Jesus for wealth and abundance, and also to do their part in the bargain, by engaging in business and working hard.…”

“…Congregants are encouraged to copy this style of opulent abundance, and material success is taken as a sign of God's blessing. This enthusiasm for material wealth is not without its dilemmas, often associated in Africa with witchcraft and, in some cases, although most certainly not all, churches acknowledge traditional fears of wealth accumulation and create practices that purify potentially dangerous commodities and legitimise accumulation by good Christians (Meyer 1998b). In all these ways, then, Pentecostal and charismatic churches create new social, economic and moral structures and act to transform both the subjectivities and the lifestyles of their followers.…”

Redeemed From the Earth? Environmental Change and Salvation Theology in African Christianity

“…Characterising missionary activity was trade, production and consumption into which the converts (African Christians) were immersed -an orientation to life that the African Christian is finding difficult to let go. In the case of Ghana for instance, although the missionaries represented missionary Pietism as a non-materialistic form of worship, their expectations that their African converts adopt Western lifestyles, mystified their own actions (Meyer 2002). An example was the Norddeutsche Missiongesellschaft (NMG) where NMG missionaries were critical about converts' adoption of trade as a profession and about the pleasures of consumption, but they allowed Africans to sell raw materials to Western trading companies and to buy commodities from them (Meyer 2002).…”

“…In the case of Ghana for instance, although the missionaries represented missionary Pietism as a non-materialistic form of worship, their expectations that their African converts adopt Western lifestyles, mystified their own actions (Meyer 2002). An example was the Norddeutsche Missiongesellschaft (NMG) where NMG missionaries were critical about converts' adoption of trade as a profession and about the pleasures of consumption, but they allowed Africans to sell raw materials to Western trading companies and to buy commodities from them (Meyer 2002). The submission is Golo that this "promotion of work for money, and the subsequent incorporation of people into world trade, either as producers of raw materials or as consumers of Western commodities, was part and parcel of the propagation of the new lifestyle" (Meyer 2002:249).…”