Beyond Prosperity Gospel and Socio-Economic Insecurity in Africa: Ethical Implications of Spiritualizing Poverty

Introduction

Social scientists and religious studies scholars have long touted the social causes and consequences associated with beliefs about the divine (Essien, 2013). This has explained why the Prosperity Gospel movement has been extraordinarily diverse and complex with numerous nuances in contemporary time. As an offshoot of Pentecostalism, it is considered as another form of Protestantism, and a biblically literal and conservative religion which centres its doctrine around a personal relationship with God, a divine being that is believed to bestow upon all believers the potential to experience success with a focus on material and economic prosperity and affluence (Coleman, 2004). Nonetheless, Churches that follow the Prosperity Gospel do still have a transcendental and Salvationist message, as with other forms of Pentecostalism, but also have a strong focus on the individual’s improved well-being, both in terms of physical health and material wealth. In Prosperity Gospel Christianity, therefore, giving money to the church in the forms of tithes or offerings is often encouraged, with the promise and expectation of larger reciprocal gifts from God (Coleman, 2004): the idea of ‘seed sowing and seed faith’, in which multiple returns are expected of offerings, sometimes with the exact amount specified (Coleman, 2004). Thus the accumulation of commodities and material wealth is central to the Prosperity Gospel message (Maxwell, 1998), a message which has been seen to actively encourage individual enterprise (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2000), and which sees wealth creation as a sign of adherents’ religiosity. In these ways, churches that preach the Prosperity Gospel differ from traditionally more ascetic Pentecostal and African ‘holiness’ movements that preach against such ‘worldliness’ (Asamoah-Gyadu, 2005). In fact, the Prosperity Gospel in Africa, as in other parts of the world, presents itself as a new paradigm of poverty eradication. It proposes spiritual solutions, particularly miracle expedients, as the main pathway to poverty elimination and wealth creation. The most remarkable factor identified with this movement is as suggested by Essien that, Prosperity Gospel Christians have not been seen as ‘resisting’ the modern world and its mundane issues, but “on the contrary, even seem to eagerly embrace capitalism, nepotism, tribalism and corruption” (2018). Curiously though, adherents to the Prosperity Gospel believe that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing and is compensation for prayer and for giving beyond the minimum tithe to one’s church, pastor, or other religious causes. The logical extension of the Prosperity Gospel is that the poor are poor because of a lack of faith which shows that poverty is the fault of the poor themselves (Mumford, 2012). Adherents also tend to interpret the New Testament as portraying Jesus as a relatively rich figure who used his wealth to feed the masses on several occasions and to finance what they argue to have been a fairly costly itinerate ministry. As such, Prosperity adherents argue that we should model our lives after Jesus’ by living lavishly, in stark contrast to orthodox interpretations of the Gospels that regard poverty as a Christian ideal modelled after a poor messiah. In this sense, adherents believe God to be very interested in their financial status. Poverty, far from being a blessing, is a sign of God’s disfavour; thus, Christians have a duty to deal only with the apparent lack of faith among the poor and not their poverty itself (Cullen, 2003). Poverty in the case of Africa can be described in terms of deprivation and the “deprivation trap”, which keeps people away from improving their lives through deficiencies like shelter, employment, or lack of employment, problems regarding water, sewage, drainage and health facilities (Essien, 2013). This study therefore examines the concept of prosperity gospel as an emerging trend in contemporary Christianity, its impact on the socio-economic development of adherents’ communities and effects on Christians’ spirituality, as well as provides an ethical appraisal of the doctrines of Prosperity Gospel in the face of numerous contemporary challenges (Onwu, 2006).