The book discusses religio-scapes of Prosperity Gospel in Africa and beyond in theological, sociological and anthropological perspectives. It compares African prosperity theologies with North- / South American and Asian variants. A feature of African Prosperity Gospel is its influence on other religions, such as African Islam and African Religion.

Prosperity Gospel, a controversial strand in global Christianity, relates material wealth to divine blessing. Originating in American Pentecostal milieus, it is most successful in Africa. Authors from four continents present interdisciplinary, multi-sited and comparative analyses of Prosperity Gospel in Africa and beyond. Prosperity theologies adapt to varied political contexts and travel outside Pentecostalism into the wider religious arena. Its components trigger discourses within ecumenical Christianity and are transformed in transnational Christian networks of migrants; they turn up in African shrine religion and African Islam. Pastures of Plenty maps the evolving religio-scapes of Prosperity Gospel.

Autorentext

Andreas Heuser is Professor for Extra-European Christianity with a focus on Africa at Basel University, Switzerland. He has done multi-sited fieldwork on African Instituted Churches in Southern Africa, the Pentecostal movement and mission history in Ghana and Tanzania, and migrant Christianity in Germany and Switzerland.

Inhalt

Contents: Andreas Heuser: Religio-Scapes of Prosperity Gospel: an Introduction - Rainer Tetzlaff: Political Architecture of Poverty: On Changing Patterns of «African Identity» - Jens Kohrsen: Pentecostal Improvement Strategies: A Comparative Reading on African and South American Pentecostalism - Giovanni Maltese: An Activist-Holiness Kenneth Hagin? A Case Study of Prosperity Theology in the Philippines - Paul Gifford: The Prosperity Theology of David Oyedepo, Founder of Winners' Chapel - Werner Kahl: «Jesus became poor so that we might become rich.» A Critical Review of the Use of Biblical Reference Texts among Prosperity Preachers in Ghana - Rudolf von Sinner: «Struggling with Africa»: Theology of Prosperity in and from Brazil - Michael Biehl: To Prosper and to Be Blessed: Prosperity, Wealth and «Life in Abundance» in Ecumenical Debate - Andreas Heuser: Battling Spirits of Prosperity: The «Pentecostalized» Interreligious Contest over Money Rituals in Ghana - Seebaway Zakaria: Rhetoric and Praxis of Ghanaian Salafi and Sufi Muslims: Analogies with Prosperity Gospel - Katrin Langewiesche: The Ethics of Wealth and Religious Pluralism in Burkina Faso: How Prosperity Gospel is Influencing the Current Religious Field in Africa - Genevieve Nrenzah: Gender Dimensions of Wealth and Health in Ghanaian Indigenous Religious Thinking: Narratives of Female Clients of the Pemsan Shrine - Abraham Nana Opare Kwakye: Encountering «Prosperity» Gospel in Nineteenth Century Gold Coast: Indigenous Perceptions of Western Missionary Societies - Päivi Hasu: Freemasonry, Occult Economies and Prosperity in Tanzanian Pentecostal Discourse - Tomas Sundnes Drønen: «Now I Dress Well. Now I Work Hard» - Pentecostalism, Prosperity, and Economic Development in Cameroon - David D. Daniels III: Prosperity Gospel of Entrepreneurship in Africa and Black America: A Pragmatist Christian Innovation - Chr. Lucas Zapf: Martin Luther, Wealth and Labor: The Market Economy's Links to Prosperity Gospel - Yvan Droz/Yonatan N. Gez: A God Trap: Seed Planting, Gift Logic, and the Prosperity Gospel - Martin Lindhardt: Are Blessings for Sale? Ritual Exchange, Witchcraft Allegations, and the De-alienation of Money in Tanzanian Prosperity Ministries - Drea Frochtling: Between Gutter and Gucci, Boss and Botho: A Relocation of «Prosperity Gospel» by Nigerian Pentecostal Christians in Soweto, South Africa - Jeanne Rey: Missing Prosperity: Economies of Blessings in Ghana and the Diaspora - Daniel Frei: «With Both Feet in the Air»: Prosperity Gospel in African Migrant Churches in Switzerland.