Quest for Miracle Healing and Prosperity in the New Religious Movements in Nigeria: Its Causal Phenomena

This paper x-rayed in a very precise form the theology of miracle healing and prosperity message expounded by the preachers of the new generation churches in Nigeria. Since however, this title is a bit too vast and ambitious for the limited scope and time of the discourse, the paper, therefore, investigated the salient issues involved in the theology of miracle healing and prosperity message as expounded by the preachers of the new generation churches in the south-east of Nigeria; though south-east/Igboland and Nigeria are used interchangeably. It also investigated how the theology amongst other factors has occasioned the proliferations of new religious movements in Nigeria. Other issues that are connected to the growth of the new religious movements in Nigeria and Igboland in particular examined in this study included the African’s quest for power, cultural identity, ethnic identity, health, and economic emancipation. The purpose of this study is to x-ray the impact of prosperity preaching and quest for miracle in the new religious movements in Nigeria. The findings showed that the import of the new religious movements in Nigeria is occasioned by the excesses of the colonial and missionary overlords in the pre-colonial Nigeria. Findings also indicated that the new religious movements came to fore in Nigeria as a religion of the oppressed in the cultural, social, religious and political spheres. It was developed as a rescue mission to the already degraded religion and tradition of the people. The methods of approach include historical and phenomenological methods. The study however recommends the theology of prosperity and miracle healing as a correct and sound teaching for not just the new religious movements but for all Christian churches in Nigeria. The study equally advocates that it would not be expounded beyond proportion so that the church would not be reduced to a mere miracle centers.

The Fate of Prosperity Gospel in Kenya

The prosperity gospel Pentecostalism is relatively new on the religious landscape which is swiftly expanding at breath-taking speed and now is a force to be reckoned with in Kenya. It has a greater chance of outliving the 21st century in view of the fact that it is widely and readily being accepted by all classes of people for its claim of physical and spiritual empowerment. The methodology adopted for this study was a phenomenological approach. The study uncovered that there are so many in favour of the expansion and consolidation of the prosperity gospel in Kenya. The paper affirmed the point that prosperity gospel in its entirety is not bad but what is needed is a change in the right focus of prosperity message. Even though there are aspects of negativism in prosperity preaching, the paper believes and concludes that God will eventually change the focus of prosperity message as preached by prosperity preachers to something more positive and rewarding for it to continue being relevant in Kenya.

Communications, New Technologies, and Innovation

This chapter outlines the discussion over the influence of new media and communications technologies on the spread of (particularly charismaticized) Protestantism in Africa. It links the contemporary debate to the debate about the origins of Protestantism in the sixteenth-century communications revolution sparked by the invention of the printing press. Building on the work of scholars such as Lamin Sanneh, the chapter addresses issues of translation, the nature of modern media technologies and their semiotic impact on mediated messages; the construction of the public square and the ‘re-publicization of religion’. Particular attention is given to the rise of charismatic media empires, involving integrated print, digital, and satellite/television media, often in support of pentecostal/charismatic prosperity-preaching megachurches and their celebrity pastors.

The Prosperity Gospel in America

“Prosperity gospel” is a term used mostly by critics to describe a theology and movement based on the belief that God wants to reward believers with health and wealth. The prosperity gospel, known alternatively as the Word of Faith or Health and Wealth gospel, maintains a distinctive view of how faith operates. Built on the theology of Essek William Kenyon, an early 20th-century radio evangelist, faith came to be seen as a spiritual law that guaranteed that believers who spoke positive truths aloud would lay claim to the divine blessings of health and happiness. Kenyon had absorbed a metaphysical vision of the power of the mind that had been developed by the New Thought movement and popularized in the burgeoning genre of self-help. Kenyon’s theology of faith-filled words was spread through healing revivalists in the young Pentecostal movement—most famously F. F. Bosworth—as one of many tools for achieving divine healing. Other variations of New Thought–inflected Christianity appeared in self-help prophets of the 1920s and 1930s, like Father Divine’s (1877/82?–1965) Peace Mission Movement and Sweet Daddy Grace’s (1881–1960) United House of Prayer. In the 1940s and 1950s, many Pentecostal pastors left their denominations and stirred up healing revivals across North America. Many of the most famous healing evangelists—Oral Roberts, William Branham, T. L. Osborn, A. A. Allen, Gordon Lindsay, and others—were influenced by Bosworth’s teachings on the law of faith (borrowed, of course, from Kenyon) to explain why some people were healed in their nightly revivals and others were not. Positive words, prayed aloud, possessed the power to make blessings materialize. By the early 1950s, they began to preach that wealth was also a divine right. New theological terms like “seed faith,” coined by Oral Roberts, sprang up to explain how gifts to the church were guaranteed to be returned to the believer with an added bonus. By the 1960s, the healing revivals had dried up, but the prosperity gospel continued to grow in the charismatic revivals washing through Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. In the charismatic movement, the prosperity gained middle-class audiences, greater respectability, and wider audiences beyond the Pentecostal nest. During this time, many prosperity-preaching evangelists began to build churches, educational centers, and radio and television ministries to spread their message. The airwaves were soon dominated by celebrity prosperity preachers like Rex Humbard, Robert Schuller, Jim and Tammy Bakker, and others. In the late 1980s, the movement faced a major crisis when several famous televangelists were accused of financial and sexual misconduct. However, new celebrities arose to replace them with a gentler message and a more professional image. The message was always a variation on the same theme: God wants to bless you. Stars like Joel Osteen, T. D. Jakes, or Joyce Meyer promised Christians the power to claim financial and physical well-being through right thought and speech. Though planted in Pentecostalism, the 21st-century prosperity movement attracted believers from diverse ethnic, denominational, racial, and economic backgrounds.

PREGAÇÃO E PROMESSA: A PRÉDICA ESCATOLÓGICA DA LIBERTAÇÃO, DA PROSPERIDADE E DA CULTURA POP

RESUMO: Este artigo tem por objetivo refletir sobre a homilética e a pregação cristã como voz de promessa em um contexto paradoxal como o contexto brasi­leiro e latino-americano. Para tanto, refletir-se-á sobre três tipos característicos de relação entre pregação e promessa: a prédica escatológica transcendentalista que deposita a promessa para o além ou o fim dos tempos; a prédica humanista e de libertação que coloca a promessa na dimensão da luta sócio-política de trans­formação no presente; a prédica individualista e de prosperidade que projeta a promessa como realização material e satisfação hedonista. Por fim, diante desta realidade, busca-se por caminhos na literatura (Las dos Palabras, de Isabel Allende) e cultura pop (Filme Central do Brasil, de Walter Salles) que auxiliem a pensar uma prédica que anuncie a promessa em meio aos paradoxos da vida de forma a contribuir não só para satisfação individual, eclesial ou ideológica, mas que aponte para transformações humanas e culturais.ABSTRACT: This paper aims to reflect on homiletics and Christian preaching as a voice of promise in a paradoxical context such as the Brazilian and Latin Ameri­can context. Initially it will reflect upon three characteristic types of relationships between preaching and promise: the eschatological and transcendentalist preaching that deposits the promise to the after life or in the end of time; the humanistic and liberating preaching that puts the promise in the dimension of the transformation of the socio-political struggle in the present; the individualistic and prosperity preaching which projects promise as material achievement and hedonistic satis­faction. Finally, faced with this reality, we seek for ways in the literature (Las dos Palabras, of Isabel Allende) and in the popular culture (Movie Central do Brasil, of Walter Salles) to assist in thinking a sermon that announces the promise amid the paradoxes of life in order to contribute not only to individual, ecclesial or ideological satisfaction, but which points to human and cultural transformations.

Debra J. Mumford, Exploring Prosperity Preaching: Biblical Health, Wealth, and Wisdom

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Rich and Equal in the Eyes of Almighty God! Creflo Dollar and the Gospel of Racial Reconciliation

Prosperity preachers are generally critiqued by outsiders because of their contention that God wants all believers to be rich. They take the money of sincere parishioners and live lavish lifestyles while many of their hearers continue to live in poverty. However, there is another danger inherit in prosperity preaching: the denial of the relevance of race to the social existence of all Christians. This essay examines the writings and sermons of Creflo Dollar, Jr. to explore his teachings about race. Though Dollar presents his theology as antiracist in theory, I seek to delineate and disclose the perils of his teachings on racial identity and racial reconciliation in order to demonstrate how he, in fact, sabotages the potential of true racial reconciliation for his adherents. True racial reconciliation acknowledges the existence of not only individual sin but also systemic sin that negatively impacts the lives of all people.