I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

99 Pages·2008·0.42 MB·English

by  Donald Stuart

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
The Prosperity Gospel in the South African Context

By
Donald Stuart

May 3, 2008

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements
For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts
The Department of Religion
Middlebury College

Advisor: Felix Asiedu

Approved______________________________
Chair, Department of Religion
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….3

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….4

Chapter 1: The African Independent Church Movement:
A South African Entity……………………………………………………………………………7

Chapter 2: The Gospel of Prosperity…………………………………………………………….35

Chapter 3: A Window into the South African Experience:
Four Case Studies………………………………………………………………………………..58

Chapter 4: Why South Africa?.………………………………………………………………….74

Postscript………………………………………………….……………………………………...88

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..92
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Acknowledgements

The lesson that has proved most valuable in writing this thesis has been experiencing the
long-term writing and researching process, and I would like to thank the many people who have
played an influential role in that process which began last spring as I communicated with my
academic advisor, Larry Yarbrough, regarding this topic. Not only did Professor Yarbrough
encourage my exploration of this topic, but he has been a constant source of support and
guidance throughout my experience at Middlebury. I would also like to thank James Davis who
helped me to specify the focus of my thesis and graciously agreed to be second reader. The final
and most important faculty link in this process has been Felix Asiedu, who took me on as his
fourth thesis student this year. I am particularly indebted to Professor Asiedu for his often
enigmatic tactics that forced me to truly take ownership of this project and wrestle with the
challenging questions myself. In that, Professor Asiedu provided both support and confidence in
my own capabilities which, at times, I doubted. Though I may not have fully appreciated these
tactics during the writing process when I would have much preferred direct, clear answers, upon
conclusion, I now know that this was a distinct part of Professor Asiedu’s desire to allow me to
grow as a researcher and a writer.
I would also like to add thanks to three of my friends, Bethany, Jamie and Sarah, whose
strong interest in Africa has clearly rubbed off on me. Without their influence, I am sure that I
would have never undertaken this project. Finally, I would like to thank my parents whose
support of my varied pursuits has always been unwavering.
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Introduction

“Donnie, didn’t you like the way the pastor laid his hands on me and prayed out loud that in
Jesus name I would prosper and become rich? Thanks be to God, in Jesus name it will be true.
Wasn’t that message powerful?”1

Faced with this question, I did not know how to respond to the woman with whom I was
staying in South Africa. No, I did not think the message was powerful; in fact, I was staunchly
opposed to the pastor’s words and actions, but could I share this with Thembi? Money had never
been a source of concern in my privileged, American life; therefore, despite our shared faith,
who was I to challenge my homestay mother’s viewpoint when my financial needs had always
been satisfied? It was in this moment that money and religion, two powerful forces in our
society, which I had previously encountered as separate entities, became unified.
The prosperity gospel represents the confluence of these two forces in a strain of
Christianity which preaches that God wants his followers to be rich. The central tenet of this
teaching is that those who have enough faith are entitled to receive blessings from God which
will make them prosper. Christianity is growing at incredible rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, and
prosperity preaching is especially strong in this region. An incredible evangelistic tool, the
prosperity gospel offers believers redemption accompanied by monetary gain. This is grace
which includes a pot of gold. It is therefore unsurprising that the church is growing rapidly in
this region; who would not want to join a movement that has centuries of credibility, upstanding
moral principles, and now a promise of financial abundance? With the prosperity gospel,

1 Thembi Khumalo, personal conversation with homestay mother, 21 Feb. 2007.
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Christianity has joined the materialistic, consumer-oriented bandwagon that defines our world
today.
One place in which this strain of Christianity has been spreading with great vigor is South
Africa. Colored by a convoluted history and the notable relic of the apartheid legacy, South
Africa is an especially interesting country in which to analyze the prosperity gospel. Today,
South Africa stands as a shining economic star at the base of the African continent with a healthy
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a stable government only fourteen years after its transition
from the end of apartheid. Yet, beneath the surface the plights of poverty that are common
throughout Africa remain strewn perilously across the South African landscape. With one of the
highest AIDS infection rates in the world, South Africa’s public health system is running on
overdrive. Despite its economic successes, there remains incredible disparity between rich and
poor. By understanding South Africa’s present situation in light of its past, the goal of this paper
is to assess why the prosperity gospel has taken root in South Africa.
In order to explore this idea, the first chapter will outline the historical framework for the
place of Christianity in South Africa. After assessing the colonial mission efforts, it will turn to
the indigenous church movements that developed in the early twentieth century as a result of
dissatisfaction with mission churches. Understanding the South African nature of these
independent church movements will inform the subsequent analysis of the prosperity gospel.
Historicizing the place of Christianity in South Africa will provide an appropriate foundation
from which the remainder of this thesis can build.
The second chapter will also provide integral support to our foundational understanding
by exploring the prosperity gospel in detail. In addition to documenting the history of this
movement, this chapter will consider the biblical passages that are used both to justify and
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criticize the prosperity gospel. In order to place this broad understanding of the prosperity
gospel in the South African context, the third chapter will investigate case studies of four
prosperity churches in South Africa. Each of these churches offers a distinct perspective and will
contribute in a unique way to our understanding of the South African nature of the prosperity
gospel.
In the fourth chapter, I will address the central question of this thesis by analyzing the
specifically South African characteristics of the prosperity gospel. Historical, economic, and
religious forces have combined to make the prosperity gospel in South Africa a compelling and
viable movement for people of all backgrounds. Given this knowledge, the final objective of this
paper will be to determine the implications of these findings for South Africa’s future. Will the
prosperity gospel continue to grow? If this movement continues to expand what will be the
implications for South African society? Moreover, in closing I will attempt to situate this
movement in its broader global context by considering how the force of capitalism may have
contributed to the explosion of the prosperity gospel worldwide.
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Chapter 1 - The African Independent Church Movement:
A South African Entity

Christianity and Colonization
Politically, socially, economically, and religiously, colonialism had a profound effect on
native South Africans. Jean and John Comaroff, two historians who have completed a
significant amount of respected scholarship on South Africa, note that this encounter was
dialectical due to the changes that it brought about for everyone and everything involved in its
experience.2 Furthermore, the Comaroffs emphasize the need to place the developments relating
to Christianity in Africa within a broader historical, social and cultural context.3 The same
sensitivity must be applied to the investigation of the prosperity gospel. By framing the
development of Christianity as well as the prosperity gospel against their broader contexts, one
can better understand the distinctly South African nature of these movements.
In addition to Christianity the Europeans brought the forces of mercantilism and
civilization to South Africa.4 Despite the mark of European society left by colonization, South
Africans did not neglect their traditions and forget their past. The experience of colonization,
rather, was an amalgamation of ideas, practices and beliefs as South Africans incorporated
aspects of the Europeans’ message into their lives, but remained decidedly African. Particularly
for Christianity this resulted in strains of belief that strayed from those which the missionaries
were attempting to cultivate.5 Instead of exploring Christianity through the same lens as a
European, South Africans did so through a particular cultural lens, to which the Europeans could

2 John L. and Jean Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol. 2. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1997): 5-6.
3 Birgit Meyer, “Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches,” Annual
Review of Anthropology 2004: 450.
4 Comaroff, 5-6.
5 Comaroff, 85.
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not necessarily relate.6 This was a natural response to exposure to a new idea. Making sense of
the new European ideas would have been impossible if they remained rigidly set in a different
cultural context. Thus, one reason for Christianity’s growth in South Africa was its interaction
with traditional African practices and beliefs.
In order to understand later developments within Christianity in South Africa, it is
necessary to first consider its “Africanization.” This transformed, Africanized Christianity broke
away from the strictures of mission Christianity and forged its own identity informed by both
Christianity and local values.7 The seeds for formal developments within African Christianity
lay in the voices of prophets who in the mid-19th century began growing in importance by
drawing on both local and Judeo-Christian traditions.8 African Christianity eventually became
institutionalized in the forms of the Ethiopian and Zionist churches. Both of these movements
directly challenged the authority of the mission churches and attempted to domesticate Christian
values into the South African context. The Comaroffs write, “In unyoking the Christian legacy
and making it their own African reformers seized its potential and put it to work in the attempt to
nurture a sense of collectivity.”9 Though the missionaries initially attracted converts, European
practices were not the most effective way to galvanize the South African populace. Christianity
had to change and address the specific needs of Africans in order for it to spread its influence to
all corners of South Africa. Only native Africans could bring about the change that would allow
this to happen.

6 Comaroff, 87.
7 Comaroff, 100.
8 Comaroff, 96.
9 Comaroff, 106.
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Indigenous South African Church Movements
The specific movements of Ethiopianism and Zionism shed light on how, at an
institutional church level, this transformation occurred within South African Christianity.
Founded in 1892 on the Witwatersrand by a former Wesleyan minister, Mangena M. Mokone,
the Ethiopian church was one attempt of African emancipation from mission authority.10
Mokone was frustrated by racism within the Methodist church, and justified the foundation of his
Church through the following verse from the book of Psalms: “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her
hands unto God.”11 His interpretation of this verse validated the formation of an African church
under the direction of African leaders.12 While this move was directly related to oppression
within the Church, it was also a response to broader societal subjugation. In this epoch there was
an emerging sense of Pan-African identity and black consciousness that was represented by the
formation of an African press and other organizations including the South African Native
National Congress (later ANC) in 1912.13 In the context of these “Ethiopian” Churches, black
Christians could bind themselves into a community that upheld Christian principles outside of
the context of a racial hierarchy. Furthermore, by orienting itself to the Church in Ethiopia,
which had been in existence for centuries, Mokone clung to Christianity’s African roots. This
African symbolism, in opposition to the white-controlled churches, was an integral feature of the
Ethiopian church.
The first of the African Independent Church (AIC) movements in South Africa, the
Ethiopian churches remained smaller than their Zionist counterparts, and they more closely

10 Bengt G. M. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1964): 38.
11 Psalm 68: 31, NRSV and Sundkler, 39.
12 Comaroff, 100.
13 Comaroff, 106.
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resembled the Protestant mission churches in structure, doctrine and dress.14 For example, the
Presbyterian Church of Africa retained the same constitution, hymnbook, doctrine, and style of
service as the mission church from which it separated. This church, like other Ethiopian
churches did not remain formally connected to its original mission church.15 The term Ethiopian
is more often used by outsiders to classify these types of churches, which do not have one
specific name. In addition to the Presbyterian Church of Africa, an example of this type of
church is the Zulu Congregational Church.16 Though both of these are “Ethiopian-type”
churches, they clearly have different names and mission church roots. Nevertheless, they both
represent the movement away from the mission churches that Mokone commenced in 1894 and
the forging of an African identity within the church apart from white influence. This separation
from the mission churches was the defining feature of Ethiopian churches. These churches were
inherently political as they challenged the white authority present within the mission churches.17
Since they were a direct response to churches established by the white authority, they
represented a challenge to the existing power structure. This political nature, even though not
overt, was greater than that of the Zionist churches.
The other branch of AICs that were founded around the turn of the century was the
Zionist churches. This church movement was born in the United States when John Alexander
Dowie founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion in 1896. In his teaching Dowie
emphasized the imminent second coming of Jesus, divine healing and triune immersion. The

14 Martin West, Bishops and Prophets in a Black City: African Independent Churches in Soweto, Johannesburg
(Cape Town: David Philip, 1975): 17.
15 Marjorie Hope and James Young, The South African Churches in a Revolutionary Situation (Maryknoll, New
York: Orbis Books, 1983): 173.
16 West, 17.
17 The RICSA Report, “Faith Communities and Apartheid,” Facing the Truth: South African Faith Communities and
the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, eds. James Cochrane, John de Gruchy, & Stephen Martin (Athens, Ohio:
Ohio University Press, 1999): 27.