El índice de morosidad

THE CHALLENGES OF THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES

One of the foremost criticisms leveled against the new Pentecostal churches is that they propagate a ‘prosperity gospel’, the ‘Faith’ or ‘Word’ movement starting in North American independent Charismatic movements, predominantly found in the preaching and writings of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. This ‘health and wealth’ gospel appears to replicate some of the most awful forms of capitalism in Christian guise. Paul Gifford has turned out to be a leading advocate on this subject. He recommends that the prevalent single factor in the surfacing of these new churches is the fall down of African economies by the 1980s and the subsequent increasing reliance of the new churches on the USA. He puts forward that it is ‘Americanization’ rather than any ‘African quality’

that is responsible for the development of these churches. He observes this new observable fact as a type of neo-colonialism promulgates by American ‘prosperity preachers’, a sort of ‘conspiracy theory’. However there is another side to this state of affairs. Gifford’s scrutiny, which he has customized to some extent more newly, has been acknowledged in several churches and academic spheres. Nevertheless, it seems to disregard some essential features of Pentecostalism, now principally a Third World phenomenon, where know-how and practice are more imperative than formal ideology or even theology.

Ogbu Kalu opines that, the connection between the African Pentecostal pastor and his or her ‘western patron’ is exclusively eclectic, and the ‘dependency’ in fact has been reciprocated. The western supporter time and again needs the African pastor to strengthen his own international figure and enlarge his own economic resources. Kalu examines that in the 1990s, since the public discrediting of American ‘televangelists’, the frame of mind in Africa has tainted, and the Pentecostal churches are now ‘portrayed by independence and an emphasis on the Africanist roots of the ministries’. Daneel pinpoints that in traditional Africa, ‘wealth and success are obviously signs of the blessing of God’, so it is no wonder that such a message should be uncritically acknowledged there and this is as accurate for the newer AICs as it is for the older ones. There are relations between some of the new churches and the American ‘health and wealth’ movement, and it is also true that some of the new African churches replicate and encourage ‘health and wealth’

teaching and writing. Nevertheless categorizing these churches with the American

‘prosperity gospel’ is a sweeping statement which predominantly fails to be pleased about the reconstructions and modernizations made by the new African movements in adapting to a fundamentally dissimilar milieu, at the same time as the adult AICs did some years before.

These churches form a new challenge to the Christian church in Africa. To the European mission-established churches, they are manifestations of a structure of Christianity that appeals to a new generation of Africans, and from which older churches can gain

knowledge of. There are indications that the new churches swell up at the expense of all types of older churches, as well as the prophet-healing AICs. To these older AICs, with whom they essentially have much in general, they are as a result frequently a basis of nervousness. The new churches preach against ‘tribalism’ and provincial denominationalism. They are repeatedly penetratingly critical of the older AICs, predominantly in what they recognize as the African traditional religious component of AIC practices, which are sometimes seen as appearances of demons needing

‘deliverance’. Accordingly, older AICs feel upset and susceptible by them. Additionally, the newer churches have to some extent gripped and externalized western ideas of a

‘nuclear family’ and individualized, urban way of life. This brings them into additional pressure with African traditional culture and ethnic ties, in so doing allowing members to break away from the burdensome commitments to the extended family and to accomplish victory and gather possessions autonomously. The new churches as well sometimes criticize ‘mainline’ churches for their dead formalism and traditionalism, so the

‘mainline’ churches moreover feel endangered by them. Commenting on this, Ogbu Kalu makes the outstanding point that the established churches more often than not respond in three stages: hostility, apologetics and adaptation. Institutionalization breeds late adoption of innovations. We witnessed this pattern in the response to the Aladura challenge. It is being repeated without any lessons learnt from history.

Gifford is conscious of the problems inbuilt in a basic explanation of the newer African Pentecostalism. After discussing Christian fundamentalism in the USA and the ‘rapidly growing sector of African Christianity’ intimately associated to it, he observes that the American groups working in Africa ‘find themselves functioning in a context noticeably dissimilar from that in the United States’. Although conceivably Gifford has not taken this ‘considerably different’ context critically sufficient in his considerable analyses of the newer Pentecostals in Africa. The thought that ‘prosperity’ churches in Africa are led by unprincipled manipulators gluttonous for wealth and power does not give an explanation for the increasing fame of these new churches with educated and conscientious people, who persist to give financial support and feel their needs are met there. Repeatedly, those who are ‘anti-charismatic’ and dislike or are threatened by the growth and influence of the newer churches are the basis of these criticisms. Kalu says that in the decade after 1985, the new churches ‘blossomed into complex varieties’ and that in their expansion, ‘European persuasion turned out to be more outstanding’.

However he explains that that regardless of this, ‘the originators continued to be African, imitating foreigners, eclectically producing foreign theologies but transforming these for immediate contextual purposes’.

It is observed that this movement’s ‘own overriding prosperity teachings have arisen from principally southern African sources and are shaped by Zimbabwean concerns’. The

‘prosperity gospel’ is best explained ‘not in terms of false perception or right wing plot but as a means to facilitate pentecostals to make the best of speedy social change’.

aspirations of Nigerians amid the ambiguity of their political life and the pain of their continuous and unrelenting economic adjustments’. It is clear, then, that New churches are far from being simply an ‘Americanization’ of African Christianity.

Reminiscent of the older, the new churches have a sense of identity as an alienated and unrestricted community with democratic admittance to spiritual power, whose most important reason is to encourage their cause to those outside. These churches perceive themselves as the ‘born again’ people of God, with a strong sense of belonging to the community of God’s people, those selected from out of the world to observe to the new life they practice in the power of the Spirit. The keystone of their message is this ‘born again’ alteration experience through repentance of sin and surrender to Christ, and this is what distinguishes them, even to outsiders. Contrasting to the older AICs, where there tends to be a prominence on the prophet figure or key leader as the one dispensing God’s gifts to his or her followers, the new churches more often than not call attention to the accessibility and persuade the practice of gifts of the Holy Spirit by all of their members.

The appearance of these churches at the end of the 20^th Century shows that there are unsettled questions facing the church in Africa, such as the role of ‘success’ and

‘prosperity’ in God’s economy, enjoying God and his gifts, as well as healing and material provision, and the holistic dimension of ‘salvation’ which is at all times significant in an African context. Asamoah-Gyadu considers that the ‘greatest virtue’ of the ‘health and wealth’ gospel of the new churches lies in ‘the unconquerable spirit that believers develop in the face of life’s odds.... In essence, bad luck becomes only temporary’. The contemporary problems being tackled by new churches in modern Africa are not different from those confronted by the older AICs decades before, and these problems still challenge the church as a whole today. They remind the church of the age-old conviction of Africa that for any faith to be applicable and lasting, it must also be experienced. These are some of the lessons for the universal church from African Pentecostalism, of which the new churches are their most recent exponents.

Pentecostals in Africa state publicly a pragmatic gospel that seeks to tackle practical needs like sickness, poverty, unemployment, loneliness, evil spirits and sorcery. In changeable degrees and in their numerous and varied forms, and specifically because of their inherent flexibility, these Pentecostals reach a genuinely indigenous character which enables them to proffer answers to some of the basic questions asked in their own context. A sympathetic approach to local culture and the preservation of certain cultural practices are indisputably most important reasons for their magnetism, particularly for those millions overwhelmed by urbanization with its transition from a personal rural society to an impersonal urban one. Simultaneously, Pentecostals confront old views by proclaiming what they are convinced is a more authoritative fortification against sorcery and a more effective healing from sickness than either the existing churches or the traditional rituals had offered. Healing, guidance, security from evil, and success and prosperity are some of the practical benefits offered to authentic members of Pentecostal churches. Though Pentecostals do not have all the right answers or are to be imitated in

all respects, the huge and unequaled contribution made by Pentecostals to change the face of African Christianity must be recognized.