Evaluating the Nigerian prosperity gospel as a mixed ideology

Introduction

The concept of the prosperity gospel is the theology of all-inclusive success. It is anchored in God’s full earthly blessings. It is understood as that Christian teaching which emphasises all-round physical well-being such as good health, financial success, prestige, personal empowerment, a long life, peace and happiness. It propagates all-round prosperity without recourse to suffering. It is the gospel that advertises itself as a divine armament against unemployment, poverty, failure, disease, barrenness and insecurity (Ehioghae and Olanrewaju, 2015; Phillips, 2013; Pickering, 2013).

The concept of the prosperity gospel is interpreted based on the concept of blessing in the Old Testament and the concept of salvation in the New Testament. God’s promises of wealth, security, peace and offspring to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to Noah and his children after the great flood, and to Abraham and his chosen children of Israel in the Old Testament are appropriated to back up prosperity gospel teachings (Pickering, 2013). Similarly, adherents of the prosperity gospel believe that salvation brought by the death and victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the New Testament has brought liberation from all socio-economic challenges (Amechi, 2014).

Since the advent of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria, it has penetrated the religious space with great speed and audacity. Although the phenomenon of the prosperity gospel started in the Pentecostal circle, it has cut across barriers. Prosperity messages have become widespread in mainstream missionary, Pentecostal and charismatic churches in varying degrees in Africa. Prosperity theology was made to travel internationally. The religious strand that began in Nigeria was exported abroad through the utilisation of miracle crusades and mass media such as television, radio, printed posters and leaflets. Prosperity messages have penetrated and conquered the African religious landscape. It is currently estimated that more than half of Christian believers in sub-Saharan Africa are subscribers to prosperity gospel ideology (Folarin, 2006; Magbadelo, 2004).

The popularity of the phenomenon of the prosperity gospel has made it the subject of historical analysis. From different scholarly evaluations, there seem to be two popular suggestions as to how the prosperity gospel appeared in Nigeria. The first school of thought posits that the prosperity gospel was entirely an American ideology, imported and pioneered by Archbishop Benson Idahosa in the 1970s after he was influenced by it as a student at the Christ for the Nations Institute in the USA (Achunike, 2007; Kitause, 2017). Scholars who follow this line of thinking suggest that Idahosa’s adoption of the prosperity gospel was related to his life of hardship during his youth and his ambition to become successful. They cement their argument by suggesting that Idahosa’s ambition for success was catalysed by his exposure to prosperity exponents, whom he adopted as mentors in the USA (Kitause, 2017). This view does not recognise the impact of indigenous Pentecostal revivalism on the development of prosperity gospel ideology in Nigeria.

In contrast, the second popular view as to the origin of prosperity gospel ideology is that the Nigerian prosperity gospel originated in Africa with the African charismatic movements of the 1980s. Such a view is advanced by Gaiya (2002), Gifford (1990) and Kalu (2000), and is subscribed to by Ojo (2013) and Onwu (2006). These scholars suggest that the emphasis on prosperity preaching was a response to socio-economic changes in the 1980s as a result of the negative impacts of the International Monetary Fund and structural adjustment programmes. In the 1980s, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank required developing nations to create conditions that were beneficial to western corporations and governments. These conditions were known as structural adjustment programmes. A requirement of the structural adjustment programmes was for governments to cut public spending, which included subsidies for medical care, food and education. Governments in Africa responded by cutting back on government policies and programmes that helped the downtrodden, the poor, women, children and other defenceless groups in society. Thus, according to Gaiya (2002), Gifford (1990), Kalu (2000), Ojo (2013) and Onwu (2006), the directed changes created new socio-economic challenges which became the precursor to the rise of the prosperity gospel in Africa. This view exclusively attributes the emergence of the prosperity gospel phenomenon in Nigeria to indigenous Pentecostal revivalism.

This article is an attempt to propound a more appealing view, where it is noted that the history of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria is fluid and complicated, and that the Nigerian prosperity gospel has elements of African Pentecostal (charismatic) revivalism and American Word of Faith movement and positive thinking. In this study, an attempt is made to supply a detailed narrative which investigates the origins of the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism and the American prosperity gospel and the amalgamating point between the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism and the American prosperity gospel. Subsequently, the implications of the Nigerian prosperity gospel mixed spirituality are discussed.

Origin of the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism

Pentecostal revivalism was a phenomenon that was internally motivated in Nigeria (Kalu, 2000). It started in 1912 with the activities of Garrick Braide, an Anglican lay preacher. Pentecostal revivalism was initiated as a direct response to the failure of European missionaries to advance a Christian gospel that was adaptive to the African context and cultural orientation (israelolofinjana, 2012). The Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism originated as a quest for a Christian tradition that could be interpreted through African cosmological understanding. European missionaries had propagated a Christian tradition that was wrapped up and coloured with western cultures (Magbadelo, 2004). The Christian message was not indigenised to suit the spiritual needs and aspirations of Africans. Foreign languages such as English and Latin were adopted for church services instead of indigenous languages. This non-inclusive westernised Christianity seemed alien to Africans, thereby making native tribes have the feeling of unacceptability (Omavuebe, 2017).

Furthermore, a superiority complex and tendency to white supremacy would not allow European missionaries to see anything good about African indigenous cultures, and they therefore did not abhor the devaluation of indigenous cultural dispositions. African indigenous cultures were degraded and Africans were termed ‘savages’ who were living at a barbaric stage of human existence and must accept the white man’s culture and value system to become civilised. According to this thinking, primitive African cultures had to be discarded and Europeanisation was to be embraced. This was visible in both material and non-material aspects of culture. To become Christians, Africans were made to take up European names and African organisational systems were modelled according to those of Europe. The being of the colonised Africans had to be replaced with the being of the European colonisers. To this end, the colonised felt rejected and disrespected – a development that created a vacuum for the advancement of another brand of Christianity that was interpreted through an African cosmological orientation (Isichei, 1995).

It is important to note that African cosmology was highly sacralised. The visible and the invisible worlds were inseparable. The spirit world was said to control the physical world. What happened in the material world was determined by what happened in the world of the spirit (Kalu, 2010). Evil forces were said to inhabit the spirit world and were believed to possess the power to control the affairs of humanity. Everything that happened to human beings, whether good or bad, was attributed to the action of a spirit being. The life of the African was like going through a cosmic battle. This was the battle of how to succeed amidst evil forces and tendencies. The question of power and how to succeed amidst evil machinations was unavoidable in African cosmology. Europeans missionaries responded by avoiding the question of power and cosmic battle, and building charity and educational institutions, and pointed Africans to the God of love, who was seated far above the heavens – a distant God who could not fight Africans’ daily battles of evil plotting. This approach, which could not respond to the question of power to win cosmic battles, left the field open to be fertilised by the rise of indigenous revivalism (Kalu, 2002).

The catalyst for indigenous revivalism in Nigeria was Garick Sokari Braide in 1912. Braide’s emphasis was on the power of God for divine healing and victory over satanic forces. He campaigned that believers must be prayerful and holy to overcome evil forces. The religious ideology that surrounded Braide’s movement was victory over forces of evil. In 1916, Braide’s revival campaign gave birth to the Aladura churches and the Christ Army Church, which were the pioneer Pentecostal churches in Nigeria (Gaiya, 2002; israelolofinjana, 2012). Between 1920 and 1947, another wave of revival emerged within the Aladura movement. The exponents of this revival were Joseph Babalola, the founder of the Christ Apostolic Church; Samuel Oshoffa, the founder of the Celestial Church of Christ; Moses Orimolade Tunolase and Christiana Abiodun, the founders of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church; and Oshitelu, the founder of the Church of the Lord (Turner, 1967). There are changes in the character of every indigenous religious revolution in every decade and every generation depending on the contextual circumstances of the people (Rotimi et al., 2016). The religious ideology that drove this revival within the Aladura movement was fasting, prayer and divine healing. There was an outbreak of an incurable influenza in Yorubaland in 1918. The desperate need for a cure, which eluded missionary medicine, pushed the Aladura movement into fasting and prayer, seeking the face of God for a divine solution. In what might be defined as a heavenly intervention in the affairs of humankind, the deadly influenza ceased and many lives were saved (Isichei, 1995). Although there is no scientific evidence to show a correlation between the prayer offered and the disappearance of the influenza virus, three possibilities have been proposed.

The influenza virus is classified into four types: A, B, C and D. Types A and B are suggested to be responsible for causing seasonal epidemics, particularly during the winter (flu) season in the West and rainy season in Africa. Type C is only known to cause mild illness and is believed not to be responsible for flu epidemics. Type D is only known to infect cattle, not humans (Cohen et al., 2014; Szretter et al., 2006). Thus, as there were no vaccines in 1918 that could have immunised people against the virus, the first possible explanation to the disappearance of the influenza virus may be the change of the season, which created unfavourable conditions for the virus to thrive. The second reality could be that people might have developed a natural immunity to the virus because of prolonged exposure. The third possibility is the intervention of immortality in humanity. The Bible is saturated with incidences of God intervening in the affairs of His people: He healed Naaman of his leprosy and Job of his infectious boils, and Jesus healed a woman with a blood issue and 10 lepers (2 Kings 5:1–14; Job 42:10–17; Luke 8:43–48, 17:11–19). Strengthened by what they believed was divine intervention, the Aladura movement famously spread across Nigeria. With an emphasis on prayer, fasting and divine healing, the emerging indigenous groups began to have a more Pentecostal direction (Isichei, 1995).

As the Aladura revival churches were growing in popularity and spreading rapidly, there was a simultaneous hostility from European missionaries, who felt threatened by the audacity of the movement. The quest for legitimisation and protection from the persecution of missionary churches led by colonial authorities compelled the Aladura churches to identify with other Pentecostal movements, such as the Assemblies of God Church and the Four Gospel Church from the USA and the Apostolic Church in Britain. It was an alliance that led to another wave of revivalism between the 1960s and 1970s. American preachers such as Billy Graham, Tommy Lee Osborn and Morris Cerullo, and British preachers such as John Stott, became involved in organising a great gospel campaign that resulted in the mass conversion of people at their open-air gospel crusades (Kalu, 2008). The religious ideology changed from fasting, praying and healing to repentance, personal encounter with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. This Pentecostal revival saw the emergence of such interdenominational Christian groups as the Christian Union, Scripture Union and Christian Student Movement in colleges and universities in Nigeria. Students in colleges and universities of higher learning who encountered the inspiring messages of personal regeneration and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer began to create worship spaces for themselves where they could express their newly acquired gifts of the Holy Spirit. The influx of audio messages, Christian tracts and books from the USA aided the stability of the charismatic renewal. Strengthened by the new wave of revivalism, students who were caught up in the fervour of the revival embarked on intensive and extensive evangelism to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached (Kalu, 2008; Kalu, 2010). Idahosa, a university student who later became a pioneer agent of another brand of revivalism known as the prosperity gospel within the Pentecostal faith, was part of this revival campaign in the 1970s.

In 1972, Idahosa founded the Church of God Mission, with its headquarters in Benin City, Nigeria; the ideological foundation of Idahosa’s church was all-inclusive prosperity. Earthly possession was the focus of Idahosa’s teachings. To achieve prosperity, Idahosa contended that Christians must be born again, possess the power of the Holy Spirit, be delivered from demonic forces, make positive confessions and exercise faith in the Word of God, as well as engaging in seed faith, tithes, the giving of offerings and donations. Today, Idahosa is considered as the father of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria (Folarin, 2007; Kitause, 2017). However, it is expedient to note that Idahosa’s prosperity gospel was a combination of elements of African Pentecostal revivalism and American Word of Faith and positive confession movement. Idahosa picked ingredients from the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism, such as being born again, the power of the Holy Spirit, victory over satanic forces and exorcism, and combined them with elements of the American Word of Faith and positive confession movement that he encountered while studying as a student in the USA (Folarin, 2007; Kitause, 2017).

Origin of the American prosperity gospel

Situating the origin of prosperity gospel ideology in the USA is not so simple. The American roots of the prosperity gospel as expressed through the Word of Faith and positive declaration are long and complicated. It emerged from the New Thought movement in the 19th century, which was popular with such non-religious exponents as Ralph Emerson, who propounded that there was a causal relationship between human thoughts and experiences, and that individuals possessed thought power, which could be exercised over the material world. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the idea of individual thought power influenced EW Kenyon, who imbued it with Christian overtones (Bowler, 2013). Kenyon suggested that Christians should always harbour positive thoughts in their minds. He argued that people should stop thinking or saying negative things that related to poverty or sickness in regard to themselves. Kenyon’s prescription was that people should start saying positive things associated with health, success and prosperity. This reliance on individual mind power was to transform thoughts and words into blessings sent from heaven. Kenyon became a link to the famous prosperity gospellers, who laid the foundations of modern prosperity gospel ideology (Bowler, 2013). Norman Vincent Peale, a pastor at Marble Collegiate Church in New York, introduced a modern ingredient into the teachings of the New Thought movement with his popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking, in 1952 (Peale, 1952). Peale contended that when a believer engaged in positive thinking, they set in motion positive forces or power that produced amazing positive results. Modern prosperity gospel advocates, such as Oral Roberts, mixed the elements of positive declaration with Keneth Hagin’s Pentecostal teaching of word of faith, miracule healing, and material wealth, to produce the theology of all-round material success in the late 20th century (Robert, 1970). This theology of all-round success was widely adopted and spread by Pentecostal television preachers in the 1950s. It was a short step from the Pentecostal idea of baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, earlier pioneered by Charles Fox Parham and popularised by William J Seymour in 1912, to faith prosperity. America’s first Pentecostal televangelists in the 1950s and 1960s created a succession of prosperity gospellers who utilised the media to reach out to a growing audience across the globe. These believers were challenged to donate to the church to receive a sevenfold blessing in return (Bowler, 2013; Kenyon, 2004; Roberts, 1970).

The analysis is that the American prosperity gospel as it is has its origins in the New Thought movement, which is characterised by the positive declaration and the Word of Faith phenomenon, which, in turn, is characterised by physical healing, material wealth and all-round physical well-being (Bowler, 2013). Exponents of the prosperity gospel speculate that in order to achieve all-round physical blessing, believers must engage in positive thought, positive confessions and financial donations to their churches (Kenyon, 2004; Roberts, 1970).

The meeting point between the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism and the American prosperity gospel

In 1972, Benson Idahosa enrolled for theological training in Christ for the Nations Institute in the USA. It was during this period that Idahosa personally encountered the American prosperity gospel through his exposure to American prosperity gospel preachers such as Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin, Tommy Lee Osborn and Jim Baker, who had a tremendous influence on his life, Christian views and ministry (Achunike, 2007). The result was Idahosa’s adoption of the prosperity gospel, which was indigenised to suit the Nigerian cultural belief in the existence of demonic entities and the prevailing economic difficulties (Okwori, 1995). Nigerian cosmological belief acknowledged the ability of demonic forces to prevent one’s good fortune in life (Kalu, 2000). The prevailing economic difficulties in Nigeria in the 1970s were the result of the effects of three years of civil unrest that had ravaged economic life and the subsequent government failure to address these difficulties squarely (Nafziger, 1972). Socio-economic challenges such as poverty, sickness and poor health facilities, insecurity, unemployment, high mortality rates and infrastructural decay were the basic precursors for the audacious and rapid spread of the prosperity gospel in Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular. The emphasis on all-round financial success, peace, poverty alleviation, self-empowerment, longevity, divine security and divine healing helped the prosperity gospel to spread rapidly. As socio-economic challenges such as unemployment, sickness, high mortality rates and the lack of basic amenities remained, and as there were promises of a quick fix as well as the persistent perception that a deity was capable of solving human challenges and protecting a devotee from evil machinations, the prosperity gospel flourished. It represented a spirituality that provided an immediate solution to the prevailing socio-economic challenges (Oyakhilome, 2019). To this end, it appealed not just to victims of socio-economic difficulties caused by the three years of civil unrest and subsequent political exploitation, but also to those who were motivated by the quest for divine protection, healing and provision, or the drive for upward economic mobility (Folarin, 2006; Kalu, 2000; Kitause and Achunike, 2015; Magbadelo, 2004). In this vein, it is not out of place to subscribe to the hypothesis of Maxwell (1998) that a religion of hope shines brighter at times of human challenges. Similarly, Ilogu (1974) posits that religious movements thrive during socio-economic challenges. Where contextual challenges hold sway, there is the probability that people will quickly accept and adopt a contextual theology model that speaks to their condition. Hence, it was for this reason that many Africans – and especially Nigerians – wanted to overcome or escape poverty, unemployment or sickness by embracing the gospel of prosperity in the 1970s (Folarin, 2006; Kalu, 2000; Kitause and Achunike, 2015; Magbadelo, 2004).

Thus, the indigenised theology of success was composed using the ingredients of the prevailing socio-economic hardships, the African cosmological orientation of demonology, witchcraft and wizardry, and God’s supreme power to deliver the victims of terrestrial oppression to make it more contextual and appealing to Nigerians. God was presented as a liberator who could free Christians simultaneously from evil forces that were presumed to have mitigated their success in life and from the prevailing socio-economic challenges faced by the individual Christian (Kitause, 2017; Rotimi et al., 2016). The fundamentals for attaining a successful life were to be born again, possess the power of the Holy Spirit, cast out demons of failure, and engage in faith giving, positive confessions and faith healing. To this end, Idahosa combined elements of the American prosperity gospel – donations, positive confessions, seed faith, the Word of Faith and faith healing – with the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism – regeneration, the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers, the power of God over satanic forces and deliverance from demonic power (Kalu, 2000; Oyakhilome, 2018; Roberts, 1970). This was the meeting point between the American prosperity gospel and the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism. Like contextual theology, the imported elements of the American prosperity gospel phenomenon were indigenised with the prevailing elements of the Nigerian indigenous Pentecostal theology. In this persuasion, it is appropriately appealing to disagree with Achunike (2007) and Gifford (1990), who posit that the Nigerian prosperity gospel was entirely a foreign element, and Gaiya (2002), Kalu (2000), Ojo (2013) and Onwu (2006), who attribute the advent of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria exclusively to African indigenous Pentecostal revivalism. It is in this sense that the Nigerian prosperity gospel is described as a mixture of elements of the American prosperity theology and the Nigerian indigenous Pentecostal revivalism.

The amalgamated Nigerian prosperity gospel ideology espoused by Idahosa resulted in the frequent visits of first-generation and second-generation American prosperity gospel preachers like Oral Roberts, Tommy Lee Osborn and Benny Hinn to Nigeria in the 1980s at the invitation of Idahosa (Kitause, 2017). Why Idahosa adopted the prosperity gospel can be best described on three levels: his personal experience of tough economic realities; his belief in a universe inhabited by evil mercenaries capable of thwarting one’s success in life; and his feeling of an omnipotent God who was able to subdue evil forces and abundantly bless His subjects. The harsh socio-economic atmosphere resulting from the three years of civil war in Nigeria from 1967 to 1970 and subsequent government failure to address these challenges swiftly created the socio-economic terrain in which Idahosa grew up and deprived him of certain life pleasures. This difficult experience created in him the passion to overcome poverty. While studying in the USA, the prosperity gospel appealed to his curiosity, context and beliefs (Kitause, 2017). It was therefore an opportunity to adopt a new spirituality as the American prosperity theology emphasised poverty alleviation and all-round success. There he met with a God who was said to be interested not just in the financial viability of humankind, but also in the all-inclusive success of believers. This was the God of happiness, personal empowerment and all-round success; the only thing the individual needed to do was engage in positive confessions, visualisation and seed faith to expect a hundredfold return in material blessings.

The second reason why Idahosa adopted the prosperity gospel was his orientation to the African religious cosmos. Within the African religious universe, spirits are forces that can be manipulated for effective performance by a good mastery of spiritual processes and the use of the right invocations by whoever controls them. This is where magicians and diviners who have the gift of being able to invoke the spirits can use them either for the good of the society – such as inner peace, mediation, civil justice or harmony with nature – or for the bad of the community – such as causing drought, wreaking havoc on crops or animals (resulting in an economic meltdown), or causing sickness and death. The African belief system sees everything through the eyes of the spirits. Socio-economic challenges are often linked with the actions of evil powers.

With his personal experience of a harsh socio-economic environment, the impact of his African cosmological belief in evil mercenaries that were capable of mitigating one’s material prosperity, and his belief in an all-powerful Christian God, Idahosa started articulating the model of his mixed theology of success, using elements of the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism and the American prosperity gospel. The American prosperity gospel, with its central emphasis on material wealth, appealed to his personal experience of socio-economic challenges, while the Nigerian indigenous Pentecostal revivalism addressed his fears of demonic agents capable of mitigating his personal success. These actions led him to be regarded as the pioneer of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria and other African countries (Folarin, 2006, 2007).

Idahosa’s adoption of the prosperity gospel could be summed up in the phrase ‘Live big because you have a big God’. He reiterated that it was God’s will for Christians to be emancipated from power, shackles and the influence of poverty for a life of abundant wealth, health and all-inclusive blessings in Christ Jesus, who conquered the spirit of limitation through death and resurrection. In this thinking, he believed that Christians were worshipping a rich and powerful God who never intended poverty, sickness, unemployment or sudden death for humanity (Achunike, 2007). He claimed that God could supply all humanity’s needs according to His riches in glory (Phil. 4:19). What Christians needed to do was ask whatever they wanted, and God, in His infinite mercy and goodness, would supply it. He posited that believers should honour God with their resources and they would become prosperous in all areas of their lives. Idahosa demonstrated his belief in the prosperity gospel with his lifestyle – his flamboyant dress, use of the best cars and engagement in massive projects with big budget allocations (Rotimi et al., 2016). Idahosa also believed that there were demonic agents that possessed human beings to perpetuate evil against Christians. These agents were believed to be the cause of human misery, calamities, failures and sickness. He upheld that such agents could be conquered when the believer possessed the power of God, which was the ultimate power. He maintained that this power was an endowment from the Holy Spirit when the believer was born again. ‘Born again’ here meant being lifted from poverty to riches. Idahosa assumed that a born-again Christian was a conquering Christian who, through the power of God, engaged in a frontal attack on the demonic powers that were responsible for human adversity. Idahosa’s prosperity teachings reached out to things that permeated the here and now of the African people. There was abundant evidence of Nigerian Christians who attended his camps, crusades and church services primarily in search of healing, prosperity, employment and victory over the evil forces that they believed were militating against their success (Rotimi et al., 2016).

Today, the mixed prosperity gospel ideology initiated by Idahosa has become so popular that you hardly hear any messages from the pulpit that do not emphasise material prosperity. At the heart of this amalgamated theology is the notion that the liberating power of salvation is not something of the past, but for the here and now, and should take place in any human condition that is characterised by socio-economic challenges. In this light, the Nigerian prosperity gospel theology assumes that the church has centred its message on the soul of man for too long. The church is presumed to have failed to address the socio-economic plight of man. What is clear from prosperity gospel advocacy is that salvation is not entirely about deliverance from the Adamic sin or atonement for the inability of the believer to meet the standard of God as advocated by the church, but is more about the everyday realities of life. It is more about how the believer can succeed in business, be healed of any ailment, bear children, live a long life, have enough money to solve the basic issues of life and be happy in life (Amechi, 2014; Gutierrez, 1974).

However, to activate or claim these socio-economic blessings, exponents of the prosperity gospel posit that the Christian must, through faith, engage in financial giving, positive declaration and visualisation, as well as exorcism (Oyakhilome, 2018; Roberts, 1970). In this sense, the prosperity theology views the relationship between God and Christians as transactional. The transactional relationship is a contract between God and believers – like the transactional process where money is exchanged for goods and services, the individual Christian must give money, demonstrate their faith, and engage in positive thinking, visualisation and confessions, as well as cast out the demons that are responsible for their failure to show allegiance to God, to receive amazing all-round blessings in a concrete manner. The Nigerian prosperity theology posits that, for this religious transaction to succeed, the believer must fulfil the transactional elements (faith, giving, positive confessions, visualisation and exorcism) of the contract and God must give prosperity to the individual Christian in return to keep His part of His covenant (Kwateng-Yeboah, 2017).

The implications of the Nigerian prosperity gospel

There seems to be a lacuna in the Nigerian prosperity model. It does not subscribe to the ideas captured by Max Weber (1905) in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, where he argued that the Industrial Revolution in Europe was propelled by the fundamental principles emphasised by Protestant teachings. The Weberian model depicts a causal link between religious practices and socio-economic prosperity. The model assumes that, for real prosperity to occur, emphasis must be laid on basic principles such as accountability, honesty, hard work, integrity, perseverance and delayed gratification, which underpin socio-economic development (Carr, 2003). Conversely, the Nigerian model envisages an extremely powerful God who can solve all contextual difficulties by fiat. It presents a ‘bread and butter’ kind of life (a rosy and easy life) where the adherent is presented with a simplistic journey without challenges. Human responsibilities are thus pushed on a deity. It also espouses a world where witchcraft and magic, whether real or imagined, are used to explain the cause of predicaments such as illnesses, poverty, unemployment, accidents and natural disasters. It becomes a religious ideology and a horrifying reality that excuse the impacts of moral human choice on attaining prosperity. The Nigerian prosperity theology is also used to explain away political leadership failure, diverting attention from one of the obvious causes of the socio-economic crisis in society. The prosperity gospel’s spirituality closes the door on exploring other possibilities, such as human choice and a failed political system as being responsible for social tragedies such as poverty, a high mortality rate, sickness, unemployment and incessant road accidents, and blames it all on imagined spiritual agencies.

However, the Nigerian spirituality is a new way of thinking about God. For the victims of socio-economic failure, there is a new understanding of God. Adherents reject the traditional mindset that focuses on eschatological things; instead, they opt for a new way to perceive God from the standpoint of hope in their present anxieties. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees, who hoped for a Jesus who would save the Israelites from Roman political oppression, they hope for a loving and caring Jesus who will liberate them from their socio-economic difficulties. The teaching of the prosperity gospel points the followers to hope, which society does not give them. It seeks to saturate the minds of adherents with dreams of a better life, whether utopian or practical, amidst the chaos.

Conclusion

Today, the notion of the prosperity gospel has spread from the American prosperity gospel setting and the Nigerian Pentecostal milieu to the general body of African Christianity. The prosperity gospel is now advocated from many Christian pulpits in Nigeria. Each time the prosperity gospel is preached, the amalgamated theology, which articulates elements of the American prosperity gospel – such as seed faith, positive confessions, visualisation, faith healing and giving for a hundredfold returns – and elements of the Nigerian Pentecostal revivalism – such as exorcism, the power of God to subdue satanic forces, victory over demonic agents and divine intervention in human affairs – are made manifest.