Mika Vähäkangas, Lund University

1. Prosperity Gospel and Spiritual Warfare in African Christianity and Diaspora: Some Ethical Implications Mika Vähäkangas, Lund University

2. The Setting of the Question • Paul Gifford (2009) paints a bleak picture of Kenyan Christianity: • Worship of success binds the corrupt state elite and religious elite clientelistically together, corrupting also the latter • Many charismatic churches have become private businesses à la prosperity Gospel • Spiritualized (re-enchanted) world-view allows for explaining away obvious political and financial mismanagement.

3. Systemic level - Africa • Prophetic voice is missing; eclectic use of the Bible: Job skipped, cross replaced by immediate victory → the means of reaching success seldom asked of public leadership. • Obedience valued: church discipline • Directed to the poor • The rich and the clergy are in a mutual dependence: the clergy needs income, the rich need legitimization → no church-discipline applies • Official purity vs. hidden corruption • In a clientelist state, success seldom possible without corruption. Corruption needs, however, to be hidden under the cloak of respectability, even piety.

4. Systemic level - Africa • In public, all oppose corruption. • The churches do not, however, pressurize politicians to efficient action – their income is indirectly dependent on corruption. • At times, church officials benefit from lucrative tasks within the government.

5. Systemic level - diaspora • In European diaspora, the moral dilemma between purity and success is more rare: • Many immigrants’ success depends on job market where honesty is a virtue. • Paperless immigrants are losers of the system, and breaking the rules does not make them rulers. • Enterpreneurs may meet ethical challenges (e.g. tax evasion) but the correlation between success and illegal action is small. • Here, people usually can afford to live according to the principles of fair play (in the limited, national, sense).

6. Individual level • Päivi Hasu has pointed out that: • Prosperity Gospel popular among the upwards mobile (helps to postpone gratification, work hard, give hope etc.?) but not among the destitute (it only condemns them as sinful losers). • Spiritual warfare popular especially among the poor (helps with coping, giving meaning to failures?) • PG useful when one can influence one’s faith, spiritual warfare helps to spiritualize such problems that cannot be changed. • In PG, the weak are sinners, in spiritual warfare they are victims. • In PG, God is on the side of the successful, in spiritual warfare on the side of the unlucky. • Often both elements available in churches – different selections and mixtures – suit to more people → popularity.

7. Individual level - Africa • PG can contribute to corruption & hypocrisy: • Example of the successful • Pressure to prove to be saved • PG contributes also to perseverance in work and business, and to success (see also above!). • Spiritual warfare can contribute to apathy or impractical solutions: • Lack of means of problem-solving (realism?) • Spiritualizing explanations hide social causality – prayer instead of political action (realism?) • Spiritual warfare as a coping mechanism: • Externalization of the evil • Rationalization of the processes unintelligible • Helps to believe in a just cosmos – evil irregular, not systemic.

8. Individual level - Europe • PG as a key to success: • Provides self-esteem. • Techniques of success: self-suggestion (name it and claim it), planning (prayers), self-inspection • Spiritual warfare as a means to meet obstacles: • Helps with explaining the unexplainable (e.g. outcomes of bureaucracy) without losing trust to people & administration. • Helps to explain new communal tensions. • Helps to avoid labeling oneself a loser.

9. Conclusion • PG is a popular method of self-suggestion and self-disciplining, a spiritualized version of psychological self-help. It seems to enhance actions that lead to success in a specific context in spite of the potential moral dilemmas involved. • Spiritual warfare helps to rationalize failures, externalize evil and to preserve faith in a basically just cosmos. It is needed all the more there are factors in life in which one has no control of.