Exchange 43 (2014) 291-300

brill.com/exch

Review Article

Perspectives on Pentecostalism and

Socio-Economic Transformation
Benjamin Kirby

School of Philosophy, Religion and the History of Science,

University of Leeds, uk
tr12bjk@leeds.ac.uk

Abstract
In this multiple book review I discuss four recent publications on the subject of
Pentecostal Christianity, all of which address the public significance of contemporary
Pentecostalism in different global contexts. I place a particular focus on the ways that
these texts address the question of the capacity of Pentecostal discourses and practices
to transform social and economic realities.

Keywords
Pentecostalism capitalism economics political economy global development
globalisation Max Weber

Katherine Attanasi and Amos Yong (eds.), Pentecostalism and Prosperity:

The Socio-Economics of the Global Charismatic Movement, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan 2012, 278 p., isbn 978-0-230-33828-9, hard cover price us $ 100.00.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 4|doi 10.1163/1572543X-12341329

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Kirby

Tomas Sundnes Drnen, Pentecostalism, Globalisation, and Islam in Northern

Cameroon. Megachurches in the Making?, Leiden: Brill 2013, 270 p., isbn 978-9004-24489-4, hard cover price 107.00.
Dena Freeman (ed.), Pentecostalism and Development. Churches: NGOs and
Social Change in Africa, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2012, 256 p., isbn
978-1-137-01724-6, price 68.23.
Michael Wilkinson (ed.), Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission,
and Public Religion, Leiden: Brill 2012, 237 p., isbn 978-90-04-23546-5, hard
cover price 104.00.
All four publications under review explore the public significance of contemporary Pentecostal movements in different social contexts worldwide. Public
here should be understood in the very broadest sense if it is to encompass the
precise scope of each publication, variously concerned as they are with political and economic spheres, global development, public religion, globalisation,
and more. The question of range is an important one: the texts give an indication of emerging new directions in the ever-growing body of scholarship
around Pentecostal Christianity and religion in global public spheres more
broadly. Likewise, questions of method and orientation are also worth raising:
while most of the studies are well-grounded in empirical research, they employ
a raft of disciplinary perspectives and frameworks, from the sociological and
anthropological to the economic and theological. A common thread running
through each text is the question of the capacity of Pentecostal churches to
transform social and economic realities, and it is on this theme that I want to
focus my attentions.
Two of the publications under review are edited volumes which share a
specific focus on the economic implications of contemporary Pentecostalism,
each having their genesis in a conference event. The first, edited by Attanasi
and Yong, takes the gospel of prosperity as its focus, and covers a diverse
array of regions worldwide. The second, edited by Freeman, is interested in
Pentecostalism and global development, with its scope, while still broad, limited to sub-Saharan Africa.
Attanasi and Yongs collection boasts a host of contributors from diverse
disciplinary backgrounds: from religious studies and theology to sociology,
anthropology and history. The result is a remarkably coherent one. In her introduction, Attanasi outlines three overarching themes of the collection: that
there is no single prosperity theology only prosperity theologies; the extent

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to which Pentecostalism contributes to economic growth; and the plurality of

ways renewalists apply prosperity messages (p. 5). The first and third of these
themes might better be described as guiding principles for the contributors,
designed to guard against homogeneous and universalised notions of prosperity and accounts of its appropriation by Pentecostal subjects. It is in this spirit
that the first two chapters articulate their taxonomies of prosperity. Yong
briefly outlines five Christian theological perspectives on the gospel of prosperity, not all positive, with reference to relevant Biblical texts. He also offers a
rather speculative word about the potential economic outcomes of each position. The fifth of Yongs types, the balanced argument, is interesting in that it
is noticeably less descriptive in tone, prefiguring a normative turn that several
of the books contributors will make. More instructive is Waribokos outline
of five paradigms of prosperity, focusing more narrowly on the African continent, and drawing on his analysis of the teachings of a series of prominent
African Pentecostal pastors. Wariboko notes how each paradigm, resting on a
pertinent metaphor or analogy, envisages an obstacle to economic prosperity
to which it proposes a solution.
Seven case studies form the lions share of the book, all of which offer a
thick description of prosperity discourses and their various appropriations in
specific global contexts: from the usa to South Africa, and the Philippines to
Chile. These rich ethnographic accounts are all worthy contributions, though
only a handful seem to break legitimately new ground: Caos chapter on urban
property as a spiritual resource among coastal Chinese Pentecostals can be
counted among them. Here, Cao chronicles the rise of a property Christianity
among Chinas Wenzhou Christian communities as they aim to construct a
new Jerusalem through spiritually inflected practice[s] of capital investment
in real estate (p. 166). Somewhat surprising is the inclusion of a chapter by The
Centre for Development and Enterprise South Africa (cdesa). The study fails
to engage in any depth with the phenomenon of prosperity theology, choosing instead to join Peter Berger in making straightforward parallels between
a more Holiness-style Pentecostalism and the Puritans of Max Webers
Protestant Ethic. This oversight is particularly glaring in a collection dedicated
to prosperity theology, and one might conceivably question its inclusion in its
present form.
The final three chapters serve as responses to the foregoing discussion, two
of which shift into a more normative gear. Hicks locates prosperity discourses
within a broader theologically informed approach to faith and economic
life (p. 249), roundly criticising prosperity-oriented churches such as the
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God for proclaiming a gospel of wealth

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that function[s] to sanction inhumane or reckless market practices (p. 250).

He reserves some praise for the critique of consumerism offered by the more
Holiness-oriented Assemblies of God. Hicks is concerned that market practices
be challenged, that prosperity be re-imagined as the capability for all to prosper, and that divine agency and the reality of suffering be treated rather more
sensitively. From a more straightforwardly-theological perspective, Macchia
calls for careful discernment on the subject of prosperity theology, cautioning
against uncharitable analyses that fail to engage with the contextual factors
that give it plausibility and that discount its true gospel potential (p. 236).
By way of contrast, Chesnuts contribution opens with a rather emphatic
reassertion of the conviction that prosperity theology reinforces and even
promotes the global capitalist order (p. 215). Choosing not to engage with
Nolivos more nuanced conclusions about the complexities of this matter
(p. 101), Chesnut accounts for the global successes of prosperity theology by
looking to how it meshes with global capitalism by promoting the empowerment of the individual and a brand of pragmatism that resonates with the
contemporary global labour market (p. 218). He assuredly contends that
prosperity appeals to those who are not prosperous (p. 217), acknowledging
(but ultimately brushing aside) the counter-examples provided by Cao and
Marti in the same collection. Chesnut reveals that he is thinking with Weber,
and specifically with his observation that the religion of the working classes
tends to be both salvationist and utilitarian (p. 220). The argument is not a
new one and there is no need to rehearse familiar debates here. It should suffice to note that a study by Hasu in Freemans collection on two Pentecostal
churches in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania suggests that precisely the reverse is true:
the church with a predominantly entrepreneurial middle class congregation
has a strong prosperity focus, and the other with a far less privileged and affluent assembly instead emphasises the importance of ministries of healing
and deliverance.
The shadow of Max Weber and The Protestant Ethic also looms large over
the opening chapters of Freemans collection on Pentecostalism and development in sub-Saharan Africa. Freemans substantial introduction, entitled The
Pentecostal Ethic and the Spirit of Development, is a helpful outline of recent
academic conversations around Pentecostalism, economics and global development amidst which the collection positions itself. Freemans introduction
has the virtue of being a good deal more balanced and critical in its dealings
with Weber than many who have gone before her.1 She is careful to note that
1 Peter Berger, Max Weber is Alive and Well, and Living in Guatemala: the Protestant Ethic
Today, The Review of Faith & International Affairs 8/4 (2010), 3-9; Jean Comaroff and John L.

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we should not expect a simple repetition of Webers argument [with respect

to] the spread of Pentecostalism in contemporary Africa (p. 20), drawing attention to the gulfs that lie between Webers Puritans and African Pentecostals
on the one hand (p. 19), and industrial capitalism and neoliberal capitalism
on the other (p. 17). What Freeman takes from Weber is the insight that it is
through the transformation of the subject, its dispositions and its behaviours,
that Pentecostalism can endorse and legitimate the spread of capitalism and
realise economic change. Indeed, she suggests, it is precisely through this
capacity that the Pentecostal church may have an advantage over the nongovernmental organisation (ngo) in development work, a contention that I
return to below. Comaroff takes up the dialogue with Weber in her chapter, in
many ways a culmination of years of writing around the relationship between
neo-Pentecostalism in sub-Saharan Africa and neoliberal capitalism. The
scope and theoretical depth of her article is characteristically impressive, and
in particular its attempt to disrupt tidy analytic divisions between religious
and economic spheres is laudable. Questions remain, however, about the manner in which she positions Pentecostalism under the determinative influence
of neoliberal capitalism. This concern is particularly pertinent in the wake of
the wide-ranging assault launched by political scientist Ruth Marshall on socalled functionalist and reductionist readings of the rise of Pentecostalism in
Nigeria.2 The full resonance of her monograph is, as one would expect from a
text of its calibre, still to be felt.
Webers spectre is largely absent from the chapters that follow as the conversation shifts from questions of the interrelationship of Pentecostalism
and contemporary capitalism to the impact of Pentecostalism on economic
subjectivities and realities. Virtually every one of these chapters marks a significant contribution to scholarship around Pentecostalism and the religiondevelopment nexus, consistently rich in ethnographic data and theoretical
reflection. Each takes as its point of departure the implementation of structural adjustment programmes and neoliberal economic policies across Africa
from the 1980s. The advent of severe cuts in state spending on social welfare
has opened up a space which has, Freeman argues, stimulated an explosion
Comaroff, Privatising the Millennium: New Protestant Ethics and the Spirits of Capitalism
in Africa, and Elsewhere, Afrika Spectrum 35/3 (2000), 293-312; Paul Gifford, Ghanas New
Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy, London: Hurst 2004; Birgit
Meyer, Pentecostalism and Neo-Liberal Capitalism: Faith, Prosperity and Vision in African
Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches, Journal for the Study of Religion 20/2 (2007), 5-28.
2 Ruth Marshall, Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria, London: University
of Chicago Press 2009.

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of third sector organisations dedicated to social welfare and transformation.

The majority of these organisations fall into one of two groups: secular development non-governmental organisations (ngos) and Pentecostal churches
(p. 159). In her case study of a rural region in South Western Ethiopia, Freeman
declares these to be the new agents of social transformation (p. 160).
The first section of the book asks what sort of model of development
Pentecostal groups are working with and the consequences of this (p. 3). Van
Dijk, for example, identifies among Ghanaian Pentecostal churches located
in both Ghana and Botswana a novel Pentecostal developmental orientation that focuses on the market and on fostering entrepreneurship, promoting participation in specific activities and ritual practices that focus on the
growth of an individual, the community, and the nation (as against the
state) (p. 87). Importantly, this reformulated orientation is based on ideas
that do not automatically emulate Western conceptions (p. 91), and therefore
can be understood to be, in a strict sense, post-developmental in nature. Van
Dijk sees in Pentecostal development discourse not only a challenge to the
wedge placed between religion and development in development discourse,
but also an alternative to post-developmental attempts to [re-root] its ideas
of progress and prosperity in local culture (p. 103). This is achieved through
Pentecostalisms demand for a break with the past, instituting the neutralisation and Christianisation of culture (p. 103).
The notion of a break with the past, classically addressed by Birgit Meyer,3
yields much fruit for many of the contributors to the collection, particularly
as a key component in Pentecostal modes of subjectivation or individuation.
Rather than dwelling on the individual case studies presented by each chapter, I want consider how the concept is foregrounded in the second part of
the book in which Pentecostal churches are compared and contrasted with
secular ngos as different types of contemporary development agent (p. 3).
Piot and Smith, in their respective chapters, catalogue a host of ways in which
Pentecostal churches and ngos resemble each other. On Piots analysis, both
are associated with an elicitation of neoliberal subjectivity, a substitution of
translocal for local belonging, a turn to affect, a temporality that is punctuated and non-linear, an invocation of a state of crisis, [and] a blaming of the
local for the plight of the present (p. 112). Smith adds to this list the attempt
to circumvent older institutions and authorities, a more socially-democratic
philosophy, an ideology of mobility, and a reputation for untrustworthiness
(p. 149). The reasons for these parallels are not accidental, Piot suggests, but
3 Birgit Meyer, Make a Complete Break with the Past. Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity
in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse, Journal of Religion in Africa 28/3 (1998), 316-349.

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rather a result of new configurations of governance and sovereignty, of immanence and affect...at work in the global today (p. 130). On the subject of
establishing a break with the past, both Piot and Smith agree that Pentecostal
churches and ngos share a commitment to enacting such a rupture. In his
case study of a rural area in South-Eastern Kenya, however, Smith adds that
where Pentecostals have tended to demonise the past more straightforwardly,
ngos have rather developed a complex, collaborative relationship with their
idea of the past (p. 157).
Though Piot and Smith appreciate that [NGOs attend] lightly to the subject, while [Pentecostal churches aim] for the total transformation of self
(p. 128), they both still allow that the former shares something of the transformational potential of the latter. Yet in the final three chapters, Freeman, Jones
and Parsitau all go a step further in explicitly denying ngos any comparable
transformational capacity. In his case study of a rural village in eastern Uganda
emerging from a recent history of violence (p. 199), Jones concludes that it
was precisely this capacity to enact rupture and transformation with this past
that marked the success of a Pentecostal church in the village he was researching. Jones suggests that the failure of ngos operating in the area to pursue, let
alone achieve, such a break was an important factor behind the evident failure
of several of their projects. In their respective case studies, both Freeman and
Parsitau propose that this is because ngos are primarily occupied with material and economic transformation (p. 220), and not with processes of subjectivation. While Parsitau allows, in concert with the majority of contributors, that
Pentecostal churches can be agents of material and economic transformation
also, Freeman is less convinced of their capacity in this regard, and instead
envisions a complimentary relationship between the Pentecostal church and
the ngo, each cancelling out the others deficiency (p. 178).
Drnens monograph is a detailed study of the changing place and activity of
Pentecostal churches in Ngaoundr, a Muslim-dominated town in northern
Cameroon. An enduring theme throughout the text is the way in which Islam
represents a limiting framework for Pentecostal expansion in the area (p. 211).
Drnen proposes that Islam is not only a spiritual adversary for the Pentecostal
churches [in the town], but maybe even more of an obstacle for the promised
economic success of the more prosperity-oriented churches (p. 148). What
happens to the focus on the gospel of prosperity, Drnen asks, when Muslims
control the market, control the capital needed for investments, and own most
of the land? (p. 7). Drnens reluctance to make any judgement on whether or
not Pentecostalism has had a significant bearing on the social and economic
landscape of the town, as well as to expand thoroughly on the PentecostalMuslim encounter, is disappointing, but ultimately understandable: such
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questions lay beyond the strict purview of the study, despite the title of the
publication suggesting otherwise. Nevertheless, Drnen does find himself in
a position to comment on the programmatic aims of Pentecostal groups with
respect to the socio-economic sphere (p. 179). Faced with the political and economic dominance of Muslim groups in the area, Drnen notes, Pentecostals
strategically focus on material possibilities within a changing society, preaching flexibility and hard work and providing positive attitude and personal confidence as the remedy for an insecure material reality (p. 230). In the event of
a failed project or enterprise, Pentecostals also provide a defined theology for
being a minority and for not succeeding (p. 230). Flexibility, then, is the watchword with regard to Pentecostalisms socio-economic role in Ngaoundr, as
well as its strategy for negotiating relations with Islam and other established
power structures (p. 7).
A term more deserving of its inclusion in the books title is that of globalisation. Globalisation becomes for Drnen a vector through which the place and
activity of Pentecostal churches in Ngaoundr can be examined. He draws
on recent theoretical conversations, as well as a now well-established body of
literature on Pentecostalism and globalisation, in order to balance his analysis
of the local negotiations enacted by Pentecostals. Drnen is particularly struck
by the strength of the imagination of Pentecostal mobility across churches
in a milieu which has [only] experienced two minor crusades in a decade,
is rarely visited by foreign guests, has the majority of sermons broadcast on
the radio in a language the large majority do not understand, and has not one
single bookstore selling popular Pentecostal literature (p. 215). Such work of
the imagination is associated with ministries and sermons that position themselves imaginatively as operating in a global network of Born Again missionary
work. Among the Pentecostal churches of Ngaoundr, Drnen also notes how,
to return to the economic theme, sermons delivered in Pentecostal churches
in the town would explicitly celebrate the entrepreneurial activity (understood as Spirit-led) of individual congregants, with an almost exclusive focus
on projects which connected Ngaoundr with the broader global society
and its benefits (p. 190). Indeed, the public influence sought by Ngaoundrs
Pentecostals at the expense of the dominant Muslim community is first and
foremost about economic success: the space that many of these churches compete for is expected to be obtained through hard work and the pursuit of riches
and excellence (p. 194).
Wilkinsons edited volume is also centred on the subject of Pentecostalism
and globalisation. Its chapters are sorted under the headings of negotiation, expansion, and contextualisation, engaging with issues of migration,
mission, and public religion. The first three chapters are grouped together
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on account of their common interest in the negotiation of Pentecostalism

vis--vis its relation to other religions, its public role, politics, and questions
about cultural identity (p. 9). Burgess chapter on Pentecostalism and Public
Culture in Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya, and Van Gorders one on the place of
Pentecostalism in Muslim-Christian relations in Nigeria, do not engage in any
sustained empirical and theoretical analysis, but are worthy reviews of existing
secondary literature on these topics. Daswanis chapter, the final in the section,
is one of the stronger contributions to the volume, reflecting on the relationship between globalisation and Pentecostalism through the case study of The
Church of Pentecost in Ghana and in the African diaspora.
The scope of this first section alone should be evidence enough of the
lack of focus that characterises the volume. The second section is, it must be
said, a somewhat more coherent unit, containing more historical reflections
on the role of missionaries, itinerant evangelists, and American pastors in
the expansion of Pentecostalism in the countries of Indonesia, China, and
Argentina (p. 10), and the final section includes several valuable and empirically-grounded studies that investigate processes of contextualisation among
Pentecostals in West Africa, as well as among African and Latin American diasporas in North America. Fundamentally, though, where Attanasi and Yongs
collection gets away with having such a broad geographical scope because of
its tight thematic focus, unfortunately this collection displays no comparable
coherence on either level. This is not only an aesthetic judgement: the reader
is left distinctly unsatisfied by the collection as a whole, and quite unlike the
aforementioned edited volumes, there is no real sense of a conversation happening between the covers. It is not clear to me whether this is a result of the
circumstances of the books genesis, whether it is a reflection of the waning
vitality of globalisation as an area of interest in the study of Pentecostalism,
or even whether it is just representative of the flexibility and ambiguity of the
notion of globalisation as it is currently being deployed. Rather clearer is the
sense that with all this taken into account, and combined with the fact that it
comes with a rather hefty price-tag, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which
one could justify purchasing the book, however attractive some of the chapters
may be.
I conclude with a few scattered remarks on some of the challenges that
future studies concerned with the transformative capacity of Pentecostalism
face. First of all, debates on the issue of whether the religious practices of different Pentecostal groups either reflect or transform socio-economic realities
show no sign of letting up in the foreseeable future. In this respect, it is disappointing to note that very few of the publications under review have critically
engaged with the questions raised by Marshalls contribution to rethinking
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the religious and the political in Africa, and particularly her assessment of the
political-economic significance of Pentecostalism.4 Future conversations that
do so will be all the richer for it. Secondly, more attention needs to be paid to
how questions of the interrelationship of Pentecostalism and contemporary
capitalism are subtly different to those more concerned with the impact of
Pentecostalism on economic subjectivities and realities. Clearly these inquiries are linked, but all too often they tend to be clumsily conflated, or rather
one is ignored at the expense of the other. Finally, as much as the publications under review have clearly made good analytic use of the sizeable body
of literature concerning Pentecostal modes of subjectivation and the so-called
break with the past, there is a need for critical reflection to be directed back on
these established categories.
Benjamin Kirby (b. 1988) is a PhD researcher in Theology and Religious Studies
in the School of Philosophy, Religion and the History of Science, University
of Leeds uk. His academic interests are currently focused around issues of
religion and public life in sub-Saharan Africa and the African diaspora. His
ahrc-funded doctoral research project addresses the contemporary state of
Christian-Muslim relations in the coastal regions of Kenya and Tanzania.
4 Marshall, Political Spiritualities.

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