Prosperity Gospel, Social Protection, and Community Care
A Pauline Critique of Wealth and Risk in African Contexts
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Abstract
Prosperity gospel is now one of the most widely debated expressions of Christianity across African Christian contexts, shaping how millions of believers think about wealth, suffering, and economic security through its emphasis on individual faith, material blessing, and financial breakthrough. Scholars have noted both its genuine appeal — offering dignity and hope to economically marginalized believers — and its negative effects on communal solidarity, informal welfare networks, and responses to structural vulnerability. This creates a specific theological problem: how does the prosperity gospel’s individualistic account of wealth and divine blessing erode communal solidarity and social protection in African Christian contexts, and what theological resources can address it? This article reads Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 8–9, and Galatians 6 through the combined lenses of Pauline social ethics and African communitarian thought, in dialogue with African development literature on social protection and risk management. The analysis makes three arguments: Paul’s theology of suffering in Romans 8 roots human flourishing in eschatological hope rather than material prosperity; his theology of generosity in 2 Corinthians 8–9 frames material resources as gifts held in trust by communities for mutual sustenance rather than private accumulation; and Galatians 6’s burden-bearing ethic builds a model of reciprocal care that challenges prosperity gospel’s transactional logic directly. Drawing on selected African Christian contexts, the article examines the tensions between solidarity and extraction within prosperity-oriented communities around giving and care for the vulnerable. The findings offer a Pauline critique grounded in careful exegesis — one that African theological scholarship has not yet adequately developed — with direct implications for how African churches understand communal responsibility and care for the vulnerable, contributing to debates on prosperity theology, social protection, and sustainable Christian communal life in Africa.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Martin Mukole (Author)
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