Mediating the Good Life: Reflections on Materiality and Material Prosperity in African Pentecostal Soteriological Discourse

K. Francis Adebayo

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Chapter 5 Mediating the Good Life: Reflections on Materiality and Material Prosperity in African Pentecostal Soteriological Discourse

In: Visions of the Good Life

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K. Francis Adebayo

K. Francis Adebayo
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 69–88

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004727526_006

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Abstract

This paper contributes to the discussion on soteriology and material well-being. It focuses on the spirituality of materiality as a mode of thinking that envisions material good for personal and communal flourishing. In Africa, this vision for material good is rooted in a religious worldview that is centered on the interaction between the physical and non-physical world. The arrival of Christianity to Africa in the nineteenth century engaged this religious worldview by challenging it on one hand and appropriating it on the other hand. This engagement has taken place in the interaction between African indigenous spirituality and Pentecostal Christianity. This paper explores this interaction at the intersection of materiality in African Traditional Religion and Pentecostalism with evidence from an African indigenous pentecostal church known as the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Nigeria. In 1952, the RCCG grew out of an Aladura church known as the Cherubim and Seraphim church in Ebute Meta, Lagos Nigeria. Beginning in 1980, under the leadership of a university-educated leader, RCCG has metamorphosed from a Nigerian Aladura church into an African indigenous Pentecostal church with a worldwide presence. The paper argues from a soteriological perspective that the conversion of Africans from African Traditional Religion (ATR) to Christianity has not replaced the indigenous view of materiality, rather it has found in Pentecostal Christianity an alternative view of materiality in soteriology. Therefore, the conversion of Africans from indigenous religiosity to Pentecostal spirituality reinforces the same aspiration towards material well-being present in ATR.

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Visions of the Good Life

Salvation, Church, and Mission in the Secular West

Series: Theology and Mission in World Christianity, Volume: 36

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004727526

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 22 Oct 2025

Subjects
- Theology and World Christianity

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Chapter 5 Mediating the Good Life: Reflections on Materiality and Material Prosperity in African Pentecostal Soteriological Discourse

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Visions of the Good Life

Salvation, Church, and Mission in the Secular West

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