Pentecostalism in Africa

Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781913363567
• eBook ISBN: 9781913363680
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Pentecostalism is the fastest growing stream of Christianity in the world. The real evidence for the significance of Pentecostalism lies in the actual churches they have built and the numbers they attract. In Africa, Pentecostalism has virtually become the representative face of Christianity with even historic mission denominations 'pentecostalising' their otherwise formal liturgical structures to survive. This work brings to a wider audience the insights and analysis from the author's book, Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context. It interprets key theological and missiological themes in Ghanaian Pentecostalism by using material from the live experiences of the movement itself.

‘For Open Doors’: Interpretations of Giving Tithes and Types of Offerings

There are two regular modes of giving or fundraising in contemporary Pentecostalism, the payment of tithes and the collection of regular offerings. Pentecostal giving is usually described in terms of seed-sowing for which harvests may be expected. When seeds are sown, the faithful are taught to expect various forms of harvest, such as money, jobs, promotions, health, or children. The saying ‘offering time’, to which worshippers respond, ‘blessing time’, was introduced into African church life through the contemporary Pentecostals who have popularised tithing within Christianity, turning it into a sacramental duty. This means that tithes and offerings are not mere Christian responsibilities, but also means of securing God’s graces in the endeavours of life.

Giving: Biblical Foundations of a Christian Responsibility

One key text related to tithing is Malachi 3:8-12, where the nation is accused of robbing God by not tithing and thereby losing God’s blessing. In the New Testament at least four passages mention the tithe. One of them, Matthew 23:23, has Jesus chastising the Pharisees for religiously tithing but neglecting the equally important faith matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (cf. Luke 11:42). Tithing is also referred to in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18, in which the Pharisee, wanting to justify himself before God, mentions among other things that, ‘I give a tenth of everything I get’ (Luke 18:12). For many believers in tithes, the ultimate New Testament passage on the issue is Hebrews 7:1-10. This refers to the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek in terms that connect a pre-Mosaic practice with Christians under the new covenant.

Interpretations

The contemporary Pentecostal churches studied here insist on the payment of tithes as a doctrinal practice with the calculation based on gross, not net, income. In some churches, giving consists of cash and other gifts that go to the pastor as a modern-day Levite, which is also sometimes institutionalised into a ‘Pastors’ Appreciation Day’. A further level of giving occurs as an honorarium for a guest preacher. On occasion, pastors and prophets of various Pentecostal churches have been accused of using this system of love-offering to scratch each other’s backs in a process of indirect personal enrichment. The quantum of honorarium given to guest preachers, it is expected, would be reciprocated later ‘with interest’ when a host pastor visits his guest’s church later.

The Importance of Tithing in Pentecostalism

For contemporary Pentecostal congregations in Africa, tithes bring in substantial amounts of money. This income has enabled many of them to stay independent of foreign-mission financial support. Churches also fund their often-grandiose building projects and media ministries from these tithes. With all kinds of economic recessions in the northern continents and the decline of Christianity in those contexts, the decision by independent churches and contemporary Pentecostals in Africa to be financially independent is very admirable. The founder of the International Central Gospel Church, Pastor Mensa Otabil of Ghana, claims that one of the reasons for his calling into ministry was to challenge the church in Africa to be financially self-sufficient.

The insistence on the payment of tithes is so strong that one Ghanaian pastor is said to have claimed during a broadcast of his television programme that non-tithing Christians were worse than armed robbers. Armed robbers steal from human beings, he noted, but non-tithers steal from God. Whatever the status of this anecdotal statement, there is no doubt that funds raised, whether through tithing, offerings, or special fundraising events, enable the new Pentecostal churches to fund their very expensive programmes and projects, which include the establishment of private universities, television and radio ministries, and the very large cathedrals and worship auditoriums that many of them have been able to build.

Many of the pastors also have access to money and have very comfortable lifestyles that include the building of palatial homes and the use of luxurious cars, or even personal jets. It is now fashionable for the average contemporary Pentecostal pastor to travel first or business class and for his children to be born and educated abroad. The United States of America is the destination of choice. It is therefore important to understand how the theology of tithing and offerings is linked directly to the theology of prosperity in contemporary Pentecostalism.

Giving and Prosperity

An important statement by Jesus Christ used to support the theology of transactional giving is Luke 6:38: ‘Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’ This text, regardless of context, is preached and applied almost exclusively to fundraising in Pentecostal/charismatic churches.

A number of contemporary Pentecostal preachers also teach that God will dispossess unbelievers of their wealth and give it to those who will employ that wealth for the purposes of Christian evangelisation and mission. It is not uncommon for pastors to teach that it is contrary to God’s will for unbelievers to be rich. The understanding is that wealth in the hands of unbelievers promotes Satan’s agenda, but God is putting wealth back into the hands of his chosen people. Believers, it is taught, must move in quickly to take possession, because God is rearranging things to favour his people.

Discipleship, Stewardship and Theology of Giving

The teaching on giving has generated within African Pentecostalism an incredibly high sense and spirit of generosity, unparalleled in the history of the church in Africa. That all resources belong to God in the same way that our bodies belong to him as temples of the Holy Spirit is certainly an important theological position. Christian discipleship encapsulates yielding one’s life to God in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit living a holy life for him. This Christian discipleship is also a call to stewardship, which means Christians must have a holistic sense of giving, which is made possible by first bringing their lives and affairs under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

However, the grace of giving, as discussed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 8, was an outflow of something fundamental that is often missed in the teaching on tithes that identifies a transactional motive for giving. The members of the churches in Macedonia ‘gave themselves first to the Lord’. In other words, their giving of money flowed out of a sense of belonging to God and of being part of God’s mission by contributing to the resources needed for it.

God may have chosen to bless them in other ways too, but in the context within which they gave, the Macedonians seem to have been moved by the sense that ‘belonging to God’ was sufficient blessing and therefore provided the primary reason for their giving of their substance towards his work. I believe that even in the midst of extreme poverty and deprivation, there may have been areas of life in which they felt the graces and goodness of God. Judging by the way their state of poverty is described, we cannot look at their circumstances and conclude that they were extremely poor because they had not fulfilled their tithing obligations.

Jesus does indeed call for something more radical than a tenth of our income; he calls for everything, just as he gave himself unconditionally for our salvation. He gave his very life in a generous act of love, not simply to make tithing Christians materially wealthy and non-tithers materially poor, but so that we can be rich towards God. Some of the most faithful Christians in the world, especially in non-Western contexts, also remain some of the poorest people on the planet. What this means is that the theology of transactional giving to God fails to account for the reasons why some faithful tithers do not necessarily see any improvements in their economic circumstances.

Pentecostals do not necessarily speak amiss when they apply the passage in Luke 6:38 to fundraising, whether in tithes or other offerings. However, to consistently interpret this verse exclusively in terms of tithing or giving money is to do serious injustice to the biblical narrative and the issues of social justice that Jesus was trying to raise.

In the new covenant Christians offer a proportion of their wealth as the Lord’s rightful due in view of his claim on all that they are and all that he has entrusted to them. When such giving is inspired by the love of Christ, it does not come in calculated percentages that are intended to fulfil old covenantal obligations in new covenantal terms. We give generously and beyond measure in the full knowledge that Christ gave his life for human salvation. Our tithes and offerings thus ‘imitate’ Jesus’ offering, Our money at the altar is not a payment but a symbolic expression of ourselves, which means that giving is part of our worshipful response to God’s love in Jesus Christ.

Giving as Worship

Giving is therefore an act of worship. In the Old Testament, the tithing system made provision for worship by ensuring that there was regular financial support of the ministry of the tabernacle and temple (Num. 18:21-23) and by calling on all Israelites to come together for a feast in the presence of the Lord God (Deut. 14:22-23). The tithing system also safeguarded just governance by demanding that support of the sanctuary and its personnel trumped governmental claims to the tithe (cf. 1 Sam. 8:15, 17) and by ensuring adequate compensation for Levites and priests whose call to service precluded their share of landed estates (Num. 18:20-21). Additionally, tithing ensured relief for the poor, foreign residents, orphans, and widows as well as the Levites (Deut. 14:28-29). Tithing therefore formed a response to God for his goodness as well as relationships with others, which enabled the maintenance of both the vertical and horizontal relationships that must characterise meaningful worship.

Christological Hermeneutics in Tithing

On almost every theological issue, it is important that we apply Christological hermeneutics. interpreting and applying the Bible with the Christ factor in mind. One of the main problems with over- reliance on the Old Testament in the teaching on tithes is that it makes the practice too pharisaic (Luke 11:42-43). In other words, it makes it an outward religious practice devoid of inward affection and reliance on God’s grace.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to pay t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Foreword by Allan Anderson
• Clothed with Power: Spirit-Inspired Renewal and Christianity in Africa
• Signs of the Spirit: Worship as Experience
• Jericho Hour: Prayer as Theological Interventionist Strategy
• The 12/70 Paradigm Shift: Ecclesiology in the New Charismatic Ministries
• ‘For Open Doors’: Interpretations of Giving Tithes and Types of Offerings
• Calvary to Pentecost: The Cross and Prosperity
• Unction to Function: The Reinvention of the Theology of Anointing
• Miracle Meal: The Holy Communion – Encountering the Power of the Spirit at the Meal
• Bible-Believing and Bible Preaching Churches
• Conclusion: ‘The Spirit Moveth’