Reading Anastasia Boniface-Malle’s thesis about the absence of lament in Tanzanian Christianity exposed for me another plank in the theological foundations of prosperity theology, that is, the idea that God wants you to be happy and healthy, and that for the Christian this kind of victory is within your reach. A key […]
We’re into week six of sermons about money at church. It turns out our pastor has almost as much to say about money as Jesus did! This week was the third on tithing. The passages were Haggai 1:9-13 and Malachi 3:10, and he did all the things that Aussie evangelicals […]
Arthur and I have been arguing for some time now that some western theologies radically misunderstand Tanzanian theologies, particularly with respect to the theme of prosperity. We have been arguing that westerners tend to see anything that mentions ‘prosperity’ as part of the ‘prosperity gospel’, a teaching that manipulates people into […]
We’re getting a pretty good feel for the rhythms of our church now. The service is meant to go from 10am until 12:30pm but it’s only finished on time once of the times we’ve been there. Everyone’s always quite concerned about that though, and there’s lots of talk of keeping […]
Merry Christmas! We celebrate Emmanuel, God with us. We had a sermon on this at church last Sunday, though it wasn’t initially apparent to me that it was a Christmas sermon. The text was Daniel 3:24-25, about the three young Jewish slaves who are thrown into the fire because they refuse […]
Jesus will build his church. Not sin or corruption or poor leadership will stop Jesus building it. This was the message brought to us at church on Sunday from Matthew 16. Jesus will be triumphant. His glorious church is not dependent on you because he is the master. He can even do […]
Everyone’s talking about the Trump victory. It’s not just the US for whom there are consequences; the US’ trade deals and foreign policy are all up for grabs, but there’s also a symbolic nature to the office Americans are so fond of calling ‘the leader of the free world’. Here in […]
Meet Jesus at uni 