In the English dictionary, ustawi (ooh-STAH-wee) is prosperity or welfare; mafanikio (ma-fa-nee-KEE-oh) is accomplishment or success. The latter is a very popular topic for teaching in Tanzania. The former does not feature as much, but a long-time missionary suggested it to us as an alternative to mafanikio to distinguish prosperity […]
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
In our writing on prosperity, Arthur and I have been concerned to give space to Tanzanian thinking about the prosperity gospel. Working within our context, which is urban and educated Tanzania (not the 70% of Tanzanians who live in villages!) we have learned that they mean something different by that term from westerners, […]
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
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 […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Arthur’s previously argued that much of the talk of prosperity in Tanzania coheres more with the Bible’s wisdom tradition than it does with western ideas of the ‘prosperity gospel’. We’ve become convinced that prosperity teaching in Tanzania meets a very real need in Tanzanians’ lives and recently as I was […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes