‘Geliefde, ik wens dat het u in alles goed gaat en dat u gezond bent, zoals het uw ziel goed gaat’: In gesprek met Afrikaans (neo)pentecostalisme over de aard van het heil

Samenvatting

As part of the search for a ‘new catholicity’, this article engages in an intercultural dialogue with the fast-growing cluster of movements known as African neo-Pentecostalism, and its views on the nature of ‘salvation’ (not as process, but as gift received), often disparagingly labelled ‘prosperity theology’. This article argues that African neo-Pentecostalism has a paradigmatic place in intercultural theological dialogue because of its social location in urban contexts, as a potential window on an ‘alternative modernity’, and as an expression of ‘grassroots theology’. Furthermore, it invites Western Reformed theology into new explorations of (1) religion and materiality, of (2) Spirit and providence, of (3) the role of social location for the understanding of salvation, of (4) the place of the longing for human flourishing, and of (5) the implications of these themes for biblical theocentrism.