An important example of this second wave is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God founded in Brazil. Theology of Prosperity - which views wealth as an external evidence of God's blessing in the lives of the believers. The case of the RFM again seems typical with the charismatic and polished Pastor Russel at the helm (more on him below).
Second, "this concretization of the cult is related to another characteristic of capitalism: the enduring duration of the cult" (Benjamin 1996: 24).
The Benediction of Material Success: Pentecostalism against Marx?
In religious parlance, the Pentecostal faith freed demon worshipers from the guilt presumably caused by economic success. Religion appears as a tool for manipulation and oppression of the subordinate class in society and at the same time an expression of resignation and consolation (Marx 2014). The connection between economic deprivation and Pentecostalism was well established, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
This is all the more true in the South African context of the marginalities of the churches studied here, since segregation and anomie (Durkheim) prevail, eroding legal norms and constantly endangering the legitimacy of traditional values. In The German Ideology he established a difference between the religion of the oppressed and the religion of the oppressor (Marx & Engels 1972). Examining the social composition of the Orthodox churches in 19th century Europe, Marx noted that while these institutions amassed vast amounts of wealth and land, the pious people themselves were deeply impoverished.
This shows that due to the cross-class social composition of the church, religion can in practice play a reactionary and progressive role in moments of social unrest. Pentecostalism can be analyzed in the light of Marxism, as it appears as the religion of St. Many scholars emphasize this tendency and call it "revision of consciousness" (Martin "transformation of the individual" (Maxwell or "reorientation of persons").
Pentecostal Salvation in the Eternity of the Present
An important point should be made, albeit a less noticeable one, by highlighting the congruence between a reformed Pentecostal subjectivity and the neoliberal subjectivity required for success in a modern capitalist economy (Comaroff & Comaroff 2000; Maxwell 2005). Eschatology is no longer placed after the future judgment of God, but in the very immanence of their community and society. Through Pentecostal communal activities, we observed what could be described as the eternity of the present.
Weber refers to the "theodicy of disprivilege" (Weber 1993), the belief in the promise that salvation can be granted as a reward for earthly poverty. He argues theoretically that religion is rationally motivated by "the rules of experience" and therefore should not be detached from the gamut of everyday behavior, "especially since even the ends of the religious and magical actions are predominantly economic" (Weber 1993: 1). In addition, the religious functionaries were often greatly enriched by the power of the Holy Spirit, strengthening their legitimacy, as they personally symbolize faith conforming to what Austin calls "performative" (Austin 1975:29).
It contains in itself a so-called 'performative utterance', hence 'to believe is to do' from our Wittgenstein reading. The investment in the community as a result legitimizes the belief that represents what we might conceptualize as a theodicy of success and privilege. In the following sections, we will argue that Pentecostal churches appear as a hybrid of liberal democracy and communism, projecting themselves on a 'salvation market'.
Pentecostalism as a Secular Religion
The dialectic between Pentecostalism and capitalism should be analyzed by undertaking a philosophical and psychoanalytic anthropology of the theological economy of capitalism. In this perspective, we can assimilate the modern representation of sovereignty, defined from Jean Bodin onwards, as absolute power, to the transposition of potentia absoluta Dei (absolute power of God) (Bodin 1992: 65). Schmitt argues that in modern democracy the constitutional power of the people (Volk) is analogous to God's potestas constituens (power of the electors) in medieval theology.
In Blumenberg's perspective, the question is not so much the substitution of the absolute power of man for that of God. We have transitioned from a community of believers living under the protection of the potentia absoluta Dei to a society of consumers, organized under the thumb of the potentia absoluta (absolute power) - the deified law of capitalism that now controls the market. Originally, the rise of the secular referred to time and the question of who regulated it.
As well as challenging our notions of the secular, it encourages a new examination of religion and its role in society. Churches such as the AFM and the RFM can be interpreted on one level as compensation for the numerous shortcomings of the South African welfare system. Since the early 1990s, a series of neoliberal policies (cf. Bond 2000) have exacerbated the various shortcomings of the nation-state.
The Salvation Market
Every morning, he sends an evangelistic message to all his members, commenting on selected passages of scripture and asking each worshiper to reaffirm that they believe in God, finally sending something like "Alleluia" or "God is with me." Here is an example of a WhatsApp message from Pastor Russel on November 15, 2015 at 6:53 am: 'One of the greatest stories in the Gospels is when Jesus healed a woman bent over with a spirit of infirmity for 18 years. Imagine never being able to see the sky or the rainbow, but only the dust of the earth and the trampling feet of men - what a miserable existence she lived.
I love how Jesus saw her and immediately called her to receive a miracle from Him. The woman was bound in this condition for 18 years, a number that represents slavery in the Bible. Woman, you have been delivered from your weakness", He was busy proclaiming freedom over her and setting her free from the slavery of the devil.
Today you are already freed from the curse of sickness through Jesus' one perfect sacrifice on the cross. This theory states that Jesus gave up some of his divine attributes when he was here on earth as a man. He also expressed how important the gospel is to the daily lives of his believers and expressed a self-evident prophecy.
The Market as God
The Religious Market and the Goods of Salvation
Pentecostalism as a Combination of the two Secular Religions of the 20 th Century?
Philosopher Marcel Gauchet (1999) theorizes that 'Christianity is the religion of religion's exit'. These religious rejections of the world follow what Weber called a value rationality, a conscious orientation towards salvation, adopted through a commitment to ethical norms for a universal brotherhood as opposed to the 'possession of ... worldly things'. He expresses the original thesis that the great ideological battles between East and West came to an end in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The second part, though less analyzed, is perhaps all the more relevant since he interprets Nietzsche's social theory culminating in the idea of "the last man" as a theory of the decay of a particular thymos in the modern world. This inspired the citizens of the Greek poleis and was central to all warrior ethic. In his 1913 essay, as an example of the existence of a consensus community (Einverständnis-Vergemeinschaftung), he introduces, among other things, a market community (Marktgemeinschaft) or "market community" and a language community (Sprachgemeinschaft) (Weber 2013:45).
The main reason may be that the market is reported as one of the most rationally conceivable forms of interest voting. We observe through the ethos of Pentecost what we could qualify as a spiritualization of capitalism and subsequently a sacralization of the market. Foucault analyzes it primarily as the point of contact between technologies of power and technologies of the self (Luther, Gutman & Hutton 1988:19).
Conclusion
Therefore, Pentecostal churches in townships illustrate and reflect, however paradoxically, this modern and ambivalent dynamic of apparently simultaneous religious disenchantment and a commitment to capitalism. Indeed, disillusionment (Entzauberung) in Weberian lexicology is the complex cultural rationalization and devaluation of mysticism, which has pervaded much of Western modernity since the late 19th century. For these reasons, Pentecostal churches in South African townships can be compared to small-scale communist organizations with the main paradox being that it is a capitalist structure, as 'the base', in Marxist terminology, that dramatically shapes its 'superstructure'. '.
The latter is necessarily determined by the materialistic ethos emanating from the base. Recent neoliberal policies have entrenched racially segregated cities that contain the lingering stigma of apartheid, exacerbating capitalist dynamics even in the religious sphere. Worshipers seem to aspire to the singular and contradictory verticality of the square's immanence.
Then it seems that they are no longer exalted by the pure transcendental hope of a future eschatology. Instead, soteriology emerges – and is distributed – through the single social and reciprocal horizontality of community, and by extension, in the economic realm, crystallized by the market, which is the contemporary privileged and deified space to achieve this salvation. Whatever salvation is thus accomplished is ultimately, primarily a consequence of and through the asceticism of the inner world, interpreted in the sanctity that now resides in the values of enterprise and through the practice of business.
The privatization of the new millennium Protestant ethic and the spirits of capitalism in Africa and elsewhere. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Transformation of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. URL: https://books.google.fr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dm_8 AgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=harvey+cox+&ots=3Cie60StVE.
Et Dieu a sous-traité le salut au marché : de l'action politique des mouvements évangéliques en Amérique latine. PR9&dq=marcel+gauchet%27s+le+désenchantement&ots=7s5yCw_z2 b&sig=E4-YeXA3YNdAkvRNUNMdkWue9wg. PT4&dq=marcel+gauchet+av%C3%A8nement&ots=JcXdEPkxkr&si g=VRUPI0e30Muc_DT8ZoAkH-q3Bf8.
La Passion d'al-Hosayn-ibn-Mansour al-Hallaj : martyr mystique de l'Islam, exécuté à Bagdad le 26 mars 922 ; l'étude de l'histoire religieuse. URL : https://books.google.fr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1Fpvj1 WWeLwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=the+birth+of+tragedy+nietzsche&o ts=d359q1H1dx&sig=zOQhmtcoKhpUlByMG6f3J8fxgSs.
