Ethical Audit of Prosperity Gospel

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Essien D. Essien
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Contemporary Research

Emerging manifestations in contemporary studies regarding Pentecostal spirituality in Africa reveals two dramatic findings for scholarship. First, success in the Christian world is defined by prosperity gospel replete with economic message that wealth is a sign of God's blessing and a compensation for prayer as well as “sowing of seed”. Second, the notion of an abundant God and the propensity to claim innocence of any motive other than fulfilling God's will for human beings. Drawing upon an extensive contemporary research on prosperity doctrine and based on content analysis, this article examines prosperity teachings and claims and identifies ethical issues that relate to the doctrine. Findings reveals that though prosperity preachers use Bible to support their claims, prosperity gospel does not surmount social misery, poverty and corruption, rather, it entrenches the ills as exemplified in excessive incomes, lavish and flamboyant lifestyles of church leaders at the expense of impoverished church members.

Ethical Audit of Prosperity Gospel

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Essien D. Essien
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Contemporary Research

Emerging manifestations in contemporary studies regarding Pentecostal spirituality in Africa reveals two dramatic findings for scholarship. First, success in the Christian world is defined by prosperity gospel replete with economic message that wealth is a sign of God's blessing and a compensation for prayer as well as “sowing of seed”. Second, the notion of an abundant God and the propensity to claim innocence of any motive other than fulfilling God's will for human beings. Drawing upon an extensive contemporary research on prosperity doctrine and based on content analysis, this article examines prosperity teachings and claims and identifies ethical issues that relate to the doctrine. Findings reveals that though prosperity preachers use Bible to support their claims, prosperity gospel does not surmount social misery, poverty and corruption, rather, it entrenches the ills as exemplified in excessive incomes, lavish and flamboyant lifestyles of church leaders at the expense of impoverished church members.

Beyond Prosperity Gospel and Socio-Economic Insecurity in Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 440-463
Author(s):  
Ubong Eyo ◽  
Essien Essien ◽  
Gabriel Ekong
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
To Come ◽  
Present Life

Prosperity gospel is increasingly becoming a salient feature of Christianity in contemporary societies and especially on the African continent. Many consider it a supernatural alternative offering existential hope amidst insecurities of present life, rather than eschatological heavenly life yet to come. Its popularity is premised on the fact that the doctrine presents itself as holding the key to material prosperity, as well as the promise to provide followers with the weapons to overcome witchcraft, demonic forces and other malignant spirits through the power of the Holy Spirit. Drawing upon an extensive contemporary research on prosperity doctrine and based on content analysis, this chapter examines prosperity teachings and claims and identifies ethical issues that relate to the doctrine. Findings reveal that what makes prosperity gospel unique among religions is its overt promise of temporal, material rewards. In the absence of “natural” opportunity, prosperity gospel offers a supernatural means to material advancement.

An Extraordinary Confession

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Jewish Ancestry ◽  
The Church

If the church decides to seize the wheel, to speak the directly political word, Bonhoeffer writes, then the church will find itself in statu confessionis. This chapter examines the phrase status confessionis to shed further light on Bonhoeffer’s idea of the church’s directly political word (the concern of Chapter 7). The phrase originates in a sixteenth-century episode where the emperor, with help from accommodating religious leaders, forced changes in order and rites on the Lutheran churches. The phrase status confessionis came to be seen as the battle cry of those who resisted these changes, the gnesio-Lutherans. In adopting this language, Bonhoeffer identifies a parallel between the sixteenth century and 1933, when Hitler and the Nazi regime threatened to force changes in church order (especially concerning church members of Jewish ancestry) on the church with accommodation from church leaders.

scholarly journals Ethical dimension of circle Integrative Community Therapy on qualitative research

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (spe2) ◽  
pp. 148-154
Author(s):  
Paula Renata Miranda dos Santos ◽  
Elisangela Cerencovich ◽  
Laura Filomena Santos de Araújo ◽  
Roseney Bellato ◽  
Sonia Ayako Tao Maruyama
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Ethical Dimension ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Guidelines ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Health Council ◽  
Care Guidelines ◽  
The Relationship

This study discusses ethical issues in research involving human beings and seeks to understand the relationship between qualitative research and the ethical care guidelines for Integrative Community Therapy (ICT) circles based on Resolution 466/12 of the National Health Council of the Ministry of Health of Brazil. This is documentary research, which analyzed Resolution 466/12 and ICT circles seeking to make a connection between the ethical guidelines contained in both. The analysis of the corpus was directed toward the construction of the following results: the person's perception, cultural diversity and community. It also brings in consideration of the influence of the ethical dimension of the ICT circles on qualitative research. We conclude that ICT circles are innovative in the sense of the diversity of participants and respect for cultural and social differences. Thus, ICT circles promote acquisition of quality information for social research as well as compliance with the ethical guidelines outlined in Resolution No. 466/12.

scholarly journals A Framework for Authentic Ethical Decision Making in the Face of Grand Challenges: A Lonerganian Gradation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Larres ◽  
Martin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Invariant Structure ◽  
Grand Challenges

AbstractThis paper contributes to the contemporary business ethics narrative by proposing an approach to corporate ethical decision making (EDM) which serves as an alternative to the imposition of codes and standards to address the ethical consequences of grand challenges, like COVID-19, which are impacting today’s society. Our alternative approach to EDM embraces the concept of reflexive thinking and ethical consciousness among the individual agents who collectively are the corporation and who make ethical decisions, often in isolation, removed from the collocated corporate setting. We draw on the teachings of the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Fr. Bernard Lonergan, to conceptualize an approach to EDM which focuses on the ethics of the corporate agent by nurturing the universal and invariant structure that is operational in all human beings. Embracing Lonergan’s dynamic cognitive structure of human knowing, and the structure of the human good, we advance a paradigm of EDM in business which emboldens authentic ethical thought, decision making, and action commensurate with virtuous living and germane to human flourishing. Lonergan’s philosophy guides us away from the imposition of over-arching corporate codes of ethics and inspires us, as individual agents, to attend to the data of our own consciousness in our ethical decision making. Such cognitional endowment leads us out of the ethics of the ‘timeless present’ (Islam and Greenwood in Journal of Business Ethics 170: 1–4, 2021) towards ethical authenticity in business, leaving us better placed to reflect upon and address the ethical issues emanating from grand challenges like COVID-19.

Artificial Intelligences Are Subsets of Human Beings, Mainly in Fictions and Films

2021 ◽  
pp. 598-618
Author(s):  
Nandini Sen
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Emotional Quotient ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Ai Ethics

This chapter aims to create new knowledge regarding artificial intelligence (AI) ethics and relevant subjects while reviewing ethical relationship between human beings and AI/robotics and linking between the moral fabric or the ethical issues of AI as used in fictions and films. It carefully analyses how a human being will love robot and vice versa. Here, fictions and films are not just about technology but about their feelings and the nature of bonding between AIs and the human race. Ordinary human beings distrust and then start to like AIs. However, if the AI becomes a rogue as seen in many fictions and films, then the AI is taken down to avoid the destruction of the human beings. Scientists like Turing are champions of robot/AI's feelings. Fictional and movie AIs are developed to keenly watch and comprehend humans. These actions are so close to empathy they amount to consciousness and emotional quotient.

“The Red Pastor”

Karl Barth ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Christiane Tietz
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World War ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The social circumstances in Barth’s new parish in Safenwil were shaped by the poor working conditions at the town’s two textile factories. Barth soon took public positions on behalf of the workers, what led to the public accusation of a “red Messiah”. He was convinced of the continuity between Jesus’s teachings and the goals of social democracy, becoming a member of the Swiss Socialist Party. During these years Barth’s friendship with Eduard Thurneysen deepened and their joint theological work began. Barth got to know Hermann Kutter and Leonhard Ragaz, the important Swiss religious socialists. The First World War and the support for that war among German theologians, including several of his professors, was a decisive turning point, leading Barth to conclude theologically that human beings should not identify any human cause with God’s will. In 1913, Barth married Nelly Hoffmann. During their time in Safenwil, they had four children.

scholarly journals Is Gabola a Decolonial Church or Another Trajectory of Freedom of Religion in Post-Colonial South Africa? Rethinking Ethical Issues in Religious Praxis

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bekithemba Dube
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Religious Praxis

In this paper, I interrogated the Gabola church in terms of its origins, purpose and its distinctiveness as a postcolonial manifestation of freedom of religion in South Africa. I answered two questions, is Gabola church a representation of a decolonial church and could it be a manifestation of trajectories of the postcolonial ill-defined freedom of religion? In responding to these questions, I used decoloniality, a theory whose agenda among many others is geared to usher a future free from oppression, where all can participate in modernity and in postmodernity. Data was generated through participatory action research. The approach enabled us to unearth the theology of Gabola, philosophy and the gap they seek to fill in the religious space. Ten Gabola church members and five church members from a mainline Christian movement participated in this research. The findings indicated that Gabola church presents a new religious movement that is socially inclusive, that seeks to promote social justice and social transformation. On the other hand, the research revealed that the lack of a regulating body for religious movement is the reason for the rise of questionable movements such as Gabola, a serious threat in the praxis of the Christian faith. To this end, I concluded that while freedom of religion is a good idea in line with the decolonial move, there is a need for participative and collaborative regulation of religious movement to eliminate criminal elements that overshadowed the beauty of religion manifested through ‘unthinkable’ ethical irregularities.

scholarly journals A Life with Limits: A Christian Ethical Investigation of Radically Prolonging Human Lifespans

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manitza Kotzé
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Life Extension ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Human Lifespan ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
God's Image ◽  
Radical Life Extension

Recent biotechnological advances pose topical challenges to Christian ethics. One such development is the attempt to try and enhance human beings and what it means to be human, also through radical life extension. In this contribution I am especially interested in limited human lifespan and attempts to radically prolong it. Although there are a number of ethical issues raised by critics, one of the most profound ethical and theological issues raised by these efforts is the question of equity and justice. This artice looks at questions such as whether this biotechnology could exacerbate existing social divisions. Who will be experimented on in the development of this technology, as well as who will have access to it and be able to afford it, should it become commercially available? Being created in God’s image is a relational concept, referring not only to humanity’s relationship with God, but also with each other. Disrupting these relationships through the possible enlarging socioeconomic divisions between people through the utilisation of enhancement technology is a serious bioethical and theological question.

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