scholarly journals #FAITHANDFITNESSCOLLIDE: SPREADING THE WORD OF MULTILEVEL MARKETING IN CHRISTIAN WOMEN’S FITNESS INSTAGRAM POSTS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Prins ◽  
Mariah Wellman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Multilevel Marketing ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Initial Research

With the emergence of the coronavirus in 2020 led to the closing of gyms and churches, along with the “she-cession” in which women disproportionately left the workforce (Hammer, 2021), Christian women with an interest in fitness increasingly turned to home-fitness-based multilevel marketing (MLM). MLM companies like Beachbody, for example, saw a 300% increase in subscribers in 2020 (Haithman, 2020). Although MLMs encourage their distributors to think of themselves as “independent entrepreneurs,” these companies demand fealty -- putting Christian women who participate in a double bind: bound to company, family, and God, they must still position themselves as free agents and strong women in order to build their “fitness ministry” (Coach 8, 2020) and close the sale. We extend Sullivan & Delany’s (2017) framework of “evangelical entrepreneurial femininity” by asking how fitness complicates or shepherds the relationship between the independent entrepreneur, the MLM, and the patriarchal foundation of her religious practices. Our initial research suggests that Christian women navigate the potential shame of occupying a masculine economic role and a muscular body by reframing Beachbody as an opportunity to fulfill God’s plan, (re)inhabit the home, and encounter the Divine through their uplines. References: Haithman, D. (2020, May 18). Beachbody sees gains. Retrieved from https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2020/may/18/beachbody-sees-gains/. Hammer, B. (2021, January 25). How to fix women's jobs during the covid-19 pandemic. Sullivan, K. R., & Delaney, H. (2017). A femininity that ‘giveth and taketh away’: The prosperity gospel and postfeminism in the neoliberal economy. Human Relations, 70(7), 836-859.

African and African American Religions in the Early Americas

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Young
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
African American Religion ◽  
African Religion ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter chronicles the relationship between African religious practices on the continent and African American religion in the plantation Americas in the era of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. A new generation of scholars who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s have demonstrated not only that African religious practices exhibit remarkable subtlety and complexity but also that these cultures have played significant roles in the subsequent development of religious practices throughout the world. Christianity, Islam, and traditional African religion comprised a set of broad and varied religious practices that contributed to the development of creative, subtle, and complex belief systems that circulated around the African Diaspora. In addition, this chapter addresses some of the vexed epistemological challenges related to discussing and describing non-Western ritual and religious practices.

WOMEN'S MAWLID PERFORMANCES IN SANAA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF “POPULAR ISLAM”

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Holmes Katz
Keyword(s):  
Spirit Possession ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Great Cost ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Devotional Practices ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Religious Lives ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
The Relationship

It has long been recognized that much of the richness of Muslim women's ritual lives has been found outside of both the mosque and the “five pillars of Islam,” in a wide set of devotional practices that have met with varying degrees of affirmation and censure from male religious scholars. This recognition has given rise to a valuable literature on such practices as shrine visitation, spirit-possession rituals, and Twelver Shiʿi women's domestic ceremonies. The prevalence of such noncanonical rituals in Muslim women's lives, although waning in many parts of the contemporary world, raises questions about the relationship between women's religious practices and the constitution of Islamic orthodoxies. Have women, often given lesser access to mosque-based and canonical rituals, historically resorted to autonomous and rewarding religious practices that are, nevertheless, fated to be marginalized in the male-dominated construction of Islamic normativity—a normativity that women may ultimately internalize and master only at great cost to their religious lives?

scholarly journals Analysis of Information Systems Capabilities and Performance of Firms in Telecommunications Industry, Kenya

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (04) ◽  
pp. 319-327
Author(s):  
Bett, Alfred Kipyegon ◽  
Dr. Johnmark Obura ◽  
Dr. Moses Oginda
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
Telecommunications Industry ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Executive Management ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Service Businesses ◽  
The Relationship

In the 21st century where economies are driven majorly by knowledge and information-based service businesses, telecommunication industries are playing a critical economic role both regionally and globally. In Kenya, with a combined subscription rate of 37.8 million based on a 2016/17 Communication Authority of Kenya report of 2017, Safaricom Kenya Limited controls about 71.2% of the subscribers, Airtel Kenya Limited is second with 17.6% with Telkom Kenya coming third with 7.4%. Finserve East Africa (Equitel) a new entrant in the market controls 3.8% of subscribers. These figures points to the fact that only Safaricom seems to be the only firm performing well. This reality forms the basis of establishing whether their difference in performance is attributable to their information systems capabilities. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship IS capabilities and performance of firms in the telecommunications industry in Kenya. It was anchored on Resource-Based Theory and guided by a conceptual framework with the dependent variable being firm performance while independent variable was IS capabilities. Correlational and survey research designs were used. The population of the study was 408 staff comprising all executive, management and operational level managers from the business and IT sections in each firm. A sample of 202 staff was drawn through proportionate stratified random sampling method. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaire and an interview schedule. Reliability of the research instrument was tested against Cronbach’s alpha coefficient where a reliability score of 0.814 was achieved while validity was gauged through research experts’ opinions. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings established that IS capabilities and firm performance have a weak relationship (r = 0.409, p<0.05) which means that whenever firms in industry invested on market based IS capabilities there was a small improvement on their performance and therefore firms should invest in the development of market based IS capabilities since they have significant influence on their performance. This study may be useful to industry players by gaining better understanding on various information system resources that they can utilize to improve and sustain their performance besides policy formulation. By advancing a model that depicts the relationship between information systems resources and firm performance, this study may make a significant contribution to theory building in the field of information systems.

scholarly journals Reading the Bible in the African context: Assessing Africa’s love affair with prosperity Gospel

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ntozakhe Cezula
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
African People ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Context ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
Socio Economic Factors

The aim of this article is to examine Bible reading in the African context and the willingness and enthusiasm to embrace prosperity gospel in Africa. To achieve this objective, a discussion on the developments in biblical interpretation in Africa will first be presented. This will be done by examining three historical periods: colonial, independence and democratisation periods. This will be followed by an outline of migrations that have taken place from traditional religions to different versions of Christianity in different times in Africa. These migrations will be examined in connection with Bible translation. The relationship between prosperity gospel and African people in Africa will be discussed by considering the tools prosperity gospel uses to appeal to African people, namely the religio-cultural and socio-economic factors. The article will then provide its assessment of contextual reading in the prosperity gospel and a conclusion will follow.

scholarly journals On the Potential and Problems of Pentecostal Exchange

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Careful Examination ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter once again focuses on the relationship between charisma and prosperity, this time through an analysis of “seed offerings”—the small gifts associated with the prosperity gospel that are believed to result in large blessings for the giver. All Copperbelt Pentecostals acknowledge the power of seed offerings, but they are likewise keenly aware of the problems they raise. Through a careful examination of the different registers through which believers interpret seed offerings, this chapter demonstrates how believers keep prosperity in its proper place even in this socially dangerous practice. By focusing on the priestly capacities of the leaders who receive a gift on God's behalf, Pentecostals work to protect seed offerings from the taint of corruption, allowing relationships between leaders and laypeople to develop through socially productive exchange.

Physiotherapy and Human Relations

2016 ◽  
pp. 67-74
Author(s):  
Donald W. Winnicott
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Somatic Disorder ◽  
Somatic Disorders ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

In this paper on psycho-somatic disorders, Winnicott begins by acknowledging the vastness of the subject. Psycho-somatic disorder merges into the universal problem of the healthy interaction between the psyche and the soma—that is, between the personality of an individual and the body in which the person lives. The relationship between body and mind, role of early development and stages of emotional development are also discussed.

Effects of Human Relations Training with Houseparents on Attainment of Group Facilitation Skills

1977 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 787-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph C. Bledsoe ◽  
Gene R. Layser
Keyword(s):  
Control Group ◽  
Trained Group ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Group Facilitation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Empathic Understanding ◽  
Systematic Training ◽  
Facilitation Skills ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Human Relations Training

24-hr. (12 wk., 2 hr. per week) systematic training in human relations with 16 houseparent couples produced higher mean facilitation skills as measured by the Index of Responding than was achieved by a control group of 16 houseparent couples. Students (boys) residing in cottages whose parents received the training did not perceive their parents more favorably in the core helping dimensions of Empathic Understanding, Level of Regard, Unconditionality of Regard, and Congruence (measured by the Relationship Inventory) than did boys whose parents did not receive the training. Greater variability of the trained group on all dimensions suggested that the training may have enabled some houseparents to function more effectively (as perceived by the boys) whereas in other instances they were perceived to function less effectively than did the control houseparents.

The Relationship between Religion, Religiosity and Death Anxiety among Indian Adolescents

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Mahabeer ◽  
K. Bhana
Keyword(s):  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Anxiety Scale ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Indian Adolescents ◽  
Religious Orientation Scale ◽  
Orientation Scale ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Male Subjects ◽  
Practical Implications

Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and the Religious Orientation Scale of the OPI were administered to 360 Indian adolescents to examine the relationship between religion and religiosity and death anxiety. Muslim subjects were found to be more death anxious than Christian and Hindu subjects. The degree of commitment to one's religious practices and beliefs did not intensify or reduce death anxiety. Further, female subjects manifested higher death anxiety than male subjects. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.

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