Good News for Africa?

The prosperity gospel is not the only false gospel impacting the African church. Thorsten Prill explains the threat of the power gospel, hyper-grace gospel and gospel of legalism.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the message of the church’s mission. It is a message of love, grace, forgiveness and salvation. Yet many messages taught at mission rallies, crusades and conferences or preached in churches across sub-Saharan Africa bear little resemblance to the gospel the apostles of Jesus proclaimed.

The most prominent of these other ‘gospels’ is the prosperity gospel, which claims God wants to give us success, wealth and health – see the photo above which was taken by Kerstin Prill, and is of a church on the main road in the city centre of Namibia’s capital, Windhoek. But instead of delivering success, health and wealth, the prosperity gospel creates false hopes and further marginalises the poorest of the poor. It is only good news for those who preach it.

And tragically, the prosperity gospel is not alone. The impact of other ‘gospels’ on the African church should not be underestimated. Among these messages are the power gospel, the hyper-grace gospel and the gospel of legalism.

The power gospel lacks the cross-centredness of the apostolic gospel. With its emphasis on outward manifestations of the Holy Spirit, the power gospel has redefined ‘spirituality’. The marks of Christian discipleship and leadership are no longer godly conduct and maturity but the exercise of power: healing, deliverance, dream diagnosis and miracles. ‘[Healing] is an ingredient of the gospel’ wrote the late Pentecostal preacher Reinhard Bonnke in his bestseller Evangelism by Fire. In some communities, ‘the Christian ‘man of God’ has replaced the age-old shaman or witch-doctor’.

The hyper-grace gospel similarly loosens the Bible’s clarity. This teaches that because all of Jesus’ teachings occurred before his death and resurrection, they belong to the old covenant and no longer apply to us this side of the cross. A rejection of the Lord’s Prayer is a hallmark of the hyper-grace gospel; confessing sin is considered introspective and legalistic, and asking for forgiveness from God results in works-righteousness, insecurity and obsession. Hyper-grace theology is very much a pick-and-choose theology. It happily points its followers to verses like Hebrews 10:17 – ‘their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more’ – but ignores Hebrews 10:26-39 which strongly warns believers against unholy living, and calls them to repentance and obedience. The simplistically selective ‘effortless transformation’ teaching of the hyper-grace gospel cheapens the costly grace Jesus died to give us; ‘the gospel which must be sought again and again’.

But where the hyper-grace gospel twists the biblical concept of grace, the legalistic gospel is short of it. For example, poor church members struggling to pay membership fees are shamed instead of receiving loving support. A church acting like that has forgotten giving is not by compulsion, believing that ‘strict obedience to God’s laws and particularly to the Ten Commandments is a way of gaining his acceptance’. Faith becomes a burden; it knows little of the joy of belonging to Christ, and in time slips into nominal church attendance to avoid social exclusion.

The tragedy of each ‘gospel’ is that they hide Jesus from people who desperately need him. There is a need for a pastoral response that welcomes confused victims of these ‘gospels’ and gives them time to work through their experiences and receive healing for their souls. There is a need for theologically orthodox African pastors to teach faithfully, and for foreign missionaries to work hard to understand traditional African culture, contextualising their teaching and acknowledging the manifold challenges of life in Africa. And there is a need for the African church to share the ultimate antidote, the one true gospel of Christ.

By Thorsten Prill, who served with his wife Kerstin in Namibia from 2011–2017.