Overview
- Engages actively with the literature on the culture, politics, and cosmology of the Asante people
- Examines, engages with, and critiques most of the major theoretical debates in Pentecostal studies
- Offers an original contribution to broader debates about religion, power, and politics in Africa by taking seriously young pastors on their own terms and situating them in a shifting social and cultural context
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
“Lauterbach’s Christianity, Wealth, and Spiritual Power in Ghana, provides us with a refreshing look at what has been described as Ghana’s ‘new Christianity.’ … it certainly does not shy away from foregrounding why Kumasi and Asante notions of wealth, power and status are essential to our understanding of charismatic Christianity in Ghana. … Karen Lauterbach’s book carefully considers how both historical and cultural continuity as well as Christian discontinuity matter.” (Girish Daswani, anthrocybib, blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk, July, 2017)
“This book is a serious addition to work on Asante. It is also one of the most insightful studies available of modern African belief within a documented historical and cultural framework. It is highly rewarding in its own right, and richly suggestive for all those interested in the past and present of Africa.” (T.C. McCaskie, University of Birmingham, UK)
“Theoretically insightful, empirically rich, methodologically sound, and clearly articulated. Lauterbach’s study provides an important contribution to scholarship on religion in Africa by developing a new framework for explaining the work and careers of young pastors in Asante, Ghana. She has written an agenda-setting piece for the study of the new charismatic movements in Africa and her findings are bound to be of interest to scholars of religion, public authorities and the reading public.” (George Bob-Milliar, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Ghana)
“Karen Lauterbach’s ethnographyis creative and innovative on several levels because Lauterbach takes the reader on a journey through a dynamic religious field, demonstrating how religious operatives draw from indigenous and Christian discursive practices to imagine a world and the kind of leadership and ecclesial community necessary to make that world possible. It is spiritual and social world in which apprenticeship and mentorship is valued, sought, and given. At the center of this narrative is the calling and art of pastorship in a cultural and spiritual landscape where successful leadership and becoming a “big man” is valued. This is a fascinating ethnography of the daily lives of the many unsung spiritual leaders at the center of the Pentecostal explosion in Africa and the African diaspora.” (Elias Kifon Bongmba, Rice University, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Christianity, Wealth, and Spiritual Power in Ghana
Authors: Karen Lauterbach
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33494-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-33493-6Published: 15 December 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-81529-9Published: 07 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-33494-3Published: 25 November 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 221
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations
Topics: Religion and Society, African Culture