CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS OF PROSPERITY GOSPEL IN AFRICAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN LIGHT OF THE ‘NEW NORMAL’

Prosperity gospel is the gospel of wealth, health, success, victory over the enemies, protection and longevity of life made possible by faith in God and through the power of positive confessions. It is an aspect of Pentecostalism. It is conceived by an African in Diaspora and propagated on the African soil by Africans. However, prosperity gospel is greeted with much criticisms and dislike due to the misconceptions around the subject. Much of the claims of prosperity preachers are rooted in African cultural beliefs and practices. Nonetheless, there are identifiable problems with the prosperity gospel that can be corrected by the Nigerian church using African Christian Theology. The reality of the Covid-19 pandemic, which ravaged the human communities and brought about the current „new normal‟ to the world system, makes a research in prosperity gospel a necessity. The study adopted socio-historical and African-cultural methods of research. Findings revealed that there are challenges in prosperity gospel and proposed virtues in African Christian Theology that affirm its relevance especially in the post-pandemic period. The study concluded that prosperity gospel is not hurting Africa as claimed, but it is an important message to Nigeria and Nigerians that have been ravaged by poverty, suffering, oppression and suppression heightened by the effects of the Corona Virus. The study recommended that African preachers and Christians, rather than being overly critical of prosperity gospel should maximize its numerous benefits for successful living, and employed Biblical principles for prosperity and wealth