What is the glue of society? Which forms of sociability help to overcome social needs and poverty? The role of religion and religious institutions are often expected to be relevant to questions like these. But until today, these issues were seldom raised from a theological perspective. This volume opens the discourses on social cohesion, social capital formation, and social development for the theological debate, presenting theoretical reflections and empirical research by scholars from different religion-related disciplines. (Series: Studies on Religion and Culture / Studien zu Religion und Kultur - Vol. 4)

Prosperity Teaching is fast becoming a standard part of contemporary African Christianity. This teaching is best understood in the Charismatic and Pentecostal churches in Africa. The varied expressions and nuances call for a critical analysis of the phenomenon. Prosperity Teaching affirms wealth, divine healing, good health and long-life as manifestations of God's blessing. Conspicuous consumption is often seen as a sign of a successful life and suffering has no place in the divine order of God's sovereignty. This book, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? seeks to bring some understanding to this teaching and shows the extent of its impact in the wider society.

African Pentecostal Theology: Modality, Disciplinarity, and Decoloniality explores research methodology, theological disciplines, and contextualization as important aspects in the process of studying Pentecostal theology in an African context. Mookgo Solomon Kgatle outlines different data collection and data analysis methods, including the skills of interpreting and presenting research findings in a responsible manner. This book illustrates that Pentecostal theology, given its pneumatological approach, goes beyond conventional theological disciplines in transdisciplinary research. The development of knowledge in African Pentecostal Theology should recognize African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), African oral and traditional cultures, and African indigenous languages to be relevant to Africans. Pentecostal theologians from different theological disciplines in Africa and globally will find this book a worthwhile read.

This book investigates the substantial and growing contribution which African Independent and Pentecostal Churches are making to sustainable development in all its manifold forms. Moreover, this volume seeks to elucidate how these churches reshape the very notion of sustainable development and contribute to the decolonisation of development. Fostering both overarching and comparative perspectives, the book includes chapters on West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, and Burkina Faso) and Southern Africa (Zimbabwe and South Africa). It aims to open up a subfield focused on African Initiated Christianity within the religion and development discourse, substantially broadening the scope of the existing literature. Written predominantly by scholars from the African continent, the chapters in this volume illuminate potentials and perspectives of African Initiated Christianity, combining theoretical contributions, essays by renowned church leaders, and case studies focusing on particular churches or regional contexts. While the contributions in this book focus on the African continent, the notion of development underlying the concept of the volume is deliberately wide and multidimensional, covering economic, social, ecological, political, and cultural dimensions. Therefore, the book will be useful for the community of scholars interested in religion and development as well as researchers within African studies, anthropology, development studies, political science, religious studies, sociology of religion, and theology. It will also be a key resource for development policymakers and practitioners.

This book draws renewed attention to migration into and within Africa, and to the socio-political consequences of these movements. In doing so, it complements vibrant scholarly and political discussions of migrant integration globally with innovative, interdisciplinary perspectives focused on migration within Africa. It sheds new light on how human mobility redefines the meaning of home, community, citizenship and belonging. The authors ask how people’s movements within the continent are forging novel forms of membership while catalysing social change within the communities and countries to which they move and which they have left behind. Original case studies from across Africa question the concepts, actors, and social trajectories dominant in the contemporary literature. Moreover, it speaks to and challenges sociological debates over the nature of migrant integration, debates largely shaped by research in the world’s wealthy regions. The text, in part or as a whole, will appeal to students and scholars of migration, development, urban and rural transformation, African studies and displacement.

The book is a reading of numerous contemporary continental philosophers (Badiou, Deleuze and Guattari, Laruelle and Derrida amongst others) and bringing them into conversation with each other around various ethical and political challenges of living in capitalist worlds. What can contemporary continental philosophy offer with regards to the questions of decolonial thinking, the challenges of identity politics, the formation of political identities in response to the dominant norms in the context of the struggles of victims of these norms?

This volume examines religiosity on university campuses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on both individuals and organized groups, the contributions open a window onto how religion becomes a factor, affects social interactions, is experienced and mobilized by various actors. It brings together case studies from various disciplinary backgrounds (anthropology, sociology, history, religious studies, literature) and theoretical orientations to illustrate the significance of religiosity in recent developments on university campuses. It pays a particular attention to religion-informed activism and contributes a fresh analysis of processes that are shaping both the experience of being student and the university campus as a moral space. Last but not least, it sheds light onto the ways in which the campus becomes a site of a reformulation of both religiosity and sociality.

The Negev desert occupies most of the territory of Israel. It has a strategic importance for the existence of the center of the country and at the same time is considered as a natural wild periphery. Since the 1920s, there was a tendency to conquer and flourish the desert, while since the 1980s, the ecological values gained importance. This manuscript reveals the relationship between man and his environment, employing texts analysis according to the ecocriticism approach. The study shows how as part of globalization processes, the status of collectivism in Israeli society was declined whereas the ability of social groups to influence the spatial identity construction has increased. Dr. Ilanit Ben-Dor Derimian, lecturer specialized in Israel and Jewish culture and history studies, member of the Research Center of Foreign Cultures, Languages and Literatures (CECILLE), University of Lille, France.

This book shows the important links between social conditions and health and begins to describe the processes through which these health inequalities may be generated. It reviews a range of methodologies that could be used by health researchers in this field and proposes innovative future research directions.

While Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone (2000) highlighted the notion of volunteerism, little attention has been paid to religion's role in generating social capital--an ironic omission since religion constitutes the most common form of voluntary association in America today. Featuring essays by prominent social scientists, this is the first book-length, systematic examination of the relationship between religion and social capital and what effects religious social capital has on democratic life in the United States.