This study examines the ethical considerations of Zimbabwean Pentecostal women in cross-border trade. I examine how they navigate the ethical tensions between religious convictions, which value hard work and moral discipline, and the survival imperatives of an informal economy marked by systemic corruption and punitive policies that penalize the poor. Using a hybrid ethnographic methodology, this study combines in-person and online interviews and participatory observations to gather data from 22 traders. The key finding is that these women do not abandon their faith-based ethics; instead, they engage in moral bricolage. They reinterpret morally ambiguous practices such as bribery and smuggling, through a Pentecostal lens, framing these as divine tests and forms of sowing seeds for future improvisation (kukiya-kiya) in a corrupt system. The study's primary contribution is a nuanced theorization of how Pentecostalism provides a language of justification, enabling agency, and critiquing the state's failure. It moves beyond the binaries of piety and corruption or formality and informality, offering a critical understanding of religious ethics, gendered power, and economic survival in Zimbabwe's crisis. SIGNIFICANCE: This study advances the concept of 'moral bricolage' to move beyond reductive binaries by providing a nuanced perspective on a stigmatized economic sector and underscores the inadequacy of formalization policies that ignore systemic corruption and gendered power dynamics. It highlights the ambivalent role of Pentecostalism, indicating how it can simultaneously empower women and reinforce patriarchal constraints, offering a critical understanding of religious ethics and economic survival in the context of state failure
The paper presents the case to refute the Incompatibility thesis which states that there is a fundamental opposition between Christianity and African identity. It argues that the Incompatibility thesis is based on a colonial simplification of African ontology, a cultural misunderstanding of Christianity, and the conflation of a historical clash and an ontological one. The paper sketches the Complementary Ontology Thesis, which posits that, at the level of relational being, moral transformation, and communal being, Christianity and African identity are aligned. The paper engages with African philosophy, especially the works of Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, and Thaddeus Metz. The argument goes on to reconstruct what is most likely the strongest version of the Incompatibility thesis, show that it fails, and then defenda relational view of complementarity. It is therefore concluded that the contradiction, if there is any, between Christianity and African identity, is of a historical and interpretive metaphysical framework grounded in relational ontology, arguing that the convergence between Christianity and African identity is not merely conceptual but structurally embedded in their respective accounts of being. By situating the Complementary Ontology Thesis within broader traditions of speculative philosophy, particularly relational metaphysics, the paper demonstrates that intercultural philosophical systems can achieve non- reductive convergence without collapsing into assimilation. This contribution positions African philosophy as an active participant in global metaphysical discourse rather than a reactive or derivative tradition.
This research investigates the emergence of Megacostalism in post-apartheid South Africa, focusing on how white Pentecostal Charismatic and Evangelical megachurches utilize prosperity theology to maintain racial and economic hierarchies. The author argues that these institutions function as ‘Big Religion’ – corporatized ‘non-places’, blending Charismatic authority and anti-intellectualism with prosperity theology to exploit financially vulnerable congregants towards material wealth. Through case studies of prominent ministries like inter alia Rhema, CRC, and CFCI, the paper illustrates how the pursuit of material wealth is sacralized as divine favor, effectively sanctifying systemic inequality through institutions of whiteness. Furthermore, the paper highlights a significant lack of institutional accountability and critical scholarship, recognizing how these powerful religious organizations often resist state-led efforts to curtail the commercialization of religion via regulation. Ultimately, the study suggests that these mafiarized movements of deviant religion act as coercive cultic systems that preserve colonial and apartheid-era whiteness, as well as white privilege, under the guise of sanctified success.
For the largest part of history, African scholarship on religion in Africa has mostly been overshadowed by external non-African perspectives and epistemologies. In recent years, the situation has changed, in part owing to the small but meaningful contribution of the Journal for the Study of Religion (JSR). Most notably, the change is also because of the scientifically rigorous and influential contributions from our early-career and established senior scholars who emerge from a wide range of contexts, religions, and disciplines, yet, who all share in their mutual passion for research in (and on) religion in Africa. Owing to our partnership with the Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa (ASRSA) and UJ Press, the journal has (since its creation) hosted a wide range of research perspectives on religion: Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Indigenous, and Non-Religious (to name but a few). This not only reflects the diversity of the scholarship in Africa, but also the unique multifocality that sustains the JSR as a journal in the global field of religion, while located at the southern tip of Africa.
This study examines African Pentecostal Churches as mediating institutions of socio-economic integration among African migrants in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on Social Capital Theory, it explores how church-based networks facilitate migrants’ access to resources, opportunities, and support. Using a qualitative multiple case study design, the research draws on interviews and participant observation conducted across five African Pentecostal Churches. The findings indicate that these churches function as hybrid institutions that provide spiritual, social, and economic support through largely informal, trust-based relationships. Bonding and bridging social capital emerged as the primary mechanisms through which migrants accessed emotional support, information, employment opportunities, and livelihood resources. Although linking social capital was also evident, it remained largely informal and dependent on the personal networks of pastors and influential congregants rather than formal institutional partnerships. While these networks enhance migrants’ short-term adaptation and access to livelihoods, they may also reinforce dependency, reproduce inequalities, and constrain long-term socio-economic mobility and broader societal integration. The study contributes to migration and religion scholarship by demonstrating that African Pentecostal Churches are important, yet constrained mediators of migrant integration. It further advances Social Capital Theory by indicating that integration is supported primarily through bonding and bridging social capital in contexts where linking social capital remains weak and informal, limiting the transformative potential of faith-based support networks.
