Institutional Prosperity: No Money, No Church, No Fellowship in South Africa? Migrant Women’s Relationships in a Context of Lack at Saint Aidan’s Anglican Church

ABSTRACT

Monetary relations were embedded in the social practices of the Saint Aidan’s Anglican Church in South Africa. Consequently, when money was needed to employ a priest, additional dimensions of financial relatedness were established. According to Bonnie Hagerty, Judith Lynch-Sauer, Kathleen Patusky and Maria Bouwsema (1993), relatedness is the movement in a circle of connectedness, disconnectedness, parallelism, and enmeshment. This article discusses how money mediated migrant women’s experiences of relatedness while giving them a sense of belonging in the context of migration, xenophobia and other gender-related challenges. This paper demonstrates the way money shaped people’s relationships in a faith community where money was already embedded in the church’s social practices. I argue that St Aidan’s Anglican Church, like many other South African mainstream churches in a similar context, practises institutional prosperity theology. This paper demonstrates that the monetary relations define people’s sense of belonging. The prominence of monetary relations and the commodification of belonging at St Aidan’s suggest that, as an institution, it should be prosperous for the survival of people’s fellowship.

KEYWORDS:

• money
• prosperity theology
• migrant women
• Anglican Church
• relationships

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Elina Hankela for the extraordinary support in the process of this article and the thesis from which it emerged. I thank my co-supervisor Prof. Maria Frahm-Arp. I thank Prof. Margot Rubin, Prof. Lilly Nortjé-Meyer and everyone who took part in the 2020 African Studies writing retreat for their comments on the manuscript. I am indebted to Tisa Viviers who edited this manuscript.

Notes

1 Ngqungquthela is an isiXhosa term that is often linked to fundraising, although its original meaning is about ‘coming together’. The three people from the amaXhosa community with whom I spoke understood the original meaning of ngqungquthela as ‘coming together’; according to them it does not matter what you then do together, as long as it involves good deeds. They also added that in most cases the ‘coming together’ involves different activities – celebratory practices such as dancing and singing. Based on my observation of how ngqungquthela was planned and conducted at SAAC, it took the form of an event that brings people together to raise funds, while celebrating what I would call the gift of giving.

2 A sermon at SAAC during the service on 27 August 2017.

3 A licensed lay minister is a layperson authorised by a bishop in the Anglican Communion to lead certain services of worship or lead certain parts of a service.

4 A notice during the service of 22 October 2017.

5 Names of all research participants were changed to protect their anonymity.