Original Research

Pentecostal theology regarding disability in African neo-Pentecostalism

Mookgo S. Kgatle
In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi | Vol 58, No 1 | a3004 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ids.v58i1.3004 | © 2024 Mookgo S. Kgatle | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 01 August 2023 | Published: 19 January 2024

About the author(s)

Mookgo S. Kgatle, Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology, Faculty of Humanities, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

The Pentecostal approach to disability is currently informed by the imposed healing, deliverance, and performance of other miracles, particularly among neo-Pentecostals in Africa. This is also informed by the neo-Pentecostal pastor’s radical approach to the aspect of healing in Pentecostal theology. Therefore, instead of addressing disability from the point of environmental, social, and technological aspects, neo-Pentecostal pastors either impose healing on the disabled body, or blame them for a lack of faith. This in a way presents some power dynamics between the abled neo-Pentecostal pastors’ bodies and the disabled congregant bodies. This article uses a critical theory, to argue that the development of the Pentecostal theology of disability should take cognisance of the environmental, social, and technological factors. When this is done, a Pentecostal setting in the form of a church service, crusade, or revival will not become a place of imposed healing and deliverance, but an environmentally, socially, and technologically friendly one, that is conducive to those living with a disability.

Contribution: This article highlighted the importance of the environmental, social, and technological factors in the construction of a Pentecostal theology of disability among the neo-Pentecostal churches, in an African context.


Keywords

Pentecostalism; Pentecostal theology; disability; critical theory; healing

Sustainable Development Goal

Goal 3: Good health and well-being

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