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has to do with the affirmation that Christians are sons of the King and therefore have the right to claim the blessings of God owner of all things. Following their interpretation of Deuteronomy 28, Christians are the \u2018head\u2019, not the \u2018tail\u2019. In other words, a Christian has to be a successful and prosperous individual. Garrard-Burnett notes that Neo-Pentecostals join the beliefs of traditional Pentecostalism with their own focus,\u000APlace great emphasis on \u201Chealing in the atonement,\u201D which roughly translates into empowerment on earth through proper faith in God. Closely related is the belief that material prosperity is the entitlement of the faithful; money, good health, and security are all tangible evidence of God\u2019s blessing. The believer is thus right to demand such things from God for personal prosperity is a witness to His power and grace (1998:164).\u000AThe way some of the NPL understand the issue of giving or making an alliance with God in order to receive, demonstrates an interpretation which distorts what the bible says about material blessings. Some of those who promote this prosperity theology convert this search in a type of exchange with God, \u2018I give, you give\u2019. This perspective of \u201Cgiving in order to get\u201D distorts the biblical teaching that we should give and receive through grace.\u000AOther people who have studied Neo-Pentecostalism, state that the central premise of prosperity theology is the concept of spiritual warfare. From their perspective, humanity wages a war between God and the forces of evil. Christians not only have to engage in spiritual warfare to clear the skies and territories to spread the gospel, they also have to wage spiritual warfare against the devil and his agents that are stealing the blessings of God. Spiritual warfare is thus moved from the cosmic and personal level to all aspects of human life. According to Oca\u00F1a, amongst Neo-Pentecostals prosperity is seen as the fruit of victory in spiritual warfare and the keeping of a certain Christian ethic. He later states that Prosperity Theology is a \u2018social and economic discourse that seeks to base itself on the bible\u2019 (2002: 95, 25, 101). From his perspective, it is in effect a new theology \u2018oriented from the centres of power\u2019. Garrard-Burnett says that the Neo-Pentecostal churches not only affirm the impulse to accumulate and imitate riches, but also made this project holy (1998: 165). In his analysis of prosperity and positive thought in these churches, William concludes that, without omitting the influence of the latter, prosperity has another source\u000A316\u000A


































































































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