The Gospel as Commodity: Prosperity Theology and the Economics of Religious Practice in Nigeria

Abstract

Prosperity-oriented Pentecostalism has become one of the most influential expressions of Christianity in Nigeria, and its emphasis on wealth, health, and breakthrough has reshaped how many believers understand faith itself. This paper examines a development within that movement: the reorganisation of the relationship between the believer and God around the logic of the marketplace, so that grace, healing, breakthrough, and prophecy are increasingly presented as benefits obtainable in exchange for payment. Drawing on recent scholarship by Nigerian and other African researchers across theology, sociology, and religious studies, the study traces how divine blessing is priced and sold through seed sowing, the promise of multiplied returns, and the marketing of anointing oil, holy water, handkerchiefs, and other religious objects. It situates these practices within Nigeria’s political economy of poverty, unemployment, and institutional failure, which supplies both the demand for miracles and the conditions that give religious promises their economic value. The central argument is that commodification does not merely add a commercial layer to faith; it alters the meaning of the Gospel, replacing a theology of unmerited grace with a theology of transaction while retaining the older vocabulary of faith and blessing. The paper does not treat all church giving as commercial. It defends a distinction between legitimate Christian giving and the commodification of spiritual benefits, grounded in the direction of expectation, the placing of risk and blame, and the status of what is offered, and considers what that distinction requires of churches, regulators, and scholars.