World Christianity and the Reorganization of Disciplines: On the Emerging Dialogue between Anthropology and Theology

This chapter reviews recent changes in anthropology and theology to suggest that these changes bring them to a point where their paths are ready to cross. The change considered in anthropology is the unexpectedly rapid rise of what is called the anthropology of Christianity. More specifically, the chapter examines the prosperity gospel, in which believers are convinced that God wants health and wealth for them in this world and overwhelmingly stress these themes in their worship. Scholars in the Western academy tend to find this kind of Christianity hard to assimilate to their more general understandings of the faith, or at least to their favorite understandings. But a closer look at how this kind of Christianity trips up both theologians and anthropologists reveals places where both disciplines would be open to help from each other, the provision of which might lay the basis for a new kind of transformative dialogue.