Abstract:
This article engaged in critical analyses of the capitalistic nature of the practices of African
Neo-Pentecostal leaders with a focus on a few but most popular Nigerian and South African
Neo-Pentecostal leaders. Using Julius Nyerere’s African moral philosophy called Ujamaa, the
article viewed and critiqued the narratives with an emphasis on how antithetical such practices
are to the communitarian nature of African society which provides for people-centred servant
leadership. Progressively, the article discovered that such capitalistic practices promote
manipulative, exploitative and inhuman culture and therefore engenders gross socio-moral
and socio-economic abuse of the rights and privileges of millions of Church adherents. It
further deduced that amongst others, lack of love towards the adherents and surrounding
communities is at the heart of such bankrupt practices and therefore recommended the three
principles and three factors of Ujamaa’s philosophy as essential values needed for the
transformation of the Neo-Pentecostal religious organisations or nations. It is the conclusive
remark of this article that every leader needs to adopt Ujamaa’s philosophy as a basic
leadership requirement for communitarian and people-centred service to humanity.
CONTRIBUTION : Aligning with HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies focus and scope, this article
contributed to an interdisciplinary religious aspect of research as it brought forward the
interplay of African Moral Philosophy and African Pentecostal Theology aimed at discovering
pathways to improve the African Christian leaders’ socio-moral and socio-economic services
to adherents and African communities at large.
