Imani na Maisha (Faith and Life): Faith Encounters with four individuals from a rural Pentecostal community in Tanzania

Paxton, Steven Edward (2025) Imani na Maisha (Faith and Life): Faith Encounters with four individuals from a rural Pentecostal community in Tanzania. DPT thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This Thesis explores how four individuals in a rural Pentecostal community in Tanzania recounted their journeys to faith, their understanding of God, their own calling in the church, approach to mission and how they perceive the challenges around them, including the Covid-19 pandemic. It does so by drawing upon the accounts of my encounter with them through ‘hanging out’, that is through ‘intensive informal and interpersonal interactions’ (Rodgers 2004, page 48) as we shared faith together and journeyed through the Covid-19 Pandemic together in 2020-21. My ‘hanging out’ approach (set out further in Chapter Two), builds on the Pentecostal practice in Tanzania of believers sharing with others, in day-to-day conversation, their experiences of God. My research aims to enrich our understanding of Pentecostal expression in Tanzania.

Much of the literature on Tanzanian Pentecostalism focusses on what is described as Pentecostal churches and charismatic movements established in the 1980s and 1990s and situated in urban areas such as Dar es Salaam. It tends to explore, in the context of rural to urban migration and social and economic change, the ‘prosperity gospel’, how expressions of urban Pentecostalism resonate with older concerns around witchcraft and how other Christian denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Roman Catholic Church have responded to Pentecostal and charismatic renewal movements.

Most Tanzanians, however, live in rural areas and Pentecostal churches there have been active since the 1950s. The research is also in a setting, community, and church (the Free Pentecostal Church of Tanzania) which have been relatively under researched. The research had been planned to take place in person, in Tanzania, over the summer of 2020 but as the Covid-19 pandemic prohibited travel, the research took place over 2020 and 2021 by means of telephone calls, WhatsApp calls and correspondence.

Key features of my encounters included interlocutors articulating a Christian as opposed to uniquely Pentecostal identity; the church as the locus of community; and continuous, persistent prayer as the foundation for their Christian life. God’s presence was felt through their encounter with the Holy Spirit and in their experience of God’s healing. Giving to the church brought blessings but these were not necessarily financial and the routes out of poverty were hard work and entrepreneurship. The interlocutors had ambivalent views about Covid-19 and sickness – it had demonic as well as viral causes. Covid-19 was a sign of the end of the age, but environmental changes were not.

• Item Type: Thesis (DPT)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BV Practical Theology
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > Theology and Religious Studies
• Supervisor's Name: Clague, Ms. Julie, Walton, Professor Heather and Fisk, Dr. Anna
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85241
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 23 Jun 2025 12:11
• Last Modified: 23 Jun 2025 12:13
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85241
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85241