Success, Risk and Failure The Brazilian Prosperity Gospel in Mozambique

Pentecostal churches from Brazil have become popular in the urban centers of Mozambique since the early 1990s, when the liberalization of the economic and public domains took off. In line with the Prosperity Gospel, these churches’ leaders emphasize that it is God’s will for believers to be successful in every aspect of their lives. This article explores how upwardly mobile believers deal with ‘failure’ in a Pentecostal setting that stresses the importance of ‘intelligent faith’ for realizing happy marriages and successful businesses. I argue that the strong focus on responsibility in the Pentecostal self-formation stimulates attitudes of ‘calculated risk-taking’, in which Brazilian Pentecostalism turns out to be part of a neo-liberal order rather than a response to it, challenging dominant interpretations for the popularity of the Prosperity Gospel.