ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the undocumented migrants continue to attend activities in the African-led churches despite the risks this entails. It reviews the literature on migrant Pentecostalism, the role of hope in Pentecostal theology. The chapter discusses the production of hope in Pentecostal contexts is associated with specific ontologies of time and with given spatial referents. The approach to hope and Pentecostalism takes rupture as its starting point. Whereas Pentecostalism helps to manage some conflicting obligations, it creates new schisms: The Prosperity Gospel-the promise that God will grant believers this-worldly wealth-repeatedly fails to become manifest in the lives of most Born-Agains. In both cases, concrete business conflicts were assigned moral meaning which, in turn, affected how they were acted upon. In The Tower, present problems were fought through the generation of prospective moments that pointed towards a Utopian future. The moral value assigned to hope may explain the negative reactions when Abel chose to leave China without having attained his objective.
