TOWARDS THE FRANCHISING OF PENTECOSTAL/CHARISMATIC CHURCHES FOR DEVELOPMENT: AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS IN POVERTY REDUCTION ACTIVITIES IN GHANA.

Undoubtedly, most Orthodox religious denominations have contributed immensely towards poverty reduction in Ghana. However, in recent years, the modus operandi of some Pentecostal/Neo-Pentecostal churches have exacerbated public disenchantment in respect of the perceived role of the church in national development. This study compared the performance of Pentecostal/Neo-Pentecostal churches to other religious denominations in terms of their level of involvement in poverty reduction activities in Ghana. The study also constructed some performance indices to objectively assess the level of involvement of religious denominations in poverty reduction activities. Data for the study comes from the Ghana Living Standard Survey, round 7 (GLSS-7) and Religion in Poverty Reduction Survey (RPRS) from Greater Accra Region, Ghana. Descriptive statistics, logit model, multinominal logit model and Mantel-Haenszel differential information functioning were used to analyze the data. The study found that the presence of Pentecostal/Charismatic as the major religious denomination in rural communities was significantly negatively associated with the provision of drinking water and improvement in social amenities but the presence of Protestant denominations as the major denomination in rural communities was positively associated with the provision/maintenance of health facilities. The study also found that the presence of Protestant denomination as the major religious denomination in a community was found to be negatively associated with the odds that the welfare of rural communities became worse. Results also show that all religious denominations obtained a low score on both the Religious Denominations in Social Service Delivery Index (RDSSDI) and Religious Denominations in Poverty Reduction Index (RDPRI) but obtained medium score on Religious Denominations in Awareness Raising Index (RDARI). The study concludes that many Pentecostal/Charismatic churches operate as free-standing entrepreneurial organizations, and therefore contribute little to community development. Among other things, the study recommends that government should enact and enforce institutional framework that requires the franchising of the establishment and operations of Pentecostal/Charismatic churches to maximize their impact on poverty reduction in Ghana.

Keywords: Religious denominations, Pentecostal/Neo-Pentecostal, franchising model, religion in poverty reduction index, religious denominations in social service Delivery index, religious denominations in awareness raising index