"Professional Women in South African Pentecostal Charismatic Churches" published on 06 Apr 2010 by Brill.

: In contemporary South Africa the nuclear family, made up of a husband and wife with two or three children living in a suburban area, is considered a social ideal and symbol of social and economic success. In Pentecostal Charismatic Churches the nuclear family is also held up as a symbol of success and as a sign of spiritual favour and blessing. Yet many young professional women who are members of Pentecostal Charismatic Churches struggle to find suitable husbands and marry. This paper examines why these women encounter these difficulties and how the Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in this study are opening up new social spaces in which singleness is an acceptable social state. In so doing the paper shows the complex relationship between weddings, sexuality, and economics in the life of young upwardly mobile Pentecostal Charismatic Christians.

One of the fastest growing religious movements in South Africa is a form of Pentecostal Charismatic Evangelic (PCE) Christianity that has some version of prosperity theology as a central pillar. This paper, based on sermons and interviews with 97 PCE pastors in the area of Johannesburg, South Africa, argues that these churches form loose clusters defined by similar emphases along a continuum of prosperity theology. These clusters are “abilities prosperity,” “progress prosperity,” and “miracle prosperity.” Some churches fall neatly into one of the clusters, while others appear as more of a hybrid between two of these types. The paper shows that a relationship exists between the type of theology preached by PCE churches and the nature and extent of the political engagement that the pastors suggested that members in these churches should have.

Background: Educational games have been proven to support the teaching of various concepts across disciplines. Plagiarism is a major problem among undergraduate and postgraduate students at universities. Objective: In this paper, we propose a game called Plagi-Warfare that attempts to teach students about plagiarism. Methods: To do this at a level that is beyond quizzes, we proposed a game storyline and mechanics that allow the player (or student) to play as a mafia member or a detective. This either demonstrated their knowledge by plagiarizing within the game as a mafia member or catching plagiarists within the game as a detective. The game plays out in a 3D environment representing the major libraries of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. In total, 30 students were selected to evaluate the game. Results: Evaluation of the game mechanics and storyline showed that the student gamers enjoyed the game and learned about plagiarism. Conclusions: In this paper, we presented a new educational game that teaches students about plagiarism by using a new crime story and an immersive 3D gaming environment representing the libraries of the University of Johannesburg.

This article examines how contemporary forms of the ideal middle-class mother presented in popular South African women’s magazines is taken up and re-coded by three Pentecostal Charismatic Christian churches in Johannesburg to construct their concept of the ideal Christian mother. With the following four biblical texts as a background—1 Timothy 2:13–15, Ephesians 5:21–6:9, Proverbs 31:9–31 and Titus 2:5—this article, which does not offer an exegesis of these texts but rather draws on ethnographic research, shows how these texts are loosely used by these churches to inform their teaching on ideal mothering. All three churches in the study give women extensive support and help to show them that through the power of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of the church, they can attain the ideal of the perfect mother as portrayed in popular culture.

In 2013, we saw one of the first broad-based consumer applications of Article Intelligence in Apple and Smartphone devices that began to predict how we wrote text messages. This was just one example of how the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) began, and how it directly affected our lives. Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, first coined the term ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ to describe the new era of machine and human augmentation and integration. He suggests that this is a time of enormous promise as machines can enhance the way people live, but if we are left behind by this revolution or it is not correctly regulated, it could also be a time of increasing peril for humanity (Schwab 2016).