I’ve always been fascinated by the behaviour of those who grow up in poverty but later succeed and stumble into wealth. Only my fascination isn’t in simple stories of rags to riches, but the strong urge among people who escape poverty to publicly display their success.
Perhaps nowhere this instinct is more visible than in Africa, which is statistically home to some of the poorest communities—indeed countries—on earth. For many of us, poverty wasn’t an unfortunate interruption to our lives. No, for many Africans poverty is their whole life and environment. It’s normal. Inherited. The default setting. We were born into it, raised within it, and taught how to survive. We understand how to stretch a Rand and improvise with less.
Many who escape poverty aren’t merely enjoying wealth. They’re trying to recover dignity.
I come from a French-speaking part of Africa. Though I’m the black sheep of my family and don’t speak French, I know a word or two; some of them being nouveau riche (literally ‘new rich’). It usually isn’t a compliment but the sarcastic description of someone who suddenly becomes wealthy and it shows. But behind that phrase lies something deeper. Across Africa and the world, many people who escape poverty aren’t merely enjoying wealth; they are trying to recover dignity.
Survival Is All Many of Us Know
Those who grow up in poverty don’t always handle success or riches. Sudden wealth can bring enormous stress and confusion to the previously disadvantaged. Many of these stories sadly end in collapse, because no one taught us how to live in abundance. We were trained to survive lack rather than to manage wealth. Income without stewardship is like pouring water into a broken bucket.
When someone escapes poverty, visibility becomes validation.
As I’ve already said, poverty leaves deep emotional scars long after economic escape. These remain long after the financial situation changes. It produces shame. And when someone finally escapes it, visibility becomes validation. Displaying success becomes a public declaration: “I am no longer that child.” Showing off wealth then is more than unbridled pride; it’s an attempt to heal old wounds.
Hearing Sermons About Wealth and Riches
At the same time, many of us grew up in churches hearing sermons on verses like:
- “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5)
- “It is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” (Matthew 19:23-24).
These were often handled in such a way that made us suspicious of wealth. Meekness was confused with remaining poor, interpreted almost as a spiritual requirement. Rich people were occasionally presented as morally compromised. Fundamentally deficient. The poor, on the other hand, were deemed humble and closer to God.
If I prosper, do I risk losing God?
For the child growing up in poverty this creates a tension: poverty feels like a curse, which nobody enjoys; and riches are spiritually perilous. The internal question becomes: ‘If I prosper, do I risk losing God?’ Yet Jesus doesn’t condemn wealth itself. He warns against trusting in wealth. The danger is not possession; it is attachment. The issue is not having riches, but being possessed by them. Still, poverty leaves marks on the soul.
Being Unfamiliar With Money
In the age of social media, visibility is validation. So success becomes performative. For many young people, influencers have become their sole role models. To show success is to testify that it is possible. For example, a waiter in one of the top restaurants in Cape Town might walk home with over R1500 per day in tips. But without financial literacy, that same person may struggle to pay rent each month. Wealth without training disappears as quickly as it arrives.
Wealth without training disappears as quickly as it arrives.
Those who grow up privileged often don’t feel the same urgency to display wealth because their environment and experience normalised abundance. When your circle casually orders three bottles of Chardonnay at over R2000 each and a dozen oysters at nearly R100 per oyster, wealth isn’t a spectacle but routine. Wealth is therefore familiar territory for some, while it’s a minefield for those who grow up poor.
The Need to Show Off Success
When I try to explain to my daughter that I went to my Konkola Primary School barefoot, walking kilometres to get there, it’s too removed from her own experience. When I tell her that I never carried a lunch box because we didn’t own one, nor did we have food, it doesn’t fully register with her. She isn’t exactly rich. But she still can’t grasp that world. This illustrates how those born into relative comfort can be removed from the lived experience of poverty.
The dream is greater than success.
In many Nigerian movies, a young man leaves the village to seek opportunity in the city. His dream is greater than success. He longs to return home driving an expensive car, bringing gifts, building a house for his parents, and proving to relatives and the village that he “made it.” It’s a story that resonates across much of Africa. No matter how rich and powerful one becomes, there is often still a child inside who wants to drive back to P. P. Zambia Konkola Township in an expensive car not merely to show off, but to silence the memory of lack.
Why the Prosperity Gospel Thrives Here
And this brings me to something more uncomfortable. One of the reasons that the prosperity gospel has found fertile ground in Africa is this deep desire not only to escape poverty but to display newly attained wealth. Its message appeals to the poor’s wounded dignity. It promises proof, verifiable success.
The prosperity gospel speaks to pain. It promises a way out of humiliation.
Yet almost none of the prosperity preachers in Africa are wealthy in terms of actual assets. For many, it’s “fake it until you make it.” They dress rich and smell expensive. They project affluence to inspire poor seekers to invest what little they have as a “seed offerings” promised to provoke God’s blessing. In many places, the gospel is peddled for profit. Expensive suits, shoes, perfumes, cars, and mansions are displayed as evidence of divine approval. Pulpit banditry is repackaged as faith. Elements of grace are commercialised. Wealth and health are marketed as guaranteed returns on your investment.
This theology has a profound appeal to the poor. For it speaks to pain. It promises a way out of humiliation. It offers spectacle instead of stewardship. But it is weak theology. We cannot manipulate God with our offerings. Grace isn’t for sale. The kingdom is no marketplace. When wealth becomes the primary evidence of divine favour, we’ve distorted the gospel—in many places it’s lost entirely.
The Poor Need More Than an Escape
Escaping poverty is a blessing. But escaping a poverty mindset as well as pride is maturity. There is a difference between wealth as testimony and wealth as performance. While displaying success may inspire others, it can also provoke jealousy, attract criminals, and invite unnecessary scrutiny, sometimes even from the tax authorities. Visibility carries responsibility.
Perhaps the deeper question is not whether one should display success, but why. Is it:
- Gratitude?
- Healing?
- Validation?
- Competition?
The gospel does much more than rescue us from poverty. It confronts our obsession with being seen. True freedom in the end isn’t escaping poverty but being at peace whether you’re seen or unseen. True freedom is reaching the place where dignity no longer depends on applause; where wealth becomes a tool rather than an identity; and where success no longer needs to scream in order to be believed.
Because sometimes the greatest sign that you’ve escaped poverty is not how loudly you display success, but how quietly you can carry it and put it to use in service of others.
