Home > Movements > the Prosperity Gospel
Prosperity gospels are nothing new. The promise that religious faith (as such) can take a person out of poverty is something in the records for hundreds of years and probably off-the-record for much longer. It is present in some leading figure at some time in most religions, even small ones and even ones with a tradition that otherwise is not at all like it. Its secular equivalent is found in most every political and philosophical persuasion, latching onto whatever utopian element it can and showing itself most visibly in promises during elections. The stronger the faith/ideology/philosophy/movement is, the more prone to prosperity ideology it proves to be.
The form of 'prosperity gospel' that most affects the Christian church right now is born and bred in the United States, where there are many rich people, and exported to other lands. In a prosperity gospel, illness and poverty are not daily realities of life caused by humans and human society, but are created by the Devil to keep people from the material blessings that are at their command.
Prosperity theology is rooted in interpretations of several passages in Scripture. One of these is in the Third Letter of John, where in the greeting John expresses hope that the readers "may prosper and be in good health, that it be well with your soul" (or in the King James Version, "even as thy soul prospereth"). The current form of the prosperity gospel says that this is more than just a greeting or a blessing: it is a way out of poverty. To wit : if you firmly put positive thoughts of prosperity into your soul, God will make them bear material fruit.
A second verse used as support is 2 Corinthians 8:9 : "For you know what our Lord Jesus Christ gives freely, that though He was rich, for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich." To prosperity preachers, this means that Jesus' lack of material things was somehow 'flipped' through Jesus' resurrection so that his followers would become materially wealthy. Thus, real followers of Christ have a claim on this limitless material wealth, and all they have to do is stake the claim by asking God to deliver the goods. The truth of what that passage means is that the God-who-has-all came to live in our world, where we generally live most of the time without much conscious awareness of what God has given and how God cares -- that is, where we're spiritually poor. Jesus marked the beginning of the end of that. Jesus' resurrection was the coming of a Kingdom in which such things as material wealth don't matter -- not to you and not to others in the Kingdom, for all would have more of all kinds of blessings than they could ever need. There would be no idol Mammon (wealth), just God. Followers of Christ are to live Kingdom-wise right now by chasing holiness, not prosperity, as we live our earthly lives.
The immediate context of what Paul wrote, however, is very material -- he was trying to get his fellow Christians to give money for the sake of other believers who were materially poor in the Jerusalem area. Paul was telling them to give what material wealth they could give, so that those who were poor were not so poor that they would be in need. Does this sound like he wants them to claim wealth for themselves? Paul was not saying "claim it", he was saying "give it", as an act of love. Love is spiritual wealth. Be careful here : many prosperity preachers acknowledge the Bible's call to give freely, but turn it into a call to give to their ministry (which really means 'give it to me'). This is made worse by the idea of 'seed faith'. In it, God is said to give prosperity in proportion to the amount of money given in blind trust to the ministry. Of course, it is the poorest who most need the blessing, so they are much more likely to scrape together all they own to place their bet on God by giving to the ministry. This has, in turn, proven very successful at bringing prosperity to prosperity preachers. (It's like videos on wealth-building; they only build wealth for the ones doing the videos.)
Another key verse for the prosperity gospel is John 14:13/14, "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it". But the quote is used in isolation from what is around it. It is part of Jesus' final charges to his disciples after sharing the last supper. There, Jesus is handing off to the apostles his earthly ministry, because he's about to leave this world. Immediately before the verse, Jesus tells them that wonders will happen through them will be even greater that what he did. Then he states the purpose for it : "that the Father may be glorified in the Son." After the verse, he gives them the charge to live by his commands. Notice: there is nothing there about material wealth, or attainment of governmental power, or of fame. What's there is the call to mission, and Jesus is giving them the power to carry it out. Indeed, the gathered followers of Christ have done many marvels with great power, in service and love. To use the verses for the sake of self is to do violence to Jesus' purposes.
One more key verse for prosperity preachers is Mark 10:30. This is used as the basis for the "hundred-fold blessing", the Ginsu Knife of the prosperity crowd, where you put your money down essentially on a 100-to-one bet on God (or, more likely, the preacher). "But wait -- you'll also get salvation, joy, and the Kingdom to come! But to get this package, you must give now. Here's the phone number; operators are standing by." This verse in Mark is right after Jesus speaks of how hard it is for the rich to attain the Kingdom, and right before He says that the first shall be last and the last first. And He's not talking about money -- he's putting out a call to leave behind our homes, livelihoods, families and family lands, the very things which people of that day (and many of today) considered far more valuable than money. And He's not talking about giving your material wealth for some leader to spend. He's speaking of dedicating your entire life to the purposes of Christ and His Kingdom. Do that, and God will generously meet your truest needs, giving you back what was of real value in what you lost when you decided to take on the mission of Christ, and then some. That sort of total commitment makes even a $100,000 check seem like chump change.
Let's make no mistake about this: poverty is not what God wants for us, as a whole, though some individuals might need to go there to learn what they need to learn. Most Christians are called to live simply, but not to the point of becoming needy and impoverished. To state the obvious: being poor is not a good thing, and the poor want no part of it. It limits your freedoms, stifles opportunities, and breeds anger, powerlessness, and fear. For millions, poverty's relentless frustrations and disappointments have caused them to give up on themselves. And in most places and situations, the children of the poor also become poor, and the gruesome cycle goes on. Poverty as an overall situation is caused more by greed and distorted economics for rich and powerful people than by action or inaction by poor persons. But the New Testament answer to poverty wasn't to name it and claim it. God's answer was the community of Christian believers, acting not as ATMs but as friends, entrepreneurs, advocates, and trainers. The believers are to help you develop the inner strength, insight and skills to make a living, instead of siphoning away what little you own to pay for the pastor's ranch or the new church campus/empire or the church-corporation's stock portfolio. Take Paul in the Corinthians passage above: the context is his taking up a collection for believers in Palestine, and his objective is a fair balance (v. 13) between believers who have (in Corinth) and those who have not (in Jerusalem). Paul even cites Exodus 16:18 (the distribution of manna in the wilderness) as to what the community is aiming for :
The one who had much did not have too much
and the one who had little did not have too little.
A prosperity gospel can't help itself. It can't avoid building up the wrong things. In it:
The prosperity gospel attracts the wrong sort of leaders: the totally corrupt, and those deceived by other prosperity preachers. It brings out the worst in elders and other church leaders, because they're vigorously encouraged to think of wealth before anything else. The dreck rises to the top.
In a prosperity gospel, I am what it's all about: my needs, my wants, my wealth, my success. I me mine. The only 'blame' I have is not from my behavior, but from the act of not withdrawing from the unlimited bank account that God has given me. Push the Gimme Button and expect it to come. The desperate and the gullible get sucked into it. The most desperate and the most selfish alike will even borrow money to give to the preacher, using their homes and possessions as collateral. (True devotion is so hard that even some of the poor find it easier to give money instead.) But when prosperity still does not come, and for nearly all it won't, eventually they walk away in bitterness, believing that Christianity is a con job. This undermines the witness and credibility of those whose faith is anything but a con job, who really do love and care and do not abandon anyone, and who don't promise what's unlikely to be delivered. There's no justice in that, in fact it's wrong in a dangerous way, but it is what is happening. The prosperity gospel is the anti-evangelism. And that turns prosperity preachers into dis-evangelists.
Promises of prosperity have a great attraction to those in poverty, especially those who see no hope for a change in their status. That's why prosperity preachers are so often found in poor and developing countries in Latin America and Africa, notably Nigeria and Kenya (where it plays into aspects of existing political and cultural values). Not as much as some writers have been claiming -- the churches there are made mainly of strong believers who don't live by a prosperity gospel -- but the impact of prosperity gospel preachers is obvious and undeniable, is found all over the society, and is very highly visible to the public. It's also damaging, as the number of people it embitters keeps rising.
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| ver.: 28 June 2009 The Prosperity Gospel -- Copyright © 2007-2009 Robert Longman Jr. |