As promised, I am going to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. Some of you may know that I believe my God-given calling is to one day be a pastor. So, what I will be saying is not only important to me, but to many pastors and followers of Christ. (At least the ones that have high reverence and admiration for the Word of God!) There is a lot to be said about this topic, so I am going to split it into a few chunks. I hope to be able to do this in a timely manner, but with school and everything... well you know the story...
I am going to discuss what is known as the Prosperity Gospel (aka health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, "name-it-claim-it" theology, "Word of Faith"...those are the primary names for it) For this entry, I am going to try and spell out how this terminology is defined, and touch on the danger of it. For the next piece (or more), I will look more into the serious implications of this school of thought and biblical responses and refutations. The final installment will discuss the history of this movement, some of the key players, and some closing remarks. All along the way, I will try and post some links and sources for further (and better) insight on this subject. Well... here goes.
An issue of Time Magazine released in September of 2006 had a title on the cover with quite a loaded question. "Does God Want You to be Rich?" This is a question that has been a hot issue in mainstream culture today, and is the basis for this topic. With that in mind, I see the basic definition of the Prosperity Gospel to be the idea that devoted belief and trust in God will yield material wealth or prosperity for the believer. It works kind of like the recipe for grandma's famous apple pie... if you put in the right ingredients (in this case faith, love, devotion to God) you will get a delicious desert (or in this case a 5000 square foot house, a Bentley and a Rolls!). External and material earthly blessings are seen as a sign that God has shown favor toward you.
One of the mantras of a prominent leader in this movement (who may be mentioned in the final segment) is that one of God's top priorities is to graciously bless Christians in this lifetime. He may continue by saying that such a great a mighty God would not want anything less than the best for his children (By "best" this guy usually means giving more money, power etc...)
Well, there may be more to include about the definition of this movement, but this is pretty much the essence of the message it is trying to communicate.
So, what's wrong with this ideology? (Upon reading the title you see I don't really agree with it, to say the least) This is what we are going to talk about mostly in the second and third entries, but let me "whet your whistle" briefly.
John Piper, who is one of best examples of a Godly and biblical pastor and leader in recent years, uses a simple statement in one of his messages that speaks volumes to the disaster of this movement. He says (and I paraphrase), when you focus and trust God in hope to gain some sort of earthly prosperity, "you put the gift above the giver." Which, simply put, is idolatry. With this ideology, you are attempting to make God a means to your own end. You want him to be that "genie in a bottle" that can grant your every wish, or like some Tinkerbell "pixy (sp) dust" that can help you "fly" to reach your wildest dreams and ambitions (I know this analogy is kind of a stretch, but i wanted to use the words "Tinkerbell" and "pixy (sp) dust" from the classic Disney movie Peter Pan).
Just to mention, this falsehood is obviously being promulgated in the US, but is also being exported overseas. In most cases, it being preached to the poorest of the poor in third world countries. (I have posted a youtube video featuring John Piper of a piece of a sermon he gave in Birmingham, AL.)
This topic is so scary to think about because this is such a breeding ground for spawning a throng of people that neither know or care about the true character of our beloved, amazing triune God and his TRUE purpose for their lives. This being because they are wearing "BMW colored glasses"... or are denouncing God when they don't get what they want from their "god-genie".
Well, in this chunk I have set forth a little bit about what the prosperity gospel is, and a brief response to it. The next installment will actually have some real authority (the Holy Word of God). So you can consider this the appetizer with the "meat and potatoes" forthcoming.
Below I have put some links to a couple things we talked about, that I suggest would be good to take a look at.
LINKS
John Piper piece/video on the prosperity gospel
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=john+piper+prosperity+&search_type=
Time Magazine article ("Does God Want You to be Rich") pretty interesting read
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533448,00.html
There will be more outside info/sources as this thing proceeds.
Please, feel free to respond to what I having been talking about. Also, if you know of any good info/links to share, please do so.
Can't wait to share more...
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2 comments:
Can you name for me some prominent prosperity gospel trumpet blowers and also some highly tauted persons who mix this with Black Liberation Theology per discussion on National Public Radio (NPR) on Monday morning?
If you look at paragraph two, you will see that prominent leaders of the movement will be discussed in the last installment... as for this whole Black Liberation Theology topic... i will have to look into that.
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