Jesus in the News: What's wrong with Prosperity?

Today we discussed the "prosperity" preachers - those mega-church pastors who equate faithfulness to God with material abundance.  We shared quotes from a few of these pastors, either taken from their sermons or their books, and attempted to discern why with this approach to faith might (but not always) contradict the good news of Jesus.

Sayings such as,

"Don't ever criticize yourself. Don't go around all day long thinking, 'I'm unattractive, I'm slow, I'm not as smart as my brother.' God wasn't having a bad day when he made you... If you don't love yourself in the right way, you can't love your neighbor. You can't be as good as you are supposed to be." 

"God didn't make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you."  

"I think that God gives you your own will and choices. I don't believe that we're supposed to drag ourselves through life defeated and not see God's blessings. But you have to make the right choices and follow that still, small voice within you. Because I think that's how God leads us."   Joel Osteen

...don't really contradict, but seem much more like self-help than the gospel.

We did find some sayings uncomfortably self-focused ("God can cause opportunity to find you. He has unexpected blessings where you suddenly meet the right person, or suddenly your health improves, or suddenly you're able to pay off your house. That's God shifting things in your favor.") and some quotes leading to a false gospel (I believe God wants you to have money to pay your bills, send your kids to college and do charity work and build orphanages. There's the teaching that we're supposed to be poor to show that we're humble. I don't buy that. I think we're supposed to be leaders. We're supposed to excel.

God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.").

And some preachers admitting their words were contradictory to scripture ("Joyce Meyer - "The Bible can't even find any way to explain this. Not really. That's why you've got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I'm telling you. I've got to just trust God that He's putting it into your spirit like He put it into mine.")

In conclusion, we speculated that these churches might be a gateway for some people into a relationship with Christ and only hope they find a way to dig deeper than simply self-interest.

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We invite you to join us next week to discuss Jesus in the News - what's good, what's controversial, what's fulfilling.  Bring clippings, articles, journals and videos to our open discussion.