Posted on 05/16/2013 9:29:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Many Vatican-watchers interpreted the election of Pope Francis as Rome’s counter-offensive against the rise of neo-Pentecostalism in the global South. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing sect in the Latin America, where a third of the world’s Catholics live, and is giving the established Roman Church a run for its money — so to speak.
The latest figures show that the numbers of Pentecostals throughout Latin America has soared since 1970 — when they represented a mere 4 percent of the population — to nearly 30 percent. In Guatemala it is estimated that four in ten are Pentecostals.
Reasons for the rise of evangelical Protestant denominations are legion, but one popular theory states that the poor benighted masses, many of whom recently left rural areas and relocated to crowded urban centers, are drawn to neo-Pentecostalism’s prosperity gospel with its charismatic leaders, boisterous worship services, emphasis on signs and wonders, and promise of certain riches. Join our church and God will make you rich, powerful, successful, etc. It is a message with all of the grace of a casino billboard. It is the opposite of indulgences. This time it is God who is pulling out his wallet.
The idea is that God wants the righteous to be happy and blessed. While this means all the usual stuff: grace, forgiveness of sins, salvation, eternal paradise, it also means happiness for the here and now in the mundane form of cash, cars, boats, vacation homes. In a word, mammon. Exhibit A is the Rev. Joel Osteen, one of the most vocal proponents of the prosperity gospel (though he doesn’t like the term) whose net worth is estimated at $40 million. Now that’s living right....
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
name it and claim it, prosperity gospel, is bunk. the only ones getting rich are the charlatan preachers of this, including Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyers and others.
Prosperity Gospel is a wicked heresy. I doubt very many even understand the Gospel in such groups. A friend of mine was sucked into that stuff for years. She reported that she had never once heard the Gospel in any meaningful way. She was totally ignorant of what Christ actually taught, until she came out of it after some bad encounters with “Prophets” getting tyrannical.
I'll manage the petty details like money, or lack of.
Harumph. I was so very close.
/johnny
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Make a joyful noise unto the Lord...
He means for us to be on earth to be obedient, thankful and useful. In the Proverbs, and elsewhere, there are many practical pieces of the successful-living puzzle.
The main point that shows name it/claim it to be in error is when their teachers try to coax us into emulating God by speaking things into existence. It is what the serpent suggested to Eve, as a matter of fact.
God DOES have an economy of multiplication; but we kid ourselves if we even for a moment think we have God on a string. He calls the shots; and miracles do happen; but it’s His sovereignty and purposes that bring them about — not our words.
The idea, however, that we are looking for wealth and prosperity instead of spiritual riches simply goes contrary to what Christ taught:
Mat 6:19-21 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: (20) But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: (21) For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
If Osteen has $40 million he can hire someone to be good for him.
More than it being Catholic v/s non-Catholic, the Prosperity Gospel is particularly insidious. It has a catchy tune, but what happens to people who don’t get rich — do they just reject Christ completely?
prosperity gospel is just bunk and it is in no way protestant
If this is so, then "many Vatican-watchers" have a completely worldly mindset and would be much better off paying attention to their own spiritual lives.
CC
nor is it pentecostal.
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