Black Christians and the Myth of Prosperity Preaching

With the in-your-face display of greed and arrogance of the so-called pastors on the reality show Preachers of L.A., I began to wonder: when will black Christians wake up and say enough is enough? Although there are some white pastors of mega-churches who have a net worth of almost triple their congregants as well, I want to focus on the plight of the black saints who sit under the ministry of black pastors (and some white pastors) Sunday after Sunday and continue to live paycheck to paycheck.

After some years of attending mega-churches pastored by both black and white men and their wives, I begin to notice a trend. These pastors would always tell their congregation – mostly non-college-educated and barely surviving members – that the way to prosperity is through tithing. Tithing was the only means to prosperity taught by these pastors. In fact, the reason for all that ailed the saints (hard times, sickness, and lack) was non-tithing (i.e., theft of God’s money). Not having a college education during the majority of those years, I felt guilty if I found myself in a situation where I could not tithe on certain Sundays. I would hear the pastors say, use your rent or utility bill money and pay your tithe; God will make sure your bills are paid. I would blame God when my bills went unpaid instead of blaming the pastors (or myself for listening to the them).

After I completed a couple of degrees and began associating with a group of financially intelligent individuals, I started to learn and apply sound financial principles.

It is not just African American ‘preachers’ who suffer from this (and their congregations). one need only look to Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, The Crouches ( to name a few) to see that this notion has been pushed for all too long.

I still remember one time hearing Oral Roberts talking about tithing and he likened God to a Coke machine. Oral said he put money in the Coke machine and he got a Coke in return. He gave the church (notice not God but the church) money and he got money back from God as a blessing.

I shook my head and never listened again

I’ve heard quite a few white preachers push th e”prosperity” gospel. I remember years ago when some ner-do-well borrowed lost of money, gave it to his Prosperity church and expected a 100 fold payback.

It didn’t work.

**I also realized that my pastors never mentioned education or investments (other than investing in the kingdom of God) as a means to acquire wealth.**

Mentioned in connection with Dave Ramsey’s financial planning class at our Church.

I remember listing to a black woman preacher on a black radio station. she promised to remove curses, hoodoos and voodoos and make your love life better.

All you had to do was send her TEN DOLLARS, and she would send you a little doll. You then pin a 10 dollar bill to the doll, then after a week, send that ten dollar bill to her, and as the bill is sent through the mail the curse would go with the money away form the person who felt cursed.

You had to do this for several months to remove all the curses, hoodoos and voodoos.

Years ago, when Obama’s black pastor of 20 some years, Jeremiah Wright, was in the news, I thought I had read that he was retiring to a newly built 10,000 sq/ft home in a gated community which was mostly white.

I don’t know if he preached about prosperity but the victim hood and resentment against white people (and I think he’s half white, just like Obama) sure seems to have paid well for him.

Ping!

Just because somebody didn’t dump a truckload of money on the writer of this article, that is NOT PROOF that God doesn’t meet needs (not wants).

Jesus made the most important statement to a man who ran up to him in the street, begging Jesus to come and heal his daughter. The man’s neighbors all scoffed at him and told him to leave Jesus alone because the daughter was already dead. However, immediately, Jesus looked directly at the man and said, “ONLY BELIEVE”. The man ran back to his home and waited for Jesus to come. Jesus did come and after laying hands on the little girl, she was fully recovered.

For me, that has been the key .. to self-sustaining income, plus miracles of healing .. because I was willing to “only believe”.

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