This was my first introduction to what is popularly called the “prosperity gospel” or the “health and wealth” gospel. At the time, the logic seemed airtight: “If it worked for him, why shouldn’t it work for me?” Posted on 01/27/2015 10:33:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I have a confession.
When I was in college, I read a book by a prominent megachurch pastor. The author told me to live like a child of God. He told me God wanted to bless me. He also mentioned that if I only believed, God would give me the nicest house in the neighborhood. That seemed to make sense.
The author explained that he once wanted the nicest house in the neighborhood, and God gave it to him. Here was a man with evidence. Not only did he have the story about the house, and other anecdotes, he also had a very nice set of white teeth (Ah, supernaturally white, I thought).
This was my first introduction to what is popularly called the “prosperity gospel” or the “health and wealth” gospel. At the time, the logic seemed airtight: “If it worked for him, why shouldn’t it work for me?”
If I had dug a bit deeper, though, I would have seen the actual reason it worked for him and not for me. It’s because the prosperity gospel is a pyramid scheme.
Here’s how pyramid schemes work.
Step One: A snazzy entrepreneur wants to make a lot of money. Said snazzy entrepreneur tells two little old ladies that if they sell his “Wow-What-A-Sham 3000,” they can make some dough to pay off their cat-sitting bills. That will cost them a startup investment of $401.76. And yes, Wow-What-A-Sham 3000 is a gimmick. But that’s okay, it’s not really about selling the product anyway; it’s about recruiting more salespeople.
Step Two: These two little old ladies recruit more little old ladies, and give them the same spiel.
Step Three: At some point, people realize no one wants to buy the Wow-What-A-Sham 3000, and no one is actually selling any Wow-What-A-Sham 3000s. All the buy-in money is funneling straight up to the top. Meanwhile, snazzy entrepreneur is up in his office, cackling, and swimming in wads of cash.
That’s a pyramid scheme.
What does this descrption have to do with the book by the prosperity pastor? Everything. Because the prosperity gospel is strikingly similar to a pyramid scheme in at least three ways.
1. It’s based on the deceptive success of the guy at the top.
I was bamboozled by the prosperity pastor’s ploy in the same way people are fooled by pyramid schemes. They see the success of the guy at the top, and think: It’s working for him, isn’t it?
Yes, it is. And that’s because someone paid for that pastor’s house. Me. I paid, when I bought the book. So do millions of others, when they bring truckloads of seed-money to his doorstep each weekend. The people who fund the prosperity pastor’s success, in other words, are the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Of course it works for him. He’s at the top.
2. It’s a lie told to desperate people.
Like a pyramid scheme, the health-and-wealth gospel feeds on the down and out. My friend Vallerian Mganga tells me that in Kenya, the health-and-wealth message is the only version of Christianity most people ever hear. My father-in-law, who mentors prisoners, tells me that he runs into this teaching routinely in the prison system. Why? Because the health-and-wealth gospel preys on people desperate for relief.
Missiologist Paul Borthwick tells of a trip to Ghana, where he witnessed a 300-pound preacher appeal to his body as proof that God had blessed him, and would bless his listener’s seed-money as well. “When you live in poverty” the missionary with Borthwick said, “you don't want to feel loved. You want God's power to make you prosper. . . . [T]hey have been taught [that] money is the way to release the power.”
The prosperity gospel isn’t just bad theology. It’s a form of oppression.
3. It feeds our idolatry.
Like the pyramid scheme, the prosperity gospel doesn’t necessarily require financially desperate people. It just needs people who are sufficiently idolatrous. We don’t fall for pyramid schemes because we’re stupid. We fall for them because we want to fall for them. We want the money, health, and esteem they offer—and we want it quick. We want to believe it can all happen with the flick of a “faith” switch in our brains. We want it desperately.
I’ll never forget the time I challenged my friend’s health-and-wealth notions with the life of the apostle Paul. She replied, “Well, Paul didn’t have enough faith.” That’s what pyramid schemes do: they compel us with our idols. Then they blind us to anything—no matter how obvious—that tells us we’re being conned.
Don’t get me wrong: I believe wholeheartedly God wants to bless me. I believe God favors me. I believe he wants me to have the best possible life. But I also believe the good news of Jesus is far better than the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel climbs over people; Jesus descends to pick us up. The prosperity gospel oppresses the poor; Jesus identifies with the destitute. The prosperity gospel fuels our idol factories; Jesus smashes them with a vision of his glory.
The truly good news is this: Jesus’s dreams for us are weightier than the pursuit of health, wealth, and personal success. Jesus doesn’t offer self-esteem; he offers the esteem of God when we give up self-estimation (Matt. 5:3). He doesn’t offer positivity; he offers God’s profound comfort when we’re brokenhearted by sin (Matt. 5:4). He doesn’t offer the nicest house in the neighborhood; he offers hope in the resurrection when we forego personal power (Matt. 5:5). And he doesn’t offer “supernatural favor” from others, but instead offers God’s eternal favor when we’re despised on his account (Matt. 5:10-12).
In short: Jesus is a better God, a weightier God. He’s not a huckster standing on the top of the pile promising us worldly wealth. He’s a God who climbs down to the bottom of the pyramid. He lays himself flat in the dust and stretches out his arms at the cross, where health, wealth, and abundance are nowhere in sight, and he offers us his riches.
Nicholas McDonald is associate pastor at Carlisle Congregational Church, and is completing his MDiv at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is author of the forthcoming book, Faker (The Good Book Company, 2015), and blogs on art, culture, writing, and Christianity at www.scribblepreach.com.
Yes, if my memory serves me correctly, he did.
...he's DOCTOR Mike Murdock!
He wouldn't deceive us, would he?
A couple of years ago AARP magazine had an article on why the Social Security System was not a Ponzi scheme.
http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-10-2011/social-security-not-ponzi-scheme.html
A couple of pages later, Jane Bryant Quinn had an article on the Social Security System’s financing and it sounded just like a Ponzi scheme.
All in the same issue.
I was just using the logic of the Prosperity Gospel, in terms of “blessing” ... :-) ...
And certainly, if there is one thing to hold one off from that blessing of being with the Lord, it would be the command to spread the Good News of the Gospel to others still living on this earth.
LOL I went to one where he was doing that one time. He’s a fake if there ever was one.
He’s as much a “Doctor” as Al Sharpton is a “Reverend.”
Well that’s kind of short sighted.
Once in heaven you can’t reach back and bring anyone new with you.
Sell your soul to the devil (for money, power, whatever) and you’ll only prosper in this world for a short while. Look around you, there are many who have chosen unwisely in the short term and they will have to pay the devil his due at some point. Don’t deal with the devil and his demons.
The 1% rich may have a problem taking their wealth with them or getting that camel through the eye of a needle. You can’t take it with you and they won’t either.
Trust in the Lord and he will supply you with what HE thinks you need. Not always what you think you need.
When the Lord humbles you, rejoice because he cares enough to humble those he loves. Don’t blame him when he allows bad things to happen to you. Keep the faith and blame the devil and his demons for the evils that befall you.
Whatever you have been blessed to acquire or achieve, praise the Lord and be a good steward. It doesn’t belong to you, you are only managing it for the Lord. And remember he can take it away as quickly as he gave it.
Prosperity preachers teach your reward is here on earth, not in eternity. They teach G_D loves everyone and wants them to acquire wealth and success in this world if they trust and obey. But you cannot earn or purchase your salvation through works. Salvation is freely given through Jesus Christ to those who accept his promise of eternal life.
Years ago it was soap salesmen.
Then it was oil salesmen.
Then it was worm farms.
Then it was emu farms
Then it was the “airplane” scam.
And there are still those oil salesmen telling everyone that they have title to BILLIONS in oil revenue if ONLY they could get enough money to get it through the courts.
“There is a sucker born every minute.”-W C Fields (Or was that P T Barnum).
And not just command, like some dull duty. Opportunity.
They do not point out any way to deal with sorrows and troubles and thus are unrealistic. Life on earth can never be all laughing gas no matter how hard we try. But we can make our suffering worthwhile by investing it in the Lord.
It would be short sighted of one were to follow out the Prosperity Gospel with its blessings ... :-) ...
But then, I don’t go along those lines.
One can look at prosperity in heavenly terms, but then that turns the worldly prosperity all upside down. You can be rich in God when you are begging with a tin can; it’s all in the attitude.
One can look at it as an opportunity, but I would not leave out the fact that it is a command.
.....Or to bless you with INNER PEACE in this life.
It’s a desirous must.
The key to Murdock is that God is powerless to release His blessing to you unless you send money to Murdock. Murdock believes he has power over God.
Prosperity preachers always say the money needs to come to them.
Sadly, I hear this same type of tripe from tithers. They turn tithing into a magic spell. “When I gave 10% to God, His blessings came flowing to me”. You didn’t give that money to God. You gave it to the Methodist church.
It is okay from time to time to get angry at God. He has big shoulders and can handle it. Just do not get bitter about it.
When I look at Hebrews 11, I can’t wait to get outta here ... :-) ...
I’m actually looking forward to being a “government employee” in the new one-world government. I wonder, sometimes, where my assigned post will be and what country I’ll be assigned to.
Does God have a bank account, then, that I can put my US Dollars in? ... :-) ...
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