Posted on 08/28/2015 7:06:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A little comments food-fight starter for a slow Friday news cycle. Even your friendly neighborhood atheist blogger is surprised by this result: My memory of youthful Christian lessons is rusty but I do vaguely recall something about rich men and heaven and camels and the eye of a needle. Then again, there’s a difference between praying for a Lamborghini and praying for a pay raise to help make ends meet. Wanting more wealth doesn’t necessarily make you greedy.
The question: Why are born-again Christians more likely than those who don’t describe themselves as born again to tie wealth to faith? If anything, you’d think it was the opposite, that the “cafeteria Christians” who aren’t closely studying Jesus’s teachings would somehow convince themselves that money in one’s pocket is a sign of God’s favor.
When you ask if prayer can help make someone wealthier, you see the same sort of split — born-agains divide narrowly, 38/41, but Christians who don’t call themselves born-again lean heavily against the idea, 13/74.
Read YouGov’s write-up of these results and you’d be at a loss to explain why there’s a difference. Peek into the crosstabs, though, and you’ll see an interesting, unremarked-upon demographic split. The results by race on whether prayer can make you wealthier:
Whites overwhelmingly say no, Hispanics also say no although a bit less overwhelmingly, but a plurality of blacks say yes. On the question of whether wealth is a sign of God’s favor, you see less support among all three but a similar trend in terms of who’s more open to the idea:
Thirty-four percent of blacks say definitely or probably versus 24 percent of Hispanics and nine percent of whites. One more interesting result: Here’s what happens when you ask people if they’ve ever watched religious programming.
Whites are basically evenly split, Hispanics are a bit more likely to say they have, but blacks are overwhelmingly likely to say so. YouGov didn’t publish its data on how it determined which people in each group are “born again” but obviously, to some extent, the “born-again” numbers are a function of the numbers among black Christians specifically and, in all likelihood, fans of televangelism more broadly. That’s where you’re most likely to find “prosperity gospel” preachers like Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, and T.D. Jakes. (Osteen doesn’t like being described that way, but whatever.) YouGov actually polled people on whether they had a favorable view of Osteen, Dollar and Jakes, among other preachers, and found that they were each much better known to, and better liked by, blacks and (to a lesser extent) Latinos than to whites.
Osteen’s favorability was 22/35 among whites, 39/28 among Hispanics, and 51/18 among blacks. Dollar’s: 3/24 among whites, 8/15 among Hispanics, 28/46 among blacks. Jakes’s: 10/18 among whites, 24/12 among Hispanics, 70/15(!) among blacks. It may be as simple as this: A group that’s historically been impoverished is more likely to be searching for ways to improve its quality of life, and televangelists, very cannily, know how to exploit that desire on a mass scale. Although, if that’s the explanation, you need to explain why the numbers in this poll between people who earn $100,000 or less annually aren’t much different from those who earn more than $100K. In particular, the numbers for Osteen, Dollar, and Jakes are nearly identical in the two groups. This may be a cultural difference more than a simple “people who earn less are more likely to seek riches from God” thing.
Another one who comes to mind is Rod Parsley. His broadcasts aren't sermons - they're infomercials. His pitch is basically: "God wants to bless you, but he can't do it until you send ME a $ 300.00 seed offering, and the check clears."
The article appears to confuse wealth with prosperity.
This may be the result of false teaching that Jesus was poor.
The New Testament Covenant with born again Christians speaks of prosperity.
I suggest you not knock it until you've tried it.
I agree but what I understand the prosperity gospel preaching is not the same as what you are advocating.
The prosperity gospel thinking seems to come with a hefty does of entitlement mentality. That God owes it to us by virtue of the fact that the believer is His child and all we have to do is have the faith for it and its ours.
Being responsible, good stewards of our resources and prospering by that is not the same as far as I can see.
Speaking of prayer, I recommend that people go see “War Room”.
The movie opened this week in theaters.
It’s promises are Not the Promises of God are they...
Job.
When the real persecution hits the U.S. the prosperity churches will fall away.
Check the offerings His family gave after His birth.
He was.
Joseph was a carpenter, as was He for a while. The Son of man had nowhere to lay his head.
There's no shame in being poor. Contrary to the false teaching that the prosperity preachers teach.
What scripture caused you to believe that Jesus had no home?
Matthew Chapter 2:9 - 11 causes me to believe Jesus laid his head in his house.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
As regards Jesus being poor let me ask; if Jesus was poor why did he need a treasurer?
Thank God for what you have and trust god for what you need. There may be a Santa in there somewhere but Santa is not God but God could be Santa.
God could not ever be Santa. Santa is not Biblical.
I believe in asking GOD to help meet our needs but not our luxuries. Want luxuries? Obtain them yourself through earthly efforts and than GOD for the oppertunity. Nothing wrong with that as long as they are obtained honestly and do not come before or between the person and GOD. I don’t pray for unneeded wealth or luxuries I don’t need but I am thankful though when a rare extra cash flow comes my way.
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