Prosperity Gospel Is Bad, But Why Is It So Appealing?
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Prosperity Gospel Is Bad, But Why Is It So Appealing?

I know it's hard, but God never gave us anything we couldn't handle. And so let us depend on Him to deny the appeal and temptation of Prosperity Gospel, and recognize our need for Him.

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Prosperity Gospel Is Bad, But Why Is It So Appealing?

If you believe in God, you must believe in a God that wants you to be rich, to be successful, to have a great relationship, and be perfect. Some preachers and Christians preach this version of God.

But if you're following the Prosperity God, then it has been widely cited by Biblical scholarship that you're following the wrong God. You're not going to wake up tomorrow as a Christian with thousands of dollars in your bank account. You're not going to wake up tomorrow as a Christian with a promotion, and you're probably not going to wake up tomorrow as a Christian with the perfect relationship.

The belief that God will make you prosper materially is known as "Prosperity Gospel," and it is a very, very dangerous and heretical belief that God will make your life great in this world just because you're a Christian.

And it doesn't help that so many televangelists and self-proclaimed "Christians" peddle versions of Prosperity Gospel that seem legitimate at face value.

Televangelist, Robert Tilton, once told us that "being poor is a sin." Megachurch Televangelist, Jerry Savelle, once told us that "if we please God we will be rich." Late Pastor, Kenneth Hagin, once told us this:

"God wants his children to wear the best clothes…drive the best cars and have the best of everything; just ask for what we need."

Sugel Michelén, an elder and preacher at a church in the Dominican Republic, says of these preachers that "their god is a sort of cosmic entrepreneur who can be used, by tithing and offering, to attain what really matters: a prosperous life in merely earthly terms."

In Scripture, 1 Timothy 6:5 explicitly states that the Christian God is not one that will simply make things prosperous. Paul tells us to be wary of "people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain." And what God that wants prosperity, I ask, would send His own son to die on a cross and not be prosperous?

Although Scripture and the Gospel clearly convey that God didn't mean for us to be prosperous, it's much more difficult to believe in day-to-day life. I talked to my campus minister, Stephen, about knowing that Prosperity Gospel is wrong, but still finding it so appealing. Even I, as someone who has that deep theological knowledge at hand, still find Prosperity Gospel appealing. Who doesn't want more money? Who doesn't want things fixed in their lives?

And especially for people who have never known prosperity, we can understand why people are drawn towards Prosperity Gospel as a means to get what they want.

I'm in a position of privilege compared to my students in an inner-city setting. They are the ones in the trenches of societal problems like homelessness, addiction, violence, and poverty. I asked them, as an open-ended question to a prompt about identity, whether it there was such thing as too much money.

My students told me no, unanimously. They didn't think anyone could ever have too much money. And who was I, as someone with more financial means and privilege, to tell them they were wrong? Who am I to tell my kids, some of whom are homeless, that I have more wisdom about their lives than their own resilient experiences?

So I want to explore why Prosperity Gospel is so appealing, sociologically and psychologically, so we can effectively counter the teaching. Prosperity Gospel is tempting. It is promising. And even if it offers false hope, I struggle with the notion that we should just deny false hope because it's wrong. What if false hope keeps people going?

Michelén tells us that Prosperity Gospel appeals "directly to our native greed." He goes on to say that it's just disappointing because Prosperity Gospel can't its promises.

But I am in the trenches of an environment where constantly marginalized and disadvantaged families seek prosperity, and I don't know if I can call it greed. Who doesn't want their kids to have more opportunity? Who doesn't want their kids to have a brighter future?

Sociologically, it's easy to see why Prosperity Gospel appeals. In an inner-city urban environment such as my own, social institutions meant to protect and serve their most vulnerable residents have failed. That isn't to say that there aren't great communities and great individuals within the police, education, or political system that do work hard and care so much to serve vulnerable people. I know so many of these people personally, whether they're teachers, administrators, police, or politicians.

But when it comes to optics and the demand for quick fix, instant gratification in government, taking the sustainable, long-run approach to confronting a long history of class, race, housing, and gender inequities, there are simply people at a very high level want to see results and don't want to hear "excuses" when you can't deliver numbers and results to address these historical and institutional inequities.

When it comes to wanting to help people and do what's right, there's an intrinsic conflict with needing to cover your ass. I said need, and not want, because there are very few people that want to defy the boss of their boss at risk of losing their means to survival. I can do so more than others because I have relatively little at stake. I don't have dependents and I don't have kids.

But what if you have several kids and a spouse that rely on you? Are you really going to put your behind on the line to take a stand, when so many other people are worried about themselves?

Cover your ass syndrome, then, is an issue endemic to well-intentioned individuals working across all institutions. And that's why institutions inevitably end up failing its most vulnerable residents.

It makes sense, then, that someone who is facing poverty, addiction, and homelessness, would turn to a God who can quick-fix all of his/her problems. It makes sense, then that that person would turn to a God that will turn their fortunes around and make them prosperous.

And there are also a plethora of psychological reasons why we believe in the false Prosperity God. We are broken and wounded people, who have needs for safety and physiological basics like food and sleep on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Even the most faithful of Christians find it easy to cling to a God of Prosperity when they're hungry or dehydrated, and for someone who is, well, hungry and dehydrated all the time, we can see why it is so appealing to have a Prosperity God.

Who doesn't want a God on their side? Who doesn't want a God who can heal everything in this world? And if it's a lie that puts your mind at ease despite facing overwhelming and destructive problems, who am I to tell you that you're wrong to follow the lie?

But I will always remember the anecdote of a pastoral counselor I saw long ago, who told me of a time he was struggling with severe depression and thought he could just wasn't praying enough. Because he wasn't praying enough, God was punishing him. He approached his pastor with the same thoughts, and his pastor told him: "Go see a doctor. Go see a psychiatrist. You can't make your problems go away by just praying them away."

And he was put on Zoloft and has been doing much better ever since, to the point where he is helping others struggling through so many of the same problems.

My pastor once told me that things weren't meant to be perfect in this world. This world, on Earth, is a world marred by sin. God is soverign, but His Kingdom is the next one, in Heaven. "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible," Hebrews 11:3 tells us. Jesus tells us in John 18:36 that "My kingdom is not of this world."

That shouldn't stop us from pursuing justice and trying to make things right. But we will always come up short because we're only human, not God, and only God can make things right. I struggle often with why God doesn't just make everyone prosperous, especially to people who have never known prosperity that I encounter on a daily basis.

But if everyone were prosperous, and if everyone could be their own savior, then why would we need God?

And so Prosperity Gospel is appealing. It is, in fact, very appealing, and I know this won't satisfy everyone. I know it will only satisfy a select group of people, but what gives us even more hope and joy is a God who loved the world so much he sent his only son to die for us, that we may have eternal life in the next life.

Prosperity Gospel is, in the words of John 10:10, the thief that comes to steal and kill and destroy. When we buy into Prosperity Gospel, we buy into the preachers and televangelists that give us false hope, giving them a profit and financing their pyramid schemes. Jesus came so we could have life abundantly.

So it won't happen overnight, but let us move towards the God that will give us eternal and abundant life, instead of the false teachings that will give us false promises. I know it's hard, but God never gave us anything we couldn't handle. And so let us depend on Him to deny the appeal and temptation of Prosperity Gospel, and recognize our need for Him.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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