Recently, I was thinking about how much of Charismania has been taken over by the “prosperity gospel.” Their divorce aside, Paula and Randy White already had an unflattering spotlight turned on their ministry last May for living their rich-and-famous lifestyle on the backs of their people’s offerings.
More close to home for us is Pastor Smith, who preached a bizarre sermon recently about how his people “need to find out who God is blessing, and bless them.” He literally told people to give him, personally, money!
And by the way, I find it fascinating that that particular sermon disappeared off of iTunes the other day. All of the other messages he’s preached are still there, except for “Reverse the Curse and Loose the Blessing.”
In one way, this disappearing sermon makes me hopeful. Maybe someone on the church staff actually had the good sense to realize that it showed Pastor Smith’s crazy side, the side that is sickeningly greedy for money. Maybe someone at the church actually has a sense of what’s proper and dared to speak up about it. Maybe.
At any rate, I was wondering what it is that makes so many “Charismatic” or Pentecostal preachers buy into the “Prosperity Gospel.” Why is it that if your church believes in the continuing gifts of the Spirit (like speaking in tongues or prophecy), it’s quite likely that your church will also have an unhealthy focus on money?
If you have an answer to this question, post your thoughts in a comment below.
I was also marveling at how – the removal of that “Reverse the Curse” sermon off of iTunes notwithstanding – it seems like these prosperity preachers, the more successful they become, lose absolutely ALL sense of what’s appropriate.
While you can’t get legalistic about something like a pastor’s owning a Mercedes – it would NEVER be Biblical to say that, in and of itself, it’s a SIN for a pastor to drive a nice car – I think it’s safe to say that instinctively, we just KNOW that there’s something inappropriate about a preacher who lives in luxury.
I mean, if your paycheck comes from a pool of money that was originally “given to God,” you have a unique responsibility to manage that money in a way that would line up with God’s own Word. You owe it to your people to live out God’s priorities. I know it’s cheesy, but I can’t help but ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” And I can’t help but be reminded of that old song, “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His Christian TV Show?”
When my mom was a teenager, one of her best friends was a PK – a “Preacher’s Kid.” My mom remembers how this friend’s mother would talk about what a tough life they had. If she wanted a new dress, the congregation would talk. If she wore a fancy hat, the church ladies had something to say about it. If she and her husband (the pastor) bought a new car, the deacons wanted to confer to make sure their pastor had gotten the best deal for their money.
Obviously, that is the other extreme.
But now, for those of us in Charismaniac Christendom…well, the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction! Now we’re treated to megastar preachers who think there’s nothing wrong with blasting in hundreds of thousands of their ministry’s dollars on private jets, fuel for those jets, plastic surgery, designer clothing, and big houses.
Our former “First Lady,” Pastor Smith’s wife, Mary…well, if it hadn’t been so sad, it would have been a real hoot. Mary often said that she had a unique calling to minister to ladies of a certain status in society. Our former church held ultra-elaborate themed ladies’ events – where Mary would teach – that were proudly touted from the pulpit as rivaling anything put on by our local downtown historical luxury hotel.
One such event, in fact, centered around the theme of “designer purses” and involved all the members of Mary Smith’s special decorating committee – and Mary herself, because she said so - bringing in their Chanel, Gucci, and Prada bags to be used as part of Mary’s stage setting. I sort of recall that her message for that event had something to do with how we ladies were designed by God for His glory.
But truly, the overwhelming focus, the main thing that I remember from that meeting, was the feeling that it must be nice to have that much money.
I couldn’t help it. As the First Lady prattled on about how God has uniquely created each of us as a special designer masterpiece, all I could think of was how it must be nice to have the kind of money where it didn’t bother you to blow hundreds of bucks on a Prada purse.
(And we weren’t exactly “hurting” in the money department, either, at that point. I can only wonder at what the out-of-work teacher sitting next to me was thinking!)
But the most ironic thing about all of the First Lady’s obvious taste for luxury – and her supposed “heart for the unsaved rich folk” – was that the very society she was so eager to be a part of, so eager to “reach,” would instinctively have sneered at her once they heard what her husband does for a living.
You see, because God’s law is written on our hearts, even the unsaved have a sense of what is fitting for so-called “servants of the Lord.”
Your most hardened, jaded society matron wouldn’t need anyone to read Bible verses to her for her to KNOW that Jesus wouldn’t have been obsessed with wealth and status. Jesus wouldn’t have felt the need to drive the sleekest little Mercedes so that he could fit in and “reach” the unsaved people around him. Jesus wouldn’t have boasted of His French manicures or gloried in shopping at Nordstrom.
Jesus didn’t NEED that sort of stuff, because what Jesus did come to give was so much greater than that!
I just wonder what’s wrong with these prosperity preachers, these men and women who are supposed to be focused on the eternal, who ought to know that there is far more to our existence than money. Why don’t they understand how inappropriate their obvious taste for the “good life” is?
Moreover, how can they think we’re not going to notice when the very “gospel” they preach – that you can have whatever you say, that your miracle is right around the corner, that God wants to mend your marriage – doesn’t seem to work for them when it comes to their own relationships?
How is it that they still think that we’re going to keep on “sowing into” their ministries even when they callously demonstrate their obliviousness to their own people?
I think these prosperity-preaching megastar pastors are seriously deluded. And I hope more of their people call for them to straighten up. Tighten those purse strings. Give your tithes to ministries that actually preach about Christ’s work on the Cross. Send your offerings to organizations that feed the hungry or provide care for orphans.
But don’t fork over any more funds for Pastor’s jet or the First Lady’s new Prada purse!
There appears to be a combination of many factors which may contribute to the correlation between these Charismatic churches and the gospel of prosperity.
The first factor is that a fair portion of those types of churches equate ministerial success with the number of regular attenders in the congregation. Therefore, the pragmatic approach to achieve this definition of success is to deliver messages which promote numerical growth. Just look at how many “church growth” conferences there are nowadays. How many of them tell the pastors to focus on teaching the immeasurable depths of God’s Word? In reality, the true measure of a successful church is the amount of eternal impact taking place, not the size of the crowd. Somehow, the two have been seriously confused.
The second factor is our American culture. We currently live in a culture where a large portion of the population seeks participatory religious experiences as well as immediate sensual gratification. Often those two desires come hand-in-hand because they’re of a similar quality. The gifts of the Spirit can clearly become a participatory experience. Due to the desire to include new congregants so that they stay and bolster the churches’ attendance, the use of those gifts is encouraged without the necessary biblical guidelines. Therefore, those seeking participatory experiences are immediately satisfied without ever being taught sound doctrine regarding those gifts.
Those who have pressing monetary needs can easily be attracted to a church that preaches and “demonstrates” God’s ability to instantly manifest and turn situations around. Because the people in those situations can become so hard-pressed, they are more susceptible to quick fixes to their financial and spiritual difficulties. (So-called quick fixes are probably what got a lot of them in their current positions.) Therefore, they are easy to coerce into “giving sacrificially” to loose a “blessing”. When blessings don’t come, the you-didn’t-ask-in-faith card is a simple cop-out for the leadership.
Hence, when you have a pastor who has greedy tendencies and an idea of success that is almost entirely contingent upon attendence numbers and physical demonstrative manifestations of God’s presence, you have a leader who is prone to exploit the available means to achieve his/her own ends. When you combine that with attendees in such desperation that they follow the financial and spiritual advice of the leader blindly, you have an environment which is readily fleeced of large amounts of money.
Unfortunately, we have a generation of people that walks by sight and not by faith. Thus, they are thrown about by every wind of doctrine because they are double-minded in their pursuit of God. Instead of a genuine pursuit of a sound, bible-based relationship which ultimately seeks the face of God, they choose a double-minded pursuit of God which also seeks to gratify temporal desires through the hand of God. This creates an environment where both the gifts of the Spirit and the finances of a group can be exploited simultaneously to achieve wordly fame and success. On top of that, the lack of sound teaching causes these unbiblical practices to never be corrected. Good teaching brings balance to Christian thought, but it requires a lot of patience. Desperate people don’t have any interest in patience and they end up suffering as a result.
To conclude my rather lengthy response I want to share a quote I found. It’s not entirely related but perhaps you can use it at some point in other posts. “Good results will not sanctify bad doctrine, but bad results can serve as warning lights, even where the teaching appears sound.” -LaVonne Neff
AJS,
This is an absolutely EXCELLENT analysis. We may quote you in an upcoming article.
Thanks for responding!
“Just look at how many church growth conferences there are nowadays”
I guess the part about David causing 70,000 (was it?)deaths because he insisted on numbering the Israelite army is absent from their Bibles.
Lavonne what a well thought out response.
I understand that some preachers go overboard in teaching prosperity. I am not the Whites’ financial accountant. But speaking in general, it eats me up that the world is concerned over preachers living well. Most of the legitimate preachers of today have their own businesses aside from what the church gives them. Why is it not a problem for these so called politicians and presidents to live well and take our hard earned money, lie to us and live scandalous lives? The money we give in offer is unto God and for the promotions of the Gospel. Just as we unwilling and without choice give our money to this fallible government to support their spending habits—leaving the U.S. in an overwhelming trade deficit. Granted not all preachers are legitimate and the bible states that. It is our individual responsibility to know God personally through His Son Jesus Christ, study our bible, pray, and trust that God will guide us in our giving.
TV PREACHERS, THEY SHOULD BE BANNED FROM TV. THEY PREY ON THE POOR, THE UNEDUCATED TO LIVE OPULANT LIFESTYLES. I AM TOTALLY AMAZED THAT PEOPLE CONTINUALLY SEND CASH TO THE LIKES OF COPELAND, THE WHITES, BAKKER, POPOFF, DON STEWART,
MIKE “THE DEVIL” MURDOCK, ROBERT TILTON, CREFLO DOLLAR, ETC,ETC,ETC,. THESE PEOPLE AND SO MANY OTHERS ARE DISGUSTING, GREEDY, EGOMANIACS. THEY’LL SAY ANYTHING TO GET YOUR MONEY. ALL THEY TALK ABOUT IS MONEY. SOME ARE SUBTLE, OTHERS LIKE POPOFF,HINN, MURDOCK AND TILTON ARE ABOUT AS SUBTLE AS A FREIGHT TRAIN CRASH! WAKE UP WORLD, STOP SENDING THESE CRIMINALS YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY!!!
Everyone that has an issue with God’s people being wealthy and wondering if God has a problem with it need to explain why God blessed David and Solomon with riches and worldly possessions so great that Donald Trump and Ted Turner would be considered poor. We should be prosperous in every way as the children of the God of the universe. Why would the children of the king of kings be anything other than wealthy. It all has to do with your level of faith. It appears to me that people who criticize Christians for being wealthy must just be jealous that their level of faith is not up to par. All throughout the word of God it is clear we are to be prosperous in every area of life. It takes money to reach the lost.
Mr. Knapp,
I’m afraid you’re misunderstanding our point of view. We don’t “have an issue with God’s people being wealthy.” We are against the “Prosperity Gospel” as put forth by Charismaniacs. This “Prosperity Gospel” MINIMIZES Christ’s work on the cross, taking the focus off of our glorious hope for eternity – the salvation of our souls from our sin and from eternal separation from a righteous God – and placing the focus on the here and now, on the things of this earth.
I hope you would agree that the Bible strongly commands us not to love the world or the things of the world. And that the Bible tells us our citizenship is in heaven and not on this earth.
Constantly hearing from the pulpit that “God wants you to be rich” is a message that pollutes the truth of what Christ did for us.
First of all, this message simply is not true. While God did bless the likes of Abraham and David with earthly possessions in the Old Testament, all it takes to demonstrate what a lie this “Prosperity Gospel” is is to examine the lives of the Apostles. Certainly you wouldn’t say that Peter, John, or Paul “lacked faith,” right? Yet they had nothing in the way of worldly wealth. Instead, they were imprisoned and faced all sorts of hardships. Most of the early church also was persecuted. Early Christians were fed to the lions, beaten, and stoned to death. How would THIS match the “Prosperity” preachers’ definition of a “blessed” life?
Secondly, proponents of the “Prosperity Gospel” teach people to have a skewed view of God’s priorities. God promises to take care of us and meet our needs IF we are seeking His kingdom above all. Often, as Christians honor God and make Godly and wise lifestyle choices, they will experience financial increase. If Christians are generous and give to causes that promote the Gospel, God often does reward them monetarily. But the type of money-focused preaching from your typical Charismaniac puts the cart before the horse. Rather than teaching people how to live Godly lives, make wise decisions, and humbly serve one another, these preachers spend most of their time talking about the financial rewards you’ll get if you give to THEIR ministries. They’ve got it backward.
Thirdly, focusing so much attention on money and earthly possessions causes these preachers to lose touch with the reality of their people. The Bible tells us that leaders are to have the heart of a servant. Yet the more wealth these “Prosperity” preachers gain, the less sensitive and servant-like they seem to become. And of course that only makes sense. If you’re living in the lap of luxury, living in a mansion, shopping at only the finest stores, driving the best cars, and eating in the best restaurants, how difficult would it be to empathize with the poor people who can barely pay their rent? Would you truly be able to “esteem others as better than yourself” if those “others” are in a completely different economic strata?
That’s why Jesus said it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. (And by the way, the “Prosperity Gospel” preachers’ Scripture-twisting for that passage has been proven to be incorrect. If you’d like, I can find the book written by Jim Bakker where he refutes the commonly held – by Charismaniacs – interpretation that Jesus was using slang referring to the gate of Jerusalem.) Jesus gave many warnings about pursuing wealth because wealth takes our eyes off of what should be a TRUE priority: loving Him and loving each other.
I could go on, but you’re probably not reading this anyway. I do understand where you’re coming from. A year or two ago, I probably would have shut out the truth, too. But if you read through the WHOLE Bible (and not just the isolated parts favored by “Prosperity” preachers) and consider the WHOLE counsel of God, you simply have to see that the point of the Gospel of Christ is so much larger than what we can rack up in our bank accounts.
If it weren’t, then it really wouldn’t even be “Good News.” But praise God that it is!
plz check my blog http://www.faithpreacher.com on I want a jet
I must say that while I do not agree totally with the prosperity gospel, I think most of the commentators are missing the point. Prosperity is not just about money. Most in Hollywood are rich but they do not have Jesus or the joy, peace, love, health and other things that amount to prosperity. I believe most of the ministries mentioned started out right but as things grew in their ministries, they over commited their finances to things like television stations which require lots of money and they do need mega funds to operate. I don’t want them off TV because there are so many people who cannot go to church or won’t go to church. If people hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, they will discerne who and how much to give to any ministry. If they mess up giving to the wrong ministry, then it is God who will reveal truth. He knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart and it is not up to us to judge.
While so many are ripping these ministries apart openly and ruining people’s names when you don’t know what their expenses involve, are just as guilty. You are judging your brother. All I can say is “What you sow, you reap” and you will live long enough to see your name ruined at some point in your life. With the internet as wide and long as it is, it is a shame most of us have to learn the hard way. It sounds to me like most of you are getting some kind of thrill by distroying something you just don’t understand. I remember Jesus saying to some disciples when speaking of another group who was doing the same things they were doing in Jesus name. He told them to leave them alone. Just because they were not in their group, they were not against them but were also doing the work.
I know what it looks like sometimes, but if I give to one of these ministries, I have to trust God that it is being given to Him and I am not accountable for how it is spent. The receiver is or that ministry is responsible. When we keep that in mind, we leave God in charge of that ministry. NOt our job to speak evil of it as it makes us guilty of sin.
I have seen a lot and experienced more than most of you would dare to believe. All I can say is “BE CAREFUL”. We are going to give an account of EVERY IDLE WORD. GOOD AND BAD. GOD SAID TO BE QUICK TO HEAR BUT SLOW TO SPEAK.
FARRIS
Hi, Farris.
I’m saying this with a smile on my face, so please don’t think I’m being sarcastic…but…
Didn’t you just come to this site and post a bunch of “idle words” that were judging me???
See? It works both ways.
To answer your comment, though, the Bible clearly calls us to exercise discernment. That is what this site is about. While we cannot know the hearts of these so-called “prosperity” preachers, we are obligated to examine their words against Scripture and determine whether or not their message is of God. It clearly is not.
You mentioned giving to Christian TV. Most of what passes for “Christian” TV is not even Christian. I challenge you to watch TBN or Daystar and see how many times in a broadcast hour they actually present the Gospel of Jesus, where they clearly proclaim these truths:
* Man’s sinful condition and need for a Savior.
* Jesus’ fulfillment of the requirements for a Savior.
* Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection 3 days later.
* Our call to respond, receive this gift of salvation, repent of our sins, and live godly lives to honor Christ.
I’ve tried this experiment more than once, and “Christian” TV failed miserably. While occasionally there were some decent, useful, and uplifting teachings, most of the time the talk was about money.
We have a responsibility as Christians to support ministries that are actually proclaiming the Gospel and the Bible. The “prosperity gospel” is NOT the Good News of the Bible. It is our privilege and duty to point this out.
For years I was not able to even own a TV, & then when I finally was told I could have one, I still was unable to get Christian programing. Fot the last 8 years I have enjoyed Christian programs. I, however, do not give financially to any program because I feel my home church, the one I know what’s going on in, should receive not only my tithes, but my offerings. I understand that televangelists need money to operate, but I also believe that with all that faith they claim to have, that God absolutely will send money down from heaven. I don’t listen or watch all televangelists, I have my favorites, I also depend on the Holy Spirit to help me desern what programs are to be watched.
I also agree with the person before me. That the Good News is not about prosperity, financilally or otherwise. I am a rich person, not in finances however. I have riches in seeing an addict give his or her life over to the will of God and watch God put that marriage back together & heal the hurts of those children toward their mother or father. Or the woman that has been abused all her life, get her self-esteem back and learn how to forgive. And learning that just because you forgive doesn’t mean they get to be a part of your life again. Or the couple that were raised in church and were deeply hurt by “church people”, and vowed they would never step foot in church, ever again. I’ve seen God miraculously heal those hurts and give them the wisdom and strength to minister to others in simular situations.
So, see, this is what prosperity is all about. Seeing lives restored, that Satan had set out to destroy.
I don’t need a mansion to preach the Gospel or drive a mercedes to show others how God has blessed me. God said if you will humble yourself before Me, “I” will lift you up.” And what do you wanna bet that He didn’t mean driving a mercedes or owning 5 houses, and a jet plane.
My problem with the critics of ‘Prosperity Gospel’ is that I feel they are being as one-sided as the proponents. But although I’m not happy with the opulence displayed by some of the ministers who promote it I’m equally not against it.
My reasoning is that, generally, I believe in a ‘Good God’. That is, I don’t think God wants his people to live in poverty, sickness, trouble. Indeed, as a loving father I’d expect Him to try and do His best for us. Yes, there are thousands of Christians who have only faith and no material possessions. And, yes, I’d expect ‘rich’ Christians to share their richness with the poor. But I’d equally argue that it’s much easier to give away when you have a surfeit than when you have nothing.
To reverse the argument of Blue above – perhaps it’s not Satan that makes these preachers rich but Satan that uses his power to keep other people poor?
There is, of course, a huge difficulty in deciding the rightness or wrongness of the argument and a lot will depend on cultural environment. Biblically, you could argue both sides – either on a direct quote verse vs verse basis or on in a contextual argument. Nobody can ‘win’ that argument because the Bible comes down on both sides.
A bigger question might be – are these people genuinely rich in their own right? (And I have no problem at all in someone prospering from sales of books, CDs, whatever, irrespective of the subject ). Or are they rich because they are dipping their hands in the till? I suspect the former may be the case although there are sufficient scandals erupting in the past few years to suggest otherwise.
Certainly, I wouldn’t give them money. But there’s no doubt they’ve brought many people to become Christians. Is that so wrong?