The Prosperity Gospel in an American
Context
The prosperity gospel, as it is known in
popular religious circles, has its roots in American
Pentecostalism. David Harrell notes that the doctrine that God
will prosper his children goes as far back as Thomas Wyatt in the
1930s. It gained significance
through the independent charismatic ministries that grew out of
the healing revivals of the 1950s. Harrell adds that by the
1960s financial prosperity had “almost supplanted the
earlier emphasis on healing.” One of the leading
evangelists preaching the message of prosperity was Oral Roberts.
Poverty and financial struggle were not uncommon for Pentecostal
ministers. Out of this context,
Roberts rooted a doctrine of prosperity in the goodness of God.
“God is good and has something good for you today”
became a slogan that applied God’s care not only for
spiritual needs (salvation) and physical needs (healing), but
also financial needs (prosperity). He writes,
God is interested in our every
material need as well as our every spiritual need. Our continued
prosperity is His will for us. He is generous beyond all
conceptions of generosity. God wishes our freedom from both the
love for and lack of material means. The love of money may be
worse than its lack, but both have a terrible power to defeat
us.
Essentially, the “gospel of prosperity” is the
doctrine that the work of salvation includes the abundant supply
of financial resources for one’s needs. This message
spread throughout independent charismatic streams and continues
to today as a major doctrine in word of faith oriented churches
and ministries, most notably in the ministry of Kenneth Hagin,
Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price and others.
The Cry of Cultural Conformity
This
doctrine is not without its criticisms. It has been called the
“cult of prosperity,” “a disease,”
“a gospel of greed,” “self-indulgence and
selfishness,” “egocentric,” and “a
corruption Scripture.” One of the most common theological
arguments against prosperity is the claim that it is a case of
syncretism, a biblical hermeneutic infected by a conformity to
cultural values that are non-Christian in their ethic and
application. In his observation of independent charismatic
missions, Edward Pousson interjects, “…Once we allow
a materialistic rights-consciousness to replace cross-bearing
servanthood, we are in danger of baptizing the American
dream.” Other critics have
gone a step further, stating that Pousson’s
“danger” has been actualized – that prosperity
preachers have allowed the materialism of American culture to
shape their understanding of Scripture and thus produce a
perverted doctrine. Quentin Schultze in Televangelism and
American Culture adds,
I simply wish to suggest that
worldly prosperity is a distinctly American version of the
gospel, not a particularly biblical one. God’s will for our
lives is far more eternal than is typically acknowledged by the
advocates of the health-and wealth gospel.
Schultze
captures the essence of the cultural conformity argument –
prosperity is an American gospel, not a biblical gospel. If this
were indeed true, then an indigenous preacher in a non-American,
non-materialistic, non-Western context would not preach a
prosperity message. However, in the poverty-stricken nation of
India, a prosperity message can be heard from the preaching of
P.G. Vargis.
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User Contributed Comments
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sony abraham
Friday 19th of August 2005
i full agree with bro p g vargis and have had personal experiences of god blessing his people when they put their trust in him to bless them
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