Prosperity Theology: anyone hear about this before?

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All I can say, according to the “Prosperity Theologians”—I’m a pretty darn big sinner:o !!!
 
Oral Roberts was big on this one…It isn’t theologically sound…That’s for sure.
 
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Hesychios:
Yes you are right, that’s where it was born, like Rosemary’s baby.

The idea that being blessed with abundance was a sign of God’s favor is related to the double-predestination taught in Calvinism. The Puritans brought these ideas to New England.

This is also the source of the ‘Protestant’ ethic and subsequent materialism. It helps explain how the British and Dutch became so successful in the mercantile age.

One good example is after the monasteries were closed and burned in England, there was no public institution in put in place to meet the needs of the very poor and displaced who would line up for the distribution of alms and food.

Eventually the British hit upon the idea of those notorious workhouses, debtors prisons, and indentured servitude. Some people don’t deserve any better, they are obviously already damned.
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Hesychios,

Your interpretation is based on the very controversial theory of Max Weber. Even Weber, though, admits that Calvin himself didn’t teach this.

Your reading of the post-Reformation situation in England is also at fault. The local parish continued to care for the needy until the Industrial Revolution. Workhouses followed the Reformation by about 300 years–a bit too long a time to claim a direct cause-effect relationship.

Edwin
 
Everyone, thank you for your post. I have watched several of these preachers and was very confused with their sermons. I felt they were more motivational then anything else.

It was so good to hear our bishop’s sermon last Sunday. He said more in 10 minutes and more beautifully put then all those preachers on TV can do in 50 minutes. I’d rather spend time worshipping the Lord with my fellow parishioners in prayer, reading, Eucharist, and singing, then listening to a drawn out sermon for 45 minutes.
 
Don’t forget “believe it and receive it” 🙂

It’s not just the TV Evangelists either…they are really into tithing to the church…so you’ll get your ‘blessings’…basically living in the old testament and have no understanding of or acceptance of - suffering! God is basically their ATM machine.

Paul warns of this: “Conflicts of men corrupted in mind, and who are destitute of the truth, supposing gain to be godliness.”
1Tim 6:5

Another odd thing is how closely this is related to the new age/occult idea of ‘visualization’…using your imagination to picture what you want. Then if that doesn’t work of course, there is always the Prayer of Jabez. 👍
 
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MVH:
buy someone tires for their car in order to get a nice car
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This sounds very close to witchcraft. Strange, considering how fearful most fundies are of witchcraft - some evangelical friends of mine will not read a book or watch a movie that has a witch character. Actually, this prosperity stuff sounds downright satanic to me.
 
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sconea:
Then if that doesn’t work of course, there is always the Prayer of Jabez. 👍
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Oh, man. Don’t get me started on The Prayer of Jabez!! :mad:
 
Prayer of Jabez? I was in Catholic Arts and Gifts in the Dallas area the other day and a person came in looking for the Prayer of Jabez. They were pretty upset when they couldn’t find it, got on the cell phone, publicly griped. What exactley is the Prayer of Jabez? I have no experience with it.
 
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BlindSheep:
This sounds very close to witchcraft. Strange, considering how fearful most fundies are of witchcraft - some evangelical friends of mine will not read a book or watch a movie that has a witch character. Actually, this prosperity stuff sounds downright satanic to me.
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Oh BlindSheep, I agree with you! The thinking is absolutely demonic in origin…and the dear people try so hard to avoid anything like that. They are sadly deceived.
 
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DaveD:
Prayer of Jabez? I was in Catholic Arts and Gifts in the Dallas area the other day and a person came in looking for the Prayer of Jabez. They were pretty upset when they couldn’t find it, got on the cell phone, publicly griped. What exactley is the Prayer of Jabez? I have no experience with it.
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This from ChristianBook.com:
Description: Discover how to release the miraculous power of God in your life! Taking you to an obscure corner of 1 Chronicles, Bruce Wilkinson introduces you to Jabez, whose audacious one-sentence prayer brought him extraordinary blessings—and has changed thousands of believers’ lives. See what God will do for you when you put Jabez’s prayer to work! 96 pages, hardcover from Multnomah.
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(Underlining mine)

It has been years since I’ve read the book, but I know several Protestants who adopted the philosophy. They seem to believe that if you “pray without ceasing” and “keep on knocking” at God’s door, He will eventually give in and give you what you’re asking for. It’s important to note that this almost always refers to material wealth.

This Jabez book hit its peak as a fad maybe five years ago. There have, of course, been plenty of spin-offs since then. Prayer of Jabez for Teens, for example. But I think most of the people who initially subscribed to this method of schmoozing stuff out of God have by now given up, realizing that either 1) they don’t have the discipline to pray enough for the stuff they want, or (hopefully) 2)God is not a vending machine.
 
Then how do they explain the “Take up your cross and follow me.” ? Carrying crosses is not a cake walk.
 
prosperity message is overpreached, i think a lot of preachers take it to the extreme…it should be moderated…i believe in prosperity but it is not what drives me…i don’t search for it…but, you need to know what the bible says about being prosperous…otherwise you can get into the belief that you need to be poor…god has intended for us to be prosperous…but, most importantly he seeks a relationship…and if your putting the riches and money and blessings ahead of your relationship then none of them will ever be…preachers preach the prosperity message w/o the relationship…its not a machine where you put your quarter in and out pops out 5 more quarters…its an ongoing relationship and promises that are conditional…meaning you need to be in fellowship and rightstanding in order to receive the fullness that god has for you…always like i said before to others…10% is all that is required…whatever else you give is up to you…unless holy spirit directs you otherwise…

Ceasar
 
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ceasar:
…but, you need to know what the bible says about being prosperous…otherwise you can get into the belief that you need to be poor…god has intended for us to be prosperous…

…its an ongoing relationship and promises that are conditional…meaning you need to be in fellowship and rightstanding in order to receive the fullness that god has for you…
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I don’t believe that God blanketly intends for us to be prosperous. Certainly He allows it for some of the righteous, in order that they might bless others, but I believe He has called us to moderation, not excess. Just as eating too much (gluttony) is a sin, so is buying too much, holding onto too much. It is unhealthy, and I believe it is wrong.

The “belief that you need to be poor” … what exactly do you mean? If you mean a belief in debt and struggling to support a family, we certainly don’t hold to that. But one big difference between Catholics and Protestants is that we as Catholics believe that lack of material wealth is a very purifying experiece. We wish to store up our treasures in heaven, not here on earth. We take the same view of suffering. Suffering is one of the greatest gifts we are given on this earth, and if we apply it properly, it does much more for the kingdom than riches can ever accomplish.

As for the claim that being in fellowship and right standing result in “receiving the fullness” that God has for us, can you then say that those who are poor are therefore in disobedience to God? Or what of those who have received “fullness” in the sense that they are prosperous, but are morally corrupt (like most of the prosperous evangelists I know)? We are called to be like Christ, and He was a very poor man, but rich in spirit. This is true prosperity.
 
It’s very big in some Baptist churches, especially black ones. It’s the “name it and claim it” philosophy in which all you have to do is name what you want, be faithful, and God will reward your faith.And of course various Bible passages are given to underscore this point. What this whole perspective misses, however, is that God is not a genie in a bottle, and that He does not exist to do our bidding, rather, we are to do His bidding and submit our will to HIs. This name it and claim it perspective is really a permutation of the self-help movement in that all things exist to elevate the “I” the almighty me, so God’s purpose is to make my self a better self, without my self having to do much changing. This self believes that he is a good person and surely God will give him his heart’s desire because of this goodness. So God role is to reward the person’s goodness. But it’s not our goodness that’s at issue; it’s our realizing that our exalted goodness is not what will get us into heaven. Instead, we need to acknowledge our weakness, and rely on God’s grace, and then do HIs will. This realization runs counter to the name it and claim it perspective, which if you really think about it is just an extension of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” the dependence on the self, by one’s self, for one’s self. Name it and claim it echoes that position because once again, it doesn’t allow for submitting one’s will to God’s grace.
 
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