Further (Somewhat Repentant) Thoughts on Prosperity Gospel

On Friday morning in the office, I was having a conversation with Esther and Mrs. Daka about American denominations. They knew that Molly and I were somehow different from each other professionally, but they couldn't figure out how. "So Molly is a student at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church but you are a Reverend?" they asked.

"No," I responded, "we are both Reverends, but Molly and I are from two different denominations--Molly is from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and I am from the United Church of Christ." They looked a bit confused, and somewhat disturbed.

"So you don't believe the same things?"

"Well, our denominations are pretty similar to one another," I said, "similar enough that we are part of an agreement called 'Full Communion.' The Presbyterian Church (USA), The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ have agreed that the gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered in each denomination, so we can all swap ministers if we want. Which means that as a UCC minister, I am allowed to work in a Presbyterian church, and as a Presbyterian minister, Molly is allowed to work in a UCC church." They smiled.

"Well that's nice. How many people are in your denominations?"

"There are about 1 million people in the United Church of Christ, and 2 million people in the Presbyterian Church (USA)."

"Wow. Those are big denominations."

"Not really, given how many people live in the United States. The US has much bigger denominations than the PC(USA) and UCC."

"Like Pentecostals?" Esther asked, smiling. "That's me."

"Yes," I said. "There are many more Pentecostals in the US than Presbyterians or UCCers."

"Like Benny Hinn and T.D. Jakes. Do you know them?"

"Yes, I know them," I responded.

"Do you like them?" Esther pressed me.

I paused. "Not really."

"You don't like Pentecostals?"

"It's not Pentecostalism that I have a problem with," I said. "It's what those particular preachers teach about money. They say that if you are a faithful Christian, God will make you very rich. I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't like that they are always wearing fancy suits and driving big fancy cars and living in big fancy houses."

"It's true that they are very rich," Esther said. "But they also give lots of money. Like once, a bunch of poor muzungus [white people] came to T.D. Jakes [an African-American], and he gave them money even though they were muzungus and he didn't care what color they were or where they came from or what-what. He just gave them money. And Joyce Meyer also gave lots of money to the American people that were suffering because of the floods."

I didn't have an immediate response. "Well, it is good to give," I said, rather dumbly.

"Yes, it is good to give," Esther affirmed. "You know, some people attack them very much, but they do many good things for people. People don't think so, but we are capable of listening to what they say and analyzing what they say and making up our own minds. Do you watch them very much?"

"No, I don't," I said. "Not very much."

"Well you should watch them more and tell me what you think. You have satellite, don't you?"

"No, we don't have satellite." Esther looked surprised.

"You don't have satellite?"

"We only get two TV channels at our house. But one is TBN [Trinity Broadcasting Network], so maybe I will watch some more and tell you what I think."

I went back to my office feeling a bit at a loss. I don't believe that it is always and necessarily bad to be rich or that wealth always and necessarily prevents one from being a faithful Christian--as Jesus said, while it is exceedingly difficult to be a wealthy Christian (it is easier, in fact, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Reign of God), it is not impossible, for all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:23-26). If one is a wealthy Christian, however, it is important to be exceedingly generous, to share one's wealth with those who do not have the same degree of access to resources. If this is what people like T.D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer do, though, who am I to object?

I pulled out Philip Jenkins' The New Faces of Christianity:

Believing the Bible in the Global South, a book on the reading list we were given by Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church to prepare us for our work in Zambia, but which I had whizzed through in the rush of all our other preparations. I remembered that it had some interesting and provocative things to say about the prosperity gospel, but I couldn't remember exactly what. I found the relevant section. A few things stood out. First, Jenkins' definition of the prosperity gospel is much more generous than mine. While I defined it above as a false and simplistic doctrine that claims that faithfulness brings material blessing while unfaithfulness brings material woe, Jenkins defines it as "the controversial belief that Christians have the right and duty to seek prosperity in this world, to obtain health and wealth in the here and now," (p. 90). Defined this way, I do not find it nearly as repulsive; I have never understood the gospel of Jesus Christ to be limited to inward or otherworldly matters or to promise blessings only after death.

While Jenkins readily acknowledges the potential pitfalls of prosperity gospel theology, he argues,

Few mainline churches in Europe or North America would dream of promising health and wealth, which they would regard as a vulgarization of the faith. At the same time, though, they do not pursue their critique to what would seem to be the logical course, of offering their congregations an enticing message of "sickness and poverty." Rather, they fully agree with the prosperity churches that health and wealth are desirable goals, but that realistically , such blessings can only be obtained by secular means, through hard work, thrift, wise investment, and access to good medicine. Health-and-wealth churches assuredly exaggerate the potential role of prayer and godly behavior in securing material prosperity, but they might well respond by asking if Euro-American mainline churches allow any serious belief whatever that prayer can shape one's material conditions. Are Christian critics of "prosperity" arguing that faith and prayer are absolutely unconnected from material realities? Why then do most or all incorporate prayers for well-being into their services and liturgies? (p. 96)

Provocative questions indeed. Later, he quotes Kefa Sempangi, a Ugandan member of parliament-turned-pastor, who writes, "A religion that speaks only to man's soul and not to his body is not true. Africans make no distinction between the spiritual and the physical....If the gospel you are preaching does not speak to human needs, it is useless. It cannot compete with the witch doctor and the gods."

I think I needed to hear this perspective. It got me thinking--perhaps the prosperity gospel and the "community gospel" I'd been preaching and teaching are in some ways not so different. Looking around at the state of the Church on some days, I start to think that the hope of the Church becoming a true reflection of God's Reign is just as supernatural as the hope that God will make one healthy and wealthy by prayer and obedience alone. In truth, I have to admit that health, material prosperity (as distinct from material excess), and loving community are all real and legitimate aspects of the consummated Reign of God. Could it be that I arrogantly decided that human community was a more legitimate place to put my hope than health and wealth simply because as an American, I need and lack true community more? Could it be that I rejected health and wealth as legitimate objects of Christian hope because I am, compared to most people here, healthy and wealthy already?

This is not to say that I have suddenly become an enthusiastic fan of the prosperity gospel. Far from it. But perhaps, contrary to what I had thought, the big problems with prosperity gospel theology lie not in its doctrine of Christian hope--the hope of sick and materially impoverished people for health and material prosperity are indeed legitimate--but elsewhere. Upon further reflection, I have decided that my main critiques of prosperity gospel theology lie in three places:

1. Theodicy (the doctrine of evil, or, the perennial question, "Why do bad things happen to good people--and vice-versa): it is misguided, I believe, to assert that there is a one-to-one correlation between obedience and blessing, and disobedience and woe. As humans have lamented throughout history, bad things do indeed happen to good people (see, for example, the Book of Job) and wonderful things happen to people who are, by all accounts, despicable and undeserving (see, for example, the Book of Psalms). As mentioned above, such one-to-one correlations should have been laid to rest for Christians once and for all by the observation that our Lord, who led a sinless life, was rewarded for his obedience with worldly rejection and a Roman cross. Any theologically and pastorally coherent doctrine of theodicy must finally admit that the phenomenon of evil, human and natural, is as opaque to us Christians as it is to any of our fellow human beings, and that we cannot have any more ultimate knowledge of its purpose or reason for being, if indeed they exist, than anyone else. As many theologians have observed before me, God does not give us a reason for suffering and evil; instead, God gives us a person, his Son, who weeps with us, suffers with us, and offers us the knowledge of God's eternal and unconditional love in the midst of whatever evil may befall us in this life.

2. The Good Life and the Theology of Enough: It is my strong conviction that the picture of the Good Life offered by preachers such as T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, and Joyce Meyer are profoundly distorted. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, it would require the resources of about six planet earths if the whole world lived at even the average American's lifestyle--and preachers like those named above are much wealthier than the average American. If our species and others are to have any chance of surviving on the limited resources of one planet, we must develop a vision of a good life that is much more modest. I am appreciative of the witness of "plainness" carried forth by the Historic Peace Churches (Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker) as a way of conceiving a life that is neither materially deprived nor excessive, modest enough to sustain and abundant enough to thrive. As Shane Claiborne writes in The Irresistible Revolution,

   I would suggest we need a third way, neither the prosperity gospel nor the poverty gospel, but the gospel of abundance rooted in a theology of enough. As Proverbs says, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say 'Who is the Lord?'" (Prov. 30:8,9). After seeing plenty of poor folks forced into economic crimes by their poverty and after seeing plenty of rich folks so content in their riches that they forget they need God or anyone else, I think we are all ready for something new.

   It is probably true that the vast majority of Zambians are in no danger of the gross over-consumption characteristic of the American way of life, and so warning them of its dangers may be something of a moot point. At the same time, the distorted vision of the Good Life which fuels the greed and corruption of African political elites is not helped by the parallel distortions of prosperity gospel preachers.

3. Political, Economic, and Social Analysis (or the lack thereof): It is unconscionable to even hint that the materially impoverished people of this continent have brought their suffering upon themselves. There are complex and undeniable historical, political, and economic reasons for the material impoverishment of the majority of Africa's people, and to pretend that the primary cause of their suffering is their own faithlessness is profoundly misguided. As the preacher at UCZ Buchi reminded us a couple of Sundays ago, "The African is notoriously religious." The assertion that it is African faithlessness that has caused the Continent's material poverty would be humorous were it not so cruel.

I am so grateful for the honest conversation of my Zambian coworkers that pushed me to think harder about my initial judgments of the prosperity gospel, and for the writing of a fellow Christian which gave me a broader and more nuanced perspective. As I continue in my dialogue, preaching and teaching in this place, I will be more careful not to dismiss the hope of others in a healthy and prosperous future, while challenging my sisters and brothers in Christ to a deeper social analysis, a more humble theodicy, and a simple-yet-abundant vision of the Christian life well lived.