I’m looking specifially for news items about people who have sincerely trusted God for healing and declined medical help and suffered or died as a result – would you have any links or direction for to look into those kinds of stories?
If any of you have such a story or news item, please feel free to leave it in the comments.
I know everyone hates it when I talk politics, so I'm going to walk this line delicately.
The Republican's budget plan for 2012 is called "The Path to Prosperity". The plan was put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan a few weeks ago and, in theory, it will reduce the Federal deficit and help balance the budget.
Of course, I was less interested in the actual details of the budget plan. (that would require a lot of thought and intelligence) And I was much more interested in the title of the budget plan. What is it about the word prosperity that appeals to conservatives?
I've thought about this the past couple of weeks and I honestly have no idea why that word resonates so strongly with Evangelicals and Republicans. The words in these titles aren't chosen by accident. They are meant to convey an image. To wit: A prominent conservative writer at Red State wrote a blog post about the budget plan a few weeks back titled "Paul Ryan is not Jesus, But His Path To the Prosperity Gospel is Really Good". The blog post doesn't actually talk about the propserity gospel, but I thought it was interesting that a conservative writer immediately made the connection between the Path to Prosperty and the Prosperity Gospel.
Any of you have any idea what it is about the word prosperity that conservatives love so much? I'm genuinely curious.
A couple of atheists in Portland are running around visiting and writing reviews of local churches for their blog - A Year of Sundays.
They offer a particularly scathing review of Beaverton Four$quare Church.
But Foursquare seems to be praying upon the mediocre. Church for the American consumer. You’re buying an experience that FEELS like spirituality because it’s prettily packaged and perfectly delivered, not because it’s real. It reminds me of the last meal I ate at Olive Garden. You might not find any real FOOD in that all-you-can-eat soup, salad and bread sticks deal, but it still fills you up. Foursquare feels similarly overpriced.
I’m not sure there’s a better way for me to say this, but I feel a genuine sadness for the people who attend this church. They are being bamboozled. But here’s the thing – I honestly and truly believe that they all BELIEVE it, the enigmatic Rick Fry included. It’s a collective bamboozlement. As an outsider looking in, I watched a short line of parishioners approach the pastor after the service to ask for specific prayers. They would throw their arms around each other, butt their heads together in a circle and pray.
Besides the completely uncalled for attack on Olive Garden, the whole review is quite good. They hit upon a key aspect of these mega churches that really bugs me: they're completely fake.
We've had a lot of videos on this blog showing many well known pastors making grabs for money and trying to manipulate and guilt mindless sheep into giving cash to the offering plate. Here is one I found on YouTube that is definitely worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUsMxuzjLSg
I find it pretty amazing that even with an economy in the toilet and tons of evidence out there showing how fraudulent these people are, church goers continue to fork it over. I just can't figure it out.
Anyway, consider this an open video thread. If you have any good videos to share about the greed and money grubbing ways of some of these crooks feel free to share. Maybe in the future we can point all the drive by posters who ask "what's the big deal?" to this section.
I found a YouTube channel that posts some powerful clips of preachers calling for Christians to live more like Christ and the Apostles of the early church. This is a ministry of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, TX. Now I've never been there nor do I know everything that the believe/preach so I can't say this is all great stuff. However, many of the clips call out the prosperity gospel and those who preach it, which of course I like. Two that really got me are Leonard Ravenhill on the prosperity gospel and Paul Washer on false pastors/preachers. I also like this one, which is a compellation of some great biblical messages. This is NOT the kind of stuff you will EVER hear preached from the mouths of Judah Smith or Frank Damzio.
From Locutus, Fast Company recently profiled how Willow Creek is teaching other churches to run their operations as a business. The Creek has attracted such successful business luminaries as Jack Welch (GE) and Carly Fiorina (Hewlet-Packard) to their conferences. The President of Babson College offers this endorsement:
"Willow Creek offers a deep set of lessons about organizational life that I have not been able to learn anywhere else," says Babson College president and former Limited Brands COO Len Schlesinger, who has studied the church for nearly two decades, though he himself is Jewish. This year, he took several of his Babson colleagues to the summit, which has also attracted delegations from Best Buy, Chick-fil-A, and Toms Shoes. "The quality of the teaching is extraordinary," Schlesinger says. "The fact that Willow Creek is a church and the fact that it is evangelical mean that some people may have a great deal of difficulty with it, but they skip it at their loss."
Yes, because God forbid a little Jesus get in the way of your money making. Look, I'm beating a very sad drum at this point, but what is so attractive about a church that pressures you to be rich. Don't you get that from the rest of your life. Why would you also attend a church that preaches wealth?
I understand that running a church requires a certain level of organization and managment skills. And I get that a lot of pastors may feel lost in this arena and are looking for support wherever they can find it. But Willow Creek isn't about making your church run more efficiently. It's about helping you run a better business. Which, fine. I just don't know why you go to church for that.
With the recent collapse of the banking sector, with the implosing of the housing market and with all the corruption that comes with running a business, I'm not sure we want to put these folks on a pedastal and idolize them. But we do. Because ultimately, what motivates this country is how much money we can make, and not so much what we're doing for others. Which again, fine. It's served America pretty well for the last 200 years. But uh, just don't ask me to also assume that Chick-Filet is doing the Lord's work. Because, they're not.
Update: The author of the above piece in Fast Company offered his rebuttal in the comment section. And I thought it was only fair to post his comments below. Just to clarify, I wasn't attacking the author or the article. I was attacking a particular mindset of today's Evangelical Church. I probably should have made that more clear in my post.
Jeff Chu: In my reporting at Willow Creek, I never heard anything about the profit-based side of business. That’s not what my story was about. I’m surprised that anyone who gave it a careful read could conclude that the Global Leadership Summit–at least as portrayed in my article–was about taking lessons from business about how to make money. And the Willow Creek that I visited did not preach wealth; if anything, what I heard was plenty of exhortation about sacrificing and giving for the poor.
The Huffington Post has a great review of a book on the prosperity gospel called, "Will Jesus Buy Me a Double Wide?" by Karen Zacharias. The writer interviews the author and comes up with this poignant section:
Zacharias is a braver woman than I am. She did a 700 Club interview about her book with Pat Robertson's son Gordon. As the interview unfolded, Robertson said, "In reading your book, I notice that you don't particularly like TV preachers and I was trying hard not to take it personal, but you're really starting to skewer some of my friends in here." To which Zacharias retorted, "Some of your friends in there deserve to be skewered." A friendly debate about Joel Osteen ensued and Zacharias concluded, "When you go before the masses and tell them that their 'best life now' is tied up into the things that they own, the size of their garage or anything materially oriented, I think you're missing it." In the book, she says, "If there's a secret to living your best life now, it's this: Stop imagining all the ways in which the universe can serve you and start figuring out how you can serve others."
I think this really sums up life well. If you want to live a rich and fulfilling life, stop asking God to bless you financially and start asking God to bless those around you.
Thanks to Scrupe here is a video of Ed Young asking members of Fellowship Church in Grapevine Texas to give God their bank account numbers in order for the church to collect their tithe (even on a weekly basis). He spends time instructing his congregation on where to find their bank account and routing numbers and how to fill out the form and then how to get it to the church as soon as possible.
What's really disturbing in this clip is his lying rant and false manipulation, telling the members that if they don't give, God won't bless. Here are a couple of the crazy things coming out of his mouth and the mark at which he says them:
I've honestly never heard of Ed Young before this but man alive, what a crook and a liar. This may be some of the most distorted stuff I've ever seen. Kind of reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:15, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."
Here's a good article in Christianity Today that cuts to the point of why the Prosperity Gospel is self-serving.
"Prosperity is not alien to Scripture,” explained Asamoah last Saturday at the multiplex session titled, “Poverty, Prosperity and the Gospel”.
“God does promise to bless His people. But prosperity gospel distorts the blessing to mean only material blessing.”
Adeleye pointed to John 10:10, a verse often used to support material prosperity. He emphasised that the Greek word for life used in the Bible is zoe, which means life in the spirit and in the soul. Zoe is different from bios, which refers to physical, material life. Therefore, what Jesus is telling his followers is to have an abundant life in the spirit and not necessarily in material riches.
“So in this discussion about prosperity gospel, it is important to have [an] educated, biblical interpretation,” Adeleye said.
An educated approach to he Bible? Hmmm, I don't like the sound of that. I'm going to have to talk to my pastor. Sounds very liberal to me.
Adeleye concludes:
“Giving is part of our worship but prosperity gospel makes giving a transactional activity,” commented Asamoah. Believers are taught that when they make an offering to God they can expect a certain return. But God blesses according to His wisdom and it is not necessarily material wealth. Sounds about right to me.
I recently found this website PimpPreacher.com that touts itself as a "free website site that will allow church members to report a Pastor or Preacher that is ripping off the church, and hustling the members." They have a "Report A Pastor" section and "Preacher Alerts" where readers can see who some of the frauds are. They also provide a number of articles and YouTube clips on the topic such as this one "Bishop Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, T D Jakes Enjoy Lavish Lifestyles Financed With Tithes And Offerings".
I find it interesting the more and more people are using technology to fight back against these modern day hustlers who are using faith as a means to get rich. Maybe someday we will see the pastors of CBC, TCC and CCC up on the site?