You end your series with “Elites regularly fail to attend to these differences in thinking about the prosperity gospel, making criticisms of and jokes about something they don't really understand.” But somehow you too may be an elite who is misunderstanding. First, I agree with all the others who affirm that paying for rent is not prosperity teaching. When we are desperate we turn to God and he sees us. When I was a child my mom and us 4 kids piled in our old pickup in the pouring rain outside Kmart. It didn’t start (again). My mom was just plain worn out, so she stopped and told all of us to pray for a miracle. She was crying and we took it seriously. We prayed and the engine turned over on the next try. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if it hadn’t, just another bad day in our family. But that was the moment I became a believer in my own right. I couldn’t deny he saw us. That silly little “miracle” saved my soul. I’ve seen too many poor people attend prosperity churches to have their faith eventually eroded because they can’t keep up with the beautiful people they attend church with and are ultimately left to feel unseen by God because they’re not getting all they expect. If you haven’t prayed for a meal, rent, or an engine start, you might be the one who doesn’t fully understand the difference. As a psychologist, I guess I’m in the elite class now, but my footing, my understanding, is in my early experiences of serious poverty and the spiritual blessings that it can bring.
Thank you for making these points. They are especially significant because you yourself are immersed in the social-cultural-psychological dynamics that make up the elite. It's been deeply refreshing, deeply encouraging Richard to follow your journey over the last decade and more. I just finished David Brooks' new book, *How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen* and it's like you are inviting us, inviting the elite, to *see* the marginalized, the marginalized person, the former felon you speak of, and to see them deeply. I think you have nuanced this quite well. You continue to try and make it clear that yes, that there is a place for healthy criticism of prosperity gospel. But context and location matter. Enchantment matters. Attentiveness and perception matter. Thank you, thank you for continuing to self-reflect and connect dots.
I think the issue of agency is central. Elite critics take agency for granted and looks to the manipulation and exploitation (which is surely current), and labels the mindset “toxic positivity”.
But it f you don’t take agency for grant, but rather that their social location is more like fate to external powers, then bolstering agency is a net plus (cultivating an internal locus of control).
"This empowerment in the face of demoralization is one of the reasons the prosperity gospel flourishes in third world contexts. Not only does the prosperity gospel concern material conditions among the poor, it offers hope while instilling habits of mind and action that galvanize self-efficacy and agency in third world contexts as people struggle to climb out of poverty."
Curiously enough, this passage took me away from the current topic to a broader one involving differences of religious practice. Over two decades ago when I was a prison social worker, my African-American supervisor invited me to a special performance by the choir of his church.
To put this story in context, I am a Quaker who left behind the music and liturgy and sermons of the Lutheran Church for the silent waiting worship and spoken ministry of the Quaker way. Even so, I have always been moved by gospel choruses. It was delightful and amusing to me that I found my hands spontaneously rising in praise along with everyone else in the audience.
My point is that Spirit uses whatever means are available to touch and lift up the people of this world. Yes, some people exploit this for their own gain, perhaps doing harm to those they exploit. But those the Spirit touches are truly lifted up.
"...the prosperity gospel proclaims that soteriology involves materiality. Just like we see in liberation theology and social justice visions of Christianity, salvation concerns our material conditions."
In fact, I believe that soteriology MUST involve materiality. Not in the mundane sense exploited by get-rich preachers. Rather, in the deeper sense of recognizing God's kingdom already present in this world, already touching us while we are still in these bodies. How can we claim to practice our faith unless we are intimately involved in ministering to each other's material lives?
I have appreciated this thoughtful series. I would add that we need to define our terms. I joke about there being more about "prosperity" in the Bible than lots of other things we fight over...even the Trinity! But I think the whole of scripture, Jesus and the early church show that the Biblical idea is having enough for your needs plus some extra to give away, not extravagant levels of luxury or any guarantee of such. Jesus' parable about the man and his barns seems to imply that it was fine for him to store the normal amount for the winter for his family in his normal size barns, but that building bigger ones in order to hoard was wrong...he should have shared the excess with others. Shoot, even selling it at market would have shared it more than hoarding it, and saved the expense of bigger barns. I don't find either prosperity gospel people or anti-prosperity gospel people talking much about practical solutions and applications like these, much less being a good example in this area. One of the most famous anti-prosperity preachers has a megachurch, three homes, and receives three very large salaries, plus book revenues, and is abusive. And note, personal responsibility and charity don't depend on government or organizational change now anymore than it did for the early church. It's fine to also work for wider societal change, but like you said, rent is due at the end of the month, and barring any complicating factors, people should just help out with that. It was said of the early church how well they took care of one another PLUS the pagan poor and sick around them...
I'm grateful for this series and for you, Richard. Question: are "hope" and "positivity" really interchangeable terms?
I'm not convinced such a maneuver is biblically faithful, though our English limitations may force such an acquiescence.
Positivity feels less than, or emptier, than hope perhaps? But again, my question is coming from the elite/educated/striving class vantage point. Isn't hope anchored in promise of what's to come amidst longsuffering, whereas positivity is more akin to "I can do this!"?
Interesting alternative viewpoint. My mother-inlaw was into Prosperity Gospel and I heard some of these advocates: Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Benny Hinn. After family dinners if any of them were on TV she would tune in and try to convert all of us to her theology which also included a huge amount of interest in the end times and prophecy. As unobtrusively as possible I would leave and walk home. My wife however found herself unable to do that without watching for a while. Most of my wife's brothers and sisters are into the same kind of theology however not my wife. Eventually my wife was disinherited and declared not to be part of the family by her mother because my wife would not accept her mother's H&W theology. Very painful.
I'm sorry because that's truly terrible. However its not like all the other branches of theology and religion don't have people who would do that as well to someone who won't join in. I've walked in many diverse Christian spaces and found both beautiful and selfish people in every one, including "prosperity" spaces. Lately the ones howling the most loudly against prosperity gospel seem to have the most abuse scandals and cover-ups and general toxicity. The trusted local pastor or Christian friends and family who excommunicates you for divorcing your abuser, right when you need help the most, is a bigger blow than a TV preacher they despise, that you don't know personally and didn't go to for support. The biggest problem on the ground in both prosperity spaces and other evangelical spaces is the demand for money to be turned over to someone else who wastes it, instead of everyone doing practical help for their neighbors themselves as much as possible. Most of the people who need the most help need someone to get personally involved and lend a hand, not only money.
I see this difference in my own family - my extended family embraces a lot of what I would call toxic positivity, always looking on the bright side and not acknowledging painful things. But my own desire to experience the full gamut of emotions and bring them before God can turn into wallowing or spending too much time on feeling. So we almost need both - the positivity and encouragement of knowing we can do hard things and have hope for a better future, and also the recognition that life is hard and grief and failure and loss are part of it. From my standpoint, prosperity gospel doesn’t acknowledge the full range of life’s opportunities and challenges, but it does give people a sense of ownership of their lives and a belief that God is for them.
You end your series with “Elites regularly fail to attend to these differences in thinking about the prosperity gospel, making criticisms of and jokes about something they don't really understand.” But somehow you too may be an elite who is misunderstanding. First, I agree with all the others who affirm that paying for rent is not prosperity teaching. When we are desperate we turn to God and he sees us. When I was a child my mom and us 4 kids piled in our old pickup in the pouring rain outside Kmart. It didn’t start (again). My mom was just plain worn out, so she stopped and told all of us to pray for a miracle. She was crying and we took it seriously. We prayed and the engine turned over on the next try. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if it hadn’t, just another bad day in our family. But that was the moment I became a believer in my own right. I couldn’t deny he saw us. That silly little “miracle” saved my soul. I’ve seen too many poor people attend prosperity churches to have their faith eventually eroded because they can’t keep up with the beautiful people they attend church with and are ultimately left to feel unseen by God because they’re not getting all they expect. If you haven’t prayed for a meal, rent, or an engine start, you might be the one who doesn’t fully understand the difference. As a psychologist, I guess I’m in the elite class now, but my footing, my understanding, is in my early experiences of serious poverty and the spiritual blessings that it can bring.
Thank you for making these points. They are especially significant because you yourself are immersed in the social-cultural-psychological dynamics that make up the elite. It's been deeply refreshing, deeply encouraging Richard to follow your journey over the last decade and more. I just finished David Brooks' new book, *How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen* and it's like you are inviting us, inviting the elite, to *see* the marginalized, the marginalized person, the former felon you speak of, and to see them deeply. I think you have nuanced this quite well. You continue to try and make it clear that yes, that there is a place for healthy criticism of prosperity gospel. But context and location matter. Enchantment matters. Attentiveness and perception matter. Thank you, thank you for continuing to self-reflect and connect dots.
I think the issue of agency is central. Elite critics take agency for granted and looks to the manipulation and exploitation (which is surely current), and labels the mindset “toxic positivity”.
But it f you don’t take agency for grant, but rather that their social location is more like fate to external powers, then bolstering agency is a net plus (cultivating an internal locus of control).
"This empowerment in the face of demoralization is one of the reasons the prosperity gospel flourishes in third world contexts. Not only does the prosperity gospel concern material conditions among the poor, it offers hope while instilling habits of mind and action that galvanize self-efficacy and agency in third world contexts as people struggle to climb out of poverty."
Curiously enough, this passage took me away from the current topic to a broader one involving differences of religious practice. Over two decades ago when I was a prison social worker, my African-American supervisor invited me to a special performance by the choir of his church.
To put this story in context, I am a Quaker who left behind the music and liturgy and sermons of the Lutheran Church for the silent waiting worship and spoken ministry of the Quaker way. Even so, I have always been moved by gospel choruses. It was delightful and amusing to me that I found my hands spontaneously rising in praise along with everyone else in the audience.
My point is that Spirit uses whatever means are available to touch and lift up the people of this world. Yes, some people exploit this for their own gain, perhaps doing harm to those they exploit. But those the Spirit touches are truly lifted up.
"...the prosperity gospel proclaims that soteriology involves materiality. Just like we see in liberation theology and social justice visions of Christianity, salvation concerns our material conditions."
In fact, I believe that soteriology MUST involve materiality. Not in the mundane sense exploited by get-rich preachers. Rather, in the deeper sense of recognizing God's kingdom already present in this world, already touching us while we are still in these bodies. How can we claim to practice our faith unless we are intimately involved in ministering to each other's material lives?
I have appreciated this thoughtful series. I would add that we need to define our terms. I joke about there being more about "prosperity" in the Bible than lots of other things we fight over...even the Trinity! But I think the whole of scripture, Jesus and the early church show that the Biblical idea is having enough for your needs plus some extra to give away, not extravagant levels of luxury or any guarantee of such. Jesus' parable about the man and his barns seems to imply that it was fine for him to store the normal amount for the winter for his family in his normal size barns, but that building bigger ones in order to hoard was wrong...he should have shared the excess with others. Shoot, even selling it at market would have shared it more than hoarding it, and saved the expense of bigger barns. I don't find either prosperity gospel people or anti-prosperity gospel people talking much about practical solutions and applications like these, much less being a good example in this area. One of the most famous anti-prosperity preachers has a megachurch, three homes, and receives three very large salaries, plus book revenues, and is abusive. And note, personal responsibility and charity don't depend on government or organizational change now anymore than it did for the early church. It's fine to also work for wider societal change, but like you said, rent is due at the end of the month, and barring any complicating factors, people should just help out with that. It was said of the early church how well they took care of one another PLUS the pagan poor and sick around them...
I'm grateful for this series and for you, Richard. Question: are "hope" and "positivity" really interchangeable terms?
I'm not convinced such a maneuver is biblically faithful, though our English limitations may force such an acquiescence.
Positivity feels less than, or emptier, than hope perhaps? But again, my question is coming from the elite/educated/striving class vantage point. Isn't hope anchored in promise of what's to come amidst longsuffering, whereas positivity is more akin to "I can do this!"?
Interesting alternative viewpoint. My mother-inlaw was into Prosperity Gospel and I heard some of these advocates: Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Benny Hinn. After family dinners if any of them were on TV she would tune in and try to convert all of us to her theology which also included a huge amount of interest in the end times and prophecy. As unobtrusively as possible I would leave and walk home. My wife however found herself unable to do that without watching for a while. Most of my wife's brothers and sisters are into the same kind of theology however not my wife. Eventually my wife was disinherited and declared not to be part of the family by her mother because my wife would not accept her mother's H&W theology. Very painful.
I'm sorry because that's truly terrible. However its not like all the other branches of theology and religion don't have people who would do that as well to someone who won't join in. I've walked in many diverse Christian spaces and found both beautiful and selfish people in every one, including "prosperity" spaces. Lately the ones howling the most loudly against prosperity gospel seem to have the most abuse scandals and cover-ups and general toxicity. The trusted local pastor or Christian friends and family who excommunicates you for divorcing your abuser, right when you need help the most, is a bigger blow than a TV preacher they despise, that you don't know personally and didn't go to for support. The biggest problem on the ground in both prosperity spaces and other evangelical spaces is the demand for money to be turned over to someone else who wastes it, instead of everyone doing practical help for their neighbors themselves as much as possible. Most of the people who need the most help need someone to get personally involved and lend a hand, not only money.
I see this difference in my own family - my extended family embraces a lot of what I would call toxic positivity, always looking on the bright side and not acknowledging painful things. But my own desire to experience the full gamut of emotions and bring them before God can turn into wallowing or spending too much time on feeling. So we almost need both - the positivity and encouragement of knowing we can do hard things and have hope for a better future, and also the recognition that life is hard and grief and failure and loss are part of it. From my standpoint, prosperity gospel doesn’t acknowledge the full range of life’s opportunities and challenges, but it does give people a sense of ownership of their lives and a belief that God is for them.