On Elite Criticism of the Prosperity Gospel
Part 4, Positivity and Empowerment
Final post in this series reflecting upon elite theological criticism of the prosperity gospel.
In the last post I pointed out how poverty creates an attraction to the prosperity gospel given that 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 this post, I want to turn to talk about the psychological impacts of the prosperity gospel.
To start, let me return to my story about our Homeboy Industry tour guide. Recall, our tour guide, a former felon who had been incarcerated multiple times, was out again in the free world and trying to rebuild his life. He was facing very, very long odds. It is not easy to get steady work or stable housing if you're a convicted felon coming out of prison. Beyond that, you have to wholly rebuild your social world, behavioral habits, and mental health. It's an almost impossible task, which is why so many in this situation end up back in prison.
Facing this hard road, our tour guide found Joel Osteen to be helpful, and it is not hard to see why. The prosperity gospel is optimistic, hopeful, and galvanizes motivation. For our tour guide, Osteen was a cheerleader and encourager. "You can do this!" was his message. And more than encouragement, Osteen preaches good habits of social and mental hygiene. How to surround yourself with positive people and how to keep a positive attitude in the face of discouragement. Of course, elite theological discourse will dismiss all this as so much spiritualized self-help. And it is. But let us be very clear: Spiritualized self-help is helpful! It encourages, boosts self-efficacy, sustains motivation, helps with goal setting, shapes good habits, and staves off demoralization. These things are not insignificant. And for our Homeboy tour guide, they can be life-saving.
This observation brings me back to Kate Bowler's concerns over "toxic positivity" as expressed in the prosperity gospel. Again, Kate's main audience is the elite, striving class. And among these people, the driven and successful, the call for "more, more, more" and "better, better, better" is exhausting and toxic. These pushers and strivers really do need to stop and take a rest. For these people, good enough really does need to be good enough. They need to embrace the gifts of imperfection and the freedom that comes from embracing their frail humanity.
But again, Kate's criticism of "positivity" applies narrowly to a particular social location. Where the positivity of the prosperity gospel might be toxic among the successful, exhausted classes, that same positivity can be medicine for the struggling, demoralized classes. Another name for positivity is hope, and hope can be life-saving. I work in a prison, I've seen hope save lives. Again, Osteen's positive, hopeful message was experienced as grace by our Homeboy tour guide. Positivity and hope in the face of his demoralization was exactly what he needed.
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. See this study and this study from Africa as examples.
My point here isn't to suggest that the prosperity gospel is immune to criticism. I'm simply trying to draw attention to how we need to attend to social location to properly understand what the prosperity gospel is doing, especially in marginalized contexts. Positivity can be either toxic or life-giving, depending upon where you stand. Either poison or medicine. 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.
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.