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The Prosperity Gospel

by Greg Williamson (c) 2004, 2006

 

If you answered "Yes" to one or more of these questions, then chances are you have fallen prey to a very deceptive, very dangerous form of teaching.

 

Known as the "prosperity gospel," the "health and wealth gospel," or the "name-it-and-claim-it gospel," typically this teaching is found among professing Christians of the charismatic stripe. But while there is certainly room in the Christian Church for brothers and sisters who are more expressive in their faith (reference the Apostle Paul's counsel in 1 Corinthians 12-14), the prosperity gospel runs directly counter to the foundational teachings of biblical, orthodox Christianity. It is nothing less than blasphemous heresy.

 

To the person unwilling (or unable) to dig into the Scriptures for himself, the prosperity gospel sounds like the answer to all his prayers: Just have enough faith (translation: have faith in your faith), name it and claim it, and God will shower you with material wealth and abundant health. But just like its secular cousin, the get-rich-quick scheme, the only ones getting rich are the purveyors of this heresy, as they lure gullible, unsuspecting followers into what has to be the most despicable pyramid scheme ever concocted.

The "prosperity gospel" represents a gross perversion of the real Gospel. While God does indeed want his children to prosper, it is a spiritual prosperity and not material wealth and physical health that God is most concerned with. God does indeed want us to be rich -- but rich in spiritual blessings, not material ones.

In a nutshell, the "prosperity gospel" teaches that:

  1. God wants his children to prosper and be happy.

  2. Prosperity equals pristine health and abundant wealth, and we cannot be truly happy without them.

  3. If anyone lacks health and and wealth, it must be their own fault and can be attributed to disobedience (usually interpreted as a lack of giving) and/or a lack of faith/belief.

What the Bible actually teaches is that we are all born Hell-bound sinners who are by our very nature selfish and rebellious.  God's one and only solution is a new nature imparted through saving faith in his Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ -- aka being "born again." Then begins a maturing process as our sinful beliefs and behaviors are slowly replaced by Christlike attitudes and actions. The basic building blocks in this process are prayer, Bible study, and fellowship.

While God may indeed decide to bless a particular believer with monetary wealth, it is the height of sinful selfishness (not to mention arrogance) to claim such as our spiritual birthright. Rather than getting, God wants us to be giving -- of our time, our talent, and our treasure.

If you have bought into the prosperity gospel, I beg you to take the time to read the material below. And then get on your face before Almighty God and ask him to forgive you for your ignorance and to help you learn the truth regarding him and his will for your life. Commit (or recommit) your life to Jesus Christ, and then begin regularly practicing the three spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, and fellowship. Find a church that takes the Bible seriously, and look for ways to serve other people using the abilities God has given you.

 

Even if you have not bought into the prosperity gospel, please read the material anyway. And then be on the lookout for someone to pass it on to. While we as Christ's followers are to tolerate differences of opinion in nonessential areas, the prosperity gospel represents nothing less than a direct frontal assault on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As such, it demands our response. I must confess that I, like so many others within the Christian Church, have remained silent in the face of the prosperity gospel. May God forgive our apathy, and may God embolden us to speak up and speak out against this destructive deception.

 

What is the Prosperity Gospel?

The fundamental principles upon which this false gospel is based are as follows.

The word 'Gospel' as most people know means 'Good News'. Many people are put off becoming Christians because they believe that they will have to pay too high a price.

Well the good news is that God wants us to be prosperous, but we have got to get right with him first. 

MAT 6:33 NIV  "But seek first His Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." 

For those who are fully paid up members (tithes and offerings) of this Kingdom, any outward show of affluence or prosperity is taken to be a sign that God approves of them and is often held up as proof of God's generous provision for those who love Him!

The contrary is unfortunately taken to be true. i.e. any form of poverty or ill health is a sign that you are not quite right with God. The remedy is usually along the following lines. 

1) Increase your level of faith

2) Make sure that you have paid exactly ten percent of your income to the Church.

3) Make sure that there is no area of sin in your life that you have not dealt with. 

4) Avoid any kind of negativity. Whatever it is that you want God to give you, always talk as though it is already yours. (The power of positive thinking) 

5) Do not under any circumstances allow yourself to become discouraged when somebody else gets the blessing you have been crying out to God for.

[NOTE: This material was taken from THIS WEBPAGE, which is no longer available.]

Positive Confession/PMA

Prosperity Gospel & The New Age

The fastest growing segment of professing Christianity in recent years has been among churches connected with the Positive Confession movement or Word-Faith movement (all part of the modern Charismatic movement). It has involved two distinct but closely related factions: the Norman Vincent Peale/Robert Schuller Positive-Possibility thinkers/Positive Mental Attitude, with their roots in New Thought; and the Kenneth Hagin/Kenneth Copeland Positive Confession and Word-Faith groups, which have their roots in E.W. Kenyon, William Branham, and the Manifest Sons of God/Latter Rain movement. Well-known names among its leaders are E.W. Kenyon, Charles Capps, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Frederick K.C. Price, Robert Tilton, and David [Paul] Yonggi Cho. It does not yet constitute a new denomination, but it certainly represents innovative teachings outside of mainstream Christianity. The situation is so serious now because of the dominance over the so-called Christian media achieved by the teachers of Positive/Possibility Thinking and Positive Confession.
 
As the name "Positive Confession"/"Word-Faith" implies, this movement teaches that faith is a matter of what we say more than whom we trust or what truths we embrace and affirm in our hearts. The term "positive confession" refers to the teaching that words have creative power. What you say, Word-Faith teachers claim, determines everything that happens to you. Your "confessions," that is, the things you say -- especially the favors you demand of God -- must all be stated positively and without wavering. Then God is required to answer. Word-Faith believers view their positive confessions as an incantation by which they can conjure up anything they desire: "Believe it in your heart; say it with your mouth. That is the principle of faith. You can have what you say" (Charismatic Chaos, pp. 281, 285).

This is at the heart of the Positive Confession movement today, also known as the "name-it-and-claim-it" gospel. The Positive Confession movement is nothing but a charismatic form of Christian Science. This can be substantiated by simply comparing the similarities in their common beliefs. Positive Confession is basically warmed-over New Thought dressed in evangelical/charismatic language.

Positive Confession leaders have a wrong view of faith: Instead of trust in God as its object, it is a metaphysical force they trust. They have a wrong view of God: He is not sufficient in Himself, but can only do what He does by using this universal faith-force in obedience to certain cosmic laws. They have a wrong view of man: He is a little god in God's class who has the same powers as God and can use the same force of faith by obedience to the same laws that God also must obey. They also have a wrong view of redemption and the cross of Christ.

Word-Faith teachers owe their ancestry to groups like Christian Science, Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, Science of Mind, and New Thought -- not to classical Pentecostalism. It reveals that at their very core, Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism, and gnosticism that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the charismatic movement so far, because so many charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture (Charismatic Chaos, p. 290).

Linked to the Positive Confession movement is the concept of Positive Mental Attitude (PMA). PMA has become the major link between sorcery and Christianity. It is the human potential movement that incorporates the age old Eastern mystique that all men can acquire godhood, that "we can achieve anything we conceive." But the Bible says: "With God all things are possible." PMA, however, declares: "With man all things are possible," which means either that we do not need God or that we are God. Paul said, "I can do all things through Him [Christ] who strengthens me." The New Age/PMA "Christ" is a state of consciousness rather than a historic Person. The Christian has a positive attitude not because he believes in the power of positive thinking, but because he is trusting in God. The PMA that is promoted in today's New Age, however, is based upon humanistic psychology's first article of faith: "Human potential is infinite!" The real Christian is happy and positive in all circumstances because he believes that God, who alone is infinite, loves and cares for him. These two concepts -- Christian and PMA -- are mutually contradictory, in spite of the sincere people who believe they are the same thing expressed in different language.

Those directly responsible for bringing PMA into the professing church are Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone, the originators of the PMA concept, talk about "God" in their books, but their "God" is a metaphysical "Divine Power" that can be tapped into through mind-power techniques (from visualization to positive self-talk and other forms of self-hypnosis and self-image psychology). Hill and Stone don't substitute PMA for faith, but promote an even more dangerous idea: that PMA and faith are one and the same, that believing in the power of the mind is somehow the same as believing in God; that the human mind is some kind of magic talisman that wields a metaphysical force with infinite potential because, somehow, it is part of what they call Infinite Intelligence. This is the "God" of the mind-science cults and of the New Age.

Note: There are many faithful believers who live modestly and will never have more than the basic necessities of life. Yet they are content to have what they have. The prosperity teachers ridicule such and say that they only have that little because they don't trust God for more; the fact of their contentment (which is highly regarded by God) is looked upon as a lack of faith. And they are chastised because they haven't got the faith to get more so they can give more. Ultimately, the giving is expected to go into the coffers of the prosperity teacher; they may give to others, but not apart from also giving to the prosperity teacher.

All the prosperity teachers use a particular fear tactic to establish their rule for giving -- if you don't give, God will curse you. Many also teach that if one wishes to use the prosperity gospel for selfish ends -- to acquire personal wealth without giving -- it isn't going to work. If, however, one uses the prosperity gospel with the intention of acquiring wealth for unselfish purposes (i.e., giving to the prosperity teacher, no doubt), God's promise is that He will shower abundant financial blessings upon him.

There is not a single prosperity teacher who can rightly divide the Word of Truth sufficiently to be qualified as a teacher in the Church. They are renegades who present their own theories as absolute, Biblical authority. They allegorize, theorize, and spiritualize the Word of God; the only time they approach it from a literal standpoint is if it fits in with something they just happen to be saying that's true. Bottom line, the fact is that to deny the reality and to attempt to alter reality with one's positive words and/or thoughts is witchcraft; it is not Biblical. (Source: Media Spotlight -- v.13, #1, 12/92.)

[NOTE: This material is used by permission. Please click HERE for the full article.]

 

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