#prosperity gospel preachers

[wisdomfish]

Seems many preachers fall into one of two categories:

Those who only want to talk about God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, and all the things God wants to do for them. Many of these individuals could be considered “health and wealth” or “prosperity preachers.” They only want to teach on the blessings.

Others who only want to talk about God’s justice, holiness, wrath, anger, judgment, and punishment. We call these “fire and brimstone” preachers. They only want to teach on the woes.

But Jesus taught on both. He discussed the Narrow Gate that leads to life, and the Wide Gate that leads to destruction (Matt 7:13-14). In the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus He explained the comfort of Abraham’s Bosom and the torment of hell. He was a balanced teacher!

Or at least it seems that way at first… 

[Jesus spoke] twice as often of hell as of heaven. ~ D.A. Carson

[Jesus] spoke more often about hell than he did about heaven. We cannot get around this fact. ~ Leon Morris

Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven in order to warn men of its reality. ~ John MacArthur

But while I can’t say Jesus was a balanced teacher, I can say He was a loving teacher.

~ Scott LaPierre

[politicalprof]

I, for one, am totally baffled as to how a population of people accustomed to giving their limited, hard-earned, money to a bunch of corrupt, gospel of wealth spewing millionaire preachers have suddenly become willing to give their limited, hard-earned, money to a corrupt "billionaire" purveyor of hate, bile, and false promises of prosperity.

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Another Analysis Friday, another Hazbin Hotel essay! Y’all told me your thoughts on their posing as hellvangelists on Sunday…

And I’m impressed! I can’t tell if Alastor won just because we all love him though. 😂 I personally like the costumes equally.

But the best part is that these costumes and their associated roles play into Vox and Alastor themselves!

Vox likes clout. He may like to have it in a more mature, business way than Velvette, but he’s still a clout-chaser. So, posing as a televangelist during his song makes complete sense! Despite humility being a big thing Jesus focused on, televangelists are known instead for their bombastic, fake, hell-emphasizing, prosperity gospel-embracing sermons spread across the screen. I remember the days of early Saturday morning being plagued by these guys as a kid.

As for Alastor? He’s hard at work behind the scenes, just as nuns and monks historically have done forever. While not necessarily humble, he doesn’t chase attention so much as asserts dominance if anyone questions him. Alastor’s disarming smile downplays his real power, so people pay attention when he does make his presence known. Similarly we are still guessing about his intentions and deal, as he would much rather not have either announced. And, nuns aren’t trying to outdo each other, unlike the sorts of preachers seeking to get rich rather than help others. Alastor is so out of Vox’s league that he doesn’t even see him as competition!

Naturally, these takes are opposed to each other just like Alastor and Vox are.

And bonus points for personal details on their clothing! Vox’s signature static waves on his robes, and the x symbols (matching his death injury in life) on Alastor’s habit. Love that these are on his habit at all, as he was shot in the head.

As a fun extra bit of religious trivia today, let’s just note that the inverted cross only became a Satanic visual in the late 1800s due to Eugene Vintras’ possibly occult masses, and definitely his eccentric followers. Lucifer uses the pentagram himself, which has been a symbol of divine powers since Babylonian times at least. It also became Satanic in the same time period due to an entirely different reason.

[echthr0s]

I love the many flavours Christianity kink can come in because everyone knows about the Catholicism flavour (priests/nuns and elaborate vestments, confessionals, the Eucharist, heavy emphasis on sin) but there's so many others depending on what version of Christianity was most relevant for one in one's formative years

like I grew up with like... a combination Pentecostal / AME / Baptist understanding of Christianity, so my foundation for religion-based kink is hellfire-and-brimstone revival preachers, small ramshackle churches built in the 1800s (that may or may not have other entities in residence waiting to possess the pious), glossolalia and ecstatic dance, crossroads devils and wandering preachers, that sort of thing. I only got into the Catholic version later on, after my kink had already been well-established -- y'all definitely have the monopoly for a reason, I get it, there's a lot to mine there

(there's also some prosperity gospel in my background, like Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar were big hits with the older people around me so I think megachurch corruption is a Very Good space to play in)

but I will always be loyal to my wild-haired wild-eyed dark-skinned backwoods preacher man gripping the sides of the pulpit as he shouts desperately to a sweating and swaying congregation whilst the corruption welling up from deep under the warped floorboards slowly devours him

[n3xii]

self help gurus vs capitalism

I don't like when self help gurus will be like ''yea capitalism is apart of the problem but you still have control over your situation so stop playing victim"

Most people who are anti-capitalist are not using their critique of the capitalist system as an ultimatum between taking responsibility and victim hood. in fact, we know we can only control whats in our hands. we know that we are responsible for healing ourselves in order to create a better world. we know that hard work is what it will take to improve our lifes and circumstances. if anything, thats why most of us advocate for community outreach, working with others, volunteering, protesting etc. most of us work harder than the self help gurus do. but we are also sick of the regurgitated, condescending and often times contradicting content trying to convince us that the reason we are sad, lonely and poor isn't because we are working our asses off to make some ceo richer, or because our tax dollars are being used to fund mass murder of Palestinians, but because of our "mindsets" manifested our situation. its a glorified, twisted form of victim blaming. and i dont think alot of these self help gurus realize they are only supporting the systems they claim used to victimize them as well.

Alot of these self help gurus don't want you to be aware or at the very most, pointing the finger towards systematic issues because its not in their best interest if you realize that most of your issues arent because of YOU. In fact, many self help gurus advocate for selfishness and isolation so that you focus more on yourself, your problems, staying inside your own little bubble...

healing yourself does make the world better, spending time alone in is at many times very necessary in order to obtain clarity and a stronger sense of self. but in order to create real change, we must be mobilized as a collective. despite our differences, despite our wounds and traumas, most of us are unified against oppression, fascism, and exploitation. and that will require us to come outside of our bubbles in order to help each other.

I just read a response from a self help guru to a person pointing this out explicitly saying that we shouldnt be mobilizing against or blaming our issues on capitalistic systems, instead we need to work on ourselves because its our fault were in this situation regardless of capitalism. its a blatant admission that this type of prosperity content is meant to discourage action and moralization against the systems that oppress us.

fuck people like this. They use their claimed experiences of overcoming hardship as a way to redirect a persons pain and frustration towards themselves and not at the systems that put them in that circumstance in the first place. read that again.

at some point were gonna have tor reconcile with the fact that alot of these self help gurus are three prosperity gospel preachers in a trenchcoat. they preach spiritual healing, self accountability and praise the capitalistic systems that give them the outreach they have. the more sadder you are, the easier it is to make money off of ''healing'' you.

[cassianus]

A certain, very peculiar form of Christianity shows a face that is bureaucratic, authoritarian, cerebral, and smug. It makes us forget that the true apostle proclaims the mystery of God’s saving love in Jesus with his whole life—with what he does with his body no less than with his words. It makes us forget, too, that, because it is a crucified Savior who is being proclaimed (1 Cor 2:2), the apostle demonstrates his authenticity, not by the coherence of his logic (1 Cor 2:4-7), but by his stigmata—that is, by the concrete evidence on his body and on his life that he has borne the saving cross along with Jesus at great personal cost: “I bear on my body the marks (στίγματα) of Jesus”, says Paul (Gal 6:17). No one can, without bleeding hands, remove the crown of thorns from the brow of our crucified King.

No one can, by clutching his own unscathed life, proclaim the God who emptied himself. All the apostle’s words and deeds and very breathing ought to be an outpouring of self that loses itself in the one kenotic tide of the Word uttered by the Father into a world of misery. Nor can this kenotic event remain a purely “mystical” reality. We see all too palpably in the Savior’s person, as portrayed in the Passion narratives, the ravages that the work of redemption inflicts on man’s flesh and psyche. Compared to Christ’s kenosis, even Socrates’ wisdom appears shallow and conceited. At bottom, it is not the unexamined but the unspent life that is not worth living.

Certain cultural forms of Christianity have inured us to a fundamental truth of the Gospel, namely, that evangelists—the preachers of the Good News of all stripes—must become in every way as socially poor, downtrodden, and persecuted as the Word they proclaim became during his historical existence in our world. This is why the whole notion of “success” is extremely questionable when applied to the life of the Church and her members. We can never lose from sight the truth that Jesus “succeeded” in redeeming the world only on the Cross. This is why all forms of worldly triumphalism, power, riches, influence, comfortable establishment, and self-congratulation are an abomination when practiced by Christians in the name of Christ.

From our long experience of a Christianity and a Church comfortably established in the world and running its “business” of evangelization with all-too-worldly means and standards of success, we have come to identify “the poor and the destitute” only as those unfortunates in society on whom the Church and her prosperous members condescendingly exercise works of charity.

How many of us would ever unreflectedly predicate the attributes “poor”, “hungry”, and “naked” of the Church of Christ as such or of her clergy, teachers, and leaders? That is why it comes as a great shock to us and, indeed, why at first we find it almost incomprehensible for Jesus to take it for granted that our own brothers and his intimate apostles, who live according to his own Heart, are necessarily going to be the least members of a self-serving society. It is the shepherds themselves who ought to be the neediest “charity cases”, and not the vagrants knocking at the rectory door!

Erasmo Merikakis

[call-me-overcomer]

We're watching American Gospel in Bible study and at one point a lady says she now has visceral reactions to hearing prosperity preachers, meanwhile every one of us in that room is nearly shouting at the TV every time there's a clip of one of those guys.

[hiswordsarekisses]

“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah‬ ‭55‬:‭11‬

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭14‬-‭17‬

[feedingtheflockministry]

There is a lot of truth to this statement

Many American Christians believe in Jesus Christ, but walk according to the desires of their flesh. For the teachings of Jesus are; love one another, walk in forgiveness, be kind, merciful, and humble, be peacemakers, freely giving as you freely received, to focus on Him and the Kingdom of Heaven, to practice righteousness, to not condemn others that are your enemies but instead pray for their hearts to be softened to repentance and receive salvation. To teach new disciples of Christ The Way (His way).

However, American Christianity is polluted with the prosperity gospel message (and other twisted teachings), and therefore selfishness and personal wealth is the focus. Preachers that take money for teaching others what The Lord freely gave in the scriptures, and prophets doing the same with visions and dreams. They publicly speak words of condemnation and punishment for those in political offices they disagree with forgetting that with the same measure of judgement they use it will be measured back to them in the end. They do the same with others that claim Christ as their Savior and Lord that do not accept their words as truth.

Many American preachers sale books and videos for profit, and make the gospel into a business by means of television and social media accounts. Speaking of blessings for a dollar amount claiming that The Lord told them to say this, while the prophets of old spoke harshly against such practices. They financially prey on the elderly and widows instead of taking care them. They use the Bible in a manipulative way to gain control over others, and give them a false sense of peace while they continue to walk in sinful practices. Preachers that live luxurious lives while those in their congregations struggle to pay their bills and feed their families. Religious leaders caught in sexual misconduct with children and those they are not married to. For their pride and arrogance knows no end.

Woe to American Christianity, for its practices are wicked and are a stumbling block to those that seek salvation through Jesus Christ, but blindly say, “Is not the LORD in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us.” For on account of you many have gone after other gods, and sought The Way, The Truth, and The Life elsewhere. Jesus Himself gave a sever warning about such people who cause others to stumble, but because many have made money their god they ignore such warnings from The Master that bought them.

Repent America! Turn back to The Author of Life and away from evil practices! For your path is broad and wide, not straight and narrow. For the path you travel leads you and those that follow you to their own destructive end. For there are pastors in hell right now screaming in misery and great sorrow, “I shouldn’t have taken the money!” over and over again.

[leonbloder]

The Prosperity Gospel Isn't Good News

The prosperity gospel crowd (who claim that if you give to their church, you will get more back from God than you give) often misuses a verse from Matthew's Gospel to make their case.  

Here, it is from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible: 

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

A lot of biblical translations employ similar language for the last line of the verse, translating the last word as "money," "wealth," or "riches." 

However, one version leaves intact in its original form the word used by the author of Matthew's Gospel, the Revised Standard Version (RSV).  The word many other versions translate as "money" is mammon in the RSV.  

Adherents and leaders within the prosperity gospel movement love this verse because it gives them an on-ramp to an argument that people should give more to their ministries.  

Aside from being a gross and self-serving interpretation of the text, those who focus solely on translating mammon to money miss the whole point of the statement itself. 

There's so much more here than a simple indictment of loving money more than God, so much more.  

The word mammon refers to an entire system Fr. Richard Rohr describes as "disorder."  Money may be a part of it, but the more expansive interpretation of mammon shows us that it includes power, inequality, oppression, and privilege. 

Many scholars have further expanded the word mammon to be a slang reference to a Canaanite and Mesopotamian god who demanded sacrifices from his adherents, including the sacrifice of their children, in order to grant them their wishes.  

In short, Jesus appears to be describing a system that acts like a false god or an idol that constantly demands more and more of us without offering anything in return other than emptiness and misery. 

Those who short-change this interpretation by focusing solely on money unwittingly buy into what they say they are trying to avoid.  

Jesus is saying here that you can't live in two worlds.  You can't have one foot in the kingdom of God and another in the kingdom of mammon.  There's no middle ground with this.  

Fr. Richard Rohr puts it like this: 

The love of God can’t be doled out by any process whatsoever. We can’t earn it. We can’t lose it. As long as we stay in this world of accumulation, of earning and losing, we’ll live in perpetual resentment, envy, or climbing. 

This also needs to be said: 

If you have ever been poor, you know what it's like to live in scarcity, to be uncertain whether to feed your family or keep the lights on because sometimes you must make that choice. 

For some cynical preacher to take a verse like Matthew 6:24 and use it to prey primarily on people who don't have any wealth at all is unconscionable.  

These preachers are either unwittingly or uncritically serving mammon when they do this.  Their business model is grounded in accumulation and earning.  The "gospel" they preach is a self-serving black hole that takes and takes but rarely gives.  

God's love is not contingent upon how much or little we give to our church.  God's love is unconditional.  When we live with both feet firmly planted in God's kingdom, we become ambassadors of God's shalom.  

We live out of the abundance of God's love rather than the scarcity of mammon. 

When we live this way, our generosity is not coerced or an obligation. Our entire lives are an offering of gratitude for what God has done, is doing, and will do in our lives.  

May we learn to live more fully out of this abundance.  May we plant our feet firmly in God's kingdom of shalom. And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us now and always.  Amen.  

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

The prosperity gospel is one of the most prominent false teaching movements of our day. Prosperity gospel preachers and televangelists have deceived multitudes around the world with a false gospel, teaching that individuals who exercise true faith in Christ will surely attain physical, material, and financial prosperity in this life…

[rosebleue]

Gospel of prosperity folks are not believers on a 1st century jewish man who preached love and mutual aid being the sole begotten son of god almighty, come to experience humanity, befriend us and saving humans from death and the limitations of his first creation

They're firm believers of god being santa, and if you're a good patootie who believes the right things and says the right words, god will be forced to deliver your christmas list because he doesn't have a will or a plan of his own, he's just a cosmic vending machine of blessings. His aforementioned preacher son is just this older son-of-god brother they have who taught them the magic words to be wealthy capitalists, who cares what he personally believed.

"but you're not a christian why do you care" because greedy selfish ideas dressing themselves as piety are currently massive in the zeitgeist and it's Driving Me Nuts.

I think we should all, christians, non christians and non theists equally remove them from the "christian denominations" umbrella, because they fail the basic criteria. Heretic is way too nice for them. Greedy quacks is more like it.

[sidebaxolotl]

did you grow up Christian? Whether you did/didn't, is your family (especially immediate) Christian now?

(Just out of curiosity, it doesn't matter either way)

I did not grow up Christian. We went to church when I was really little but we quickly stopped as I got older and I didnt really know anything about the bible or Jesus--though it may have planted a seed bc i remember from a young age being curious about the Bible and having a desire to know/hear from God.

But yeah i didnt have the whole veggietales/bibleman/youth group experience that a lot of Christians I know had. I'm kinda thankful for that in hindsight because I for know for sure that my faith is my own and not just something I did bc my parents told me. I also think it gives me a unique perspective among other Christians that can be valuable sometimes.

My sibling is Christian, I preached the gospel to her and she believed.

My parents I'm not sure. We've had many arguments about faith--particularly after my conversion, and I don't get the sense that they know God very well or are living their lives for Him. They grew up in church though, and my mother seems to know a lot of scripture but not necessarily what it means or how to apply it to her life. I'm leaning towards no, as they'd rather watch prosperity gospel preachers on tv than go to church with us on Sunday. I would ask that you pray for them in this regard as my sister and I continue to minister to them.

[papirouge]

I think it's interesting that evangelicals love clowning prosperity gospel and be like "oh we would never say that heretical crap!" yet never take the time to distance themselves of much more outrageous & offensive "Christians" preachers like Steven Anderson is that Steven Anderson is saying the quiet part loud. Evangelicals would never be like "ohh that would NEVER be us!!" because truth is.....they actually are. Behind curtains.

[troybeecham]

Today, the Church remembers St. Joseph of Arimathea, Disciple of Jesus, one of the Seventy.

Ora pro nobis.

Joseph of Arimathea was, according to all four canonical Christian Gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after his crucifixion. A number of stories that developed during the Middle Ages connect him with Glastonbury, where the stories said he founded the earliest Christian oratory, and also with the Holy Grail legend.

Matthew 27:57 described him simply as a rich man and disciple of Jesus, but according to Mark 15:43 Joseph of Arimathea was "a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God"; and Luke 23:50–56 adds that he "had not consented to their decision and action".

According to John 19:38, upon hearing of Jesus' death, this secret disciple of Jesus "asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission." Joseph immediately purchased a linen shroud (Mark 15:46) and proceeded to Golgotha to take the body of Jesus down from the cross. There, according to John 19:39-40, Joseph and Nicodemus took the body and bound it in linen cloths with the spices that Nicodemus had bought. The disciples then conveyed the prepared corpse to a tomb hewn into rock. The Gospel of Matthew alone suggests that this was Joseph's own tomb (Matthew 27:60). The burial was undertaken speedily, "for the Sabbath was drawing on".

Legends about the arrival of Christianity in Britain abounded during the Middle Ages. Early writers do not connect Joseph to this activity, however.

Tertullian (AD 155–222) wrote in Adversus Judaeos that Britain had already received and accepted the Gospel in his lifetime, writing, "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons—inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ."

Tertullian does not say how the Gospel came to Britain before AD 222.

However, Eusebius of Caesarea, (AD 260–340), one of the earliest and most comprehensive of church historians, wrote of Christ's disciples in Demonstratio Evangelica, saying that "some have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain."

Saint Hilary of Poitiers (AD 300–376) also wrote that the Apostles had built churches and that the Gospel had passed into Britain.

The writings of Pseudo-Hippolytus include a list of the seventy disciples whom Jesus sent forth in Luke 10, one of which is Aristobulus of Romans 16:10, called "bishop of Britain".

In none of these earliest references to Christianity’s arrival in Britain is Joseph of Arimathea mentioned. William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae ("On the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury", circa 1125) has not survived in its original edition, and the stories involving Joseph of Arimathea are contained in subsequent editions that abound in interpolations placed by the Glastonbury monks "in order to increase the Abbey's prestige – and thus its pilgrim trade and prosperity" In his Gesta Regum Anglorum (History of The Kings of England, finished in 1125), William of Malmesbury wrote that Glastonbury Abbey was built by preachers sent by Pope Eleuterus to Britain, however also adding: "Moreover there are documents of no small credit, which have been discovered in certain places to the following effect: 'No other hands than those of the disciples of Christ erected the church of Glastonbury';" but here William did not explicitly link Glastonbury with Joseph of Arimathea, but instead emphasizes the possible role of Philip the Apostle: "if Philip, the Apostle, preached to the Gauls, as Freculphus relates in the fourth chapter of his second book, it may be believed that he also planted the word on this side of the channel also."

Merciful God, whose servant Joseph of Arimathaea with reverence and godly fear prepared the body of our Lord and Savior for burial, and laid it in his own tomb: Grant to us, your faithful people, grace and courage to love and serve Jesus with sincere devotion all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

[oneheadtoanother]

how u gonna reblog a post blatantly equating fascism with the new thought movement then days later reblog quotes from the Tao Te Ching. There's tremendous overlap in the schools of thought but I'm jw does following the flow of nature make u a fascist or not....

They don't seem very similar to me, though I'm sure some Taoism is in the syncretic grab-bag of New Thought. I wouldn't claim it's an inherently fascistic line of thought in itself, but people like Trump (The Power of Positive Thinking is supposedly the only book he's actually read) and prosperity gospel megachurch preachers are using New Thought ideas as an engine to galvanize the far right. That's simply a fact (although in fairness to your point that's not the whole picture of NT and its influence). I'd say the relationship is more analogous to how Blavatsky & Theosophy had significant influence on the Nazis without being especially fascistic in their own right. I would say in both cases the prior spiritual movements bear limited but not negligible responsibility for how their messages were open to later misuse. For example, the law of attraction easily lends itself to an attitude of blaming the poor and disadvantaged for their own situation, which is obviously something a fascist can pick up and run with for their own ends.

Also reblogging a quote from the Tao Te Ching doesn't mean I'm a Taoist. I'm ambivalent about the idea of "following the flow of nature" without a better understanding of how one understands the concept of "nature" and what following its flow looks like.