THE “PROSPERITY GOSPEL”

One of the slogans of the disciples of this new cult is “Name it and claim it.” (Some wags have it as “Blab it/Grab it.) We’ve been hearing for decades that God’s will is that everyone should be healthy and prosperous, so that anyone who isn’t is simply lacking in faith. In fact, I remember a healing specialist from Saratoga Springs, New York who went so far as to say, “If we have enough faith, God has no choice but to heal.” I honestly don’t know what she did with the Apostle Paul’s statement that he had prayed fervently three times to be delivered of his “thorn in the flesh” (possible the best guess: malaria), but that all God did was tell him, “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.” It’s a little hard to imagine Paul as a man lacking in faith.

The healer to whom I’m referring did some significant damage. When my ten-year-old brother-in-law ultimately died of leukemia (this being in 1959, when kids generally didn’t recover from it), my mother-in-law blamed herself and the family for not having generated sufficient faith to keep him alive.

The so-called prosperity gospel, sometimes known as the health and wealth gospel, is probably strongest among the general run of televangelists and in the megachurches. It goes without saying that anything resembling responsible interpretation of the Bible, as opposed to proof-texting, is not permissible in this context. Children and teenagers are urged to memorize Scripture verses containing God’s promises, and steered away from any discussion of Jesus’ statement that anyone desiring to follow him must take up his cross and do so. The cross, of course, has become an innocuous symbol of the Christian faith, having lost the impact that it must have made when Jesus first mentioned it in this context, some time before he died on one. It was simply the epitome of cruel and unusual punishment, an unspeakable horror for anyone facing execution by that means. What Jesus was saying was that his followers must be ready to give their lives for him by the cruelest means of torture available to his enemies.

By the same token, the Greek behind our word “martyr” originally meant “witness.” In those first centuries of evangelism, being a witness for Christ meant exposing oneself to the very real possibility of dying for him, and in time the word took on the meaning we still give it. I have read in a responsible publication that no fewer than a half-billion Christians are currently living under persecution, out of a total of two billion worldwide who claim to be Christians. Try telling THEM their problem is a lack of faith.

But then, the prosperity gospel is nothing new. At one juncture Jesus felt constrained to get rid of the many hangers-on who expected him to keep them healthy and well-fed. He did so by telling them, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53, NIV). It seems obvious to most of us that he meant a total involvement in faith with him that would come to be symbolized in the Eucharist, but many didn’t stay around long enough to find out.

The texts plucked out of the Bible by the purveyors of this ideology may sound very convincing, but a wise Bible scholar once pointed out that a text without a context is nothing but a pretext. And the Apostle Paul, speaking of some early perversions of the simple faith, stated, “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” Pretty harsh words, but a lot was at stake, both then and now.

Around 1959, One of my professors remarked, “The battleground of the remainder of the twentieth century will be the question of authority.” It wasn’t long before, as someone said, Pope John XXIII decided to open the shutters to let in a little air and the wind blew them off the hinges. The former Cardinal Ratzinger has pointed out more than once that unjustified extrapolations from the proceedings of Vatican II have formed the basis of liberation theology, which first took hold largely in a Latin American Roman Catholic context. Specifically, the adherents of the Catholic branch of the movement have set aside the teaching office of their church and attempted to bring their own authority to the development of their system.

Liberation theology is based on a complex set of presuppositions growing out of the deconstructionist aspect of postmodernism. Specifically, since even the Bible is thought to be informed by the prejudices of its time, it is felt that we may legitimately reinterpret it in the light of the pressing concerns of our own sociopolitical environment. As Cardinal Ratzinger, presently the Pope, expresses it, now “the experience of the ‘community’ determines the understanding and the interpretation of Scripture.” He goes on to say that Karl Marx’s dialectical view of history is brought into play in liberation theology’s approach to the Bible, leading to the view that human beings must engage in revolutionary activities to bring about the liberation of the masses.

The ideology itself is rather complex and has many submovements within it, and perhaps that is inevitable in the nature of the case. If no one’s truth is authoritative, ideologies tend to splinter. Be that as it may, at its most basic level, liberation theology goes to the Bible and finds that God often warns his people that he opposes the rich when they oppress the helpless, and that he is on the side of the dispossessed. This theme runs right through the Hebrew prophets and is picked up in a startling way in Mary’s inspired hymn of praise when she declares of God, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:53, NIV).

The problem for those of us who still believe the Bible should be approached through a set of consecrated common-sense hermeneutical principles is that there is a tremendous logical leap between God’s declaring himself to be on the side of the dispossessed and against the wealthy exploiter, and the idea that human beings should foment revolution, including the use of violence “if necessary.” What is plain on the surface of the New Testament is that Jesus never suggests that his followers should take up arms to change the world. A group of zealots tried that and ended up dead on top of the Masada fortress. It is also plain that Jesus and his apostles intended rather to undermine the evils of their time. St. Paul’s statement that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) is one of the most radical pronouncements ever made in the ancient world. The fact that the church was extremely slow to implement its implications does not invalidate the case.

Furthermore, liberation theology strays so far from the clear meaning of the Scripture that it often ends in fanatical irrationality. A former colleague of mine was an extreme pacifist and, as a sincere Mennonite, profoundly dedicated to the cause of the poor and downtrodden of Latin America. Yet that led him to become so enamored of liberation theology that he believed it was legitimate for the poor to take up arms and massacre the rich. He even declared that the rich of Latin America did not deserve to have the gospel preached to them. Great idea. The Bible says I don’t either.

Back to the question of authority. The traditional Christian presupposition is that the Bible has God behind it and is therefore authoritative as it stands. Liberation theology’s presupposition is that the Bible is a fundamentally human document, complete with outdated ideologies that must be identified and rooted out. The only authoritative reading of it, then, is one that the proponents of liberation theology can convince the public is pertinent to our time.

Convince away, but Marxism isn’t doing so well, for all its talk about “praxis,” and the Judeo-Christian ethic of redemption of the whole person, when properly applied, still works in practice.

Someone working on the Maps of War site has done a wonderful job of graphically portraying the development of the major religious groups through history in the video entitled “History of Religion.” There are slight errors, for example the portrayal of all of Spain as under Islam in the eighth century AD, when the northwest corner remained steadfastly Catholic, but overall it is an excellent history lesson. What strikes me, though, is that the Jews were never particularly interested in converting people, but that the Christians took off from their base in Judaism and spread over much of the world through persuasion.

That was at the beginning. With their so-called triumphalism in place, the “Christians” lost their biblical bearings and began massacring people (including each other) in the name of their faith. Islam didn’t bother with any initial restraint, but spread mainly by way of conquest from the outset. Its representatives have been called “meataxe missionaries.” As for the Eastern religions, their emphases, in particular Gautama Buddha’s insistence that “life equals suffering,” inhibited any movement to improve the lot of the people in material terms for many centuries.

Oh, religion! What crimes have been committed in thy name!

Newsweek’s Allison Samuels writes in the May 11 Issue of NEWSWEEK that Oprah Winfrey joined Barack Obama’s Church to be with Chicago’s movers and shakers and left it in part because Rev Jeremiah Wright ‘incendiary’ rhetoric made her uncomfortable and that could hurt her professionally and because of her disquiet with organized religion. Oprah, says Samuels, was “blindsided” by Wright’s assault on Obama because she says Wright was a father figure. to Obama.

The article describes Obama as a man in search of his identity as a Black-American, and more importantly as a Black-American man. Samuels contends Wright and other men in the church helped him understand the Black-American experience.

Winfrey says Samuels had been around black churches all her life and was used to anger-filled messages. But, she decided her mainstream audience and doing anything to offend them ( including being around Wright) wouldn’t be smart.

Samuels’ article begs the question : If staying around Wright wouldn’t be smart in the judgment of an entertainer why would it be otherwise judged by a man desiring to be President with the greatest audience of all to answer to - the entire American people?

I don’t know if the electorate are really bitter or not, but today’s Ten Post Round-Up will probably leave a grimy taste in your mouth:

1: So it seems that the only people that benefit from your college education is the college and the banks that issue student loans…

America’s Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor’s Degree–The Chronicle of Higher Education

2: Glass houses come to mind…

You Can’t Complain About Sexism If You Participate In It–The Democratic Daily

3: Single mom flips the script and sues RIAA…

Accused music pirate turns the tables on the RIAA–Geeks Are Sexy

4: Dizzy is a sucker for true crime murder mysteries…

Smiley Face Killers: All About The Growing Mystery Gang–The Huffington Post

5: Wright-Obama controversy: An interesting perspective on why religion and politics should stay separate…

Separation of Church & State Really of Religion & Politics.–Hypocrisy.com

Ah, Monday! It’s like the weekend never happened. Rest assured, today’s Ten Post Round-Up will shake those weekend cobwebs from your brow:

1: A few things the MSM neglected to report on…

Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report–The Huffington Post

2: As the cost of food soars, so do the lines at local food banks…

Coping with soaring prices for the basics–Los Angeles Times

3: Just for kicks: Join the Million Blog List…

Welcome to Million Blog List - A blogosphere experiment–Million Blog List

4: Just who will benefit most from those “rebate checks”?…

$100+ BILLION giveaway to the oil, credit card and retail industries–My Three Cents

5: Americans are coming up with creative ways to save a few bucks…

Recession Diet Just One Way to Tighten Belt–New York Times

Retired Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Barack Obama’s 20-year pastor, said criticism of him was “unfair” and “devious,” and done by people who know nothing about his church. But, his comments have dragged Democrat Presidential nominee wannabe Obama into a storm raising questions about his judgment.

The criticism that Wright refers to was sparked by his proclaiming from the pulpit “God damn America” for its racism. He accused the government of flooding black neighborhoods with drugs and of creating the AIDS virus to kill blacks and branded the country as the KKK of America. Wright’s remarks are the subject of an interview on taxpayer funded PBS’s Bill Moyer’s Journal to be broadcast Friday evening.

Apparently Barack Obama’s pastor has launched a campaign to resurrect both their tattered images. Wright’s campaign to save the campaign for the Democrat Presidential nomination of Obama seems ill-advised and poorly considered because it will pull the lid off the issue of Obama’s 20-year relationship with Wright.

In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright’s comments, while also condemning his pastor’s statements and acknowledging white resentment of African-Americans. Asked his response to the senator’s speech, Wright said, “He’s a politician, I’m a pastor.”

Political commentators on Friday’s Good Morning America, that broke news and showed excerpts from the Moyer interview said Obama’s people must be “tearing their hair out” because of Wright’s campaign. That seems to be a fairly general consensus.

Wright is scheduled to speak Sunday at a Chicago NAACP Dinner and Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. Wright’s campaign comes as GOP Presidential nominee Senator John McCain is arguing with the North Carolina Republican Party over its ad excoriating Wright and Obama for his connection to him. The TV ad is scheduled to run Monday, ahead of the state’s crucial May 6 primary. A narrator in the spot says, “He’s just too extreme for North Carolina.” McCain has asked local officials not to run the ad, but the state GOP said no.