Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Blab it and Grab it


Time Magazine reports on the growing trend amongst churches (predominantly of the pentecostal persuasion) of the Prosperity Gospel. Commonly known as the Name and Claim it, Health and Wealth Gospel or the more colloquial Blab it and Grab it. These are some of the megachurches not only in the United States but also in Australia amongst the network of the Assemblies of God with the most notable being Hillsong and affiliated churches who also endorse such doctrine (You need more money authored by Hillsong pastor Brian Houston)

Prominent purveyors of this Prosperity Gospel or Prosperity Lite as it is now becoming known are the well known televangelists such as Hinn, Osteen, Meyer, Dollar et al who regularly travel the world in well paying speaking engagements promoting such doctrines.

"Who would want
to get in on something where you're miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven?" asks Joyce Meyer, a popular television preacher and author often lumped in the Prosperity Lite camp. "I believe God wants to give us nice things."

However one does not have to sell out to this Lite Gospel to have a megachurch. Dr John MacArthur has a large church in Sun Valley, California and is totally opposed to such money hungry doctrines and preachers.
More important than numbers, programs, and structures, however, is the foundation for the spiritual life of Grace Community Church that has been built. This foundation includes sound doctrine, spiritual leadership, and active service. We are convinced that God's legacy of faithfulness to us will continue in the future if we remain faithful to Him and His Word.
The promotion of such 'doctrine' or 'theology' as Health/Wealth is dangerous as it is a step back towards aethism.

As Rev David Cook puts it very plainly - "[That]is the tragedy of Pentecostalism that people do not have a biblical contentment with their current experience of Christ and go looking for more and when the answer is given to them and they don’t find it there they think there’s nothing in this Christianity and they leave the faith and that is the great tragedy. We need to call on our brothers and sisters who are in Christ to get back to the Word because that’s where certainty alone is to be found."

2 Comments:

At 4:01 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

All I can say about the prosperity gospel preahcers is why don't they pray for something that will help other people? Why can't they cure cancer or AIDS or diabetes or something that benefits somebody other than themselves

 
At 7:24 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Exactly - what a great idea - I wonder if they have thought of that yet - probably not - they do far too much navel gazing and self grandizing especially when they continue to run the lucrative speaking circuit which is how they make a lot of their money - for themselves of course!!

Lord Veritas

 

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