Prosperity Gospel is a movement within the Evangelical side of the Christian church that has a long standing tradition . . . that tradition is rooted firmly in hucksterism, conmen, sleight of faith, and out and out fraud.
It feeds upon the desperation and fears of a population and essentially preys upon those who can’t afford it, offering salvation and riches while delivering pain, sorrow, and broken promises.
Pastor Rick Henderson has an excellent piece you should head over and read . . . http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pastor-rick-henderson/osteen-meyer-prosperity-gospel_b_3790384.html.
Here’s a video from John Piper on the subject:
Now, my objections to this particular false doctrine is not specifically the same as Piper’s and Henderson’s . . . while I have reverend credentials, my ministry has nothing to do with theirs and is not limited to their scope or interpretation. The prosperity gospel folks do indeed tend to preach a fasle doctrine within the Christian perspective they claim to follow . . . that’s very clear to anyone with a passing critical understanding of the life and work and philosophy of Jesus but even those who are not Christian can see that these people are scammers. They prey upon the innocent and bamboozle them into providing more and more money for no return – real or imagined.
The critical factors of their minds have been bypassed big time.
While there are many wonderful and very good Christians out there preaching the Word . . . the Prosperity Gospel folks are not amongst them . . . they preach an evil program that sounds good because it appeals to greed, pure and simple. They use social engineering and influence principles the same way con men do when scamming folks. If there is Evil in the world, these folks are playing for that team . . . big time.
At the beginning of my social influence and communication courses at the university, I bring up what I call the Quintilian Paradigm that states that “the essence of communication is a good person speaking well” in that we should learn to communicate and influence others but when we do so it is for the betterment of all and that manipulation only for the sake of one’s own greedy self-interest is wrong. Many of the proponents of Prosperity Gospel may indeed be speaking well and they may indeed say they are speaking for the best-interest of others but they are not. These are NOT good people, they’re manipulative evil pricks taking advantage of others.
Live Trance and Prosper,
Brian
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com
