Gospel.com Blog

There’s a fascinating and disturbing new article by Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic that wonders if popular Christian teaching about money and finances contributed to the recent economic crash.

I’ve read many critiques of “prosperity theology” over the years, and tend to agree with claims that it’s a dangerous and unbiblical twist on the Gospel message. And most of the critiques I’ve read have focused on the phenomenon’s theological merits. But what are the real-world results of applying prosperity theology to your life? Are you more likely to take out a mortgage you can’t afford? Are you more likely to live beyond your means? The Atlantic piece finds some evidence that there’s more than just theology at stake:

More recently, critics have begun to argue that the prosperity gospel, echoed in churches across the country, might have played a part in the economic collapse. In 2008, in the online magazine Religion Dispatches, Jonathan Walton, a professor of religious studies at the University of California at Riverside, warned:

Narratives of how “God blessed me with my first house despite my credit” were common … Sermons declaring “It’s your season of overflow” supplanted messages of economic sobriety and disinterested sacrifice. Yet as folks were testifying about “what God can do,” little attention was paid to a predatory subprime-mortgage industry, relaxed credit standards, or the dangers of using one’s home equity as an ATM.

In 2004, Walton was researching a book about black televangelists. “I would hear consistent testimonies about how ‘once I was renting and now God let me own my own home,’ or ‘I was afraid of the loan officer, but God directed him to ignore my bad credit and blessed me with my first home,’” he says. “This trope was so common in these churches that I just became immune to it. Only later did I connect it to this disaster.”

The article also points out some truly disturbing instances in which banks and churches collaborated to pitch “financial empowerment.” The article is worth reading in full; it does not leave one feeling very positive about the prosperity gospel, but it does give adherents a chance to defend their beliefs.

After you’ve read the article, I also recommend a follow-up post at the Kruse Kronicle blog which cautions that Christians shouldn’t pin all of the blame on prosperity teaching. Mainstream churches too have failed to help Christians discern and follow Biblical teachings about money and finances.

What do you think? Does the church bear any blame for Americans’ poor financial habits and the economic crisis that continues to exact its toll on millions? What could or should the church be doing to help, now that the crisis is here?

Last year I saw a chunk of the Berlin Wall at a museum, it was a profoundly ugly chunk of concrete and I cannot imagine being separated from family and friends by it. I was far too young to register the significance of the wall coming down when I was younger, but the twenty year anniversary has given me a good chance to retroactively be in awe of what it meant for Germany and the world.

Christianity Today has an interview with a German pastor that gives some insight into what the Wall meant and how it’s still affecting life today.

Here’s an excerpt:

What can Christians take away from the fall of the Berlin Wall?

It’s a shame that we still have an invisible wall. People who are extremely left wing or extremely conservative in their political stance never meet at the same table or shake hands.

What did really unite the first churches? It was not a shared cultural background, as some were Jews and others Gentiles of many different kinds. It was not a fully shared set of rules and regulations, as Jewish believers followed some very different rules than Gentile believers, and as Paul rules out the law as a foundation in Ephesians 2:15. But it is also not the “multicultural” approach that is popular today in the political and public arena where everything is being held together by an unquestionable respect for the differences of the other. In the early church there was much questioning, admonishing, and discussing, theologically as well as ethically, about the right and just way.

The church creates this amazing opportunity; in the church people can come together that would otherwise never sit together: people from the political right and left, people having very different attitudes about sex, power, and money, people who suffered from communists and people who were communists, the “environmentalist” and liberal “capitalist,” people with Jewish backgrounds and others with German, Arab, or other backgrounds. Not by simply tolerating each other and leaving each other untouched, but by welcoming each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and then the joined struggle begins. What truly unites us is the shared confession of Christ and a life-long struggle with each other and with God to find a biblical way for life and work.

What about you? Do you remember when the wall came down? Did it mean anything to you and your faith?

A few days ago, Out of Ur pointed to this video on the prosperity Gospel produced by The Global Conversation, which is a partnership between Christianity Today and the Lausanne Movement. The Global Conversation is a year-long project exploring global Christianity through videos and essays.

The video describes how the export of the distinctly American prosperity Gospel is affecting Africa:

The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

One of the goals of contemporary Christianity is to translate the Bible into every possible language. It’s a desire that flows from the Great Commission in which Jesus tells us to go make disciples of all nations. We see Bible translation as a way to ensure that everyone has access to becoming one of Christ’s disciples.

Yesterday, I ran across a fascinating article yesterday that Lausanne Pulse published a few years ago about the history of Bible translation. In the article they mention that the Bible spent the first 1500 years of Christianity in only 35 languages. It wasn’t until the Reformation that Christians started focusing on Bible translation. Yet despite that renewed focus, it took the organization of the Bible Societies in the 1800s for Christians for it to really take off.

The following is a conglomeration of two charts from the Lausanne Pulse article, Bible Translation in a New Millennium:

I don’t have much commentary on this other than to say that it’s just amazing to see how we’ve doubled the number of languages the Bible can be read in in the past seventy years! Yet, even though we’ve made such great progress in the past few hundred years, there are still about 4,000 languages to go.

Unless you’re living on Mars, every day you’re faced with ideas and philosophies—both subtle and obvious—that are contrary to the Christian worldview.

So, how do you maintain a Godly perspective throughout the day?

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries answers the question as it relates to college students in the video below:

Watch other RZIM videos at their video teaching page.

What do you think?

Pastor Eugene Cho of Quest Church out in Seattle has a heart for the impoverished. He cares about them so much that’s he’s giving away his entire 2009 salary.

It’s all part of the kick-off for the site One Day’s Wages, which is devoted to connecting donors with organizations who are actively involved in combating global poverty and injustice. The site frames giving in terms of what you earn in a day, which is about .4% of your salary for the year.

By now, you’ve all heard the statistic that billions of people are living off of less than 2 dollars a day, which—to be honest—is staggering in itself, but really hit home for me after I used ODW’s calculator to determine how much I made in a day. It’s sobering to think that in one week I’ll make more than many people do in an entire year. I absolutely can afford to give up one day’s wages, no matter how tight my budget might feel to me.

You can hear more about One Day’s Wages from Eugene in this introductory video:

The Movement of One Day’s Wages from One Day's Wages on Vimeo.

Last week, floods swept through Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in India, causing massive destruction and leaving thousands homeless. Mission Network News reports that Christian ministries have been stepping up to the plate to help with relief efforts:

The mass flooding in India has so far claimed the lives of over 230 people and has displaced thousands more. The damage has obviously been detrimental enough to label this flood as the worst in the century. But according to several media sources, relief efforts from the Indian government have been inadequate. The unfortunately deficient response has left many victims of the flooding without even basic needs to survive the aftermath of the large scale natural disaster.

A cry for help has unsurprisingly been let out for others to step in and take care of the victims. India Partners quickly stepped in by providing immediate and longer-term assistance.

“Our partners on the ground are going to provide food and blankets, clean water and medicine for survivors,” explains India Partners’ Brent Hample.

Gospel For Asia has a special section on their website about relief efforts in the aftermath of the flooding, which includes some stirring photos of the stricken area and the relief work underway there. Let’s keep the flood survivors and the relief operations in our prayers.

Every year, Muslims around the world celebrate a month of intentional and rigid fasting called Ramadan. From sun up to sun down, they fast from anything considered not of good nature or considered excessive: eating, drinking, smoking, sex, etc. If you’re interested in knowing more, you can read more about Ramadan on wikipedia.

World Christian ministries publishes a prayer guide for Christians to follow along during the month of Ramadan. It attempts to educate Christians about worldwide Islamic culture and gives them ways in which to pray for Muslims.

Mission Network News is distributing the book this year. They recently published an article about the prayer calendar and Ramadan.

Here’s an excerpt:

“It [World Christian's 30-Days Muslim Prayer Guide] literally takes you around the world introducing you to various countries, regions, people groups and even issues that are facing the Islamic culture today,” said Greg Yoder, executive director of MNN.

Yoder believes this guide is one of the best resources available for average Christians to gain information and understanding of the Islamic culture. The booklet is mostly centered around Ramadan.

“World Christian has put together this booklet that will help you pray each day, at the same time Muslims are praying,” said Yoder. “The twist is this: we’re encouraging Christians to pray that many of these Muslims will turn to Christ.”

You can order the book through Mission Network News. Even if you don’t, consider spending some time praying for our Islamic neighbors during Ramadan this year.

Adventures in Missions recently held a photography contest. Its goal: to find pictures that capture “a soul, a moment, a place and a ministry.”

The resulting photos are stunning slices of humanity from around the world. There are pictures of babies and baptisms; prayers and outstretched hands; landscapes and cityscapes; and moments of intense spirituality. The net effect provides a wonderful glimpse into the life of a missionary.

Here’s my favorite photo from the set:

You can see all the winners at the Mission Photo Contest Final Winners blog post or at the Adventures in Missions Flickr site.

For Pastor Chandan, the sentence “if you build it they will come” ended with the phrase “and tear it down.”

His calling was relatively simple: build a church in the tea fields of Sri Lanka to serve the people there. But the reaction he got was rather unexpected. A gang of anti-Christian extremists organized and destroyed his church, damaged his home and even physically attacked him. According to a Gospel for Asia report, the church building was destroyed five times.

But what makes this story really interesting is that some of the same people who antagonized Chandan and his ministry now worship at the church every Sunday.

Few things are as inspiring as a person who overcomes trials and obstacles to do what they know is right. We all know that accomplishing great things often means living through significant pain and tribulation, but the grinding reality of what this missionary endured is still sobering. Stories like his make even the most arduous church-planting experiences here in the West seem simple by comparison.

At the Gospel for Asia site, you can see a slideshow of pictures of Chandan and his church, as well as donate to their cause.