Prosperity Theology

One of the issues I have with PROSPERITY THEOLOGY...

  is that it gets folk focused on SELF, apart from the well being of the community. It is mostly about ME being blessed and highly favored, especially with an abundance - prosperity, about ME reaping the bountiful blessings... about ME getting more... the good of the community is often left out... it is not about US getting what WE need, but about ME getting more... given that some have very little, and the systematic efforts to keep them down in our society's economic and political systems, it is understandable... but preachers who constantly hit us over the head with SELF focus, and who portray God as an automatic formulaic equation of blessings by OUR actions, rather than about our dynamic relationship with God, can be a part of the predatory system themselves, especially because they demand folk give of their meager resources, promising a "return" by our supernatural God.

This leads me to another problem I have with it...

In our reliance for SELF on a SUPERNATURAL blessing that transcends the world, as a formulaic equation around our giving, folk do not so much gather with others to address the systemic holding down of our sisters and brothers who are in the same plight... we do not gather to CHANGE the unjust systems that hold people down, but rather look to the supernatural to fix our own situations... Those in the Civil Rights movement, many of them preachers, understood that God gives us minds and hearts - minds to understand the injustice and find ways to end it, and hearts to care, not only for our SELVES, but for the REST OF OUR COMMUNITIES, demanding justice, equity and equality... In embracing a focus on "ME", we lose our focus on "US", and we fail to address the injustices and inequities that hold MANY down among us... partly because the preachers who espouse this theology, out of fear of losing their 501c3 status, or in compliance with the system, hoping to be rewarded for it, or in order to personally profit from it, remain SILENT regarding the injustices and inequities of the system...

  In our faith history, God is NOT just the deliverer of individuals by supernatural means, but also the deliverer of whole peoples from their plight... whole communities...
When we understand that when EVERYONE has enough we ALL prosper, then we will stand together to demand enough for EVERYONE.

Until then, we will continue to hurt ourselves.  Silence implies compliance with or agreement with something.  It is wrong to remain silent, if we hope to follow Jesus, the one of Agape Love for Neighbor.

Pastor Jamie