 |
Actscelerate.com
Open Any Time -- Day or Night
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Message |
Author |
 I’m a scholar of the “prosperity gospel.†It took cancer to show me I was in its grip. (L) |
Dave Dorsey |
Forgive the link to Vox. I bought Ms. Bowler's book a few weeks ago and I couldn't put it down. It was raw, heart-wrenching, but beautiful -- the story of someone who knows better about the prosperity gospel but was still enticed by its promises, and the story of someone who endeavored to learn to trust Christ despite her suffering.
Here's a choice excerpt from the article, but read the whole thing:
| Quote: | It is true that the prosperity gospel encourages people — especially its leaders — to revel in private jets and multimillion-dollar homes as evidence of God’s love. But among the less well-heeled believers, I sensed a different kind of yearning, one that wasn’t entirely materialistic. Believers wanted an escape: from poverty, failing health, and the feeling that their lives were leaky buckets.
Some people wanted Bentleys, but more wanted relief from the wounds of their past and the pain of their present. People wanted salvation from bleak medical diagnoses; they wanted to see God rescue their broken teenagers or their misfiring marriages. They wanted talismans to ward off the things that go bump in the night. They wanted an iota of power over the things that ripped their lives apart at the seams.
What they wanted was reassurance: that if they prayed, and believed, and lived righteously, they would be rewarded with some measure of comfort.
The prosperity gospel is a theodicy, an explanation for the problem of evil. It is an answer to the questions that take our lives apart: Why do some people get healed and some people don’t? Why do some people leap and land on their feet while others tumble all the way down? Why do some babies die in their cribs and some bitter souls live to see their great-grandchildren?
The prosperity gospel looks at the world as it is and promises a solution. It guarantees that faith will always make a way. If you believe, and you leap, you will land on your feet. If you believe, you will be healed.
I would love to report that what I found in the prosperity gospel was something so foreign and terrible to me that I was warned away. After all, the moral and logical flaws in this theology are all too evident; it explains away misfortune as something that can and ought to be held at bay through faith and prayer. But what I discovered was both familiar and painfully sweet. |
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/3/12/17109306/prosperity-gospel-good-evil-cancer-fate-theology-theodicy |
[Insert Acts Pun Here]
Posts: 13654
3/14/18 3:50 pm
|
|
|
|  |
 |
|
|
| |
Nature Boy Florida |
Very glad this person didn't lose her faith after being exposed to those who believe their superior faith makes them well and have more money than others...and conversely her lack of faith leaves her sick and dying.
Those superior ones just haven't lived long enough yet.
_________________
Whether you like it or not, learn to love it, because its the best thing going today! |
Acts-pert Poster
Posts: 16619
3/14/18 4:48 pm
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
Cojak |
When you see the best of the best, who had pastored limit churches for the last 30 years of his ministry, die almost penniless, it brings into question that prosperity THEORY!
A man who never wasted his nor God's money, sent money to the mission fields and fed the poor locally. Dad once bought a Buick and felt bad about it when many of his members walked to church, so he traded back down. When he died he & mama lived in a cabin on the Campground and had $750 in the bank and a car we had given him.
The prosperity ministers I see would not be worthy to tie his shoes. Of course that is my opinion. I NEVER heard him envy what even some of his fellow ministers had. Dad was a prince among men, but in his mind he was always a peanut farmer and cotton mill worker, spreading the gospel. Repent and be baptized, God is Good!
I sure miss him and his simple life. 
_________________
Some facts but mostly just my opinion!
jacsher@aol.com
http://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/ |
01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011
Posts: 24277
3/15/18 9:53 am
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
Old Time Country Preacher |
| Cojak wrote: | | The prosperity ministers I see would not be worthy to tie his shoes. Of course that is my opinion. |
Nope, at ain't just your opinion, Cojak. Its the truth.......... |
Acts-pert Poster
Posts: 15564
3/15/18 12:15 pm
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
