I visited another church last Sunday. I got up early, and I figured
that I might as well attend the church’s early service, since I had a
lot to do that day and I wanted to free up more time in the afternoon.
I have visited this church before. Usually on this blog, I have
called it the “Word of Faith church.” That is not its official title,
but the reason that I have called it that is that I have heard Word of
Faith or prosperity-like teaching from its pulpit. A guest preacher
there actually referred positively to Kenneth Hagin as he talked about
the power of words, so I placed the church in the “Word of Faith” box.
After visiting the church last Sunday, though, I question my
assessment that the church preaches the prosperity Gospel. I heard the
opposite, actually. The pastor was saying that our lives become a
testimony when we are moving upstream. He said in his opening prayer
that God has redeemed us from a world of always wanting our own way and
having our own god. He criticized those whose primary goal is a
prosperous retirement, where they relax and play golf; as far as he is
concerned, our vision for life should be so much larger than that. He
stressed eternal riches. Preaching through the Book of Joshua, he noted
the repeated statement that the Levites will not get land because God
is their inheritance, and he said that the reason this statement was
continually repeated was that God was reminding the Israelites that,
ultimately, God was their inheritance, too, not just the inheritance of
the Levites. Preaching about the story of Dan’s idolatry in Judges 18,
the pastor said that idolatry competes for our devotion, and he
mentioned aspects of a comfortable middle-class lifestyle as examples of
that.
The pastor’s daughter went up to speak near the end of the service,
and she was saying that it is difficult for her to tithe. Her family
tithes, and she compares their financial situation with that of her
friends from work, who do not tithe. Her friends have such luxuries as
boats and big campers. She believes, however, that tithing is
importance because it allows her to be part of what God is doing. Her
testimony differed from the prosperity narrative of “I tithed, and God
provided me with more money!”
On what exactly they believe that God is doing, they were not overly
specific. The pastor said, though, that our life should include working
with other people in God’s work. Another speaker mentioned people
associated with the church who were assisting Syrian refugees. I needed
to be reminded of that basic Christian truth: to provide for people who
are in desperate need. I am not endorsing a specific political stance
in this post on President Trump’s policy regarding the Syrian refugees,
but it is easy for me to become so preoccupied with political debates
and the political figures I like and dislike, that I can forget or
compromise basic Christianity.
I am not saying that prosperity preachers cannot assert the sorts of
sentiments that I heard at church yesterday. But they do focus a lot on
God prospering people materially, or God helping people to actualize
their dreams and hopes. The focus was different at the church that I
attended yesterday.
NOTE: I’m shutting down comments for this post because I don’t want comments on the Trump policy.