The Prosperity Gospel

Thomas More window, detail (1973) by Lawrence Lee, St. Dunstan's Cathedral, Canterbury, UK

THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL

 

June 22, 2019 is the memorial of Saint Thomas More (1478-1535). 

Bishop Barron on the Prosperity Gospel (see 0:27):

The so-called Prosperity Gospel, the view that’s propagated by a lot of people today that if you follow God’s will, follow God’s command, great things will happen to you in the material sense of the term…I must say my interest was piqued in this phenomenon of the Prosperity Gospel. The roots of it at least in America probably go back to Oral Roberts…Oral Roberts said to his many listeners, expect a miracle, trust in God, and great things will happen at the material level of your life. Probably the most prominent Prosperity Gospel today is Joel Osteen, who is the pastor of the biggest church in America, who has millions of readers and listeners, books and radio broadcasts. He also was a former student at Oral Roberts University where he probably picked up…this theology…Joel Osteen pretty much announces the same gospel.

…now to give the…Prosperity Gospel [its] due, there is a Biblical warrant for this point of view, look in the Book of Deuteronomy, you’ll find over and over again this promise, you follow God’s commands, you will prosper. You don’t follow God’s commands, you will suffer, and you find that…reiterated often in the Book of Deuteronomy.

…the great counterweight…to the Book of Deuteronomy is the Book of Job, now what do we hear in the Book of Job. We hear about a man who is perfectly righteous, who follows the commands of the Lord, who follows the commands of the Book of Deuteronomy, who does what God wants, and yet massively suffers. In one fell swoop Job loses everyone and everything he holds dear.

…what do we hear in God’s great speech, read it in the 38th, 39th, and 40th chapters of the Book of Job. We hear not a standard Deuteronomy reading of, like, yes, Job, you did offend me in some ways, rather Jobss suffering is placed in the context of God’s unfathomable permissive will. There isn’t a strict correspondence between Job’s suffering and Job’s virtue or lack thereof…how do we solve…this dilemma…I think we solve it by looking at prosperity not from our perspective but from God’s. It is true I would say that following God’s will leads to prosperity, but not necessarily in a…worldly sense. Following God’s will rightly orders the soul, it rightly orders me toward my proper end and makes my life in the spiritual sense joyful, that is the prosperity I can infallibly expect from following God’s commands, not necessarily prosperity in this world. In many ways the Book of Job is meant to caution us.

…I’ll give you a good example of this, St. Thomas More, one of my heroes. Thomas More was a very prominent figure, important political player in the court of Henry VIII, a very wealthy man, socially prominent man. He followed his conscience at a key moment. He followed God’s command. What happened? He lost everything. He lost his family, lost his home, lost his status, lost his political position, lost his wealth, and in the end lost his life. Yet Thomas Moore was in…the only relevant sense a prosperous man, meaning, he had the great joy that comes…that ordered soul that comes from following God’s commands, he had, if you want, treasure in heaven.

…be careful how you read prosperity, what prosperity means…the Prosperity Gospel…I would say in [the] sense that you follow God’s commands, you follow the will of God, you will prosper, but don’t expect primarily treasure on earth, expect treasure in heaven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ip4Jx92F94

—Bishop Robert Barron, “Bishop Barron on The Prosperity Gospel,” YouTube video, 7:40 minutes, April 9, 2010 

When the just man eats, his hunger is appeased; but the belly of the wicked suffers want.—Proverbs 13:25

The punishment of the wicked is their insatiable appetite; the reward of the just is their contentment in Christ.