The Encouraging Power of the Prosperity Theology

When I was young, I remembered sitting at home with my family watching TV and seeing a commercial for Peter Popoff’s Miracle Ministry. The commercial caught my eye. Peter started off by telling the viewers that it is in God’s will for all of us to be rich and prosperous. He started to mention how his miracle water can help us obtain your desires. Then, in the commercial there were many people who gave their testimony of how the miracle water healed their body, helped them out financially, or provided them with a new house or car, etc. Once the commercial was over, my mom quickly told me and my brother not to believe preachers like that, they are not teaching the real gospel. I did not completely understand what she meant by that.

This type of teaching was very different from the type of teaching that I was used to. Most people believed that Peter is doing the “work of God” because he is an evangelist/preacher (a famous preacher). From the looks of the commercial and testimonies it looks believable and to some people it can be really appealing and comforting knowing that we all can be rich. But this goes into the question: “Is it wrong for us to want to be rich?”, “ Is it wrong for us to want nice things?”or “Is it wrong to be in a position of power and success?”. The answer is no! Naturally we are made to have wants and desires, is it okay to want things in your life. A Christian praying and asking God to bless them with a car and another Christian praying and asking God for a 2020 Mercedes EQC SUV, are two different things. A lot of believers believe that they deserve the best of things and that we are meant to acquire them. Well this going into the popular modern day teaching or this gospel called Prosperity Theology. The real problem is that we should be asking is: “Is it really in God’s will for all of his people to be rich and prosperous?”

Prosperity theology is defined as the teaching that your faith will be blessed by God giving you health and wealth (Spencer, 2014). The danger from this kind of theology is that many people seek the means to achieve personal wealth and they seek the wants and desires for themselves and not God’s. The idea that you will be blessed if you obey God is not false at all. Throughout the Old and New Testament in the Bible, God shows his servants that if they obey his commandments and his covenants that his people will be blessed and rewarded (I believe: A Servant of Christ Ministry). Wealth is not the only this that God can bless you with, so an entire ministry should not be based on this alone. This can encourage the belief that poor people are the way they are just because they lack faith, not the effects of sin and/or the structural concepts that causes it. There are many examples in the Bibles of the rich and faithful and the poor and faithful, like Abraham and Paul. Both of them were still blessed (Spencer, 2014).

The design of Prosperity theology started back post World War II under the Penecostal and charismatic organizations. First starting to gain popularity in tent rivals, the movement quickly spread to radio stations and podcasts then eventually hitting television (Carter, 2017). Oral Roberts, the father of modern prosperity theology, had gained a huge following with millions of dollars from his teachings around the idea that “God wants his people to be healthy and wealthy” (Hinn). He went on to write several books to push this movement like: If You Need Healing Do These Things, The Miracle of Seed-Faith, A Daily Guide to Miracles, and Successful Living through Seed-Faith, and etc. Roberts took only a few verses from the Bible and completely ignore the true Gospel to promote his own perspective. But many of his followers are bemused by the thought of money that they do not seek the true Gospel for themselves. Prosperity Theology has increased in popularity and still increasing till this day. It has become most popular in places like Africa and South America (Hinn). In America is it increasing enormously with megachurches going up every second and they being filled with thousands of people waiting on a miracle from God. Unfortunately, many of these preachers are using this opportunity to scam people into giving money into their ministries.

Peter Popoff is one of those scammers (aka a white collared criminal). Peter Popoff had his starting in tv ministry back in the 80s. His flaming charismatic personality attracted many viewers with false promises and prophecies. He was known for the prophet who called out people’s names in the crowd along with a situation that had in order to believe that he was a true man of God (Oppenheimer, 2017). A group of people had taken a radio scanner into one of Popoff’s tent revivals. They had discovered that they had someone to talk to the people in the crowd, gather information about them, and reported back to Peter Popoff’s wife and she forwards to Peter through an earpiece while he was preaching. After the news came out about his scam, his ministry has went into bankruptcy (Oppenheimer, 2017). He then when on to come back into the ministry to promote his miracle water allied with the one I saw that day. After taking account for who he is and his history and false doctrine, it makes sense to me that my mom told me know to believe him or his teachings. The sad part of all out of all of this, many people are falling for it and unfortunately it is the majority of the people in the black community that is falling for this scam. (Oppenheimer, 2017).

According to Carter’s article and the YouGov survey from 1,000 Americans, two questions were asked to different individual who considered themselves “born again” or evangelical from various racial backgrounds. One of those questions were: “Do you believe that prayer can make you wealthier?” One ones that said yes were 15 percent white, 15 percent hispanic, and 42 percent black. The second question that was asked was: “Is wealth a sign of God’s favor?” The people that answered “definitely” or “probably” were 9 percent white, 24 percent hispanics, and 34 percent black (Carter, 2017). Taking in this research, many blacks are willing to approve of this kind of prosperity theology making them vulnerable to people like Peter Popoff, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, and a lot more (Carter, 2017).

Prosperity Theology seem like a good positive message that everyone will love and it is easy to accept than any of the other biblical teachings. I understand why it can be popular, who does not want to be rich and successful? Having wealth will only get you so far in life, what happens when non financial problems arise and you need some sound advice. Money can not fix a broken marriage, money can not help someone healing from a death in a family, money can not heal an alcoholic. People can not just plant a seed in order for your problems to go away. Someone planting a seed just to get an answer from God is not biblical or even fair at all. Poor people might not have that money to plant into a ministry, but through this teaching it is saying to them that they are not worthy of a blessing or miracle. Prosperity is just one of many of God’s wonderfuls blessings. It should not be caught and specially through people like Peter who using the church for his personally gain. I hope people wake up and stop giving these criminals a platform. It will come to the day when these criminals and false prophets will have nothing, then what will they do?

“The stingy are eager to get rich and are unaware that poverty awaits them.”- Proverbs 28:22 (Bible Hub).