[Magdalen] Prosperity Gospel

[Kate Conant]

Wow!

And yikes.

Kate

"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk
humbly with your God?"
Micah 6:8

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 1:13 PM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> Some of us have discussed this on fb, but I thought listsubs might find
> this article both interesting and enlightening (for those not familiar with
> the concepts of Prosperity Gospel)
>
> Durham, N.C. — ON a Thursday morning a few months ago, I got a call from
> my doctor’s assistant telling me that I have Stage 4 cancer. The stomach
> cramps I was suffering from were not caused by a faulty gallbladder, but by
> a massive tumor.
>
>  *
>  *
>  *
>  *
>
> I am 35. I did the things you might expect of someone whose world has
> suddenly become very small. I sank to my knees and cried. I called my
> husband at our home nearby. I waited until he arrived so we could wrap our
> arms around each other and say the things that must be said/. I have loved
> you forever. I am so grateful for our life together. Please take care of
> our son./ Then he walked me from my office to the hospital to start what
> was left of my new life.
>
> But one of my first thoughts was also /Oh, God, this is ironic. /I
> recently wrote a book called “Blessed.”
>
> I am a historian of the American prosperity gospel. Put simply, the
> prosperity gospel is the belief that God grants health and wealth to those
> with the right kind of faith. I spent 10 years interviewing televangelists
> with spiritual formulas for how to earn God’s miracle money. I held hands
> with people in wheelchairs being prayed for by celebrities known for their
> miracle touch. I sat in people’s living rooms and heard about how they
> never would have dreamed of owning this home without the encouragement they
> heard on Sundays.
>
> [snip]
>
> The riddle of a Mennonite megachurch became my intellectual obsession. No
> one had written a sustained account of how the prosperity gospel grew from
> small tent revivals across the country in the 1950s into one of the most
> popular forms of American Christianity, and I was determined to do it. I
> learned that the prosperity gospel sprang, in part, from the American
> metaphysical tradition of New Thought, a late-19th-century ripening of
> ideas about the power of the mind: Positive thoughts yielded positive
> circumstances, and negative thoughts negative circumstances.
>
> [snip]
>
> One of the most endearing and saddest things about being sick is watching
> people’s attempts to make sense of your problem. My academic friends did
> what researchers do and Googled the hell out of it. When did you start
> noticing pain? What exactly were the symptoms, again? Is it hereditary? I
> can out-know my cancer using the Mayo Clinic website. Buried in all their
> concern is the unspoken question: Do I have any control?
>
> I can also hear it in all my hippie friends’ attempts to find the most
> healing kale salad for me. I can eat my way out of cancer. Or, if I were to
> follow my prosperity gospel friends’ advice, I can positively declare that
> it has no power over me and set myself free.
>
> Read it all at:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>