[Magdalen] Prosperity Gospel

[Jay Weigel]

Yeah, wow.

And WEIRD.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 1:29 PM, Kate Conant <kate.conant at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
>