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"Gospel of Wealth" Facing Scrutiny
By Eric Gorski
The Associated Press
Thursday 27 December 2007
God and riches: Senate probe shines light
on televangelists' "prosperity gospel."
The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful
in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will
shower you with material riches.
And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Fla., area pledged $500 a
year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood
sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer
Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.
Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends
and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation
given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.
"I wanted to believe God wanted to do something great with me like he
was doing with them," she said. "I'm angry and bitter about it. Right
now, I don't watch anyone on TV hardly."
All three of the groups Fleenor supported are among six major Christian television
ministries under scrutiny by a senator who is asking questions about the evangelists'
lavish spending and possible abuses of their tax-exempt status.
The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate
Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings
in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles the "Gospel
of Prosperity," or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with
earthly riches.
All six ministries under investigation preach the prosperity gospel to varying
degrees.
Proponents call it a biblically sound message of hope. Others say it is a distortion
that makes evangelists rich and preys on the vulnerable. They say it has evolved
from "it's all right to make money" to it's all right for the pastor
to drive a Bentley, live in an oceanside home and travel by private jet.
"More and more people are desperate and grasping at straws and want something
that will alleviate their pain or financial crisis," said Michael Palmer,
dean of the divinity school at Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson.
"It's a growing problem."
The modern-day prosperity movement can largely be traced back to evangelist
Oral Roberts' teachings. Roberts' disciples have spread his theology and vocabulary
(Roberts and other evangelists, such as Meyer, call their donors "partners.")
And several popular prosperity preachers, including some now under investigation,
have served on the Oral Roberts University board.
Grassley is asking the ministries for financial records on salaries, spending
practices, private jets and other perks. The investigation, coupled with a financial
scandal at ORU that forced out Roberts' son and heir, Richard, has some wondering
whether the prosperity gospel is facing a day of reckoning.
While few expect the movement to disappear, the scrutiny could force greater
financial transparency and oversight in a movement known for secrecy.
Most scholars trace the origins of prosperity theology to E.W. Kenyon, an evangelical
pastor from the first half of the 20th century.
But it wasn't until the postwar era and a pair of evangelists from Tulsa, Okla.
that "health and wealth" theology became a fixture in Pentecostal
and charismatic churches.
Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin and later, Kenneth Copeland trained tens of
thousands of evangelists with a message that resonated with an emerging middle
class, said David Edwin Harrell Jr., a Roberts biographer. Copeland is among
those now being investigated.
"What Oral did was develop a theology that made it OK to prosper,"
Harrell said. "He let Pentecostals be faithful to the old-time truths their
grandparents embraced and be part of the modern world, where they could have
good jobs and make money."
The teachings took on various names "Name It and Claim It," "Word
of Faith," the prosperity gospel.
Prosperity preachers say that it isn't all about money that God's blessings
extend to health, relationships and being well-off enough to help others.
They have Bible verses at the ready to make their case. One oft-cited verse,
in Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, reads: "Yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you by his poverty might become rich."
Critics acknowledge the idea that God wants to bless his followers has a Biblical
basis, but say prosperity preachers take verses out of context. The prosperity
crowd also fails to acknowledge Biblical accounts that show God doesn't always
reward faithful believers, Palmer said.
The Book of Job is a case study in piety unrewarded, and a chapter in the Book
of Hebrews includes a litany of believers who were tortured and martyred, Palmer
said.
Yet the prosperity gospel continues to draw crowds, particularly lower- and
middle-income people who, critics say, have the greatest motivation and the
most to lose. The prosperity message is spreading to black churches, attracting
elderly people with disposable incomes, and reaching huge churches in Africa
and other developing parts of the world.
One of the teaching's attractions is that it doesn't dwell on traditional Christian
themes of heaven and hell but on answering pressing concerns of the here and
now, said Brian McLaren, a liberal evangelical author and pastor.
But the prosperity gospel, McLaren said, not only preys on the hope of the
vulnerable, it puts too much emphasis on individual success and happiness.
"We've pretty much ignored what the Bible says about systemic injustice,"
he said.
The checks and balances central to Christian denominations are largely lacking
in prosperity churches. One of the pastors in the Grassley probe, Bishop Eddie
Long of suburban Atlanta, has written that God told him to get rid of the "ungodly
governmental structure" of a deacon board.
Some ministers hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works.
Atlanta-area pastor Creflo Dollar, who is fighting Grassley's inquiry, owns
a Rolls Royce and multimillion-dollar homes and travels in a church-owned Learjet.
In a letter to Grassley, Dollar's attorney calls the prosperity gospel a "deeply
held religious belief" grounded in Scripture and therefore a protected
religious freedom. Grassley has said his probe is not about theology.
But even some prosperity gospel critics like the Rev. Adam Hamilton of 15,000-member
United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in suburban Kansas City, Mo. say
that the investigation is entering a minefield.
"How do you determine how much money a minister like this is able to make
when the basic theology is that wealth is OK?" said Hamilton, an Oral Roberts
graduate who later left the charismatic movement. "That gets into theological
questions."
There is evidence of change. Joyce Meyer Ministries, for one, enacted financial
reforms in recent years, including making audited financial statements public.
Meyer, who has promised to cooperate fully with Grassley, issued a statement
emphasizing that a prosperity gospel "that solely equates blessing with
financial gain is out of balance and could damage a person's walk with God."
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