In the New Testament, Jesus Christ threw the moneychangers out of the Temple in Jerusalem, accusing them of turning it into “a den of robbers.” And he made his views about the rich and poor very clear in numerous passages:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24).
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24).
So what would Jesus do if he were to be resurrected and view a video appeal by New Orleans-based prosperity gospel preacher Jesse Duplantis asking believers to send him donations to buy a $54 million personal jet?
RELATED STORY: New House speaker: A Christian nationalist who spurns gay people, secular government—and democracy
“I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey,” Duplantis said in the 2018 video. “He’d be in an airplane preaching the gospel, flying all over the world.” Granted, his ministry already owned three planes, but what’s one more?
The Harvard Divinity School defines the so-called “prosperity gospel” as follows:
The Prosperity Gospel (PG) is a fast-growing theologically conservative movement frequently associated with Pentecostalism, evangelicalism, and charismatic Christianity that emphasizes believers’ abilities to transcend poverty and/or illness through devotion and positive confession.
The PG is popular among impoverished communities, where at best it is considered to offer the poor a means of imagining and reaching for better lives (at times accompanied by sound financial advice), and at worst is criticized as predatory and manipulative, particularly when churches or pastors require heavy tithing. Members of the socioeconomic elite may also be drawn to PG messages, which affirm the religious and spiritual legitimacy of wealth accumulation and reinforce a worldview in which financial success is an indicator of moral soundness.”
More empty pews
Overall, fewer believers are attending church. Jack Meador, editor in chief of the journal Mere Orthodoxy, wrote in The Atlantic that 40 million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years. He said it “represents the largest concentrated change in church attendance in American history.”
Meador cited the book “The Great Dechurching,” which attempted to explain why Americans have been leaving churches in droves. It suggests that the defining problem is how American life works in the 21st century. Meador wrote:
Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America.
That same emphasis on financial success among American Protestant believers has spurred more of them to embrace what writer Elle Hardy described in The New Republic on Monday as “a new antisocial strain of the prosperity gospel … making its way into pulpits and breeding new hostility toward the least fortunate Americans.”
Hardy wrote:
Chief among the new doctrines is the idea that God rewards “seeding”—that is, the “sowing” of financial donations to churches, or favored online preachers—with a material harvest in return. The prosperity gospel might sound as old-fashioned—and feel as familiar—as a preacher in a three-piece suit, but a new and cynical version is making a comeback across ministries both old and new.
Hardy cited a recent study conducted by Lifeway Research, an evangelical research firm, that found that prosperity gospel beliefs are on the rise among American Protestant churchgoers.
The study found that “52% of American Protestant churchgoers say their church teaches God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities, with 24% strongly agreeing. This is up from 38% of churchgoers who agreed in a 2017 Lifeway Research study.”
Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research said:
“In the last five years, far more churchgoers are reflecting prosperity gospel teachings, including the heretical belief that material blessings are earned from God.
“It is possible the financial hits people have taken from inflation and the pandemic have triggered feelings of guilt for not serving God more. But Scripture does not teach that kind of direct connection.”
Hardy noted that prosperity gospel preachers have effectively used websites and social media, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic when many churches were closed, to broadcast sermons and accept donations. She wrote:
Proponents of the prosperity gospel, whether online or on television, can speak out from both sides of their mouths. For the well-heeled, success is an obvious reward of faith. For the disadvantaged, a God who is looking after them in this life, as well as the next, dangles a golden carrot at a time when social mobility is becoming harder to come by due to increasing inequality.
Hardy observed that this might help explain why the Lifeway study of churchgoing Protestants found that those most likely to believe in the prosperity gospel “are most commonly found among the demographics who have felt the economic downturn most acutely.”
The Lifeway study found:
This belief is especially prevalent among the youngest, least educated churchgoers. Churchgoers ages 18-34 (81%) and 35-49 (85%) are among the most likely to say God wants them to prosper financially. Furthermore, those who are high school graduates or less (81%) or have some college education (80%) are more likely than those with a bachelor’s (67%) or graduate degree (65%) to hold this belief.
The study also said African Americans (86%) were more likely to get on board than white (73%) and other ethnicities (67%).
weaponized religion and the GOp
But Hardy wrote that while the prosperity gospel speaks to people in the most desperate economic straits, “it’s also being weaponized by some of the most right-wing elements in conservative religious circles as a form of retribution.” For example, she mentioned the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which emerged from the Pentecostal-Charismatic tradition. This shadowy right-wing Christian sect is becoming increasingly influential within the Republican Party.
Hardy, in an August 2022 article for The New Republic, wrote that NAR has “one clear goal in mind—ruling over the United States and, eventually, the world.” She wrote that the Republican with the closest ties to NAR is defeated Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano. Republicans who have some links to NAR include Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, former Donald Trump adviser Michael Flynn, convicted felon Roger Stone, and Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk.
RELATED STORY: Roger Stone speech at 'Pastors for Trump' event goes viral for hilarious reason
The Daily Beast wrote that new House Speaker Mike Johnson “has developed close relationships including with Christian Dominionist groups like the “7 Mountains” New Apostolic Reformation effort,” appearing on broadcasts in which he has been cited as one of their “favorites.” Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times that Johnson’s “reactionary economic agenda … calls for the evisceration of the social safety net.” And that means not just programs for the poor, but policies that support the middle class.
In her latest story, Hardy cited an article outlining a new direction for prosperity theology written by conservative activist Jason Mattera titled “A Biblical View of Work and Welfare.” The gist of the article published on Liberty University’s Standing For Freedom website argued why Christians should support House Republicans’ push for more strenuous work requirements for welfare recipients. Mattera wrote:
Christians are supposed to be at the tip of the spear in alleviating poverty, especially when it comes to other believers. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are under any obligation to help indolent bums. Such people are not entitled to our generosity. They have chosen the path of poverty.
Hardy said Mattera is advocating “a worldview that seeks to wage not a war against poverty but a war against the poor instead—those who have, in his view, shown insufficient faith.” She noted that some of the strongest criticism of prosperity gospel theology has actually come from more mainstream evangelical groups. Many prosperity gospel preachers such as Joel Osteen are non-denominational.
Last year, Southern Baptists adopted a resolution at the denomination’s annual meeting for the first time that rejected the prosperity gospel, according to The Christian Post, an online evangelical newspaper:
The resolution declares that this theology represents a distortion of "biblical generosity," exploits vulnerable people and blames people who are sick for lack of faith while corrupting a biblical understanding of suffering.
The resolution asserts that Christians are to "guard against false teaching, to beware of false prophets who come to us in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves, and to guard the integrity of Scripture."
trump’s religious beginnings
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the rise in support among churchgoers for the prosperity gospel coincides with Trump’s presidency and his MAGA cult’s growing dominance over the GOP. As a child, Trump attended church services with his family at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan where the pastor, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, was an advocate of the prosperity gospel.
In the 1930s, Peale was part of a group called Spiritual Mobilization, which NPR described as “a creation of prominent Protestant ministers in league with some of the leading industrialists of the era, including oil producers and automakers, who opposed the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt.” The group was also associated with the “America First” movement, which opposed U.S. entry into World War II.
In 1952, Peale, who preached self-confidence as a life philosophy, wrote the best-selling book, “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Some critics called Peale a con man and described his church as a cult. Politico Magazine, in a story headlined “How Norman Vincent Peale Taught Donald Trump to Worship Himself,” described the opening of Peale’s book:
Believe in yourself!” Peale’s book begins. “Have faith in your abilities!” He then outlines 10 rules to overcome “inadequacy attitudes” and “build up confidence in your powers.” Rule one: “formulate and staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” “hold this picture tenaciously,” and always refer to it “no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”
Such a message must have resonated with the young Trump, who today still believes in doing whatever it takes to win. During his life, Trump has broken most of the Ten Commandments and committed nearly all of the Seven Deadly Sins, but he did find an appropriate White House spiritual adviser, the non-denominational Florida-based prosperity gospel preacher Paula White, who is linked to the NAR.
In April 2016, White sold her followers “resurrection seeds” for $1,144—a price she claimed was set by God—that she promised to sow on their behalf, according to The Christian Post. White sent donors special prayer cloths that she said could possibly bring about special miracles, explaining:
“I do know that God has sent me to you to bring resurrection life. ... The grave clothes are coming off. Whatever residue of death. Whatever residue is holding you back, it is coming off."
In October 2019, White became the first televangelist to land a job in the White House as an adviser overseeing the Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Trump created. White and other pastors prayed hard for Trump’s victory during the 2020 campaign, but fortunately God wasn’t listening.
White is now praying for a Trump victory in 2024. During a June visit to Israel following Trump’s first two criminal indictments, White told The Jerusalem Post, “I do believe that President Trump was God’s answer to so much prayer and fasting, and he was and is appointed [by God] to lead America.”
But what does Trump really think about the prosperity gospel preachers? In a September 2020 article for The Atlantic, McKay Coppins wrote that he mocked them in private conversations.
Trump seemed to feel a kinship with prosperity preachers—often evincing a game-recognizes-game appreciation for their hustle. The former campaign adviser recalled showing his boss a YouTube video of the Israeli televangelist Benny Hinn performing “faith healings,” while Trump laughed at the spectacle and muttered, “Man, that’s some racket.” [...]
In (Michael) Cohen’s recent memoir, Disloyal, he recounts Trump returning from his 2011 meeting with the pastors who laid hands on him and sneering, “Can you believe that bullsh-t?” But if Trump found their rituals ridiculous, he followed their moneymaking ventures closely. “He was completely familiar with the business dealings of the leadership in many prosperity-gospel churches,” the adviser told me.
RELATED STORY: America's nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don't like organized religion
Campaign Action
