Theology matters
At least they’re consistent. Give a conservative preacher a few million dollars, and he’ll have visions of reaching the lost for Christ. Give it to a liberal, and he’ll picture feeding millions of starving people. Give it to a health & wealth preacher, and he’ll buy a jet.The luxurious lifestyles of H&W teachers have been in the headlines of late. So has congressional investigation of the same. (Incidentally, I agree that this is an issue in which Congress needs to butt out.)
As we hear the stories of opulent homes and antique-adorned offices, we should remember that this is exactly what they teach. As the cash pours in, they take it as a sign of God’s favor and assume they’re supposed to spend it on themselves.
We should thank these folks for reminding us that your beliefs affect your behavior.
One of the rallying cries of the emerging church guys is orthopraxy (i.e., correct practice, as opposed to orthodoxy, or correct belief). That is important. But practice stems from belief.
Before we looked at how one doctrinal error can spin off into greater errors. Here we see that wrong belief can create wrong behavior. Of course, Jonestown should have taught us that.
3 comments:
I believe you might have missed some things in your post. First, it depends on which "prosperity preacher" you're talking about. Many of them give hundreds of thousands of dollars to ministries that help the poor. Kenneth Copeland, for example, in the past has listed many of the ministries his ministry gives to and frankly, I was surprised at how many small ministries were listed. I too was under the impression that these people just gave to each other. I am wrong.
Second, the liberal Protestants (I grew up as one) do give money to the poor, but then what? The people remain poor because the LP's have nothing mroe to give. Sadly, the emergents are making the same mistake. The evangelicals, on the other hand, are really beginning to apply the social gospel AS WELL AS a cogent gospel of salvation which transforms people so they will be able to change inside to handle what the money given is set up to do.
Thanks for listening....:)
Diane, I don't want anyone to think I'm saying these guys never give to charity. But the stories in the news lately were about people questioning the lavish lifestyles that many of them have.
How much more could they give if they didn't have their own jets? It's a good question.
How much more could I give if I didn't have to have that new book/cd/ipod/cellphone? That's another good question -- and one for another post.
touche....LOL
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