Why Prosperity Gospel Preachers are So Much Fun


While a lot of Christianity these days spins on the abortion issue, another issue has been here since forever and will remain forever. It is the prosperity gospel. It is taken from one or maybe more phrases in the Bible which say more or less directly, "God wants you to be healthy and prosperous. He wants that even more for me." The ancient wealthy who wrote the Bible did not aim it at the broader society nor at modern society. They had some audience existing at that time they wanted to influence. Because the marketing strategy of Christianity has always been to claim the ancient musings had some universal truths, it left a big barndoor open. It was for scheming preachers to say, "Look, right here in the Bible it says I should take your money and make myself rich." Their thinking is "why not?" 

Of course, there is lots of hand wringing over this in the faith. The hand wringers say, "That's not why the Bible means." Keep trying to say that, Bro. The prosperity operators will beat you by also starting their own sermons with, "What this means is...."

Prosperity gospel preachers who were also prosperous go back as far as the eye can see. When my parents were young there was a Billy Sunday. Collection plate money made Oral Roberts wealthy and built Oral Roberts University. Current wealthy stars are Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen. If anyone thinks condemning them will stop the practice of getting rich by preaching rich, not gonna happen. As long as there has been religion there have been people getting rich preaching. We can bet there are people not yet born who will become wealthy standing in front of people promising that if the give him or her their money they, themselves, will prosper. "It's in the Bible."

Over beers with other atheists the question comes up, "Why can't we get rich like the Christians?" There is a satirist calling himself "Pastor Deacon Fred" who makes living impersonating a right-wing preacher. At an atheist conference there was a Jesus satirist. Maybe we could become financial advisors and collect a fee for advising people to stop giving to their church and put the money into the stock market. Frankly, the opportunities are few and bleak.

What we can enjoy however is watching Christians throw away their money at preachers and see the preachers get rich. We can be amused at preachers who get caught stealing money from their flocks. The old saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

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