Prosperity Gospel poltroons
Sunday August 16, 2009
Categories: Evangelicals
Prosperity preachers just burn me up. But how can you save people from themselves? Excerpt from a Times story about how prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland is still doing land-office business in hard times: Stephen Biellier, a long-distance trucker from Mount...
Filed Under: Kenneth Copeland, prosperity gospel
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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people don't trust the government,they don't trust the banks, they don't trust the state of Hawaii when it issues a birth certificate - but they trust people like Copeland. Amazing.
IF God was in the business of accepting birbes to make people rich - I would think sending that 50 cents a day to the poor would count more.
I have to think people like the Copelands must really believe what they are doing - cause could someone really be that cycnical and rotten?
He is Jehovah...
Jehovah Jirah!
I don't want to be a neat-freak, here, but it might be wise to withhold judgment on what the good book should and shouldn't say.
Just a thought.
people don't trust the government,they don't trust the banks, they don't trust the state of Hawaii when it issues a birth certificate - but they trust people like Copeland. Amazing.
I'm reminded of some of the students I've had who would prided themselves on being skeptical, and said they would never take anything on the word of a parent, political leader, religious leader, or teacher. But who would believe absolutely anything they read on some site on the internet.
It’s pathetic really. The people giving money are fools, and televangelists like the Copelands are scoundrels. The ironic thing is that God *will* bless generosity, but not generosity to scoundrels and thieves. Christians wanting God to bless them for generosity and giving would be much better advised to give a fifty dollar bill to a homeless person who will buy booze with it, than give a penny to the Copelands.
Why people just don’t give to the Salvation Army or Catholic Relief Services, or some reputable charity I will never know. Part of it may be the donors’ search for ideological and theological purity. Then, in a supreme irony, they give to heretics like the Copelands or Joyce Meyer (another piece of work).
I have to think people like the Copelands must really believe what they are doing - cause could someone really be that cycnical and rotten?
You are a kind soul to think that, Cecilia.
I, on the other hand, have no trouble believing that someone could really be the cynical and rotten. In my teenage years, Robert Tilton was busy doing his thing.
Why people just don't give to the Salvation Army or Catholic Relief Services...
I gave a rather sizable sum to the Salvation Army back in '01 (after 9/11) under the impression that the money would be divided equally between four ministries. When I got my receit it came with a form letter stating that all the money went to victims' families "as I specified".
Regarding Catholic Charities, there's plenty of speculation as to whether they've been bought off by His Messiahness with the $100 million contract they recently landed under Disaster Relief Fund.
The days when benefactors could just give to charities willy nilly feeling the money would be well spent are long gone.
Not a Copeland supporter, don't know much of anything about them really and I certainly don't buy into the prosperity gospel but don't the Copelands actually do a lot of work for the poor with their ministry? I don't know what there percentages are or anything and it certainly sounds like a portion and possibly a large a portion goes to frivolous spending, but it sounds like they do no good from what I have read on this post, is that true?
You know the whole idea of a personal God using human institutions to lead people to relationship with Him would make a heck of a lot more sense if those institutions were not so consistently as corrupt as all other human institutions. You know, being all-powerful and all, couldn't he at least make his genuine outposts on earth a little more clearly distinguishable even for those He blessed with little intelligence?
or...
perhaps Copeland became a huckster after personal experience of previous hucksters.
it's quite possible that Copeland has been driven to Doubt by the lack of integrity of those who came before him.
if so, it may be that he is unconcerned about any eternal consequences,
if he has come to the conclusion that the imaginary Divine Therapist
is all that is behind the other preachers who are like him.
in other words, perhaps he accepts that God is just a random idea invented by the imaginations of superstitious ancient men.
prosperity faith hope love joy peace to all...
may you be comforted by the imaginary Divine Therapist.
Not unexpected. Prosperity Gospel preachers did very well in the 1930's as well. Father Divine was buying Duesenbergs while his flock were starving to feed him.
Sort of a modern day Ghost Dance...
I wonder if it's the old "itching ears" thing -- if people who adhere to the false teachings (and money grabs) of evangelists like Copeland, Benny Hinn et al do so because the message validates, with an up-close-and-personalized "God stamp," people's own human yearning: See, I knew that God wants me to be rich and healthy and to live Kingdom Now!! It's for health, for wealth, for God's personal and specific blessing...and it's a terrible heresy, but those who pursue prosperity teaching aren't grounded in Tradition, much less tradition.
This is hard for me because my sister and her family have pursued "name it and claim it" "prophetic" living for several years...although by now they have developed a more sophisticated framework to explain how God is "legally bound" by the promises in his Word to give them the benefits of the kingdom of heaven now, on earth... But to watch her "shotgunning" through the Bible, looking for verses to speak aloud and thereby to claim the promise contained therein. Sad, so sad...
Jesus said something like "What you do for the least of these, you do unto me" -- buying Copeland a jet creates some dissonance here....
I lived in Mt Vernon for 20 years. Lovely small ozark town with a magnificent victorian era courthouse on the square. Very Mayberrish place. Still live nearby. To think the soiled hands of Copeland are reaching in there and soiling it. urks me. I hate prosperity gospel with an undying hate. I wonder if we could add another level to Dantes Hell, just for these guys.
The Times article pointed out that the Coplands are being investigated by Congress for possible violations of tax codes, charitable institutions. Sounds good to me.
Rod,I know that much of the prosperity " gospel" is sham, but how do you know that these people don't use their jets for the work of saving souls and preaching the true Gospel. And when the Copelands ask for money, I'm sure they don't ask all their donors about their financial situation and about whether it it wise to donate to them. It's not like I know much about the Copelands, that's just the commonsense norm for human institutions, sacred, or otherwise. Whatever the many faults in their theology, we can't really blame the prosperity ministers for their supporters lack of financial wisdom.
Whatever the many faults in their theology, we can't really blame the prosperity ministers for their supporters lack of financial wisdom.
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