Joel Osteen vs. Rick Warren on Prosperity Gospel

Time's cover story, "Does God Want You to Be Rich?" makes no reference to the National Baptist Convention, but it's worth noting that the black denomination spent much of its annual convention last week attacking the prosperity gospel. "Black communities are suffering, while this prosperity-pimping gospel is emotionally charging people who are watching their communities just literally dissolve," Friendship West Baptist Church pastor Frederick Haynes told Dallas's WFAA.

That the prosperity gospel has a hold on a segment of American culture is not disputable. Time quotes its own poll numbers:

17 percent of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61 percent believed that God wants people to be prosperous. And 31 percent—a far higher percentage than there are Pentecostals in America—agreed that if you give your money to God, God will bless you with more money. … Of the four biggest megachurches in the country, three—Joel Osteen's Lakewood in Houston; T.D. Jakes' Potter's House in south Dallas; and Creflo Dollar's World Changers near Atlanta—are Prosperity or Prosperity Lite pulpits.

For Osteen, Prosperity Gospel isn't a pejorative term:

"Does God want us to be rich?" he asks. "When I hear that word rich, I think people say, 'Well, he's preaching that everybody's going to be a millionaire.' I don't think that's it." Rather, he explains, "I preach that anybody can improve their lives. I think God wants us to be prosperous. I think he wants us to be happy. To me, you need to have money to pay your bills. I think God wants us to send our kids to college. I think he wants us to be a blessing to other people. But I don't think I'd say God wants us to be rich. It's all relative, isn't it?"

On the other side is the guy whose church rounds out the "largest four" list:

"This idea that God wants everybody to be wealthy?", [Rick] Warren snorts. "There is a word for that: baloney. It's creating a false idol. You don't measure your self-worth by your net worth. I can show you millions of faithful followers of Christ who live in poverty. Why isn't everyone in the church a millionaire?"

It's smart for Time to make Warren the piece's chief critic of the Prosperity Gospel. (One of his favorite lines, "I don't think it is a sin to be rich. I think it is a sin to die rich," doesn't appear.) And it allows Time to make its most astute observation: one of the reasons that the prosperity gospel has been able to grow is because (particularly white, middle-class) evangelical churches have avoided talking about personal finances or social inequality.

Now, however, white, middle-class evangelical churches are starting to talk about personal finances and social inequality. So the question becomes whether Prosperity Gospel is as ascendant as Time suggests, or whether it's just an aberrant theology that's about to have an unprosperous future.
Ps... I like this article that's why I post it here... I got them from: Christianitytoday http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/137/41.0.html

Primary Way of Marketing Salvation!!

Is there any correlation between the economy of salvation being marketed and the growth rate of the Christian communities at a particular time and place?

There are at least five different economies of salvation that were marketed in the first millennium. In the second millennium, we would include Pope Leo X's, also known as Giovanni de Medici, sale of indulgences and the Puritans’ scaring the hell out of people models.

The church that prays together stays together and all of its communing members go to heaven [Cyprian]. Cyprian believed that those who partake of the sacrament became part of the body of Christ.

All of God’s creatures, including the cynical attorney, will go to heaven [Gregory of Nyssa].

Only members in good standing of my church will go to heaven [Augustine].

Only God knows who will go to heaven.

Among all these ways of thinking and thoughts on salvation there is one primary one... it is the primary way of marketing salvation. CHRIST is the primary way to heaven... and only God knows who will be going to heaven... and we know that we are saved by grace through faith...

People always argue in who is going to be saved... until they forget that, Only God can save us... and it is only through His transforming and saving grace that we are saved.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate way of marketing salvation... and not other things....

Robert J Agustin