Prosperity Gospel? (part 2: Historical Traditions)

For those of you who are following this case study analysis, this is probably one of the most academic, no-fluff posts on this blog (unless you read my senior project research project... which if you did, I'm impressed). I don't expect many to read this, but I thought that the history and traditions surrounding the case study give important insight. Through reflection upon historical missiology and theology, the benefits and limitations of this approach become apparent.

Click read more if you dare ;)


Felt-need evangelism is a mission strategy that seeks to use something culturally or personally valued as a doorway for proclamation of the gospel. The debate has raged for centuries from places like China (where the term “rice Christian” was first coined to indicate a person who accepted a Christian title for access to food brought by missionaries) to modern day Haiti (where Christian missions teams must decide whether to provide long-term aid to professed voodooists). It is a current underlying tactic in many Christian churches where the gospel is sold and marketed as a product.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this strategy is communicating the cost of discipleship. People may never discover that their needs were answered simply to bait a missional hook, or that the true gospel is not functionally to fulfill personal needs and wants.

Today:

Something like this has been done on large scale in Haiti. Frank Amedia of Touch of Heaven Ministries recently made this controversial comment, “We would give food to the needy in the short term but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I'm not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn't want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”  The backlash has been huge. Ted Olsen of Christianity today said “A Christian aid organization demanding conversions in exchange for food is a rare thing in the 21st century. It’s bad theology (Luke 6:30), bad missiology, and impractical (“rice Christians” tend to be nominal at best). So it’s rare to see such a stark suggestion that non-converts could be ‘cut off’ from aid.”

Issues such as these were discussed in the 1999 Iguassu Missiological Consultation where 159 participants from 53 countries gathered to discuss changes in missions at the turn of the millennium.
Peruvian missiologist Samuel Escobar was unable to attend the consultation because of family illness. But in a paper discussed at the meeting, he criticized the "managerial missiology" practiced by certain North American groups. "The distinctive note" of this approach to missions "is to reduce Christian mission to a manageable enterprise," Escobar wrote. Practitioners of this approach focus on the quantifiable, measurable tasks of missions and ask pragmatic questions about how to achieve goals. Escobar called this statistical approach "anti-theological" and said it "has no theological or pastoral resources to cope with the suffering and persecution involved because it is geared to provide guaranteed success."

Escobar vocalizes a real issue with the pastor's teaching. If being a Christian just means that people accept you as you are without a call to repentance, and if Christianity itself is only about having a good time, what happens when real pain enters the life of the new convert? Moreover, what difference is there between this new convert and a nonbeliever?

Joseph D'Souza, chair of the All India Christian Council, also indicted missiological trends that "have tended to turn communication [of the gospel] into a technique where we market a product called 'salvation.' The consumer is the sinner and the marketer is the missionary. In the bargain, what is missed is redemptive living in society."

However cut and dry this may seem, the issue has major theological implications. Balance must be sought. On one hand, we must communicate the truth of the gospel in a way that doesn’t excuse people from righteous living and also acknowledges the Christian call to suffering. On the other, we must continue to go into the entire world and be all things to all people for the sake of the gospel.

Historically:

Historically, the negative impacts of felt-need evangelism have been especially notable in China. In an interview, Kim-kwong Chan, co-author with Alan Hunter of Protestantism in Contemporary China, commented on historical Christian Missions trends in China and surrounding areas.

"Average people of China have little knowledge of the history of Christian missions. When the government speaks about the missions movement, it emphasizes its faults. Many Protestant missionaries felt superior to the Chinese; some were even racist. Some exploited the Chinese. Those memories trigger resentment among the Chinese, even among Chinese Christians… They know foreign missionaries brought the gospel to China, but their evaluation of the missionaries is ambiguous at best. Christian missionaries, they believe, were often the agents of Western imperialism … Many China missions were criticized for "bribing" the Chinese with food (usually rice), education, or hospital care to get them to listen to the gospel. The resulting believers were sometimes called 'rice Christians.' But recently I've visited Asian mission societies in outer Mongolia; as villagers entered one worship service, they were given two kilograms of rice and a bottle of oil. It's hard to learn from history." (Christianity Today)

The result of this kind of evangelism manifested between 1949 and 1980 when hostility was directed against Christians in China and other so-called "bad elements" of society, including intellectuals. People lost their jobs, others were thrown into jail, others still were sent to labor camps. Christians were second-class citizens, and that affected not just individuals but their families and relatives, as well.
During persecution, many Christians stopped going to church. Many churches closed. (Christianity Today)

Christians who converted just because the Christian Religion made life easier abandoned the church in times of difficulty. Without realizing it, missionaries had “tricked” them into thinking that following Jesus meant a life with less suffering.

Case Study Analysis:

On a much smaller scale, this is what the pastor in the case study is teaching to the church. The cost of discipleship is discarded in the hopes that money and respect will attract and keep believers.

There are long term effects of the so called prosperity gospel. What will the youth of today do when their sense of entitlement crumbles under the pressure of suffering in the world? What if no matter how hard they work, or how hard they study, the economy does not improve? What if they get sick? What if the world really does hate them like Jesus said it would?

Will they remain faithful?

Will we?