Yes...but!

August 11 2008

Home > Columns >Yes...But! Year 8-40

Prosperity religion is entering a crucial phase. Although Televangelist Kenneth Copeland has a private jet, a lakeside mansion and an array of ranching, oil and media interests that benefit his extended family, and Joel Osteen, leader of the largest church in America, too has become a rich man, as also befits this prosperity preacher, the middle class- the bulk of church goers – is in big trouble with massive layoffs, rising inflation, stagnant wages while facing a housing horror and credit crunch.

Perhaps at the root of this age-old heresy lies the Calvinistic streak of hard work and frugal living gone awry, which has, within a Capitalistic setting, bolstered by the Power of Positive Thinking, mutated in the proclamation that being rich is a blessing from the Lord, while being poor a punishment.

These well-heeled preachers base their ‘prosperity’ claims on the life stories of Abraham and Job, two wealthy Old Testament heroes. They forget that Abraham was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, Isaac, and that Job too went through a period of severe testing.

Of all the Bible books, Job is the most relevant for today. The book tells us that God granted Satan power to harm Job, a precise reflection of the evil Satan is causing to and in our world today. The Satan, in Job’s time also believed that riches were the result of God’s favor, evident in that curious dialogue with God where he tells God that if Job were to be ruined financially he would curse God.

God agrees to Satan’s request and Job loses both capital and family. Although Job has no clue what hits him, he still maintains that “the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Satan had not counted on such a response, and goes back to God, who allows him to afflict Job with something like AIDS.

In Job’s total desolation, his friends appear. They are of the Copeland-Osteen type. They tell Job that his personal calamity comes from a serious crime he committed against God. That is pure prosperity prattle.

But Job knows better. The first thing he discovers is that being well-off can hinder the development of wisdom, just as in our affluence our carbon-dependency has become a March of Folly. It’s Job’s suffering that teaches him to say: “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding”.

What Job learns, when finally God talks to him, is that we humans are not the totality of creation. Job originally thought that, because he was so rich, he was the centre of the universe. Job’s sin - and the sin of the church in general - is Anthropocentrism, the belief that the earth and the universe were designed only for human benefit and control. When God talks to Job in a whirlwind, He points to his creational marvels, the revival of nature in the spring, the multitude of flowers in the summer, storms in the autumn, the stark dignity of winter, the immense variety of animals everywhere.

When God is finished with this lesson in biology and cosmology Job is dumbfounded. He finally says, “I heard of you with my ears – I have heard thousands of sermons - but now my eyes have seen you.” Job now has grasped a tiny beginning of God’s greatness.

Why is the book of Job so relevant and the Prosperity gospel so wrong? The rich are the most wasteful, judging by their multiple dwellings, jet-setting travel, and wanton display of wealth – also the pattern of Prosperity Preachers Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen. The writer of the book of Job is so up-to-date because he points to a new relationship between human and God, one based on living an all-inclusive lifestyle, expressing a deep appreciation for creation and thus living so that its wellbeing is constantly considered. Church-people should be shining examples of this sort of life.

The book of Job tells us that we are never able to rest on past achievements, that there simply is no retirement for Christians ever, that our reward is in the new world to come where all earth’s treasures will be ours, just as Job’s wealth is doubled and his family restored.

The heart of the book of Job is that this rich man was converted from an “ego-centered” person to an “eco-centered” man. In addition Job learned to surrender his erroneous ideas about God, and his male compulsion to control. His daughters have the last word. Even now women are seen as secondary, especially in religious institutions. Job’s daughters are named, where the sons are not. In a time when women had no legal rights and could not inherit, they receive a full share of his estate. Also, something we don’t expect in the Bible: ”In all the world there were no women as beautiful as Job’s daughters.”