The Prosperity Gospel

The prosperity gospel is not preached by the Catholic Church. It is very American, very Protestant (Calvinist), and very capitalist. It is often proclaimed by a wealthy televangelist who presents himself as an example for a life of material abundance based upon an active faith in God. The basic premise is: an active faith in God is a path to material abundance as God will bless the believing heart with riches. The preacher testifies about his own journey from impoverishment to affluence through an active faith in God's providence. The emphasis upon trust, activism, and positive expectations all combine to release positive energies. The problem is a concern with material abundance that is hardly evangelical.

Jesus himself was poor and not affluent and therefore following him clearly draws us to poverty.

Jesus proclaimed: "Blessed are the poor." He did not say "Blessed are the affluent and the successful."

Jesus told the rich young man: "Sell all you have and give to the poor and come follow me."

Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle.

He called love of money "a root of evil."

Jesus associated with and valued the poor. He associated with the rich and called them to repent and to share their wealth with the poor.

Catholic imitation of Christ always involves the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience...strikingly so in the consecrated life (e.g. the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal) but also in married, lay life in the preference to "live simply so that others may simply live." (Mother Theresa)

The saints all find in the poor a privileged presence of Christ.

The Prosperity Gospel is a flight away from poverty and the poor Christ into material surplus, hyper-security and status. It reflects a longing for economic safety and abundance. It arose in a non-Catholic, Calvinst enviroment that had discarded the efficacious sacraments as infallible signs of God's love, had abolished the evangelical/consecrated life of the vows, demoted the role of Mary as our mother and queen, and replaced ecclesial authority with "sola scriptura" ("only scripture.") A Christianity without her mother and queen, without the objective assurances of salvation (e.g. confession), without authority and without the witness of the consecrated life is impoverished and searches for signs of salvation, primarily in subjective consciousness such as the experience of "being saved." But subjectivity is always volatile and the Calvinist doctrine of double-predestination (some are saved, others are damned) added urgency to the need for external assurances. And so the emergent bourgeois class found assurance in their material prosperity which they interpreted as God's validation of their interior righteousness. This is a novel and perverse gospel.

The affluent assure themselves of their righteousness by a logic that sees material abundance as a blessing given to reward faith and righteousness. The inverse implication of this principle is a curse upon the poor: your poverty is the result of your disbelief. And so, "Blessed are the poor" is transformed into "Cursed are you poor because of your unbelief and you will remain cursed by poverty unless you believe."

We are left to wonder: What would these affluent preachers have to say to the impoverished people of Haiti who are utterly bereft of any path to abundance? Or to people in boarding homes who are disabled and without the abilities or resources to rise above their $705 monthly SSI check? Or to the saints who have given away all they own to be with and serve the poor? Or to the poor Jesus himself and his mendicant (beggar) disciples?

And so the Catholic Christian loves the Poverty Gospel:
- Receiving from God every voluntary and involuntary deprivation as a grace.
- Cultivating contentment and gratitude rather than restless ambition.
- Fierce aggressiveness on behalf of the Kingdom of the Father, rather than one's own portfolio.
- Eagerness to dispossess and give generously to the needy.
- Tender and intense love for the most deprived.
- Affectionate, intense devotion to Christ in the poverty of the Eucharist.