Mockingbird has an article by Ethan Richardson that reflects upon the writings of Katie Bowler who has cancer and has recently written on so-called ‘prosperity’ theology.
The interaction of her study on the subject, her sickness, and Richardson’s reflections point out the way in which prosperity theology impoverishes the Christian life as it deals with mortality and eternity.
It is a perversion of the Gospel that physical death and ill-health could be equated with a lack of faith.
Richardson:
“Certainly, no amount of positive thinking is enough to stave off metastasis–but what’s worse, under the conditional framework of the prosperity gospel, your metastasis may be proof of something. It may mean you didn’t believe hard enough or think positively enough.”
Richardson quotes Bowler:
“The prosperity gospel has taken a religion based on the contemplation of a dying man and stripped it of its call to surrender all. Perhaps worse, it has replaced Christian faith with the most painful forms of certainty. The movement has perfected a rarefied form of America’s addiction to self-rule, which denies much of our humanity: our fragile bodies, our finitude, our need to stare down our deaths (at least once in a while) and be filled with dread and wonder. At some point, we must say to ourselves, I’m going to need to let go.”
Read the whole post at Mockingbird.
