WHETHER people hold very religious or totally secular world views, when it comes to certain subjects there are times that both can be a real pain in the neck. It’s the old adage about living in the same house with the furniture arranged differently.A particular (and growing) genre of people today seem to be, for want of a better description, members of a ‘name it, claim it, gab it, grab it, blab it, nab it, on and on ad nauseum’ club.
I’m a nurse. Through the years I’ve taken care of many very ill children – born with chronic diseases or spinal cord injuries and often requiring mechanical ventilation. In the course of my work I have crossed the paths of several ‘name it, claim it’ types who have driven the parents of these children to utter despair. For the most part they are decent people who mean well. They think they are promoting something good. They are not aware of the damage they are doing to the poor and very ill.
Their underlying belief system goes something like this: Faith is a tool to get precisely what you want out of life; health, wealth and happiness can be yours if you find the correct magic formula and live by it. This usually involves the faulty belief that
Bible verses can be used to appease and manipulate God in much the same way as the ancients used oracles and set rituals to appease and manipulate their many gods.
Most people would agree it is wrong to tell the sick that they haven’t been healed because they didn’t live right or believe for a miracle without doubting. Yet isn’t it just as disconcerting when someone thinks that in a world full of poverty and social injustice the Bible was somehow written to be their own personal guide to prosperity and a stress-free life? How anyone believes that Christ bled, suffered and died on a cross so that they could drive around in a Porsche and never have to worry about parking spaces must boggle the mind of any thinking person.
The secular version isn’t much better. A perverted idea of positive thinking takes the place of a perverted idea of faith. In this scenario positive thinking is endowed with much more power than it actually deserves. A universal prototype might be little Shirley Temple as Heidi – stolen away from her grandfather to be wheelchair-bound Clara’s companion, Heidi teaches Clara to walk. No doubt positive thinking can be an energising force, but had Clara’s spinal cord been totally severed, the truth is that Clara would have had to have been picked up off the floor and Heidi never would have seen grandpapa again!
None of this negates the possibility of miracles.
Miracles do happen, but they are called miracles because they happen so infrequently. We can’t whip one up. If we could whip one up by our own frenzied carrying on then we would be in control and not God.
All true miracles are gifts of grace given by God for his own purposes in redeeming the world unto himself (see John 9:3).
We may ask, pray and believe for a miracle but, ultimately, true faith requires that we leave the outcome in God’s hands. His decision does not signify greater love or favour towards the recipient of a miracle than it is a sign of any lack of these towards the non-recipient.
Jesus made it very clear that the sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike (see Matthew 5:45).
The Bible, when read in context, never promises any intergalactic, cosmic welfare programme for eligible recipients. What it does promise is that when we trust in Jesus nothing will be able to separate us from God’s love (Romans 8:39).
In researching various descriptive words for God’s love in the Bible, I found that the word used most often in conjunction with divine love is ‘steadfast’. It is used a total of 180 times and comes from the same Hebrew word as womb – chesed. It implies very strongly that God’s love for us is like the love of a mother-to-be for the growing child inside her. It is a love that is unconditional and can carry us through anything life (or death) may throw our way. Simply put, any mistaken guarantee of health, wealth and happiness pales by comparison!
Daryl Lach
Romeoville, Illinois
USA Central
From THE SALVATIONIST archives)
9 comments:
I saw a statistic that many name it and claim it people ended up going bankrupt. Many of these people do not use their brains and common sense that God gave them. Once again it is the misuse of scripture and out of balance thought and reason.
USA East former
Daryl,
Great article. Couldn't agree more. Not much more to say really. More examples would be pointless as it just says what you've already said.
Once again - excellent.
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East
Daryl, I applaud you.
I find this "name it, claim it, grab it" concept offensive and dishonouring to our holy, wise God.
Active, faith believing, UKT
Good article Daryl
However I wonder how long we need to have articles like this that pander to a small minority of people who have a skewed understanding of what Faith is all about.
I do remember in the dim dark past when I had a disgruntled ex solder who in this small country town placed a pamphlet in my letterbox every day warning me of the dangers of not being 'saved' because I did not speak in tongues.
I guess that these people will always be with us but do we have to respond to them with all the energy that it takes when there is so much more that we could be doing. It is like an argument for seat belts in our cars. We take them as necessary and yet I suppose we still have to keep admonishing people to do it.
However I admire your patience and cogent argument. You probably know what my response would be.
Cheers
'Fletch'
Former Australia.
Hi Fletch!
Great to hear from you again---and thanks also to USA East Former, Graeme and Active, faith believing, UKT for your comments and encouraging words!
I do see your point Fletch but I think you're responding from the perspective of an Englishman born in Birmingham, UK(?)who has lived in Australia for most of his life.
Are you aware that in the USA something like 20% of all professed born again Xians (which is no small number)claim to be believers in the prosperity gospel? Or that many of the most populace megachurches (though not all) including the presently largest one in the US(to be found in Houston, Texas) are attracting these huge congregations at least in part because they are proponents of this heresy?
Add to this the fact that one can barely turn on Xian television in the US today without getting one's head soaked in this propaganda---- and the number of evangelical American missionaries who come from these backgrounds, exporting what is little more than witchcraft immersed in Xian symbolism to third world countries and you might be able to see why I'm so passionate about the subject.
It is true that in TSA the prosperity gospel has not taken as much of a hold as it has in other evangelical denominations. This is because the culture of TSA is a little different. TSA gets most of its funding from the public so there is no great push for officers to do an Oral Robert's schtick on their soldiery. Also, if soldiers were told that god (small g intended!)wanted them all to pursue fame and riches who would ever go to training? Yet, along the edges there are officers and soldiers who have been sucked into this type of thinking. It's so much a part of the greater evangelical culture it was bound to happen.
One further point to be made on the secular front is that in recent years there has been a small book entitled "The Secret" that has become a best seller here due in large part to certain talk show hosts and hostesses-- and one billionaire one in particular. I can't count the number of times anymore I've bumped into soccer moms and others at my local dog park who've made silly statements about "throwing it (whatever the heck "it" is)out into the universe and waiting for "it" to come back! (Lordy, have mercy on us all!)
Several years ago I met a comedienne who as a part of her routine talked about the Cinderella Complex. She contended that there should be something along the lines of a Betty Ford Clinic for women (like herself) who suffered from the Cinderella Complex. She imagined that as part of their therapy they would all be strapped into a chair and made to watch Walt Disney's cartoon epic Cinderella. Overhead some diva would be belting out the song "When Will My Prince Charming Come?" Every time one of them would smile the therapist would smack 'em silly and yell out, "There is no prince! He isn't coming! Go get a job lady!" until they were cured.
All in all, not a bad solution for the health, wealth and happiness crowd, if I may say so myself: "There is no magic formula! The Universe doesn't care what the heck you throw out into it! Knock off the idolatry and grow up already!"
Daryl Lach
USA Central
"You Must Go home by the Way of the Cross to Stand with Jesus in the Morning"
P.S. Btw, Fletch. I hope your move to Perth was a productive one. I continue to pray for you and your wife. Keep in touch and God Bless You!
Thanks for that Daryl
I now know why I call Australia the 'Promised Land' and it is possibly because we are not bombarded with Tele Evangelists on a regular basis, but then I suppose that you need to turn the tele on to see them.
I love the Cinderella Complex narrative and I guess it is something that we could all do with a dose of reality over a number of issues on a regular basis, with someone ready to tie us down and give us a serious reality check.
Perth is lovely and I am, as always, having a good time trying to make a positive dent in my universe.
By the way if you log on to the Australian Govt. website it and follow the link 'Migrating to Australia', you will find out all you need to know about joining me in the Promised Land and that coffee could be a real one instead of a virtual one.
Cheers
I was at a large church this last Sunday and the pastor was speaking about tithing. He was mixing Old Testament and New Testament Scripture.I am not a legalist but I do believe in proportionate giving as Paul mentioned as well as setting aside a predetermined amount.Tithing is not binding and for some may be an amount they decide to give to a ministry. Some others may decide to give more. We can never out give God. My problem is that the pastor was using tithing as a way to increase his churches income because of greed and expanding or continuing areas of waste. Perhaps some better stewardship is in order. My thought would be turn up the thermostat on the air conditioning so that it is not cold and save on expenses for electricity. The purchase of $14,000 for free donuts a year could be cut. They also have a cafe in the church that sells food there anyway.This church is of a background of name it and claim it crowd. They seemed to stray from that teaching for some time but I see it creeping back.The statement was made that if people tithed that they would be blessed a hundred fold. The promise of that specific blessing was made to Israel which was a theocracy. The tithe paid for some of the national expenses of Israel besides other funds or goods.No rightly dividing the Word there.
I was blessed by fantastic worship and music and then to be exposed to this twisted greedy sermon . Many of the people that attend this church have lost much of their personal income and are unemployed. Some are a paycheck or two away from losing their homes.I got a sick feeling in my stomach when the emotion was turned on and I thought I was hearing Jimmy Swaggard. What a scam and a turn-off.
Blessings,
USA East former officer
Loved the Cinderella Complex story. How true, how true and how true again for the prosperity line. Good article.
Someday Fletch and Daryl, we shall all do coffee together. I just know it to be so. Someday.
I have to share a secret. Daryl Lach is an amazing researcher/archivist and perhaps the most knowledgeable person I know regarding all things 'fundamentalist.' This article is only a taste of what he knows about fundamentalism and its threat to the Evangelical Christian churches. I hope you will encourage him to write more and to share with us some of the other conclusions he has drawn. He's a great guy, a real writer, a Salvation Army loyalist and I'm proud to call him my friend
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