While religion is on a slow decline across the world, there is a brand of Christianity that is flourishing as people’s economic prospects begin to dwindle: prosperity gospels. Their philosophy is simple: wealth is a direct result of “seeding” the church, which is just a fancy way of saying that the more money you give to religious charlatans, the more God will bless you.

Most of you are already familiar with the big names in the biz: Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen come to mind. However, this ignores the hundreds of other small hustlers like Jason Mattera who demand that their already financially stricken flock give them thousands of dollars with the vague promise that they will see these amounts returned tenfold. It’s an easy pitch for those desperate for a miracle.

No content with just ripping off their fellow man, now some have taken to venting about how the evil of poverty is a direct result of those lazy bums that refuse to do an honest days work, and a lack of faith in God. You see, in their world view, people who need help have failed to help themselves, and the whole notion of “Christian charity” is really a fundamental misunderstanding of biblical teachings:

Of course, Christians are supposed to be at the tip of the spear in alleviating poverty, especially when it comes to other believers. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are under any obligation to help indolent bums.

Such people are not entitled to our generosity.

The irony in all of this is that a majority of adherents to prosperity gospel tend to be people of lower means. In a sense, these poor wretches want to understand their own failures and seek to justify the intense inequity in wealth distribution around them. Why are some rich and others poor? Their conclusion is simple: it’s all their fault for lacking faith:

Many scholars of religion…argue that the Prosperity Gospel resonates only with those of the lower class by offering them the “opiate” of upward mobility. Others make the reverse argument that the Prosperity Gospel actually rationalizes the wealth of those who have been upwardly mobile by saying that this is spiritually derived and deserved (Bruce 1990b; Fee 1981; Gifford 1998).

As wealth inequity grows, so too will this movement, which will only continue to add to the problem. From now on, anyone associating Christianity with compassion and charity better think twice!