If you’ve never heard of Joel Osteen, consider yourself lucky. In America, there exists a certain breed of hucksters called “prosperity pastors”, who claim that the secret to a good life is to give a ridiculous amount of money to the church (something they call “seeding” instead of “fleecing”). This, they claim, will be rewarded by God, who apparently counts every penny you give to these assholes.

When he isn’t busy turning away the needy, he’s on social media, saying dumb shit like this:

“It’s the simple things in life that bring us the most joy. You may not have a lot of resources, but if you have family, you’re blessed. If you have your health, you’re blessed. If you can look up at the stars at night, you’re blessed.”

The response has been pretty brutal. Many people are pointing out that his insane wealth is anything but simple, and were also quick to point out his hypocrisy.

Personally, I wouldn’t even mind guys like Osteen if they were preaching to the rich. God knows that some of those assholes could stand to lose a few bucks. However, most followers of prosperity gospels are disproportionally poor, and often, they seek the church as a way to potentially get rich, which they think can be done by giving money they could have otherwise used for other purposes. In reality, prosperity gospel have some of the poorest congregants, specifically because of how much they are taxed by the church.

Don’t just take my word for it. There are people out there that have escaped the clutches of these scam artists, and they have a lot of unkind words to say:

Missiologist Paul Borthwick tells of a trip to Ghana, where he witnessed a 300-pound preacher appeal to his body as proof that God had blessed him, and would bless his listener’s seed-money as well. “When you live in poverty” the missionary with Borthwick said, “you don’t want to feel loved. You want God’s power to make you prosper. . . . [T]hey have been taught [that] money is the way to release the power.”

The prosperity gospel isn’t just bad theology. It’s a form of oppression.

Personally, it’s all a grift to me. Some are just more hard-core than others, that’s all.

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!

The image of sheep is a popular metaphor in Christianity. Jesus is portrayed as a shepherd, leading his flock into paradise. Believers are encouraged to be generous, kind, and meek, all qualities of good sheep. At the time the Bible was written, the profession of shepherd was common, and it’s easy to understand how the romanticism of this job would appeal to the people of that period. But there is something disturbing about this metaphor. The slavish devotion of believers is far too easy to exploit, and few can manage the responsibilities of the shepherd. Take, for example, this article on Prosperity Ministries:

As Pentecostals tend to be the least well-educated group of believers they make a prime target for would-be millionaire pastors…the scammed believers have more faith in their little finger than I will probably ever know in my lifetime. They would give the shirt off their backs if they believed God wanted them to, and many of them have. These people have the purest of Christian hearts, trusting the intentions of their Shepherd as they’re led as lambs to the slaughter.
…few if any Christians have plainly spoken against the Prosperity Gospel, or raised awareness that measures any merit…this prominent and aberrant theology has been allowed to wreak destruction on a mass of people who are grasping at economic straws.
Prosperity Gospel theology is bankrupt. The debate raged for years about how much sense coveting money made in the context of biblical principles, but now the fruit has been borne and the numbers don’t lie: those who attend Prosperity Gospel churches are in fact worse off for it.”

Prosperity ministries are the sweetest scams in the world: pastors are able to rake in millions from poorly educated and desperate people, all without having to pay a penny of it in taxes. It’s the only legal way to scam people out of their money, so it would be stupid for any scammer NOT to try this out.

The article was based on a survey that found members of these kinds of churches have the lowest income of any church. It’s an irony not lost on everyone, though it will simply fall of deaf ears. These churchgoers are sheep, and their shepherds are wolves, slowly bleeding them to death. It is in examples like this we learn the hard truth: we cannot continue to teach any ideology that weakens a person’s capacity to defend themselves from the wolves of this world.