The Prosperity Gospel is prosperous for the preacher, period.

Among those things that have made me frustrated and angry is the news of ‘ministers’ that preach the prosperity gospel. What a load of tripe. They have, rightfully, come under some scrutiny by the government. These people are sharks and prey upon the hopes and wishes of people who are poor and downtrodden. Those who desire help in gaining the earthly riches that our culture has raised up and deified. For those who may be somewhat sheltered, the prosperity gospel is that preached by Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Oral Roberts and their ilk, that God wants you to be rich and if your faith is strong enough and, here’s the key part, you donate seed money to their churches then you will be (rich). Because God wants you to be rich. This makes me really wild. Allow me, if you will, to share what I think. First I want to be really clear that I think the Bible as it is currently compiled in it’s orthodox state, is potentially flawed in promoting the Christian faith. The main reason for this is that many Christians feel that the Bible is the literal word of God. Once one believes this then there are a lot of really contradictory and even misleading statements in the Old and New testaments that cause problems. And one will swallow this without critical thought. This prosperity gospel is a result of those statements, basing much of its theology in the words of the ‘apostle’ Paul. Now Paul may have been a great Christian but he wasn’t God. If one is going to claim the literal word of God then one needs to, as a Christian anyway, limit oneself to the Four Gospels and maybe the Acts of the Apostles. If you claim to be Christian and accept Jesus’ teachings then the Sermon on the Mount spells it out. There is nothing in there where Jesus says, “I want you to be a really rich S.O.B.” In fact check this out; “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven” matt 6,1 And this one really says it all; “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matt 6, 19-21
So how do these charlatans reconcile this? I am sure that jets, big houses, limousines, etc help a great deal. If you can convince people that the Bible is literally God’s word and then further convince them that you are an intercessor for God then you can get people who are thirsting for help to believe anything. So many despots and evil people have done this that it becomes hard to believe that we would fall for it again. This is why social justice and democratic socialism (Greens?) are so important. A Capitalism based solely in greed with no balancing rules or laws result in ‘religious’ people just like this.