[pnggrad79]

Andrew,
I agree with your post. Two examples to share with you, just to see if it fits your description of prosperity theology:

1. While on a voluntary mission trip to Arizona and New Mexico, I went with the First Baptist Church of Farmington to deliver electric blankets to a Navajo community, named Sawmill, up in the mountains of Arizona right on the border of NM. About halfway through the trip, as they stopped by the shacks these Navajo live in, I was handing out the blankets to the people delivering them. One lady got back in the van and said, "I am so glad we got these almost for free!" and I said, "Really, who donated them?" She said, "Well, the Farmington Blanket Company was going to throw them out, because these blankets have a defect in them and not all of them will work." I was incensed. I said, "So you mean to tell me that you giving defective electric blankets to these people?" She smiled and said, "Yes, and we didn't have to pay but .25 for each of them." I said, "So the electric blanket on your bed was too good for the Navajos?" I was livid! How Christian is that to give throw aways to people, whom they obviously considered inferior to themselves? Be reminded that the temperature year round in the mountains hovers around 40 in the morning and about 75-80 during the day. Most of these people living in grinding poverty and most do not have running water or indoor plumbing.

2. My former father-in-law was taking a mission trip to Cuba. It was a medical mission of sorts. They were taking medication to clinics in Havana and holding a Bible school in a school nearby. My father-in-law mentioned that they got the medication from a pharmacy that was going to throw it out because this medication (cold remedies, Tylenol, Advil, some antibiotics, some prescription pain relievers) was 2-3 years past the expiration date. In essence, giving expired medication to the Cubans. Again I was livid. I said, so if you won't take it and a pharmacy was going to throw it away because it is NO GOOD, why the hell are you giving it to Cubans? He said, "Because we don't have to pay full price for it and it makes it like we a doing a good thing!" There is a reason he is a former father-in-law!

I agree, much of the church is entrenched in Prosperity theology. And it it is height of arrogance and pompousness to espouse this theory. "Take up your cross" and "Blessed are the poor in spirit" are just impotent sayings that we tell ourselves to help us sleep at night. It is this theology that pushed Native Americans off their land, and enslaved millions of Africans, and screams, "If you are in this country you need to speak English". This theology is of Satan himself. He is the one who has bastardized the gospel of Jesus.