In all of our discussions, we might forget that the theology we’re debating has a human face.  On the other end of our words, our blogs, and our preaching are people.  Listening people.  People who believe and trust us.  People who–tremble at this–take our teaching seriously and act on it.  There may be only a few people in our homes that listen to us, or there may be several dozen in our churches, or there may be an untold number across the globe tuning in through some electronic media.  But make no mistake about it, if a tree falls in the woods it does make a sound even if you don’t immediately see anyone around to hear it.  They’re there and they’re listening.

A couple of days ago my wife posed a question to me.  Standing over the kitchen counter she asked, “Do you think anyone has really illustrated what the problem is with Jakes’ teaching?”  She explained that she was quite aware of the many theological discussions at work.  But she was looking for someone to actually illustrate the problems stemming from the teaching of Jakes and others like him.  I pondered that for a moment and realized she was correct.  We didn’t have a picture of Jakes’ effect on real lives.  That’s why I call her “Kristie the Wise.”

So, perhaps it would be wise for us to stop for a moment to remember the very real people who sit under the false teaching of people like T.D. Jakes.  We need to put a face on the destruction caused by heterodoxy (“prosperity gospel”) and heresy (modalism).  To that end, I want to share with you an email I received from a brother after ER2.  He wrote with a concern very similar to my wife’s.  He wanted to share his story as an illustration.  I offered to share it anonymously, but he wanted to leave his name in it–Sean.  In his words, he wanted to “put a face to it.”

Here’s Sean’s brief account:

I am, to be really honest here, very upset by the passé attitudes [towards Jakes] of these brothers (and pastors, I might add). I’m upset for a few reasons, but If I’m being honest, the main reason why I’m so disturbed by this is because the prosperity gospel nearly killed me. Literally. I was so sick I was on the verge of death. I was lying in a hot bath with a temperature of 96 degrees, way beyond dehydrated, and literally dying with mercury poisoning. My mother was crying over my naked body, begging me to go to the hospital for treatment. “NO!” I insisted. How could I put faith in a doctor? “God is my ultimate healer! In him alone will I place my faith!”

I did eventually receive treatment, but I was still being ravished by this heresy. When I married my beautiful wife, Amber, I taught her (with the Bible of course), that there would be no taking of medicine in MY HOUSE! We would be faithful. When we were dead broke I refused to get a job because “God had promised me (through Canton Jones, no less) that I would be a buisness CEO, fortune 500, of course. How could I not have faith in that word of prophesy?

And there were a hundred other things that nearly destroyed my life and marriage. Would you care to guess who my MAIN teacher was? Who I followed as if he himself were Jesus? Who I tithed to regularly? Who’s books I read faithfully? Who’s sermons I purchased? Who’s dress I imitated?

Yes, you guessed it. TD Jakes.

My brother, this man is not merely confused, he is a wolf. God’s gracious staff saved me from him.  But don’t get it twisted.  Under my fur I still bear many scars that he gave to me with his powerful bite.

Sean is a 20-something, tattooed, urban type.  He has a beautiful young family and wants to now devote his life to the mission field.  He’s sitting under sound teaching of God’s word, building community with others, and looking to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But he had to first escape Jakes and the prosperity movement before he could really come to build his life on and give his life to the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, not everyone has had the same experience as Sean and Amber.  And not everything in Sean’s experience can be attributed to the preacher.  But we can’t deny the connection between belief and behavior.  If the belief is faulty chances are the behavior will be faulty also.  Picture Sean.  Picture many more like Sean, falling into life-changing and sometimes life-threatening behaviors because they’ve believed a life-stealing teaching.  Now picture that teaching coming to an evangelical church near you.  Perhaps your own.  That’s the face we need to put on this destructive teaching.

Jakes’ false teaching has long been experienced in predominantly African-American and Hispanic-American communities.  His reach extends throughout the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa.  Recent events have given T.D. Jakes greater credibility in and access to communities that to this point were largely unaware of him.   In my opinion, that can’t be a good thing.

From Essence magazine:

In November 2007, the Senate Finance Committee ordered ten leaders of church-based ministries to hand over their financial records by December 6, 2007, for an investigation it was launching. Many argue these renowned ministers’ lavish lifestyles and prosperity teachings made them prime targets. Grammy-winning gospel great Donnie McClurkin, who also serves as pastor of the Perfecting Faith Church in Long Island, New York, shares his thoughts on the role of today’s Black churches and its pastors in this dwindling economy.

As pastors, we have to link arms and have bipartisanships. The [Black] church has always been the face of the community. Now we have to take on the responsibility of becoming true servants to the people from all walks of life. I get so mad when I see these pimpin’ preachers driving Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, flying around in their private jets, and making it seem like prosperity and money is the way of God when 90 percent of your congregation is on Section 8 or can’t figure out how they are going to keep their lights on or feed their kids. I’m big on perception, and what would it look like for me to live so lavishly if the people in my church are struggling?

I’ve done great in gospel music, and only a few of us have accomplished what I have, and guess what? I live in the ‘hood, not some place on the outskirts of the ‘hood. There ain’t no gate around my house; I have a white fence because the people I pastor live in that community. I have one vehicle and it’s not a Mercedes, it’s a Lincoln Navigator. I don’t receive a dime—not an Abraham Lincoln copper coin—and haven’t for the last seven-and-a-half years because I’m okay.

I’ve even had members ask me why I choose to live in the same neighborhood, and it’s because I have to be able to relate. Do you think if Jesus was here on earth he’d be spending all his time in the church? No, he’d be out with the people who need him the most on the streets. People tell me how they want their pastor to be prosperous and I tell them I want the people to be prosperous. I’ve realized that just because you can go out and do something it doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do.

If I wanted to buy a Phantom or Bentley I could and not hurt my pockets, but I’m okay with what I have. I can sing and work and I let all that money go back into the church so we can buy the delicatessen on the corner, or the house next door to make it state-of-the-art low-income housing. We’ve trained our people to put their leaders on pedestals, and some people want to live vicariously through their pastor and say, “My pastor has this and he’s on television and so on,” but then what do you have? How have you prospered and grown? So when I hear other pastors say, “My people take care of me,” I’m thinking, But you’re supposed to be taking care of the people. I just don’t get it.

I don’t have a church, but I do have a church that I pastor. I can’t name something the Donnie McClurkin Temple because the people do not belong to me and if they did that would mean I have slaves. I am simply a vessel to deliver God’s word. At the end of the day, it’s God’s church, not mine.

This is over a year old, but I’m thankful for it.  I appreciate McClurkin’s comments here.  As one of the most successful gospel artists in our era, he certainly has a large and prominent platform for being used for God’s glory in the reform of the church.  Now if we could get him to disassociate himself from TBN, perhaps the largest conduit for men who fleece the sheep!  “Evil company….”

Bob Kellemen at RPM Ministries offers a gracious review of Glory Road: The Journeys of Ten African-Americans into Reformed Christianity.  Kellemen is a good student of African-American theology and church history and offers a warm critique of Glory Road.

For my part, I think Glory Road could be one of the most important, helpful, and encouraging books published in the last ten years on African-American Christianity.  I think its warmth, humor, honesty, and theological integrity

could be a winsome tool in capturing the hearts of many people who have not come to know the wonderful truths and history of the Reformed tradition.  If you haven’t read this book, rush out and make it a stocking stuffer or New Year’s read.  It’ll reward you.

HT: Phoenix Preacher

A Christianity Today video that’s an interesting look at prosperity teaching in Africa. (HT: Z)

The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

John Piper abominates this teaching. I’m with John. Poverty–as disastrous as it is–doesn’t warrant abandoning the only hope of the gospel with the false hope of ‘prosperity.’

HT: Z

Damning people to hell with what they love as fallen people.

That’s a pretty good summary of the ‘prosperity gospel,’ which is not the gospel at all. The appeal to the carnal desires of men (wealth, ownership, influence, etc.) as the basis, evidence, and goal of worship of God is, to put it mildly, soul destroying.

Now, a caveat. This is not to say there are not Christians involved in churches and sitting under preachers committed to the ‘prosperity gospel.’ There are. They trust Christ alone for their salvation. They love Him and they seek to serve Him.

Yet, they may not see how egregious an error the ‘prosperity gospel’ is. There is so much in the Scripture about blessings and about God’s good gifts to His people. There is so much in the Bible about what is good and beautiful in life.

But the ‘prosperity gospel’ makes at least three critical mistakes that may not be easily discerned by a person regularly sitting under this teaching looking into a Bible that contains so much about God’s blessings.

1. The ‘prosperity gospel’ makes wealth and possessions a part of the gospel. In other words, it teaches that Christ’s work includes and purchases prosperity for His people, and defines that prosperity chiefly in terms of things in this life. That’s a different ‘gospel’ (Gal. 1:1-9). It can not save. It says, “Come to Jesus to get your life in order” (the moralist prosperity gospel in so many ‘evangelical’ churches), or “Come to Jesus and you will have houses and lands and money in this life, now” (the materialist prosperity gospel variety taught by so many word-of-faith televangelists and their wanna-be followers). But the biblical gospel is “Turn to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, to be reconciled to the True God, to escape the wrath to come, and live eternally in His love.” That’s good news and precious treasure whether or not we ever find wealth, comfort, ease, or get our lives in some moralistic order. The ‘prosperity gospel’ displaces this good news with a lesser news, “free stuff.”

2. The ‘prosperity gospel’ mistakenly assumes that because something is mentioned a lot in the Bible it must be the main point of the Bible. That’s a serious mistake. My wife and I talk a lot about bills that need to be paid. We have our entire marriage, from the time were were broke college students each working two jobs to just last week when thinking about vacation and the kids’ back-to-school needs. We communicate about money. But is our relationship about money? No, praise God! Our relationship is about a lot of other far more glorious things than money and decisions about money. So it is with the Scriptures. The frequent references about money or possessions or blessings are not the main point: God is the main point. The Bible is about God and His redemptive work. All of life is about God and worship of Him. It’s not about us and our stuff. Prosperity preachers baptize their concern with worldly things with a lot of God-talk. But God becomes the Bible’s backup singer to man’s solo quest for stuff. It’s a theological folly in missing the point.

3. The ‘prosperity gospel’ overlooks suffering. That’s to be expected. Anywhere prosperity gets defined as material wealth, etc., emphasis on comfort goes up and attention to suffering goes out. And yet, the Lord and the apostles call us repeatedly to endure suffering for the glory of His name. In fact, the Christian life, in one sense, is synonymous with the sufferings of Christ. “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows” (2 Cor. 1:5). Because we’re united to Christ, we suffer. And we are blessed when we suffer for Him (Matt. 5:10-12; 1 Peter). One can’t help but think that much of our weakness as Christians is owing to our un-Christian aversion to suffering, avoiding it at all cost and christening cowardice as wisdom. The ‘prosperity gospel’ lays a pretty deep foundation for that mistake.

Anyway… I didn’t intend to say much at all about this, just to show the video. But I pray that the Lord’s people, redeemed by His blood, would leave these churches and ministries in a mass exodus.

Related Posts
John Calvin on the ‘Prosperity Gospel’
Mohler on the Prosperity Gospel
Husband-Wife Co-Pastors?

Okay… maybe not every night. But he did last night, and he offers some good historian’s reflections.

My man Lance Lewis is angry about the silence of African American churches and church leaders in the wake of recent domestic abuse scandal involving Juanita Bynum and Thomas Weeks. He’s angry at the abuse of women, and he’s angry at the Black churches silent acceptance of the false “gospel” of prosperity preachers. He writes over at Blaque Tulip: