Selling the blessings

Jane had this dream of becoming a better person. “I want to go to church and come out feeling challenged, edified, deeply moved, encouraged, knowing I have met God personally.” Jane’s first church was based on the prosperity doctrine. After a few months attending that church she felt sad, angry, discouraged, sickened, cheated, and conned. She compares some pastors to salesmen because they strive to make you want what you don’t need. “Some are like casino operators - they lure you in with the promise of easy wealth.” Jane equates these ‘men of God’ to thieves since they don’t respect the follower’s rights of ownership. Others, she says, are like conmen because they strive to make you believe you’re on a good ‘spiritual diet’! “It is an utter shame since there are a number of churches which have joined the bandwagon of this depravity,” Jane says. The pastor often suggests that all of us should own our own homes and recommends the way to get there is to give him a prophetic offertory, and quotes Malachi to give it scriptural authority and authenticity. Jane expected the church to be the one place in this world where you would expect honesty, integrity and people who genuinely care. This catching doctrine was first cited in Nigeria and then Uganda. It’s spreading in Rwanda, and some of our good pastors have been compromised, according to some worshippers. She wonders, how anyone can justify using what Jesus accomplished to make a fortune for themselves! Preachers, who choose to teach the prosperity gospel in their churches, are said to have excessive incomes and live lavish lifestyles. They encourage their followers to spend large amounts of money on tithes and offerings to their churches with a promise that God will monetarily reward them 100 fold for their donations. “They quote Malachi 3:10 (“test me in this …”), to bring this verse, out of context, into the New Covenant is totally inappropriate and unacceptable” she complains.Another believer says that once the pastor start preaching the prosperity path, few can turn back and they slowly become entrenched in deeper and deeper traps of ‘harvesting’. It is a seduction leading to addiction. This doctrine turns God into a spiritual poker machine. How many families have I seen, pouring money into the church coffers, not because they want to bless the poor or are moved by the spirit, but because they are expecting a jackpot! In the end, the few who receive the jackpot are ‘exhibited’ on the pulpit to give their ‘testimony’. The many who didn’t, keep quiet, because there must be something wrong with their relationship with God. Those who go bust, leave the church. Under the New Covenant, God doesn’t want 10% of your money, but He wants 100% of your heart. We are encouraged to be far more generous than 10%, but there is no way He wants to put us into alegalistic rut - only the beneficiary pastors want that. Retired Bishop John Rucyahana who was at the helm of Shyira Anglican Church Diocese for the last 13 years says that “Not all prosperity gospel preachers are immoral because there is also a positive prosperity gospel which transforms the lives of the poor, living among the congregation.” Rucyahana adds that prosperity becomes dreadful when it only has preachers who desire to have excessive incomes and live lavish lifestyles through exploiting their congregations. “Such exploitation is inappropriate and unacceptable and has no scriptural authority and authenticity,” he says. John Rukundo, the Vivant Pentecostal Church pastor based in Gatsibo district, preaches against this prosperity gospel saying that this is a cut-and-paste of little bits of bible verses, primarily from the Old Testament and the new covenant. Nowadays, this kind of gospel is being preached in many evangelistic churches and by tele-evangelists. “I actually heard a leading pastor ask the congregation the question: “How can we bless someone else if we haven’t got any money, have you ever wondered why Jesus proclaimed (Luke 2) that he had come to preach the gospel to the poor?” He believes it is based on the Old Covenant principle of tithing - God always gives first; you give back to God from what He has already given you, not in anticipation of what He is going to give. Some of the exploitation of the prosperity gospel is obvious: the wealthy preacher urges parishioners in poverty to dig deep into their shallow pockets as he turns to deposit the money in his own. ntagu2005@yahoo.com