Bishop Barron on The Prosperity Gospel

Rison I was reading an article in The Atlantic Monthly Magazine that bore the rather startling title did Christianity cause the crash I know a lot of people the secular media want to blame Christianity for almost everything but I thought this was a little bit much it soon became clear though the culprit in the mind of the author was the so-called prosperity gospel the view is propagated by a lot of people today that if you follow God's will follow God's command great things will happen to you in the material sense of the term and the argument was that a lot of Christians who believe this gospel we're making bad and risky investments and this led to the collapse of the of the housing market and the collapse the economy and so on and so forth now I don't know how seriously I take that particular argument but I must say my interest was piqued in this phenomenon of the prosperity gospel the roots of it at least in America probably go back to Oral Roberts the famous so evangelist who just died Oral Roberts said to his many listeners expect a miracle trust in God and great things will happen at the material level of your life probably the most prominent of prosperity gospel er today is Joel Osteen Joel Osteen who is the pastor of the biggest Church in America who has millions of readers and listeners of books and radio broadcasts he also was a former student at Oral Roberts University where he probably picked up this this theology but Joel Osteen pretty much announces the same gospel don't settle for a mediocre life trust in God's promises follow God's will and you can expect more money a better house a family you can be proud of all kinds of material benefits now to give the prosperity gospel errs there do there is a biblical warrant for this point of view look in the book of Deuteronomy you'll find over and over again this promise you follow God's commands you will prosper you don't follow God's commands you will and you find that again reiterated often in the book of Deuteronomy you look in the Psalms you find similar things of trusting in the Lord then expecting great benefits Jesus himself says seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and the rest meaning presumably of wealth and clothing and food and the things you need the rest will be given unto you and he speaks even of the the birds of the air that neither reap or so but but God cares for them and certainly throughout the Bible Old Testament and new we hear the command to trust in God's great providence okay but we have to be careful at this point I think because the Bible itself nuances and specifies this claim of the book of Deuteronomy the great counterweight the counterpoise to the book of Deuteronomy is the book of Job and what we hear in the book of Job we hear about a man who is perfectly righteous who follows the commands of the Lord who follows the commands of the book of Deuteronomy who does what God wants and yet massively suffers in one fell swoop job losses everyone and everything he holds dear loses his family loses his livelihood loses all his wealth loses even his health his friends come and they commiserate with him and they sit in silence for seven days and that was pretty good move but then they open their mouths and what comes out is it kind of a typical standard Deuteronomy reading of things job you must have done something wrong to be suffering in this way you must have offended God in some way but Jobe knows he's righteous and we know he's righteous we're reading the book and so Joel protests against this what do we hear in God's great speech read it in the 38th 39th and 40th chapters of the book of Job we hear not a standard Deuteronomy reading of like yes job you did offend me in some ways rather job suffering is placed in the context of God's unfathomed Boal permissive will there isn't a strict correspondence between job suffering and job's virtue or lack thereof there's a a cautioning I think of the deuteronomistic point of view well how do we solve this problem this dilemma may be within the Bible itself I think we solve it by looking at prosperity not from our perspective but from God's it is true I would say that following God's will leads to prosperity but not necessarily in a worldly sense following God's will rightly orders the soul it rightly orders me toward my proper end and makes my life in the spiritual sense joyful that is the prosperity I can infallibly expect from following God's commands not necessarily prosperity in this world in many ways the book of Job is meant to caution us lest we move in that direction I'll give you a good example of this st. Thomas More one of my heroes Thomas More was a very prominent figure important political player in the court of Henry the eighth a very wealthy man socially prominent man he followed his conscience in a key moment he followed God's command what happened he lost everything he lost his family lost his home lost his status lost his political position lost his wealth and in the end lost his life yet Thomas More was in the only relevant sense a prosperous man meaning he had the great joy that comes he had that ordered soul that comes from following God's commands he had if you want treasure in heaven here's another perspective on it from another hero of mine Saint Thomas Aquinas Aquinas wrestles with that problem that we all do how come wicked people seem to prosper in the world and good people seem to suffer what gives it seems as though God has not just - said be careful look at it not from our narrow perspective but from God that wicked person who receives all kinds of material benefits a client said he might be being easily being punished how come because those material things that he gets are taking him away perhaps from the spiritual good that really matters how about the good person who receives no great material advantage he perhaps Aquinas said is being rewarded because it's the very absence of material distractions that allows him to be spiritually upright in other words be careful how you read prosperity what prosperity means and so is the prosperity gospel right yeah I would say in that sense that you follow God's commands you follow the will of God you will prosper but don't expect primarily treasure on earth expect treasure in heaven

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 649,973

Keywords: Fr. Robert Barron, Word On Fire, Catholicism, Jesus, God, faith, Prosperity Gospel, Book of Job, Joel Osteen, Oral Roberts, Christianity

Id: 1ip4Jx92F94

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2010