Prosperity

On Wednesday morning, Phil and Christine came over to chat with us and with coffees/hot chocolates in hand we hung in the living room and talked about Prosperity gospel and the African church. (They had previously given us two articles to read prior to this meeting). This conversation has been a long time coming, especially after the infamous New Year's Eve service at BCI and I realize that from my Western perspective really doesn't understand where South Africans are coming from in this aspect.

I think the most important thing that I learned is how Africans view life: everything is spiritual. In fact, prayer can shape material realities.

We read a chapter from Philip Jankin's book The New Face of Christianity and I thought I would share this quote.

A religion that speaks only to man's soul and not his body is not true. Africans make no distinction between the spiritual and the physical. If the gospel you are preaching does not speak to human needs, it's useless.

In our Western perspective, I find it really easy to not assume that God relates to all our aspects of our lives. This sounds terrible, but think about it. We have tons of medical help (well maybe not in the States. ha), we generally know where we're going to get food, we have tons of self-help books to instruct us of how to get out of debt. It's easy to get lost in the beast and not realize that we're giving God the passenger seat.

I think that what I've learned in this whole thing is that Africans know what it means to pray in faith for all aspects of their lives. It's definitely something that I can learn from.

During this meeting, I also realized that the worst form of prosperity gospel is an export of the US. Big shocker there. Ugh. What an unfortunate thing. It makes me sick thinking that the type of Christianity that often colonized our imaginations is from the States. This is a big problem all around the world when thinking God will bless us actually cheapens grace. When a self-center approach to wealth takes the place of a God centered approach then we are in trouble. When we don't use our blessing to bless others – to be in community- than we aren't demonstrating who Jesus is anymore.

Anyway, I feel like this blog is rather incoherent but those are just some thoughts I wanted to share.

Two additional things that I realized (once again) at this meeting? 1. That Phil and Christine might be the coolest people I know. And 2. I love sitting around and discussing articles. I am definitely going to grad school/seminary at some point in my life. Yes please.