Sometimes the Health-Wealth Crowd Gets It Right
(Apathy as an undercurrent in today’s churches)
There has been tremendous growth among the congregations of the Prosperity Preachers. While most Southern Baptist churches struggle to baptize a handful of members a year, the halls of the Health and Wealth crowd are swelling beyond capacity. Is it merely that people like to have their ears tickled? Are they simply being led astray? I don’t think that is the case.
Let me qualify this by stating, I ardently and with the whole of my being desire to oppose any worldview that denies or waters down the message of fallen man and his need for salvation through the cross of Christ. Many preachers of the aforementioned style view the cross as distasteful, barbaric, and ugly. Their congregations purport that they want to hear good news out of the pulpits of the churches. Those are horrendously misguided sentiments in my opinion. The cross IS the Good News. It is the beauty of God’s mercy on a rebellious creation. It is the tender touch of the Father on us, his prodigal sons and daughters. It is a foretaste of God’s love and it should be sweeter to us than anything else this world has to offer. Without the cross, there is no good news.
However, the Prosperity Preachers of today excel in some areas in which many conservatives, I can attest personally for churches, fall woefully short. One such area in which many conservative evangelicals are trumped by the Health and Wealth crowd, is in loving their people. I understand that this is a generalization. I also understand that it can be applied to many denominations. But please, do not lose the point of what I am saying. I feel that many Christians feel that God only loves Christians.
How dare we act as if Jesus bore the cross to create a country club. He died so that his creation might be saved. He has given us the Great Commission as a command, not as a hobby to do before the next committee meeting or church social. We are to love our fellow creation as God has loved us. Time and again we scorn, shun, and spit upon those whom we accuse as different.
When a man has an affair in the church he does not need to be gossiped about. He needs to be shown love and forgiveness. Yes, he needs to repent but why would he seek God’s reconciliation when Christ’s ambassadors, members of the church, fail to do so themselves. A young woman that has an abortion does not need to be labeled a murderer and cast out away from the body of Christ. She needs to be shown God’s love and understanding. She needs to be shown mercy by those around her. We all need to be merciful for God was merciful. The aforementioned examples are all extreme ones, yet the zealous piety of many congregation members ranges to the trivial aspects of people’s appearance as well.
That girl in the youth has a belly-ring or nose-ring. She is obviously promiscuous. That youth with the long hair and tattoo is definitely a bad influence. I think he parties a lot and he probably drinks. It is utterly offense for people to call themselves Christians and bring such hellish attitudes into our churches. Let God condemn our hardened hearts. Many members don’t want disreputable people in their churches. Where would they rather them be? The healthy have no need of a physician. That should sound familiar to us!
We have abandoned loving on others for building committees, prayer for extra leisure time, and we have made out tithes little more than a bribe to God. We lay down the greatest commandments and carry around our gospel of self-assurance. After all, it is comforting. We conform to the images that we find most likable and look down upon those that are obviously too prideful to like wise assimilate into our utopian canon. We have thrown away our sympathy, empathy, and understanding because we need more room for ourselves.
Why? Why do we not weep in agony at all the souls lost on the Church’s watch? Why are we not fasting and praying with every ounce for our might for this country’s leaders to come to Christ? Why have we stopped listening to the keening wail of our soul that beckons us to bring hope to the hopeless? Why do we not see our own shortcomings? Why do we, mirthful and in righteous glee, cast the first stone?
I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the he is the Way, Truth, and the Life. I do not know if our congregations do. If we fully understood the reality of hell there is no way we could sleep soundly. Some preachers would only be happy to have that happen so everyone would be awake through their sermons.
My prayer is that God helps our unbelief. My prayer is that God breaks our hearts for the lost in this world. My prayer is that God makes each of us weep bitterly for all the chances we have had to be watchmen and then abandoned our posts. We have come to like our bathwater neither hot nor cold. Yes, in fact, it is quite lukewarm.
"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
-Charles Spurgeon-
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