Put otherwise, if Christianity can be said to have caused the Crash, can it also be said to have caused the Stimulus???—a notably, in part, magnanimous effort of altruistic social responsibility, no matter how underfunded, or misdirected to bailing out big money it might initially have been. And, then what do we say about the pre-Appalachian Trail refusal of Gov. Mark Sanford to accept any Stimulus money, his conspicuous Carolinian Christian piety notwithstanding? Head hurting yet?

It is true that much prosperity preaching misuses and distorts these passages, but the fact is most other Christians aren’t preaching and teaching on them at all! They bear much of the blame for purveying their own distorted gospel that omits this aspect of the New Testament’s teaching and thereby causing a great void—a void that begs to be filled. These verses simply won’t go away.

There is a truth to the Pentecostal claim that much of Protestant Christianity is a dead rationalism that fails to do justice to the spiritual aspect of Scripture, the truths of spiritual reality taught in Scripture that have an impact upon the material world.

All this to say, while there is much that is true in the criticism of your respondents, there is also much that they miss, and as long as the truth in prosperity gospel is not acknowledged the more extreme, distorted preachers will continue to fill the void.

That is one of the legacies of Oral Roberts which seems to be being politely ignored since his death. Offerings to ministry are “pressed down, shaken, running over” and then returned to the giver in the theology of seed-faith offerings. No doubt, others before Roberts had discovered the inherent money-raising charm of that formula, but Roberts skillfully put it to work in the new mission fields of television. His legacy, in my humble opinion, and in King James English, stinketh. It permeates all of television Christianity and has been exported around the world. What will it reap, I wonder, in South America, when the millions there who are buying into it realize the pie simply is not, cannot be, large enough to prosper them all?

The Cross and Resurrection for early congregations prior to Constantine and for break away churches from Rome (Cathares, Waldensians, Hussites) during the high middle ages in Europe, are looking at faith not so much from a triumphalist point of view of individual self-interest as from a communal rationale to justify their departure from the Church. Christianity, proper, begins where the Church leaves off. (I’m spinning Troeltsch here). Wealth, class and power had been attributed to Rome and to the King(s) at the top of the food chain, with little differentiation. But with the Reformers, wealth, power and faith were severed and “ethicized” separately. In the USA, they are once again joined at the hip. A Tom Cruise who practices scientology is not much different from a Rick Warren who practices Christianity. Both live a purpose driven life and are rewarded accordingly. Self-help, self-fulfillment, self everything is given a divine mandate. Very little difference, if any, between personal salvation guaranteed by indulgences at any price and personal fulfillment guaranteed by greed, also at any price. But I think that this iconography of the self bears the hallmark of an imperial frame of mind, which can mask the narcissism underneath: only me and, if possible, thee, too, sort of. Persons from minorities would never stoop so low as to think themselves so high. The risks are too great. Deborah and her peasants fought with pitchforks, while Yahweh led the starry hosts. So, yes, basically, I agree with Rosin but with this proviso: Providing the Christian concerned has not been rooted or grown up in a historical context of persecution and danger, then her point holds.