Proclaimer Blog
T4G: a book review: Health, Wealth and Happiness
This short book is all about why the prosperity gospel is wrong. Not really a book for the UK, you might think? Wrong. You would be surprised at the reach. But I think, through a combination of poor teaching and the reach of the internet, this is more common than you may think. I've got real examples but they're all from real pastoral situations, so, if that's OK with you, I'm not sharing. What this book does well is call into question not just hard line prosperity teaching (Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin) but the 'soft' proponents too – Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen and so on. That's useful because their influence is huge (and may well be in your church more than you even realise). It's this 'soft' prosperity gospel which is so destructive here in the UK and its influence is, it seems to me, growing rapidly.
So, this has the potential to be a helpful book even here in the UK. It's mostly very robust, starting with a chapter showing how the teaching grew out of New Thought philosophy in the nineteenth century. There are good interactions with people such as Meyer and Osteen and some excellent critique showing how their teaching compromises the gospel at its very core. All good. I found it very helpful. Nevertheless, there are one or two omissions:
- there is some talk of what healing in the atonement really means (Isaiah 53:4-5 clarified by 1 Peter 2:24). However, to tackle this subject without reference to Matt 8:16-17 seems something of a major oversight (where the Isaiah reference is specifically linked to Jesus' healing ministry). That omission is a shame though, for what it's worth, they do get to the right answer!
- there is virtually no discussion of the differences between the Old and New Covenants. The Old Covenant does have inbuilt prosperity in it if it is fully obeyed (see Deuteronomy 28). There is the blessing of children, increase of herds and crops, defeat against enemies: "the Lord will make you abound in prosperity" (v11). These promises explain much of the other blessing language in the psalms and prophets. They also underline the importance of reading the Scriptures in context – in this case which covenant they appear in. To miss this entire subject out seems to be glaring oversight.
However, that is not to distract from the overall usefulness of the short book. The authors are arguing from an orthodox point of view – they view the atonement and the Scriptures in a robustly evangelical way. I've actually disproved my last post – this was a free book and I'm going to recommend it – just a shame there was not a bit more…
[It's a Kregel book and available through amazon second hand for around £10 delivered]