God is not a vending machine: the problem with the prosperity gospel

Oh Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,

So Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

–Janis Joplin

This song was written to be a satire on the materialistic culture of America.  Like all satires, it’s funny because it’s true: we do pray to God for that ‘Mercedes-Benz,’ whatever that may be for us.  There is a widespread belief that in the “prosperity Gospel”: if God loves you, you will be healthy and wealthy.  If you are spiritual enough, if you pray the right prayers, if you go to the right churches, if you have the right positive attitude, God will give you what material gifts you ask for.  And it makes sense–we all know people who self-sabotage, who assume the worst or prepare for the worst and through that very belief cause, in some sense, the worst to happen to them.  So if the opposite is true, that you can influence what happens to you by having a positive attitude, well, that seems fair.  And after all, didn’t Christ say “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).  It seems clear enough.  Decide what you want, trust in God, ask, and it’s yours.

A best-selling book was written about the Prayer of Jabez from 1 Chronicles 4:10, explaining how this one verse can lead you to a deeper spirituality that will result in material prosperity, as if God were a vending machine.  Put in the correct change (the right belief and the right attitude), make the correct selection (the right prayer) and the treat drops down into your hand.  Joel Osteen and other televangelists make similar claims, as do a wide variety of other spiritual figures from Conservative Christians to New Age gurus to business consultants and life coaches.  (And what does it say about our society that business consultants give spiritual advice?)  We all want a good, long, prosperous life.  God loves us and wants us to be happy, and has said he’ll take care of us.  Surely, putting the two together can’t be a bad thing?

But what happens when things go wrong?  What happens when we don’t get that Mercedes-Benz?  What happens when bad things happen–abuse, illness, injury, the death of a loved one, the breakup of a marriage, the loss of a job?  If God rewards the right attitude, the right faith, and the right prayers with material prosperity, then the only explanation is a failure of the person in trouble.  Maybe they didn’t have a positive enough attitude.  Maybe they didn’t pray for the right things.  Maybe their faith wasn’t strong enough.  This is the fundamental problem with the prosperity gospel: during the darkest times of our lives, when we need the love and presence of our God the most, we are abandoned.

Now, I don’t mean to say that God actually leaves us, because he doesn’t.  But if we assume God only works through material prosperity and good fortune, if we assume that bad things are a sign that he is not with us, we will almost certainly blind ourselves to the ways that he is with us during times of trouble.  And then we have nothing to fall back on.  God is always with us, even if we can’t see him.  But if we can’t see or feel him, we feel as bereft as if he was truly absent.  I worked for a summer as chaplain in a mental facility, and one of the people living there was a woman with severe depression who had suffered many things in her life and so believed God was not with her.  However untrue that belief was, her anguish over the perceived abandonment was real.

But God does tell us “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8).  How do we interpret this if not through the lens of the prosperity gospel?  How do we pray to God and share with him our needs and concerns without assuming that if those needs and desires aren’t met, God has ignored us?  Let’s compare Jesus’ words in Matthew with those of James in his letter to the church:

You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

-James 4:2-3

Why do we ask for things?  How do we decide what we need, and how does that relate to God?  James points out that our attitude and our greed matter.  If we try to treat God like a cosmic vending machine, handing out treats on demand, we’re asking wrongly.  It’s not that pleasure is by itself bad, and it’s not that wealth itself is bad.  The problem comes when we allow our wants and desires and appetites to direct our thinking instead of our relationship with God.  If we’re focused on our own wealth and well-being, we’re probably ignoring both God and our neighbor.  James points out that selfish thinking separates us from the community as we try and get what we want through whatever means we can; we shouldn’t be surprised if it has the same effect of separating us from God, so that we cannot see the ways in which God is calling us and supporting us.

God is always with us, even when we can’t see or feel him.  God is with us even when we focus on our own selfish desires.  God is with us in good times and bad, and God knows our true needs better than we do ourselves.  God will never forsake us, in good times or in bad.  God’s love cannot be measured by health or wealth, but only in the fullness of his grace and mercy.

Don’t worry: Recession and the God of Abundance

Matthew 6:25-34. ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” ³²For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’

In the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, one of the reasons the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” referred to in the text is so useful a book is because it has inscribed on its cover in large letters the words “DON’T PANIC.”  It seems to me that these words are useful to remember in more times and places than just the book, and now is one of them.

Let’s be honest: the economy is in the tank, and won’t be bouncing back in the next couple of years.

Let’s be even more honest: We have been and are still incredibly blessed by God.  If you have access to a computer and the internet to read this post, you have access to more resources than most people on this planet have ever had, no matter how hard you have been hit by the recession.  If you live in the “first world,” then you almost certainly have a safety net of social programs (both secular and religious) to help when things are at their worst.  They may not be ideal or as good as they should be, but they are still better than the majority of the world’s population has ever had access to.  God has given us many blessings, and he gives them abundantly.

In some ways, we’ve been too blessed.  We are used to having so much that as a society we’ve forgotten how to tell the difference between wants and needs, between things that are handy and cool and things that truly sustain our bodies and souls.  The world around us tells us that we need the newest iPhone, the hottest car, the biggest TV, the fastest computer, the biggest house, the latest tech toy, trendy clothes, to go out to eat all the time.  Thinking like that gets people into financial trouble, by encouraging them to spend more than they can afford, leaving them no savings to fall back on in times of trouble.  But even worse than that, it causes spiritual trouble in both good times and bad.

In good times, our cultural addiction with spending money encourages people to turn away from God by promising happiness through material things.  We take the abundance God has given us and depend on it without ever thinking about the one who gave it to us.

When things turn bad, our response is even worse.  Because we’re convinced that the abundance God has given us is the minimum necessary for survival, we panic at the idea of having to get by on less.  And in our panic, we turn even further from God, grasping at anything that might keep us in the style we have become accustomed to.  I’ve seen a lot of that lately, both within and outside of the church.

DON’T PANIC.  Or, as Jesus puts it in our Gospel today, don’t worry.  Don’t bury your head under the sand, either, but don’t worry about all the things that might go wrong.  Remember how much abundance you have been given.  Then take a good hard look at how you have used the abundance God has given you–your time, your talents, your posessions.  Have you used God’s gifts as a faithful Christian, or have you used that abundance selfishly?  Have you fallen into the trap of thinking material posessions lead to happiness?  If so, what can you do to change your thinking and your way of life to be more faithful and wholesome?

DON’T WORRY.  You are in God’s hands.  You have been in God’s hands all your life.  God knows what you need.  Many people in this world will need to change their spending habits because of the financial crisis, or take other actions to deal with the situation.  But don’t do so out of panic or worry over all the bad things that might happen, over the fact that you might not be able to do and have all the things you wanted.  Do so in faith that God will help you meet your needs–your true needs, not your wishes.  Know that God loves you, and will never abandon you.

No one can lengthen their life or affect the world’s economy by worrying about it.  No one can make themselves happier by worrying.  The world and we ourselves are where we have always been: in the hands of a God who loves us, and loves us abundantly, and has given us many gifts.  And who will never abandon us, no matter how much we despair.  So don’t worry.