Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Prosperity Gospel Is War on the Poor

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/30634-prosperity-gospel-is-war-on-the-poor

Which brings us to Pastor Creflo Dollar’s earthly reward last week. In March, his plea to his congregation for them each to donate $300 or more so he could purchase a $65 million Gulfstream G650, the jet of choice for discerning billionaires flying the heavens like self-anointed angels, seemed to have been abandoned after public outcry. But now that the outraged voices have died down, the board of World Changers Church International, which oversees Creflo Dollar Ministries, has said it will buy this “Holy Grail” of aviation. The campaign to purchase the jet, the board said, is “standard operating procedure for people of faith” in “our community.”

And that’s the problem. Who are these “people of faith”? According to a survey for Time magazine, those who embrace the prosperity gospel tend to be African Americans, evangelicals, and those less educated. Though the specific theology from church to church can differ, the general claim is that the more money you give to the church, the more God will financially reward you. But this column isn’t about Creflo Dollar and the other multi-millionaires who have cynically perverted Christ’s teachings to fill their silk-lined pockets. It’s about how the country shifted from the War on Poverty in the 1960s to the War on the Poor today.

The prosperity gospel is just another battle front in that war. We could just shrug at the hundreds of thousands who willfully give up their money so their pastors can live in the kind of opulence that rivals that of the Roman Caesars. We could dismiss these worshipful congregants as victims of their own greed. But that would be misreading the situation. While greed may motivate the mansion-dwelling pastors, the congregants are motivated by hope of a better life. This is the same desperate, though misguided, hope that droves Americans to throw away $70.15 billion on lottery tickets in 2014, more than what was spent on sports tickets, books, video games, movie tickets, and music combined. Who buys those tickets? According to a 2011 study, “Gambling on the Lottery: Sociodemographic Correlates Across the Lifespan,” the highest rate of lottery gambling (61%) came from those in the lowest fifth of socioeconomic status, concluding that “males, blacks, Native Americans, and those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods” were more likely to play.

[kwassa]

1. The Church of Wishful Thinking.

that is what keeps most of these prosperity places going.

People just want this to be true. If you are a good person, God will reward you with financial security.

[randys1]

2. I would be happy with the winning power-ball numbers, just once