Talk:Prosperity theology
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[edit] Merger with Word of Faith
Often times this theology includes a promise for material weath in exchange for a committment on the part of the congregation member to support the ministry.(Tithing) Also this theology sometimes offers wealth in exchange for faith, on the part of the congregation member, in a promise for wealth from GOD. The term prosperity theology could include one or both of these ideas depending on who is leading the congregation. If an analytical person believes the bible statement "faith witout works is dead" (James) then the natural conclusion is one part of this theology cannot be adopted without the other, therefore Word of Faith theology is a part of Prosperity theology.User talk:Trappy77
I agree. Health and Wealth Gospel, Prosperity Theology and Word of faith incorperate the same ideas and have the same ethos (faith and wealth/health are related) to the point where they are different names for the same thing. In my experience Word of Faith is a less well used term than Prosperity theology, which again is less well used than Prosperity Gospel (currently a link to Word of faith) though "Prosperity Theology" is the more technical term and Prosperity Gospel is used solely by detractors. I think Word of Faith and Health and Wealth Gospel should be merged into a larger article in Prosperity Theology (with Prosperity Gospel linking to Prosperity Theology). No loss of information should be made in any merger. The "Relevant passages" section in Word of Fatih is most useful and should be preserved in the new article. To separate the lists of names from text a "history" section and a list of detractors and adherents should be created. - Fegor 01:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I think what might be more appropriate would be to use this article to give a more in-depth view of the theology of the Word of Faith movement, with the Word of Faith article itself concentrating on the movement's origins, history, features, main personalities, criticisms etc. Jammycakes 06:29, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Other Verses
Another OT verse commonly appealed to is Malachi 3:10. Today I saw a Range Rover with the license plate MAL3 10, clearly a prosperity gospel adherent justifying their expensive purchase with the verse.
And in the NT, there's Mark 11:24 and John 14:14. Lippard (talk) 03:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Better Criticism?
I'd like to see this stop being a stub...could someone add the scriptures that would seem to speak again Christians being automatically prosperous?
E.g.: Jesus says he has no place to lay his head (and if he's not prosperous, why the rest of us?); the disciples were all martyred (save John, who was exiled), and martyrdom is a "good" ending, that is, a strong demonstration of faith; Jesus repeatedly said that those who follow him will be hated by others and will suffer hardships, and that "woe unto you when all men speak well of you." I don't see these meshing with the idea that being a good Christian means everything suddens works well and you get a lot of money and all your physical problems are solved so you can live in complete comfort. In fact, money is often spoken of as a negative thing, in that it can pull your focus away from God; and those who are comfortable are too often complacent.
Can someone make sense of this sort of argument and put it in the article in an appropriate manner? Thanks. Kilyle 22:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Expanded a bit
I've tried to exapnd the article a bit, and add some potential references for more information. I don't know if the article needs to to be limited to christianity, so I even changed the stub. I think there could be enough here where Word of Faith could just be a section (maybe with a Main article: tag to lead to a full Word of Faith article). If I've misunderstood some technical meaning of "Prosperity theology" I do apologise. Ewlyahoocom 02:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
- Some of the links I added were recently removed. If this page is meant to apply specifically to Christianity, let's rename the page Prosperity Christianity. Here's some of the basis for some of my additions:
- From Islamic banking#Principles in Islamic Banking: Such participatory arrangements between capital and labor reflect the Islamic view that the borrower must not bear all the risk/cost of a failure, as it is Allah who determines that failure, and intends that it fall on all those involved;
- The link to Wat Phra Dhammakaya may not be clear, but that's because that page actually needs to be expanded to include the information in the Asiaweek article, Compare A few families virtually bankrupted themselves after a husband or wife handed over life savings and Monks preach that the generous will get their money back ten-fold - 10,000 baht could beget 100,000 baht with good old American-style televangisim;
- This paper also has some information about prosperity on a country-wide scale, perhaps a little outside the scope of this article, but it may have a useful bibliography. Ewlyahoocom 08:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
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- I removed the links because they didn't make sense in the context of the article. As it stands at the moment, it is still in its entirety about the Christian prosperity gospel, which is also covered in the Word of Faith article—hence the suggestion that the two be merged. The expression "Prosperity Theology" also tends to be associated in most people's minds with this particular brand of Christianity, so links to sites about Islamic banking and Buddhist whatever look completely out of place. If you think they should be left in, they really need to be explained and contextualised. Jammycakes 21:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
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- Oh, I'm so sorry. It looked like a stub to me and the name of the article is a little misleading. Ewlyahoocom 22:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] um
I don't think prosperity theology is entirely the same as the other articles it wants to merge because not just christianity has versions of this.
mostly I think so because the link I clicked to get to this article was from a page discussing the caste system in hinduism
[edit] Australia—whut?
"...and Australia consists of the 3% most richest people in the world, which meant within Australia, despite whether "God makes you rich" - you are rich, and only God gives you what you have; so implicitly he has made you rich."
Taken literally, this ungrammatical statement (it sounds like a snatch of a pub argument) means that the richest 3% of people in the world are all Australian. It also means that all Australians are in the top 3% for wealth. This means that Australians and the richest 3% of the world's population are the same group of people. Since Bill Gates has to be in the richest 3% of the world, this statement implies that he is an Australian.
And it means Australia has a population of 180 million.
The contributor of this sentence tacks it on to material (s)he has contributed that otherwise makes sense; otherwise I would take it for vandalism. Even if it was couched in a way that made sense, it looks pointless. Koro Neil (talk) 23:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Redirect to here/Word of Faith
Why is it that Prosperity gospel redirects here, but Prosperity Gospel redirects to Word of Faith? If they were distinct terms, that'd be fine, but they don't seem like they have separate senses. It seems kind of pointless. Stever Augustus 03:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
