‘Pray and Grow Rich’ is the bastardisation of religion brought about by the “marriage of Faith and Mammon”. It is the witty label Ross Douthat puts in Bad Religion (2012) on the theology the Word-Faith movement has spawned. It combines the orthodox belief in the power of prayer and miracles with self-interest and selfish pursuit of worldly gain. Word-Faith is best summed up in the words of its Texan ‘grand-daddy’, the late Kenneth W Hagin: “Write your own ticket with God.” It claims that petitions to God for prosperity, wealth, and health will definitely be granted if one discovers that divine spark within oneself and has faith. It essentially is hedonism in a religious garb and the unholy baptism of unrestrained ambition. The essence of religion, success in the afterlife, is only secondary in the Pray and Grow Rich theology. What matters most is felicity in this life, here and now, the immediate over the abstract and the distant.
Hagin, an Evangelical Christian, was the founder of the Word-Faith movement. He drew heavily upon the works of an earlier preacher E W Kenyon from New England. Kenyon’s philosophy was the apotheosis of man. He claimed that a true believer’s petitions to God were not supplications but demands that must be fulfilled by God. For Kenyon a prayer is a legal transaction, a contract that must be honoured by the Almighty. Perhaps it never occurred to him that, excluding divine promises, an Almighty bound up in any manner is not Almighty to begin with. Hagin is not as absolutist in his doctrine as Kenyon. For him the faithful’s prayer does not bind God to grant the supplication made but that He nonetheless will. What is bluntly stated in Kenyon’s brand of Christianity is implied in Hagin’s Word-Faith movement.
Word-Faith has influenced numerous Pray and Grow Rich preachers. Kenneth and Gloria Copeland are direct disciples of Hagin. Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn are also heavily influenced by it though both also try to distance themselves from Hagin’s brand. Osteen does not say directly that if you pray you can get whatever you want but the insidious idea that wealth can be achieved through prayer alone (minus the effort, the planning, and the numerous pathos of failure before the joy of success) is at the heart of his Prosperity Gospel. “Ask and Ye shall receive” is the foremost tenet of Osteen’s faith.
Pray and Grow Rich preachers reach five million US households weekly through the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN), founded in 1973 by Jane and Paul Crouch in partnership with the then famous (now notorious) Jim Bakker and wife Tammy Faye. Although TBN is its major propagandist, the Prosperity Gospel is also popular in the US’s mega-churches; 60 out of the 250 largest churches spread this faith. It is a widespread faith in the Sunbelt, the Black church, and with the Pentecostals.
Prosperity preachers make materialism central to Christian faith. In their theology worldly success is the yardstick of God’s pleasure; avarice, acquisitiveness and greed are baptised and poverty and failure are the result of sloth and lack of belief rather than of circumstances beyond one’s control and lack of opportunities. According to the author it negates “Christianity’s traditional critique of Mammon worship and acquisitiveness in all its forms.” “Everyday blessings and ordinary triumphs” are Pray and Grow Rich miracles. A new car, a new house, or a promotion are all instances of divine pleasure and God’s “Providence responding to your petitions.” Orthodox virtues such as asceticism, frugality and self-denial do not find much traction with pray and grow rich preachers.
Prosperity preachers essentially prey upon the human desire for a better future in this world by proclaiming that dreams will come true regardless of objective reality as long as you come to our church, pay your dues, and have faith in the crass materialism that we preach. Historical evidence and the law of averages prohibits such an outcome for the overwhelming majority, who believe their propaganda is of no consequence to them. It is the hope, the desire, the wish that counts, the tapestry around which they build their sophistry and sell it to the gullible masses, most of whose wishes are never fulfilled but who make the preachers fabulously rich, owners of jet planes and much more. It appears to this writer that ‘religion is but opium for the masses’ is a versatile statement and the opiate of optimism, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, does work for the masses.
Despite the Prosperity Preachers’ depredations of the pious concept, the belief that prayer can work miracles remains valid in religion. It is valid in Islam as well as Christianity and perhaps Judaism too. However a miracle, which by definition is a suspension of the natural physical or social laws, is a prerogative of God and God alone. No one else can produce it nor has a right to ask for it. Even the prophets could not produce miracles on demand and nothing binds God to oblige pious prayers for worldly success. That sometimes He does is only a measure of His boundless grace but the presumption that He would do so for a sincere believer or His preacher every time or even most times a plea is made is baseless and arrogant. Similar to the politicians who thrive upon the ignorance of the masses, the Prosperity Preachers do the same by playing upon believers’ hopes and desires.
The writer is a freelance writer and an electrical engineer. He can be reached at [email protected]