More Old Testament Zingers

In light of my Word of Faith experience, The Message's paraphrase of Old Testament writings is right on target.

It's funny how well some of it matches not only the WOF but contemporary church as well.

It's also very disturbing.

Amos 2:6-8

(Speaking of Israel )
They buy and sell upstanding people.
People for them are only things—ways of making money.
They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes.
They'd sell their own grandmother!
They grind the penniless into the dirt,
shove the luckless into the ditch.

Amos 6:1-7

Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion,
who think Mount Samaria is the good life.
You assume you're at the top of the heap,
voted the number-one best place to live.
Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal.
Take a look at Calneh.
Go and visit Great Hamath.
Look in on Gath of the Philistines.
Doesn't that take you off your high horse?
Compared to them, you're not much, are you?

Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster!
Catastrophe is just around the corner!
Woe to those who live in luxury
and expect everyone else to serve them!
Woe to those who live only for today,
indifferent to the fate of others!
Woe to the playboys, the playgirls,
who think life is a party held just for them!
Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain!
those obsessed with looking good—life without wrinkles!
They could not care less
about their country going to ruin.
But here's what's really coming:
a forced march into exile.
They'll leave the country whining,
a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.

Amos 6:13

And yet you've made a shambles of justice,
a bloated corpse of righteousness,
Bragging of your trivial pursuits,
beating up on the weak and crowing, "Look what I've done!"

Amos 5:21-24 from the Message

I can't stand your religious meetings.
I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That's what I want. That's all I want.
Amos 5:21-24

A Message That Ain't Worth Dying For

In my last post I made some observations contrasting Christians in closed countries and leaders in the Word of Faith movement. Christians in nations where their faith cannot be openly shared seem to have a much greater level of consecration to personal principles than their WOF counterparts in the West. This is in spite of the fact that the Word of Faith ministers are self-proclaimed experts on faith.

After thinking about it I realised something: Christians in these oppressive nations are willing to give their lives for the opportunity to share faith in Jesus as the only hope for every person. Compared to that, the prosperity gospel isn't a message worth dying for. Are you going to tell someone on their deathbed that God will prosper them? People don't need money after they die. People need to know that Jesus paid the price for their sins so that they will not have to pay for their sins themselves. To preach any other message is absurd.

If it's a message that's not worth dying for, you can bet it ain't worth living for, either.

No Sacrifice

The word Sacrifice sometimes strikes terror into the hearts of Christians. To be fair, it is understandable since the word “Sacrificial” is often followed by the word “Giving” which is followed by an appeal for funds.

Something that began to bother me during my WOF experience was the attitude toward a certain type of sacrifice. I began to do a lot of reading on missions and on the church in developing and closed nations. I heard it said that the reason Christians were persecuted and martyred overseas was that they did not know what we knew about faith. That did not seem to compute at the time I heard it. Over time, the more I studied the lives of Christians in closed countries, the more that statement disturbed me. Christians in countries where they are not free to own a Bible, much less assemble freely, often evangelize despite regularly being arrested and cruelly treated. The government, culture and even their families, reject them and yet they maintain their convictions as Christians above all else. They have CONVICTIONS and they live those convictions out. Meanwhile some guy in here in the States who travels the country collecting offerings and considers how much he rakes in as a mark of his ‘prosperity’ thinks he’s the one who has faith? It would seem to me that the prosperity preacher’s main conviction is money.

Here is a good example: Zhang Rongliang is a well-known figure in the Chinese house church movement for over 30 years. This man has endured beating and torture on several occasions and is presently in prison for being a Christian who shares his faith.
http://www.prisoneralert.com/pprofiles/vp_prisoner_165_profile.html?_nc=40f4a509b7459d667b68c9a51a4e14da

Meanwhile a well-known faith preacher said he’s willing go to jail...to avoid releasing a list of his financial contributors to a Senate investigation committee. And he expects me to “follow his faith?” I find the nobility in the sacrifice of countless men and women like Zhang to be far more worthy to aspire to than that of people whose gospel is the acquisition of money power. These persecuted Christians live out their faith and put their money where their mouth is, so to say, rather than putting your money in their pocket.

Money Cometh...Out of Your Pocket...Into Mine

I was recently reading some sermon notes I had by a well-known faith preacher. We will call him Someone I Once Followed. The notes were on the topic of Faith (surprise!). As I was reading, I was reminded of some things I liked about the Word of Faith. What I was reading expressed a lot of commitment to the Bible as God’s Word. I had not heard that kind commitment to the Word of God in the denominations that I was familiar with. We had all believed that the Bible was inspired and inerrant but these Faith guys expressed reliance and dependence on the Bible in unequivocal terms. Their attitude was “This is God’s Word and I’ll do whatever it says, even if it seems to my own hurt.” The Bible was also given as a basis for communion with God and as the only way to find fulfillment. I was not hearing these concepts expressed with such fire and enthusiasm until I encountered the WOF. That was part of the attraction for me. This was communicated very clearly in the Faith movement. It was a contrast to what I had been used to hearing. When I could find a clear point being communicated, it was something like “be committed and don’t get your hopes up.”

(A little footnote: I know people have itching ears to hear convenient messages but of those of us with orthodox doctrine fail to clearly and aggressively articulate the basic messages of Christianity backed with moral character, we are going to continue to face problems like this in the Evangelical movement.)

Anyway these faith preachers were inspiring because of their example of commitment to God’s Word. While reflecting on the notes I was reading, I was reminded of one of the many disappointments I’ve had with the WOF: there was something that the leaders and preachers ultimately had a greater commitment to than faith.

That something was money.

I have observed symptoms of the Faith movement’s love affair with money. The church I attended for years usually gave a mini-sermon before tithes were taken up. I had friends who were going through a severe financial crisis and stopped tithing. The pastor told them that failing to tithe was the biggest mistake they could have made. This from a guy who was famous for preaching that if people gave money to him, they would be blessed and have what amounted to good luck. This was back when Leroy Thompson’s “Money Cometh” message was hot and people were stuffing the preacher’s coat pocket with cash. If it was going to damage this couple so bad, why didn’t he give them money to tithe from? It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money. We could also talk a long time about WOF ministries being investigated for inappropriate use of non-profit money. Financial transparency is unheard of in Faith churches because the leader has final say on all church matters.

I don’t see how a minister can be “A man of the Word” and ignore Biblical admonitions to ethical behavior. I guess they really are “favorite Word people.”

A Few More Sayings

A few more of Jesus' saying modified for the Word of Faith:

"Follow me and I will confirm your awesomeness before men."

"Blessed are the wealthy shepards, for they have bought the right to do as they please."

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you but don't be nice to those who leave your church. That's an entirely different topic. You may have to spend a lot of time explaining just how bad those people really are."

Lesser-known sayings of Jesus

It used to gripe me that the Word of Faith was referred to as a "different gospel" in the book of the same name. However if you deviate a little bit from Jesus' words, the result becomes a very weird Jesus. To legitimize some of the things we did in the WOF, Jesus would have to say some strange things.

For example: "To be my follower, you need to get a lot of cash. That way people will know you have faith."

"Verily I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. So lord over people as much as possible if you are in the 5-fold ministry."

"Call no man father, unless he's the preacher you copy for ministry purposes. In that case, call him Dad and send him a father's day card with a check in it. He's the only way you can get to me or know my will for your life."

"Have faith in God and your man of God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall write on an index card things that he wants and says it over and over and over, regardless of that person's ethics or moral conduct, will have whatsoever.....because he says so."

"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give and give and give without question into the pockets of a minister who says he is good ground."

"Go ye into all the world and build churches larger than the next guy and take up large offerings."

"Peter, when I said 'Feed my sheep' I meant from the pulpit. I wasn't expecting you to spend a lot of time on people or do counseling. Just spend time with your key people and your large contributors."

"Arise and go thy way. Thy faith has made thee whole. Now be careful where you go church from here on. It can be life or death where you go to church."

"The Good Shepard stayed with the 99 and shunned the one who left because the shepard did not want its offence, doubt and unbelief to rub off on the others. And if any of the 99 sheep ran into the one sheep or his family in the grocery store, they acted like they didn't see him."

"Simon, make sure that in the ages to come they preach tithing hard and strong. It's the most important message. If they don't tithe they are under a curse."

The “Convenient Doctrines” of Preachers in Sin

Rich Vermillion at his Kenneth Copeland blog (which he calls a "loving rebuke", by the way) discusses some of my favorite topics in the Word of faith.

I am encouraged by the criticism and calls for reform that he and Mel Montgomery have made from within the WOF movement but we still have a long way to go.

http://kennethcopelandblog.com/2008/10/22/the-%e2%80%9cconvenient-doctrines%e2%80%9d-of-preachers-in-sin/