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TROWEL & SWORD

Editorial Paragraphs

On Being Christian Consumers

Rev. John Westendorp

Name it and claim it

A distortion of Christianity that is still very prominent and easy to fall into is the “health and wealth” teaching – also known as “name it and claim it” theology. There are any number of Christian books around that tell you that God wants you to be rich – and then not just spiritually but materially. God also wants you to be healthy – and not only in your soul but also in your body. This doctrine has been well and truly promoted by a generation of slick televangelists who, in the process, made sure they wrangled a goodly slice of prosperity from gullible Christians.

The argument goes something like this: Jesus has made you a child of the King. And that Father-King, who owns all the treasures of the earth, now wants to share with you all His riches. He does not want you to be poor... or to suffer ill health... because that would reflect poorly on Him as the Giver. The teachers of this “prosperity doctrine” are then quick to point to Biblical characters like Abraham and Solomon as examples of how richly God wants to bless His children.

This kind of teaching often causes us some problems. Scripture, on the one hand, clearly denounces selfishness and greed. On the other hand it does picture God as wonderfully generous and not at all stingy with His gifts. This God certainly did bless His people... and often with abundant material riches.

However, people that talk that way act as if Jesus had already returned on the clouds. They are confusing what is yet to come with what we must cope with now. Scripture shows us the other side of the coin as well: that life here and now can be tough for God’s children. Not all the Bible’s characters were “filthy rich”.

Biblical counter arguments

It is important therefore, that over against the “prosperity teaching” we place certain other teachings. For example: Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread. In that prayer that Jesus teaches us we don’t ask for caviar and champagne – not that God won’t give some of us some of those luxuries at times... He certainly may. But the implication is that this is not what we are to ask for in prayer. We are taught to ask for bread... the simple things... the necessities. Ordinary, mundane, everyday food... bread!

Jesus also shows that we are not to ask either for cupboards and well-stocked freezers full of it. We are to pray for a day-by-day supply... enough to meet our daily needs. Give us this day our daily bread. It’s a prayer for God to meet our present needs.

Agreed! The needs of some of us will be greater than the needs of others. Some have business needs with overheads... the needs to survive in commerce. Other have needs that are far, far more simple. But the point is that this request of the Lord’s Prayer flies in the face of today’s popular prosperity teaching that encourages Christians to “name it and claim it”.

We could add to this the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount about humanity’s anxious accumulation of things. Jesus very tellingly states that “the pagans run after all these things” (Mat.6:32). The thrust of His teaching is that we are to trust our heavenly Father to supply us with the simple necessities of life – anything else is an undeserved and unexpected bonus.

Ungodly attitudes

The “name it and claim it” theology slots easily into our consumer society. It enables me to get the latest sales catalogues out of the letterbox and covet to my heart’s content without feeling the least bit guilty. After all, these material things are simply signs that God is blessing me. In this way I as a Christian can get caught up in the “spending rat race”. Ours is a very materialistic society and the “prosperity doctrine” caves in to that consumerist mindset.

The problem is that this consumerist mindset leads us so easily to adopt a wrong set of values in at least three areas of life.

Firstly, there are the values concerning human worth. Materialism leads us into thinking that what we have is more important than what we are. So we tend to see our own value in terms of what we own and we tend to evaluate others that way too. Those who have accumulated much in terms of goods and possessions are of course a long way above those of us who struggle along with little. The well-to-do are listened to and treated as celebrities while the poor are looked down on and usually ignored. Our value as human beings tends to become measured in terms of what we have.

All this takes on a very perverted twist when materialism is justified on Christian grounds. Then the rich are seen as blessed by God and the poor are obviously a long from where they should be in their relationship with God.

Secondly, the mentality of the consumer society also affects the area of human relationships. When our great goal in life is material possessions then it also becomes increasingly easy to use people and to love things rather than to love people and use things. In other words, when we live life only on the material level then our values are turned upside-down and our relationship to persons and things becomes inverted. Then people around us so easily become little more than stepping-stones for us to get what we want.

In the Christian ‘health and wealth’ scene this often became obvious in some of the scams that prominent televangelists and other Christian leaders were caught up in. They fleeced the flock rather than fed the sheep.

Today we struggle with the depersonalisation of society and the breakdown of community – where everyone is out to make a quick buck, no matter at whose expense. Glossy sales catalogues come thick and fast – tempting us to buy more and more. In that situation it becomes easier and easier to forget that the quality of life and relationships does not depend on the quantity of our material possessions. Jesus said, “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Thirdly, materialism distorts our relationship with God. Our culture is materialistic to the core. It basically lives as if God and the life hereafter are non-existent. The person who lives only to accumulate treasures on earth has no time for either God or eternity.

The sad reality is that when materialism is justified on theological grounds then our own religious outlook can end up pushing us further and further away from God. We justify riches as blessings of God but those very riches make it harder and harder to trust in God.

Jesus told the story about a man who built himself bigger and better barns to hold all his possessions. When he had finished he said to himself, “Take it easy mate! You've got more than enough laid aside to enjoy the rest of life.” But God said, “You fool... this very night your soul will be taken from you.”

Environmentally unfriendly

On top of all of this comes our responsibility to be good stewards – and that stewardship includes managing planet earth as God’s vice-regents. We rule over creation on God’s behalf. But the commission for us to subdue the earth and rule over it is not a blank cheque for us accumulate and consume to the fullest extent that our budget (or our credit card!) will allow.

At a time when we are becoming acutely aware of the finite nature of earth’s resources Christians ought to resist all the more strongly the prosperity doctrine that is still proclaimed from many pulpits. “Prosperity doctrine” is an environmentally unfriendly teaching that fails to do justice to a proper stewardship of God’s creation.

In fact even in circles where the prosperity doctrine is not taught we ought to be calling for a far more sober approach to life. And we as Christians should be setting the example of a simpler lifestyle.

In saying these things I in no way want to cast any aspersions on those of our readers who are wealthy. God has indeed blessed some with amazing wealth and the Kingdom of God has been wonderfully advanced by wealthy Christians who used their riches in service of God. They have blessed our schools, churches, missions and theological institutions with their generosity. And often that was done in humble ways so that no attention was drawn to the giver.

My problem is rather that we ask the hard questions. For example: do we really need enormous mansions on acres of manicured lawns? Many Christians claim that for them this is not just a status symbol but a way of investing their money in property. But if that’s their concern then are there not ways of investing in property that make better use of the resources of land and building materials?

I could mention other examples where we too easily slip into the consumerist mindset but the point I want to make should be obvious. It’s not hard to pick holes in “prosperity teaching” that is unbiblical, threatens proper values and that encourages plundering the environment. It’s a little harder to see how we who disagree with the prosperity doctrine still slip unthinkingly into the same lifestyle. We should learn from the prayer of Agur in Proverbs 30: “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread...”

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