Posted by Rachel on: 08.27.2007 /
Thanks to the good folks at the Wittenburg Door for this iconic poster, created by Peter Cohen in 1990 for the Coalition For The Homeless in New York City.
Mr. Cohen envisions a Jesus who identified with the poor and needy and who, as we are told in Matthew 8:20, had “no place to lay his head.” But according to this article from the National Post, the Rev. Creflo Dollar disagrees.
John Blake, Cox Newspapers — Christians gather around the world each Christmas to sing about “poor baby Jesus” asleep in the manger with no crib for his bed.
But Reverend Creflo Dollar looks inside that manger, and he doesn’t see a poor baby at all.
He sees a baby born into wealth because the kings visiting him gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh. He sees a Messiah with so much money that he needed an accountant to track it. He sees a Saviour who wore clothes so expensive that the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for them.
Rev. Dollar sees a rich Jesus. read the full article
Leave a Reply
Comment by: David H
1 08/27/07 6:41 AM | Comment Link |Properity Gospels hold huge allure for some people — many of whom were probably once poor. Rev. Dollar’s assertion that the disciples didn’t realize why Jesus was warning about the dangers of money seems ludicrous to me. Rich people understand the dangers of money — which is why they frequently have lawyers and money managers and paid advisers on financial issues. Those who have little don’t understand many of the dangers because having more money than you know what to do with — money that would buy more than they could imagine and that would buy them out of any current problem — is as alien as living on Mars.
American society teaches that wealth may not be everything, but it can make everything better. More wealth — more better. Prosperity gospel is just another unfortunate way that society has entered an unhealthy relationship with religion.
A friend who came back to the church via prosperity gospel was telling me how his congregation bought their pastor a Rolls for some special occasion. I said: “What about the poor.” His response was the typical PG line — God gives you more so you can give more. “But you aren’t giving more to the poor,” I said. “You are giving more to the rich. Why not just give the guy a Lexus and take the other $100,000 and make sure some children don’t starve?”
Comment by: April Terry
2 08/27/07 10:02 AM | Comment Link |I recently was changing channels when I came across Joel Osteen and decided to listen for a moment. What he said really bothered me. His message was the basic adage, “You are judged by the company you keep.” In fact, he was saying that if you want to be successful, you should hang around successful people instead of people who will bring you down. The biggest problem with that philosophy is that people don’t have a good idea of what success is. Success, in our society, is not leaving everything behind and helping the poor and downtrodden, as Jesus radically suggested.
I suddenly realized what a dangerous philosophy this is. This is the kind of barrier that I am trying desperately to break in my life!–That we don’t turn our face away from the poor, the dirty, the sinful, the sad, the ugly, the messy.
I believe that God gives us prosperity as a reward for doing His will, but we first have to be willing to part with everything before we receive that prosperity.
Comment by: Josh
3 08/27/07 2:58 PM | Comment Link |When I was in college I went to a multi-ethnic megachurch near Gary, Indiana. Most of the people in the church were lower class persons of color. Yet the pastor of the church was a white man, who lived in a million dollar mansion, drove a leased Lexus and always talked from the pulpit that it was necessary that he wear the best suits as God’s representative in the community. What’s worse is that the poor people of his church bought into it. They all gave and gave and gave, because the pastor would tell them that God would only bless them if they gave to the church until it hurt. I was blind to it then. Now, I see it as nothing more than exploitation. It is the rich robbing the poor in the name of God, an unmentionable sin in my book.
The problem with Prosperity theology is that it gives hope to the poor coming from the megaphone of the robber. It takes little account for the eschatological hope of Jesus, which transcends wealth and deals with Justice and freedom from oppression, something that comes with wealth. The theology of Rev. Dollar is upsetting because it is often perpetuated in order to fuel injustice, and deepens and the disparity between rich and poor,and institutionalizes it in the church (Lay should be poor, Clergy should be blessed).
Comment by: Rachel
4 08/27/07 5:44 PM | Comment Link |That’s an excellent point, April! As Christians, we are to follow a different definition of success. And Jesus certainly didn’t take Joel Osteen’s advice! His critics said of him, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Or as Shane Claiborne says, “Jesus is for losers.”
Well said, Josh!
Comment by: Steve S
5 08/28/07 12:44 AM | Comment Link |You sure gotta wonder what happens when these guys go to a place where the per capita income is less than a dollar a day…
Comment by: Rachel
6 08/28/07 8:09 AM | Comment Link |Steve, the sad thing is that the Prosperity Gospel is experiencing phenomenal growth in Africa! The July issue of Christianity Today had a cover story on “Health and Wealth in Africa.” Here is an excerpt:
The full article is here: Gospel Riches
Comment by: Rachel
7 08/28/07 8:30 AM | Comment Link |Our friend Jamie Arpin-Ricci has weighed in on this topic on his blog: Jesus: Rich Man, Poor Man?
Comment by: Staci
8 08/28/07 5:32 PM | Comment Link |I have to know, is Dollar his real name or did he change it just so he wasn’t being too subtle?
I think prosperity “gospel” is especially seductive for those living in poverty because it not only promises health, wealth, and security but it does so by telling people they have the POWER to make that happen. I think we are all attracted to having control over our own lives and circumstances.
Comment by: Benjamin
9 08/29/07 8:59 AM | Comment Link |I was thinking some of the same things Jamie said in his article. “Homeless” means so much more than just no place to sleep. In a western, urban environment, like new york, “Homeless” connotates a whole number of things–things like–no social network, no place to clean oneself, possible history of psychological disorder, addiction … I could go on. Jesus doesn’t really qualify as “homeless” in this sense. Bottom line is that Jesus had power, and a huge part of homelessness is about not having any power, or at least not being *aware* of one’s power.
Comment by: joe
10 09/4/07 3:16 AM | Comment Link |A while back, a couple of Indian social workers visited Scotland and wrote a report about the situation they saw in the housing estates.
They caused some local scandal by suggesting that the people they worked with in India were richer than those in Scotland. This caused outrage amongst the middle classes who pointed to satellite dishes and cigarette habits.
The Indians calmly pointed out that poverty could not be measured by how much money they had. The Scots had far more than the Indians by almost every measure. Yet the Scots had lost hope - forgotten how to believe that things could get better. The Indians still had that fire and drive.
In that sense, Jesus was the richest man who ever lived. But I still think he had more in common with modern homeless communities than multi-millionaires.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
11 09/11/07 8:12 AM | Comment Link |Here is a Truthdig podcast about kids and drugs in Oakland. It seems to me that it is related to this thread, and continues MLK’s juxtaposition of the war and the poor.