*Sightings* 10/11/2010

– Martin E. Marty

Ungodly and godly money making and money giving are key topics while many
Christian churches gear up for November as  ¢â‚¬Å“stewardship month. ¢â‚¬  As they and
others face  ¢â‚¬Å“budget-setting time, ¢â‚¬  multiple items netted from the public
press and the internet beckon for attention. Several focus on the more gross
stories from some black church orbits. Even in the UK they drew notice, for
example in a *Financial Times* story  ¢â‚¬Å“Churches: Riches in This Life,
Salvation in the Next, ¢â‚¬  on  ¢â‚¬Å“the huge success of Pentecostalism. ¢â‚¬ 

Shyamantha Asokan, a *Financial Times* reporter, turned to Nigeria for
stories as she visited Lagos ¢â‚¬â„¢s The Living Faith Church,  ¢â‚¬Å“The Winners ¢â‚¬â„¢
Chapel, ¢â‚¬  which seats 50,000 people in front of a wealth-flaunting pastor
whose operation reaches 400 satellite churches. A Methodist teacher-trainer
in Lagos speaks not out of envy but with realistic appraisal,  ¢â‚¬Å“The economic
life of the pastor is booming, while the economic life of the country is
grinding to a halt. ¢â‚¬  The members of such churches are  ¢â‚¬Å“like fickle
customers, ¢â‚¬  says Asokan, always shopping for a church whose  ¢â‚¬Å“Prosperity
Gospel ¢â‚¬  may yield them a pastor-size fortune.

Meanwhile in the* Wall Street Journal* DeForest B. Soaries, Jr., a New
Jersey Baptist pastor takes on the American expressions of the  ¢â‚¬Å“Prosperity
Gospel. ¢â‚¬  Not despising the good counsel, indeed, praising that which
Non-Prosperity-Gospel black churches offer, he sees the Prosperity version
to be a perversion of the Gospel.

One could adduce comparable examples of grossness in practice met by
criticism from prophetic pulpits also in non-black churches, but I turn next
to a headline in the *New York Times*,  ¢â‚¬Å“Onward Christian Moguls. ¢â‚¬  There
Maureen Dowd visits the semi-secular, semi-religious  ¢â‚¬Å“Get Motivated! ¢â‚¬ 
seminar in Washington. It ¢â‚¬â„¢s being staged in several cities,
super-advertised ¢â‚¬”how can one evade the full-page ads? ¢â‚¬”wherein titans who
need no money are out to make money off people who pay well to learn nothing
new. Mike Ditka, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Rather,
and, alas! Colin Powell, offer bromides and bumper-sticker slogans, often
with religious motifs to back them, or front for them. The story is written
with irony and tinged in pathos.

Meanwhile, and you are allowed to cheer up, *Forward* is running an
intelligent, fair, and revealing multiple-part story, in one case
contrasting Jewish and Christian money-raising approaches. In the October 1
issue Josh Nathan-Kazis headlines  ¢â‚¬Å“Synagogues Rarely Mention God in Appeals,
Unlike Churches. ¢â‚¬  Synagogues, he writes, tend to rely on assessments and
paying of annual dues, supplemented by appeals less to God and more to the
responsibility of being in community. He contrasts this, while not judging
either approach, with characteristic Christian appeals of the non-Prosperity
Gospel style. This is the  ¢â‚¬Å“stewardship ¢â‚¬  approach in mainstream and
evangelical Protestantism. Nathan-Kazis quotes Lutheran Pastor Megan
Torgerson:  ¢â‚¬Å“Everything you have is God ¢â‚¬â„¢s to begin with. ¢â‚¬  Believers are not
to think of money as  ¢â‚¬Å“mine, mine, mine, ¢â‚¬  but to  ¢â‚¬Å“celebrate that this is a
gift from God already ¢â‚¬  and ask  ¢â‚¬Å“What can I do with it? ¢â‚¬ 

Lisa Miller in *Newsweek* lauds  ¢â‚¬Å“Bread for the World, ¢â‚¬  a largely
church-based effort to feed the world, something this prosperous nation does
not do well. The numbers of the poor and hungry also grow here. Pastor David
Beckman, who heads BFTW, promotes stewardship, but does not shy away from
connecting the cause with politics and cooperation with government. Get
generous, he is saying, and get real.

*References*

* *

Shyamantha Asokan,  ¢â‚¬Å“Churches: Riches in This Life, Salvation in the
Next, ¢â‚¬  *Financial
Times*, September 30, 2010.

Mawreen Dowd,  ¢â‚¬Å“Onward Christian Moguls, ¢â‚¬  *New York Times*, October 6, 2010.

Lisa Miller,  ¢â‚¬Å“Bread for the World, ¢â‚¬  *Newsweek*, October 11, 2010.

Josh Nathan-Kaxis,  ¢â‚¬Å“Synagogues Rarely Mention God in Appeals, Unlike
Churches, ¢â‚¬  *Forward*, September 22, 2010.

DeForest B. Soaries, Jr.,  ¢â‚¬Å“Black Churches and the Prosperity Gospel, ¢â‚¬  *Wall
Street Journal*, October 1, 2010.

Martin E. Marty’s biography, current projects, publications, and contact
information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

———-

*Sightings* comes from the Martin Marty
Centerat the University of
Chicago Divinity School.

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