Prosperity Gospel Research Paper

My thoughts about religion have changed over the years as it tends to do when you get older. I was indoctrinated into the Catholic Church when I was a child and stayed with the church until early adulthood. I then began reassessing organized religion and found that it was not what I was looking for. Today there is a religious movement that appears to be taking the world by storm and it’s called the prosperity gospel. People today want more wealth, love and better health and they want it now. But is faith in religion, in God, going to get you these material things? Can you just ask God for these things and you will receive them? The prosperity gospel is telling us that it can and He will. The prosperity gospel is speaking to them, leading

He feels that the country has shifted from the war on poverty that was the rage in the 1960’s to the war on the poor today and that the prosperity gospel is just another battle in that war. He shows in a survey conducted by Time magazine that the majority of those who are following the prosperity gospels teachings tend to be African-Americans, evangelicals, the poor and the less educated. He uses descriptions such as “snake-oil salesmen”, “multimillionaires” and “mansion-dwelling pastors” to get across his contempt and disgust for what he sees as the lies and misrepresentations of these greedy pastors. He feels these preachers are taking advantage of the members of their congregations by offering misguided hope that things will improve while they take their followers donations. He feels the preachers are preying on the emotionally vulnerable because they truly want to believe what they are saying is true, that they will receive from God everything that they dream of and wish for, such as a better life for themselves and their families, as long as they keep praying, keep the faith, keep asking for what they want and keep making their

I saw Osteen’s power struggle as trying to entice new congregants to his ministry and to keep the followers he has. He writes books, he is on the radio, on television and he now has a show that is touring around the country called “Night of Hope”. With all of this and still preaching the same repetitive message I don’t believe that he has the well-being of his congregation at heart. I think he sees them as customers and a means to an end which is his financial gain. As he says in the last paragraph of the first chapter of his book, ”God promises your payday is on its way”. God made no such promises to man and he is misrepresenting God’s gospel to his followers and is lying to them and deceiving them for his own greedy