The Gospel of Greed

Greed

We had an email from a friend in Albania the other day. She was asking my wife about what she saw as the main differences between the church in America and the church in Albania. My wife replied, “Greed”. Our friend agreed saying that a rolex watch or a Lambourghini never helped anyone in Albania. Many American churches are very much like any other American corporation. They are driven by greed. We heard a pastor recently, having returned from India where he held Gospel meetings. He said that he would “love to take some of the very smart American pastors with their demarking white pocket handkerchieves to some of his meetings in India, where people were throwing themselves onto the platform and manifesting demons all over the place. Those pastors would never know what to do.”

Some of the things commands Jesus gave us was to ‘love one another’, to ‘love our neighbours as ourselves’, and to ‘make disciples of all men’. He also said that ‘by their fruit shall you know them’. So why are many pastors always asking for money? They have a new, state of the art church. They drive around in very expensive cars. They live in mansions surrounded by security staff. They already have private jets – well many of them do. So why do they always ask for more money? What have they done with the millions they have already been given. I even heard of one group of ‘prosperity’ preachers’ flying into a Central American country, in their private jets, wearing their Rolex watches and their $2000 suits, asking the local congregations to give them even more money so that they, too, might be rich. “Give and the Lord will give it back to you one hundred fold.”

Greed – pure greed – this is the gospel of greed. And it is not limited to America by the way – it goes on wherever the prosperity gospel is preached – Africa, Asia, America – wherever this prosperity gospel is preached. Where is the love in all of this other than a love of money? Where is the discipleship in all of this other than “better get on board quick and make a few bucks while you can.” Where is the love for neighbours when all they do is ask more from them than we can ever give to them. Jesus was so right when He said that by their fruit shall we know them.