financial crisis - What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ https://whathesaid.com Making the words of Jesus Christ easy to read and explore Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:23:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” https://whathesaid.com/2009/12/04/did-christianity-cause-the-crash/ https://whathesaid.com/2009/12/04/did-christianity-cause-the-crash/#respond Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:21:40 +0000 https://whathesaid.com/?p=216 The title of this post is taken from the title of Hanna Rosin’s fascinating article in this month’s issue of The Atlantic. It covers the ever-growing “prosperity gospel”: the belief that God will provide material wealth for those of great faith. Rosin describes the movement and documents cases of believers (like many non-believers) buying houses […]

The post “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” first appeared on What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ.

]]> The title of this post is taken from the title of Hanna Rosin’s fascinating article in this month’s issue of The Atlantic. It covers the ever-growing “prosperity gospel”: the belief that God will provide material wealth for those of great faith. Rosin describes the movement and documents cases of believers (like many non-believers) buying houses they could never afford in the first place because they felt God would provide for them.

The prosperity gospel is much larger than you might think:

  • 50 of the largest 260 churches in the US preach the prosperity gospel.
  • A Pew Research study found that 66% of Pentecostals and 43% of “other Christians” (half of the total respondents) believe that “wealth will be granted to the faithful.”
  • The same survey shows that 73% of religious Latinos agreed with the statement, “God will grant financial success to all believers who have enough faith.”

It’s weird. When I read what Jesus said (made much easier by What He Said), all I see are commands to give until it hurts. And then give some more.

The post “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” first appeared on What He Said: The Words of Jesus Christ.

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