Pseudo-gospels

In most of the world churches are liable to be swamped by the so-called prosperity gospel, and in the richer parts of the world churches struggle to guard the gospel against metamorphosing into what we might call the therapeutic gospel. These two closely-related pseudo-gospels threaten to displace the authentic Christian and Biblical gospel.

The prosperity gospel, in its crudest form, is the message that God wants you to be rich, and if you trust him and ask him, he will make you rich.

What happens to the prosperity gospel when I already enjoy prosperity? It metamorphoses into the therapeutic gospel. In its simplest form, this false gospel says that if I feel empty and I come to Jesus, Jesus will fill me. The promise of objective goods (money, wife, husband, children) metamorphoses into the claiming of subjective benefits. I feel depressed, and Jesus promises to lift my spirits. I feel aimless, and Jesus commits himself to giving me purpose in life. I feel empty inside, and Jesus will fill me.

The therapeutic gospel is the gospel of self-fulfillment. It makes me, already healthy and wealthy, feel good.

- Christopher Ash, Job: The Wisdom of the Cross, 2014.

The Prosperity Heresy of Positive Faith

It has two main and very different manifestations: 

(1) a kind of “New Age” positive thinking religion rooted in the nineteenth-century quasireligious movement called “New Thought,” 

 (2) a neo-Pentecostal, charismatic religion touted by television evangelists that revels in miracles. 

On the surface these two manifestations seem radically different, but below the surface they share much in common. For both, God is a kind of cosmic vending machine who must provide health and wealth to all who have “positive faith” expressed in words of faith—spoken affirmations or declarations that create reality through divine power. Both treat prayer as magic without realizing it. Both deny God’s sovereignty and put God and his power at human disposal. Both elevate health and wealth to the status of ultimate goods. Both claim to be Christian while distorting biblical, historical, classical, orthodox Christianity to the point that it is unrecognizable.
 
The “New Age” manifestation of this heresy is promoted by various “positive thinking” spiritual gurus influenced by the nineteenth-century movement known as New Thought, which will be described later. It is not Pentecostal or charismatic and often includes belief in reincarnation. Its god is not personal, transcendent, or holy but an impersonal power resident in every-thing. The human mind is able to tap into it through positive thinking and speaking. The neo-Pentecostal manifestation of this heresy is also influenced by nineteenth-century New Thought, but it is blended with twentieth-century Pentecostalism and charismatic spirituality and heavily influenced by the “divine healing” movement of nineteenth and twentieth-century Christian revivalism. It is closer to orthodox Christianity but takes it in a very different direction through its emphasis on God as guarantor of health and wealth.

- Roger E. Olson, Counterfeit Christianity: The Persistence of Errors in the Church, 2015.

What is the greatest threat to Christian churches today?

In most of the world churches are liable to be swamped by the so-called prosperity gospel, and in the richer parts of the world churches struggle to guard the gospel against metamorphosing into what we might call the therapeutic gospel. These two closely-related pseudo-gospels threaten to displace the authentic Christian and Biblical gospel.
 
The prosperity gospel, in its crudest form, is the message that God wants you to be rich, and if you trust him and ask him, he will make you rich. Preachers tell the congregation how God wants them to be rich and then richer and richer.
 
What happens to the prosperity gospel when I already enjoy prosperity? It metamorphoses into the therapeutic gospel. In its simplest form, this false gospel says that if I feel empty and I come to Jesus, Jesus will fill me. The promise of objective goods (money, wife, husband, children) metamorphoses into the claiming of subjective benefits. I feel depressed, and Jesus promises to lift my spirits. I feel aimless, and Jesus commits himself to giving me purpose in life. I feel empty inside, and Jesus will fill me.
 
This chimes perfectly with prosperous twenty-first-century society. While writing this, I had a survey from our gas supplier asking for customer feedback after a repair job. The survey began with the words, “We want to know how we left you feeling.” That is very contemporary. Not “We want to know whether we made your gas heating work, whether we did it promptly and efficiently” and so on (objective criteria), but “We want to know how we left you feeling” (the subjective focus). Did we help you feel good?
 
The therapeutic gospel is the gospel of self-fulfillment. It makes me, already healthy and wealthy, feel good. The book of Job addresses in a deep and unsettling way both the pseudo-gospel of prosperity and the pseudo-gospel of feeling good.

--- Ash, C. Job: The Wisdom of the Cross.