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The first time I ever heard this was when someone had the TV on and Joyce Meyers basically said it straight out, summed up as that "seed faith". I had attended two Christian churches, both Protestant, with no other breakdown, and never heard it. I was really shocked by this!
"The doctrine of seed-faith posits that financial giving—particularly to ministries that promote prosperity gospel preachers—can be likened to planting a seed that will eventually yield a harvest of blessings. You sow a financial “seed” into a ministry as an act of faith and, in turn, God will multiply that seed in the form of various blessings"
"A 2023 study from Lifeway Research finds more than half (52 percent) of American Protestant churchgoers say their church teaches that God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities, with one in four (24 percent) strongly agreeing with this teaching. In a 2017 study, only 38 percent of churchgoers made that same claim."
I was hoping through the article to see exactly where they were drawing this from in the Bible, but the article did not mention that. Oral Roberts is considered the modern father of the prosperity gospel.
Maybe this is another reason that Christianity falling to the way side. Making a financial transaction with God? That is going to be a turn off to more than a couple of people.
Man was given free will by God. Given one question to ask God: "Do you regret giving man free will?" I mean, look what so many have done with it.
God is like the masked man in the alley putting a gun to an innocent passerby and saying, "Give me your wallet. You have free will to choose not to give it to me but just remember I have a gun to your head and will not hesitate to pull the trigger if you don't. So choose wisely." What do you think the guy with the gun to his head is going to choose? And is that a bonafide choice using his free will?
Prosperity preachers are no more Christian than the man in the moon. They're salesmen in nice duds selling a pipe dream called financial independence which you get by giving your last buck to God and having manna from heaven raining down on you in return. But the only thing that rains down on you is rain. At least when a used car salesman sell you a wreck that stops running after two weeks you're left with scrap you can sell to a junk yard. With prosperity preachers you don't even get the scrap.
The first time I ever heard this was when someone had the TV on and Joyce Meyers basically said it straight out, summed up as that "seed faith". I had attended two Christian churches, both Protestant, with no other breakdown, and never heard it. I was really shocked by this!
"The doctrine of seed-faith posits that financial giving—particularly to ministries that promote prosperity gospel preachers—can be likened to planting a seed that will eventually yield a harvest of blessings. You sow a financial “seed” into a ministry as an act of faith and, in turn, God will multiply that seed in the form of various blessings"
"A 2023 study from Lifeway Research finds more than half (52 percent) of American Protestant churchgoers say their church teaches that God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities, with one in four (24 percent) strongly agreeing with this teaching. In a 2017 study, only 38 percent of churchgoers made that same claim."
I was hoping through the article to see exactly where they were drawing this from in the Bible, but the article did not mention that. Oral Roberts is considered the modern father of the prosperity gospel.
Maybe this is another reason that Christianity falling to the way side. Making a financial transaction with God? That is going to be a turn off to more than a couple of people.
Man was given free will by God. Given one question to ask God: "Do you regret giving man free will?" I mean, look what so many have done with it.
Surely, however, it is significant that the expose to which you linked is on the website of The Gospel Coalition, an evangelical organization, and that the research was conducted by Lifeway Research, another conservative Christian organization. In other words, the condemnation of the Prosperity Gospel is coming from within mainstream Christianity. The secular world has no reason to care - the Prosperity Gospel meshes nicely with secular values.
The Bible states that in the end times false teachers and false teachings will predominate and many will fall away. There is no reason to be surprised that the Prosperity Gospel is flourishing.
We also must be careful not to paint with too broad a brush. The teaching that "God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities" is hardly the Prosperity Gospel. I believe that and have experienced that. It doesn't motivate my giving, nor do I expect the sort of blessings the Prosperity Gospel promises - but I actually have experienced those sorts of blessings. My experience has been pretty much the opposite of the Prosperity Gospel - the less I seek or care about material blessings, the more they seem to come my way.
I think the popularity of the Prosperity Gospel underscores what I've said elsewhere on this thread: The supposed decline in Christianity is merely the separating of the wheat from the chaff, of those for whom Christianity is a deep commitment from those for whom it's just a cultural and social construct. Many of the most popular "Christian" movements, including the Prosperity Gospel, are the antithesis of traditional Christianity - and that's exactly why they are popular and why those for whom Christianity is a deep commitment are turning away from churches and organizations that promote them.
"Chief among the new doctrines is the idea that God rewards “seeding”—that is, the “sowing” of financial donations to churches, or favored online preachers—with a material harvest in return."
This of course is the notorious "prosperity gospel" we all know taints the Christian faith and has for the last 70 years since the days of Oral Roberts, but what interesting about this is the extent to which it has skyrocketed in churches in the last six years from 2017 when 32% of churches preached prosperity all the way up to 52% of churches today.
"A recent survey by Lifeway Research found that 52 percent of American churchgoing Protestants say their church teaches God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities. That figure is up from 38 percent of churchgoers in 2017. It’s an almighty leap, according to Lifeway’s executive director, Scott McConnell, who attributes the shift to the pandemic."
"The Evangelicals Calling for War on Poor People
A new, antisocial strain of the prosperity gospel is making its way into pulpits and breeding new hostility toward the least fortunate Americans."
My thoughts on this are that with churches, except the mega-Churches, closing their doors by the thousands every year, desperate pastors are trying any teaching that has proven itself to bring in $$$$$'s to keep the doors open and the light and electric bill paid.
"Jesus loves you" doesn't get the bills paid but "Give a buck to God and get a hundred bucks back" apparently does.
Probably Karma Thrill, I never trusted any of them except Robert Tilton because I believe in that miracle water, but there are alot of other people who shouldn't have control of money, and let those taking it become millionairs, I say they deserve it more than anyone else. If it wasnt for my seed money I sent to Paster Tilton, I would still have the stutters.
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