{"id":565,"date":"2014-10-10T08:50:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T08:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=565"},"modified":"2023-10-25T10:12:59","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T02:12:59","slug":"hillsong-church-is-a-haven-of-a-thing-called-prosperity-theology-but-does-god-really-want-you-to-be-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/hillsong-church-is-a-haven-of-a-thing-called-prosperity-theology-but-does-god-really-want-you-to-be-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsong Church is a haven of a thing called prosperity theology. But does God really want you to be rich?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. Hillsong Church\u2019s senior pastor Brian Houston says God wants you to have money. Who\u2019s right?
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 Jesus loved bling. Not.<\/sub><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>\n

WE\u2019VE all heard the phrase \u2018worshipping the almighty dollar\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But there are some people who take the phrase literally. To them, the almighty, as in God, is the key to wealth and riches. Serve him well and material wealth will be the reward.<\/span><\/p>\n

This philosophy is the cornerstone of an American movement called \u201cprosperity theology\u201d, and one man who preaches its message to his Australian flock is Hillsong Church leader Brian Houston.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor Houston, who is in the news this week over his response to child abuse allegations against his late father, William, at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has not always taken kindly to being associated with the so-called \u201cprosperity gospel\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s kind of hard to distance yourself from it when you\u2019ve penned a book<\/a> entitled You Need More Money: Discovering God\u2019s Amazing Financial Plan for You<\/i>r Life<\/i>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

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Hmmmm…<\/span><\/p>\n

Conventional Christians argue that the book title, and the philosophy it represents, is a classic inversion of the biblical message. Far from stressing the importance of money, they say the Bible is filled with countless warnings about the dangers of accumulating wealth.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s this from Matthew 19:24.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s the classic \u201cmoney is the root of all evil\u201d from Timothy 6:10<\/strong> which in full reads:<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cFor the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

And there\u2019s this elegant, simple quotation from Jesus in Matthew 6:24.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot serve both God and money.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Anglican Minister Sam Freney wrote<\/a> after his Hillsong Experience:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou will hear an attractive message about the God of the universe, committed to you, promising you many good things you can receive if you honestly believe in them. You will hear about the blessing God has planned for you, the better job or bigger house or healthier future in store. But you are unlikely to hear much biblical, orthodox Christianity\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing about any church\u2019s money-obsession is not just that it flagrantly contradicts Jesus\u2019s anti-materialist message. It\u2019s that it strays from Christianity\u2019s traditional God first, me second principle. In traditional Christianity, the believer submits to God\u2019s will and promises to do what God calls him or her to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pastor Houston preaching about seven years ago before God decided to deliver a generous load of silver to his life… on his hair.Source:News Corp Australia<\/em><\/span><\/sub><\/span><\/div>\n
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At Hillsong and churches like it, god rewards your faith by giving you what you want. And of course, one way to demonstrate your undying faith is to give hefty donations to the church\u2019s coffers.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all too much for some. Lance Goodall was part of the well-established Garden City Christian Church in Brisbane\u2019s bible belt when the Hillsong juggernaut came along and took over the place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe money, the personalities, they took over,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe had a guy on the stage talking about money for 10 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBrian Houston gets most of his ideas from American churches. He is very much a mimic and doesn\u2019t have a lot of his own ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHillsong paraphrases the Bible. They use no direct biblical quotes, it\u2019s all quite loose. They put their own slant and interpretation on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Goodall has since found a different church. But the growth of the prosperity movement continues apace. In America, the billion dollar industry is spearheaded long-established figures like Creflo Dollar. Because hey, who wouldn\u2019t give their life savings to a dude named Dollar?<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the charismatic, handsome Joel Osteen, who is 51 but looks about 21. One American commentator<\/a> wrote of Osteen and his wife Victoria:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Osteens are phenomenally successful because they are the exaggerated fulfilment of the self-help movement and the cult of celebrity rolled into one massive megachurch media empire.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That summarises what\u2019s really at play here. Spiritual journeys have become a mask for people\u2019s material journeys. No one pulls that trick better than Brian Houston\u2019s Hillsong. And no one takes it down better than this guy. He\u2019s an American pastor called John Piper, and his 10 minute YouTube takedown of prosperity theology is definitely worth a look.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have the time, here\u2019s the best bit:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tragic thing that one of our greatest exports of America is the prosperity gospel. People are being destroyed by it, god is being dishonoured by it, souls are perishing because of it and a lot of guys are getting rich on it.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>\n

ANTHONY SHARWOOD<\/div>\n
news.com.au<\/a><\/span>  October 10, 2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Featured image<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, has posted a column<\/span><\/a> on the reaction to a Pat Oliphant cartoon that ran on the Post’s website Sept. 9. More than 750 people, Pentecostals and others, contacted the paper to say they were offended by what they saw as an attack on the religion. Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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    THE Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. Hillsong Church\u2019s senior pastor Brian Houston says God wants you to have money. Who\u2019s right?    Jesus loved bling. Not. WE\u2019VE all heard the phrase \u2018worshipping the almighty dollar\u2019. But there are some people who take the phrase literally. To […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,34],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-issues","category-religion","tag-pentecostalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}