Prosperity Theology: Truth or Heresy?

Ethics Daily has run a great article on the challenge of prosperity theology faced by the African Church. Try reading the article below, carefully substituting "The Bahamas" for "Africa," and you will find that this sounds an awful lot like the same challenges that our churches are facing here.

Africans Vulnerable to 'Prosperity Gospel,' BWA Group Says in Forum

Robert Parham
07-10-07

"Prosperity gospel" churches compete with Baptist churches in Africa, especially for younger people, with promises of wealth and health, according to participants in a forum discussion Saturday at the Baptist World Alliance gathering in Accra, Ghana.

The movement is "attractive to young people, because TV shows a materialistic world," said an African leader. "Young people like that life."

The leader noted the influence of the Trinity Broadcasting Network on Africans who listen to the same message all day that promises of abundant material possessions.

TBC recycles worship services and talk shows around the world, spreading a theology that if Christians will claim the so-called promises of God, made in a few selected biblical texts, they can enjoy luxurious cars, expensive homes, obedient children and untroubled health. It's a theology devoid of discipleship and service.

Read the rest of the article here.

Jamaican pastor elected BWA general secretary

Congratulations to the Rev. Neville Callam of Jamaica on his election to the general secretariat of the Baptist World Alliance!

The Associated Baptist Press reports:

ACCRA, Ghana (ABP) -- Neville Callam, a Jamaican pastor, theologian and author, was unanimously elected July 6 as the first non-white general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. He is also the 102-year-old alliance’s first leader not from the United States or Europe.

Callam, senior pastor of two congregations in Jamaica, is a former BWA vice president and former president of the Jamaica Baptist Union. Active in BWA for more than 20 years, he currently serves on its implementation task force, which restructures the organization’s work for the future.

Burchell Taylor, president of the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship, described Callam’s nomination as “part of the mysterious unfolding of God’s own purpose.”

He said Callam’s election would add a “new, creative dimension … to Baptist world history.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Jamaican Baptist calls for reparations for slavery

In today's issue of Ethics Daily, Robert Parham reports:

A Jamaican Baptist pastor forced the controversial question of compensation to modern-day African descendants for the imprisonment and forced labor of their ancestors at the annual gathering of the Baptist World Alliance meeting in Ghana.

Speaking only a hundred yards from the Atlantic coast where millions of West Africans were boarded onto slave ships for the seven-week journey to the Americas, Cawley Bolt asked whether descendants of slaves "have a right to be compensated."

"I'm not begging for anything, but demanding what is ours," the pastor of Ebony Vale Baptist Church in Spanish Town, Jamaica, answered.

The gray-haired Bolt said, "One way to compensate is to put money into educational institutions."

Read the rest of the article here.