Julius Scruggs on Prosperity Theology

From Ethics Daily's interview with the Rev. Dr. Julius Scruggs, newly elected president of the National Baptist Convention.

"I think that the prosperity gospel is a threat to Christianity. Period," said Scruggs of the belief system that God shows favor to believers through wealth and material possessions.

Such teaching is "a subtle distortion of biblical truths," he said.

"I'm one who believes that God will take care of all of us … But I'm not one who believes that that means that the pastor ought to drive a Bentley car or live in a million dollar house or fly on a corporate jet," said Scruggs, who has been pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville for 32 years.

"That kind of prosperity is influencing the pulpit and the pew in American life today, and that's unfortunate because it takes us far and away from the Jesus who talked about foxes have holes and birds have nests but the son of man doesn't have anywhere to lay his head," said Scruggs. "There is always a tension between that aspect of Jesus and the Jesus who brought the abundant life to everybody."

Warning of the allure that money had for clergy, he said, "One has to be grounded in what Christianity is all about to not allow that temptation to get them."

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

Quote of the Week

"Like Bush's 2000 campaign slogan, Compassionate Conservatism, Word of Faith preachers often give lip service to their church's community service projects yet worship at the altar of hyperindividualism and unregulated capitalism. Many of these televangelists spend millions of dollars of church funds on luxury jets, take huge salaries out of church coffers to build themselves mansions, and treat themselves to other luxuries like clothes, vacations, and high-end dinners. They use the free advertising of their churches and television shows to sell countless books, tapes, and DVDs of their sermons, raking in millions that go into for-profit church-related enterprises that line their own pockets. All of this activity is rationalized as obeying Jesus' command to spread the Gospel throughout the world. Yet it is all possible precisely because there is virtually no oversight of the preachers' activities. Tax-exempt churches do not file tax returns and are under no obligation to divulge their finances to donors or the public. Where profit-driven church meets the cornerstone of conservative economic ideology, televangelists have been enriching themselves in an unregulated marketplace trading on God, the cult of personality, and American dreams of riches and success."

Sarah Posner
Author of God's Profits

Ehrenreich on Prosperity Theology

"In the theology of Christian positive thinking, 'everything happens for a reason' . . . But there's another possible message from on high: that this brand of Christianity fosters a distinctly un-Christian narcissism . . . Plenty of Christians have already made the point that the positive thinking of Christianity Light is demeaning to God, and I leave them to pursue this critique. More importantly, from a secular point of view, it's dismissive of other humans, and not only flight attendants. If a person is speeding, shouldn't he get a ticket to deter him from endangering others? And if (Joel) Osteen gets the premier parking spot, what about all the other people consigned to the remote fringes of the lot? Christianity, at best, is about a sacrificial love for others, not about getting to the head of the line."

Barbara Ehrenreich
Author of Nickled and Dimed

Read the rest of the article here.

A Critique of Bahamian Theology and Religion

As I tend to be suspicious of anonymous newspaper columnists, I don't normally read the weekly column by "Simon" in the Nassau Guardian. Last week's column, however, offers a helpful critique of the shortfalls and limitations of Bahamian popular theology, particularly as it was articulated by the Bahamas Christian Council at this year's Independence celebrations.

Amongst other things, "Simon" challenges the prevailing ethos of prosperity theology which teaches that bad things never happen to God's faithful.

Moreover, the notion that God has spared the Bahamas from natural disasters and has instead allowed other lands to be ravaged is spiritually presumptuous and scientifically problematic.

To wit, why do natural disasters happen to good people in various locales on the planet while seemingly more sinful people are spared from calamity? Perhaps it has more to do with geography, chance and the scale of national development.

The thousands who perished in Myanmar did so because of an accident of geography, and because of substandard housing, bad infrastructure and a corrupt government. Not at the caprice of a vengeful God.

Natural disasters tend to ravage the poor because they do not have the means to protect themselves, as do the more affluent.

Additionally, "Simon" points out that the Christian Council (not to mention other publicly outspoken preachers) tend to disproportionately focus on narrow questions of personal morality while ignoring broader questions of social concern.

Rather, the focus was on the usual host of sexual sins and personal morality, while other issues of human dignity and social solidarity were largely ignored.

Access to health care, poverty alleviation, educational reform and the preservation of God’s earth, gave way to a relentless preoccupation with fornication, homosexuality and adultery.

It is not that such matters should be ignored. But a myopic focus on these is like cutting the Bible into a third and ignoring the rest of Scripture.

Since I have sought to address both of these concerns in my own teaching and ministry (see here and here), I am glad to see that others concur.

Justo González on Prosperity Theology

"The saddest part of this situation is that such cheap theology turns out to be very expensive. The price we pay for such theology is that we do not dare speak of our sufferings and anxieties, for they are our fault and an indication of our own corruption and lack of faith. The price for such theology is that the poor must internalize their oppression, for they are told that if they are poor it is because of their sin. The price for such theology is a church in which, in contradiction to what is taught in Scripture, the poor, the orphan, and the suffering are shunned, and the rich, the powerful, and the healthy are praised. In short, the price of such theology is abandoning the cross of Christ and its meaning."

Justo L. González (1937- )
Theologian and Church Historian

Beyond Business as Usual in the Church

My last couple of posts have offered critiques of prosperity theology. But as the Christian activist Jim Wallis often says, "Protest is good, but alternatives are better." While I have previously offered some of my own thoughts regarding alternatives to prosperity theology, I thought it would be helpful to share a concrete example of a local Bahamian church that that has developed its own distinctive alternative.

The following article highlights the ministry of Pastor Clint Kemp, the former pastor of New Providence Community Church (Clint just resigned from that position about a year ago to move on to other things, so the church is currently in transition to new leadership), who has been on the cutting edge of racial reconciliation, environmental justice and, most recently, Haitian rights. Indeed, Pastor Clint's fifteen-odd years of ministry can hardly be characterized by anything along the lines of "business as usual."

Clint Kemp is his name. He's an entrepreneur, little known pastor and thirteenth generation native of the Bahamas. Maybe you haven't heard of him yet, but he is changing the face of Christianity in the Bahamian culture. His story sheds new light on how the church can once again regain influence in culture. The story of this community being the church provides an entirely new paradigm to consider for those experimenting with pressing the Gospel forward in the context of American culture.

New Providence Community Church is shaping the culture of the Bahamas because they have approached their mission with the belief that they are called to be the Gospel in the context of their community. By deciding not to make their church a place for people to come and see, they have pushed their people to go and do. And they clearly illustrate the influence one church can have when it takes this mission seriously.

Click here to read the rest of the article or, better yet, do a Google search to learn more about Pastor Clint's numerous contributions to the Bahamian community.

A graduate of the conservative U.S.-based Moody Bible Institute, Pastor Clint certainly did not begin his ministerial career as a likely agent for social change in the Bahamas. Yet, over the years he has been significantly influenced by a number of socially progressive evangelicals such as the Latin American theologian René Padilla, Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way in Philadelphia, and Robert Guerrero of the Iglesia Comunitaria Cristiana in Santo Domingo. More importantly, he has not blindly and uncritically employed theologies and ministry techniques from abroad to address Bahamian problems. Instead, he has carefully and thoughfully crafted an approach to ministry that takes into account the distinctiveness of the Bahamian context.

That being said, it is important to remember that even within the Bahamas--small as it is--there are numerous subcultures within broader Bahamian society. Thus, while Pastor Clint's approach to ministry has been largely successful in the affluent western district of New Providence, the question must be asked: How well would this approach work for those of us working in a different socioeconomic context like, say, Bain's Town, Grant's Town, or Mason's Addition? My guess is probably not so well. Nevertheless, I think Pastor Clint's pioneering efforts are to be commended and should--at the very least--give those of us in other contexts the courage to be innovative in finding new ways to be faithful to the Gospel message in our respective communities. Likewise, New Providence Community Church remains an outstanding example of how more affluent congregations can effectively develop partnerships with the numerous local ministries such as this one that work directly with those on the margins of Bahamian society.

A Propensity for Imitation

William Watty, former president of the United Theological College of the West Indies, has observed that the Caribbean church has a high propensity for imitation:

It is here in the Caribbean, not in Europe, that you are likely to find the classic and pristine expressions of European denominationalism. It is in the Caribbean that you will hear Moravians talking about Jan Hus as though he was burnt at the stake last night. It is in the Caribbean that you will hear Methodists talking about the conversion of John Wesley as though Aldersgate Street is around the corner and they were there that night, that you will see Anglicans celebrating as though Newman, Keble and Pusey had them specially in mind when they inaugurated the Anglo-Catholic Revival, that you will hear Catholics speaking as though Pius IX took care to canvass their opinion specifically before he enunciated the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.

If we were to substitute the United States for Europe, we would find that Watty’s illustration could easily be extended to include the twenty-first century Bahamas. Consider, for example, how the books, movies, television programs, and personalities that are currently fashionable in American Evangelical culture have influenced Bahamian Christianity. Local Christian book shops prominently display stacks of Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life, Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series, and Bruce Wilkinson's Prayer of Jabez. Cable Bahamas regularly pipes in religious programming from the major U.S. television networks, making household names of personalities like Joel Osteen, John Hagee, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and Juanita Bynum and, just a few years ago, Bahamian movie theaters were packed out by church groups attending showings of Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ. Given this influence, we should not be surprised that many Bahamian clergy have chosen to imitate the message, method, and promiscuously wealthy lifestyle of U.S.-based television preachers.

The "Get Rich Quick" Approach to Religion

My views on prosperity theology are no secret. It is nothing more than a "get rich quick" approach to religion that relies on prooftexting and cannot withstand the scrutiny of serious biblical exegesis. Worse yet, it often preys upon the poorest and most vulnerable members of society by convincing them that if they simply put what they have in the offering plate and trust in God, then all their financial problems will be solved. But what happens when a person does give what they have in faith and it doesn't bring the desired results?

Britt Towery, a columnist at EthicsDaily.com reports:

Sad story after sad story is the heritage of most of these televangelists. One single mom said she was fleeced for over 12 years by a TV preacher. "When I think of the times my electricity got turned off because I tithed and gave instead of paying my bills, I could scream. I was told to NOT pay my bills, but to tithe first and believe God for the money for my bills . . . when my electricity was turned off I was told I had no faith."

Another wrote they were told: "Just send $65, and within 90 days God will turn my life around."

Ignoring the social, political, and economic factors that keep people impoverished and--too often--prevent them from pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, prosperity theology simply provides a disingenuous theological rationale for blaming the poor for their own poverty. Telling someone that they are poor and have financial problems because they don't have enough faith in God is really just the religious equivalent of telling a single mother with three kids and a full-time minimum wage job that she is poor because she's lazy and doesn't work hard enough.

While some prosperity preachers might really genuinely believe in this distorted view of scripture, a growing number are nothing more than slick religious con-artists, abusing their positions of trust in the church to get rich at the expense of their congregants and evade the long arm of the law.

But many of these preachers might not be able to stay ahead of the law for much longer. Recently, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) completed a two year investigation of some of American's leading (and not so leading) prosperity preachers.

John Bloom of the Wittenburg Door reports:

The headliners were Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and his lovely wife Gloria, and Creflo Dollar and his exquisitely named wife Taffi.

Less well known, unless you happen to subscribe to “Widow-Fleecing Monthly,” were Randy and Paula White, the couple whose Without Walls International Church in Tampa outlasted their marriage; Joyce Meyer and her loving husband David, of Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Missouri, who may have had to use their $23,000 marble-topped commode when they heard the news; and Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church of Lithonia, Georgia, who apparently made the list because of his healthy appetite for faith-based-initiative money.

So what exactly prompted Senator Grassley to launch an investigation into the activities of these preachers anyway?

Again, John Bloom explains:

There’s been a trend over the past 20 years for non-profit corporations, which are required to file reports with the Internal Revenue Service, to convert themselves into churches, which are not required to file anything.

Some of these churches have an appetite for Gulfstream jets, beachfront mansions, Bentleys and cosmetic-surgery funds. This is, of course, in conscious imitation of the Yuppie from Galilee.

And lest we have any doubts about the criminality of all this, Bloom elaborates further:

Unfortunately, it cuts a little deeper than that. The amount of information considered by the Finance Committee before starting down this road amounted to at least the suspicion of a vast criminal conspiracy. (And, lest you think I’m exaggerating, just check the interlocking directorates, shared board members, and shared jet leases of the top 50 or so players that the committee is looking at.) Some of these guys are little more than carnies. Others aren’t as self-consciously criminal but believe their own publicity—but they also know that they’re taking money intended for disaster relief, aid to the poor, and aid to orphans, and converting it into personal luxury items. If that’s legal, then the law should be changed. If that’s illegal, then there should be at least as much jail time for them as Martha Stewart got for lying to the SEC.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon of prosperity theology is not unique to the United States but has been exported to the far corners of the earth. Here in the Bahamas, Adrian Rogers over at WeblogBahamas echoes many of the concerns I have cited above. And, just a few years back, Cedric Moss, a local pastor, ran a series of columns in the Nassau Guardian exposing the tactics employed by many unscrupulous pastors (whom Moss refers to as "highly paid celebrity motivational speakers) to "fleece their flocks" (see here, here, and here).

While some bloggers, citing concerns about separation of church and state, have rightfully questioned the propriety of Congressman Grassley conducting an investigation into the finances of prosperity preachers, I hope that his efforts will help to educate the churchgoing public about the need to check out the credentials of the ministries they wish to support.

But as important as that is, I hope that the publicity generated by Grassley's investigation will force all of us to pause and reflect on our theological views. Because the real issue here is much more than just bringing religious con-artists to justice or learning how to protect ourselves from getting scammed by them. The real issue is who we believe Jesus Christ really is and what the life of discipleship actually entails.

Regarding that issue, Towery's closing words point us in the right direction.

The Christ I read about in the New Testament preached self-sacrifice and humility. He ministered to society's outcasts, the lepers and prostitutes. He overturned the crooked money-changers table in the Temple.

I don't think Jesus would wear a Rolex or drive a Bentley. He was up front in his dealings with the masses as he was with the disciples. He was not putting on a show or trying to impress anyone. Kings, high priests or paupers were the same to him. He loved them all. And a majority never understood what it was all about.

Theological Education in the Bahamas, Part III

This is the third of a five part series that previously appeared in News from Daniel and Estela Schweissing between February and August 2006. A more in-depth theological treatment of this topic can be found in the upcoming edition of the American Baptist Quarterly.

FINDING ALTERNATIVES TO BUSINESS AS USUAL IN THE CHURCH

Most of our students who come to study with us at Atlantic College are tired of business as usual in the church. Or more precisely, they’re tired of the church as business. Saturated by the “name it and claim it” teachings of prosperity theology from the United States, many Bahamian churches have become platforms for self-seeking pastors and church leaders to get rich at the expense of their congregations while ignoring the rampant poverty, social ills, and spiritual decay of the communities they serve. Patrick Johnstone reports in Operation World that “Materialism stimulated by tourism and drug money has deeply affected every level of society. Nearly all Bahamians claim to be Christian, but nominalism is widespread. A 55% illegitimacy rate, widespread drug addiction and family breakdown are symptoms of spiritual need.” To this, we might add that the Bahamas has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world. And in spite of significant economic advances during the latter half of the twentieth century, a large underclass of black Bahamians continues to face grinding poverty. At the same time, a seemingly endless flow of Haitian immigrants are joining poor Bahamians in the urban slums as well as constructing shantytowns on the outskirts of major towns and cities.

Even when churches have not succumbed to the teachings of prosperity theology, they are frequently characterized by their indifference to the social and spiritual needs of the communities where they are located. By the time of Bahamian independence from Britain in 1973, the results of economic development from the post-World War II tourist boom coupled with the new opportunities available to black Bahamians in politics, civil service, and commerce resulted in the creation of a sizeable black middle class that lives in relative prosperity compared to its Caribbean neighbors. As middle class families began migrating from Nassau’s ghettos to newly constructed suburban neighborhoods, historic inner-city churches gradually became middle class outposts whose members and pastoral leadership commute from the suburbs several times a week for worship and fellowship. While some churches have developed a handful of ministries to meet the needs of their poverty stricken neighbors, such efforts are often peripheral to the main priority of serving their middle class members. When a heavy emphasis on prosperity theology is added to the equation, it becomes easy to see why so many Bahamians are dissatisfied with business as usual in the church.

While most Bahamians consider themselves to be Christians, an increasingly large number are no longer regular church goers. Many who were once attracted to the church in hopes of bettering their economic situation have given up on God when it became apparent that he was not delivering on the “blessings” that the pastor promised that they would get. Others have become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of pastors and church leaders that seem to be more interested in their own personal economic advancement rather than the spiritual and physical welfare of their congregations. These same frustrations could easily have driven most of our students away from the church as well. Instead, their commitment to serving God has led them to seek answers through theological study at Atlantic College. Even though few of our students are able to articulate the precise nature of the problems in the church when they begin their studies, they intuitively understand that something is wrong with the prevailing model of ministry and their hope is that they will someday be able to provide a different kind of leadership. Put differently, our students are looking for alternatives to business as usual in the church.

One such student is Maria Bowe—now an Atlantic College alumna. Maria was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and received all of her formal education through Catholic schools. As a young adult, her involvement in her church’s soup kitchen ministry led her to discover her vocation for serving the poor. Though energized by her involvement in social outreach, she began to question many of the church doctrines and practices that she had grown up with. As Maria’s doubts about her faith increased, her participation in church activities gradually dwindled until one day—about nine years ago—she walked out of the church during mass and never returned. By this time, Maria was a housewife, the mother of two small children, and a psychology student at St. Benedict’s College in Nassau. Shortly after leaving the Catholic Church, she began attending a Pentecostal/Charismatic congregation and transferred to the theology program at Atlantic College.

Maria’s coursework at Atlantic College reinforced her commitment to serving the poor and also sparked a passion for evangelism, which eventually led her to pursue an internship in evangelism through one of Nassau’s inner-city churches. As one of our brightest students, Maria’s contributions to our classroom discussions of business as usual in the Bahamian church frequently illuminated me as well as her fellow students. This January—just a little over two years after graduating as her class salutatorian—Maria started her own ministry in a storefront on Bernard Road in Nassau, an inner-city neighborhood that has been largely neglected by both the church and social services. Named Zoar—after the village where Lot and his family took refuge when fleeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:23)—this ministry emphasizes evangelism, discipleship, mentoring at-risk youth, and counseling victims of sexual abuse.

In the future, I hope to be more intentional about preparing students like Maria to experiment with new models of ministry. During my first term of service, much of my effort in the classroom was directed at helping students to critique the prevailing prosperity theology model of ministry. While that task was important, it failed to provide my students with alternative approaches to doing ministry. With no alternatives, I found that our critique of prosperity theology was insufficient to prevent students from reverting back to business as usual upon their graduation from our program. But what alternatives were available? Through a process of trial and error, I eventually stumbled across the writings of John Perkins.

Perkins, an African-American with a third-grade education, grew up in a sharecropping family in rural Mississippi during the Jim Crow era. Following the murder of his older brother, he escaped from the South by migrating to California where he married, started a family, and became a successful businessman. He also began searching for spiritual meaning in his life—a journey that eventually led him to Jesus Christ. After several years of active ministry as a lay leader, Perkins sensed God’s calling to pursue a new ministry in his hometown of Mendenhall, Mississippi. So during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement, Perkins relocated his family from the relative safety and economic security of California to the poverty-stricken and racially-charged atmosphere of the rural South. There, he ministered to the spiritual and physical needs of his former friends and neighbors, eventually developing a model for ministry that is now known as Christian community development (CCD). Today, Perkins’ model has been widely replicated in dozens of locations throughout the United States—primarily in impoverished inner-city neighborhoods.

So what is Christian community development? CCD is a holistic approach to ministry—emphasizing both evangelism and social action—that is rooted in the biblical principles of relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution. Because CCD is based on broad theological principles rather than a rigid methodology, it has been successfully replicated in both rural and urban settings as well as in a diversity of racial and ethnic communities.

RELOCATION – Jesus Christ did not commute back and forth from heaven to conduct his ministry here on earth. Rather, he chose to relocate to earth so he could live and minister amongst us for the duration of his ministry (Jn 1:14). Likewise, practitioners of CCD recognize that their ministries are most effective when they choose to reside in the poor communities they hope to reach instead of commuting from the suburbs. It is only by living side-by-side, in solidarity with the poor, that one can truly understand the problems faced by poor communities and, ultimately, the solutions that are needed.

RECONCILIATION – The essence of the gospel is summed up in two commandments: we are to love God and love our neighbor. While a person is reconciled to God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, scripture teaches that we cannot truly be reconciled to God until we are reconciled to our neighbors (I Jn 4:19-21). Most impoverished communities are fragmented by racial, ethnic, language, and class barriers. Hence, a major focus of CCD is demonstrating the love of Christ in ways that bring about genuine reconciliation between people of diverse backgrounds.

REDISTRIBUTION – Poor communities typically lack things such as economic resources, education, health care, and jobs that are needed to develop a healthy community. CCD seeks to redress these inequities through training of indigenous leadership and economic develop projects (2 Cor 8:13-14). More than just charity, it also attempts to apply biblical principles (e.g., Lev 25) to transform the social and economic structures that keep people impoverished.

During my last semester at Atlantic College, I introduced my students to CCD by requiring them to read Perkins’ autobiography. Not surprisingly, Perkins’ story resonated with the experience of my students and our lively class discussions seemed to suggest that CCD may very well be a viable ministry model for the Bahamian church. That being said, I have not forgotten about the dangers of utilizing imported U.S. ministry models that often prove to be irrelevant to the reality of Bahamian culture. Yet, there are sufficient continuities between the urban experience of African-Americans and black Bahamians to convince me that CCD can be successfully adapted to Nassau’s own unique urban culture. Likewise, CCD already has a proven track record of being replicated in a variety of racial and ethnic contexts. While that doesn’t guarantee that CCD will succeed in the Bahamas, it does provide me with a reasonable basis to begin providing students with more training in the theology and methods of CCD upon our return to Nassau. In a country that holds the dubious distinction of having both the highest per capita of drug addiction and the highest per capita of church buildings in the world, we are hopeful that CCD will provide our students with a practical alternative to business as usual in the church.

COMING NEXT: This newsletter has examined how CCD provides a model for pastoral response to the spiritual and social concerns faced by the residents of Nassau’s inner-city neighborhoods. But more than just a pastoral response is needed. A political response that challenges the social and economic structures that keep Bahamians impoverished is needed as well. Next, Part IV of our series will show how theological education addresses the political question in “Recovering the Tradition of Black Radicalism in Bahamian Religion.”

PREVIOUSLY
Part I: Why is Bahamian theological education important?
Part II: Bahamianization of the Theological Curriculum

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.

Prayer and Personal Responsibility

We are often taught that if we pray hard enough and exercise enough faith that God will deliver us from all sorts of trials and tribulations in our lives--ill health, financial pressures, and even natural disasters. Undoubtedly, the "name it and claim it" ethos of prosperity theology that pervades so many of our churches helps to exaggerate our tendency towards this belief.

Yet what happens when the very trials from which we seek God's deliverance have been brought upon ourselves as the result of our own bad decisions. Perhaps, for example, I am praying to God to restore my health because I'm suffering from chronic heart disease. But for most of my life I have neglected to eat properly or exercise regularly. Likewise, I might be praying to God for financial deliverance while--at the same time--ignoring the fact that I routinely buy things I don't need, only rarely bother to balance my checkbook, and never attempt to pay off more than the monthly minimum on my credit cards. In such instances, can we really truly expect God's unconditional deliverance?

In response to Australian prime minister John Howard's recent call to prayer for the drought-stricken regions of that country, Kristine Morrison--an Australian Baptist--raises similar questions:

They point out that in the past decade of prosperity the government has not seriously addressed water management issues. John Howard is accused of failing to listen to scientific advice about water management and being without an alternative water management plan. His plea for prayer is reckoned by one correspondent to be reasonable only in comparison to being asked to slaughter a chicken.

Though secularists, these writers have proved alert to some of the dilemmas facing those who pray. Is it reasonable to pray to avoid the consequences of something that those who pray may have contributed to? Our squandering of water and our failure to be active in prompting our government to take water management practices seriously does compromise our approach to God. (Italics mine)

In other words, Morrison suggests that we really have no business praying to God for deliverance from the calamities in our lives if we are simply seeking to avoid the consequences of problems that we have contributed to. Furthermore, she goes on to point out that--at least in some instances--the so-called blessings of God on one group of people may, in fact, directly lead to more adversity for others.

The knowledge of the cyclic nature of rain patterns presents another difficulty for those who pray for rain. We know that higher rainfall in one part of Australia (or the world) usually means less rain in some other part of the continent (or the world). Is it right for us to pray for more natural abundance in our part of the world when other places, already suffering resource depletion, may receive less rain as a result?

So what, then, is the praying Christian to do?

First of all, we must remember that God is the creator of the entire world and the Lord of all who live in it. Therefore, we must exercise caution lest we inadvertently find ourselves praying for things that might be given to us at the expense of others. Secondly, and much more profoundly, Morrison suggests an approach that can be summed up in a simple word that is rarely, if ever, heard in the sermons of most prosperity preachers: REPENTANCE.

One writer to the Herald, clearly not a secularist, made a compelling link between the need for repentance and effective prayer. He advocated a day of repentance where the nation could acknowledge both God as the giver of rain and our dependence on the generosity of God to provide for all our needs to accompany our requests for rain. Many of us have prayed to escape the consequences of our actions. However, we can only do this when we express contrition and repentance for such actions. This important and significant aspect of prayer was omitted in our prime minister's call to prayer.

Wow! What a thought! If I want God to deliver me from my chronic health problems, perhaps I need to first repent of the poor lifestyle choices that contributed to those problems in the first place. Or if I am seeking financial deliverance, then I first need to repent of the poor money-management decisions that put me into debt.

Here it is helpful to remember that repentance, in the biblical sense, is not just about apologizing to God (or others) for our mistakes. It's about leaving old sinful habits behind and embracing new Christ-honoring habits. In other words, true repentance is like making a U-turn, a full 180 degree change in the direction of our lives. It is about walking away from the old and towards the new; dispensing of old eating and exercise habits and embracing new ones; and renouncing our old spending habits and making an effort to learn new ones. Or in the case of Australia's prime minister John Howard, repentance means beginning to heed the advice of environmental scientists and leading his government in developing more ecologically sound water-management practices.

A final caveat: While repentance is good and, indeed, required if we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, we should not make the mistake of thinking it is akin to some sort of magic formula or ritual that will guarantee God's favorable response to all of our prayers. God is NOT like a celestial ATM machine that will answer all of our prayers on demand. Nor should we forget that scripture teaches us that as believers we can expect trial, temptations and, yes, even suffering to be a part of the Christian life. That doesn't mean that we should stop praying or depending on God, nor that we should stop taking responsibility for our own actions--both personal and corporate. It just means that hardships--often for reasons unbeknownst to us--are a reality of our fallen human condition. And, as the Jesus himself once said, God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."