Prosperity Theology: The Materialisation of Faith

Prosperity Theology contains a dirty little secret – that it possesses a kernel of truth. And this is an intuition that God cares – about our personal and material lives; which entails an active Divine opposition to everything that demeans our existence – in this case: illness and poverty.

Here it’s similar to another Twentieth Century theological development – Liberation Theology. Together, these re-introduced a ‘materialisation of faith’. While Prosperity Theology was individualistic and politically conservative, and Liberation Theology collectivist and left-wing, both highlighted the rediscovery of eschatology, specifically the doctrine of the Kingdom of God.

Prosperity Theology's Dirty Little Secret

It’s common for evangelicals to decry so-called ‘prosperity theology’ or ‘health and wealth teaching’. Many of us have had to pick up the pieces of people, whose hopes have been raised, and then dashed, by false promises of financial provision or physical healing. For some, this has led to a rejection of Christianity as such, because they now identify the faith with this particular distorted deviation.