Did foolish purchases by low income adherents of "prosperity theology" play a role in the real estate market collapse in the US? The Atlantic Monthly seems to think so. A Hanna Rosin article in the December 2009 edition (read it here) posits that prosperity gospel proponents encouraged church members, many of whom were poor Latino immigrants, to claim the blessings that God had for them, including the blessing of getting loans through sub-prime lending.
The story's lead in states,
Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong.
Quoting a recent Pew survey, Rosin says,
In a recent Pew survey, 73 percent of all religious Latinos in the United States agreed with the statement: “God will grant financial success to all believers who have enough faith.” For a generation of poor and striving Latino immigrants, the gospel seems to offer a road map to affluence and modern living.
Unfortunately, the article focuses on a single particular pastor and church for the bulk of its material, with a step back to swing at the ever smiling, hard to miss, hot-air-filled pinata that is Joel Osteen.
Most evangelicals and most Southern Baptists have been loath to accept the teaching of prosperity gospel adherents ranging from Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin to Rod Parsley, Creflo Dollar, Jr, and the aforementioned Osteen, but to blame the collapse of the market on Pentecostals seems a bit far reaching. What about the millions of people whose living beyond their means affected their ability to pay their mortgage, sub-prime or not? What about the collapse of the commercial real estate market due to years of overbuilding leading to row-upon-row of empty, dust gathering strip malls, big box stores and business parks? Are Christians to blame for those things as well?
While Rosin does an admirable job of pointing out how the longing for a better life combined with a non-biblical, mammon-loving bad theology ruined the lives of many, she does not make a compelling case for her thesis. The teachings of Christ did not spread the greed that was the basis for the collapse; they warned against it.
Comments
I don't know if it was the cause, but there are certainly some culpable suspects in that camp!
We are all adherents of the prosperity gospel in one way or another whenever we used God as a means to our own ends. The TBN camp is more adamant about it, but Southern Baptists can do it when we proclaim that if we follow certain steps, Jesus will give us a good family and a good life. It doesn't work that way.
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