Lesson 10: Repentance and the 250th Anniversary
One of the reasons I chose to write about repentance was the fear that we would hear a lot of bad theology as we celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. Most of those planning and participating in the religious events are prosperity gospel preachers. One of them is President Trump’s personal adviser, Paula White, whom he appointed to head the new Department of Faith. She claims that to oppose any government action is to oppose God’s will.
This is exactly the opposite of Jesus’ intention when he said the first step in following him is to repent and believe the Gospel. He was calling for a rethink of worldly values, replacing them with God’s ways.
The prosperity gospel preachers have an entirely different understanding of repentance. Every time I hear them speak, I am reminded of the old televangelists. The message is essentially the same.
Many, many years ago, a sociologist and I did an in-depth study of these “preachers” when they filled the airways 24-7. They presented repentance as a transaction in which an individual asks God to forgive his sins in exchange for eternal life. This bestows a place in heaven after he dies and a prosperous life with good health, a good family, and good finances in the meantime.
After watching what seemed like countless programs by far too many preachers, we found they all used the same format repeatedly.
Every one of them claimed to be Bible believers over against the traditional church. However, they all used only a few Bible passages.
They often talked about the Genesis creation stories to illustrate their fundamentalism. They always cited passages promising God’s forgiveness if sins were confessed.
Even more significantly, they focused on the few passages in which Jesus promised that if two or three believers agreed on anything, he would grant it. The televangelist presented himself as the second required person, guaranteeing that the viewer’s request would be fulfilled. The unspoken assumption was that if it was not granted, it was due to your lack of faith.
And again significantly, they brought up passages that promised if you gave to others, God would reward you 100 times over. This, of course, was used as motivation to send money to the evangelist’s program.
That was literally it. I don’t mean that these were the dominant Bible passages. These were the only ones.
This is essentially the same message used by the prosperity gospel preachers, and I fear what we’re going to hear during our nation’s anniversary. The focus will be on God blessing the citizens of this nation and enabling Donald Trump to do so in our time. The president will share the role of the televangelist and prosperity gospel preacher.
We have to be aware of what is happening and prepared to evaluate it in light of the complete Gospel message.
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