A health and wealth gospel

I had an interesting conversation with the pastor of an Evangelical Covenant Church the other day, and one thing in particular that he said set me thinking. He said that his main point of contention with Evangelical churches is that they preach a "health and wealth" gospel, i.e. that well-being on earth is a blessing from God, which assumes that the poor are poor because they are out of favour with God. While my first reaction to that was "Oh, come on. That's not true," when I thought about it, I realised that a part of what he said might be true. (I don't live in a vacuum, so I realise that most people, at least in the West, equate this belief with evangelicals,[I think mistakenly] but what surprised me was that this was coming from a clergyman, a self-proclaimed evangelical himself, but one with a different world view).

The focus of most evangelicals is on what comes after this life. They see God as a God who bestows favour on those whom He loves, so they are not afraid to ask Him for health and wealth (with the caveat that they will not be consumed by their material possessions, but still give Him first place). I don't see this as necessarily translating into a belief that the poor have less of God's favour than the rich.

But, because of their focus on the world after this one, they see their mission here primarily as meeting people's spiritual needs, rather than physical ones. This is what people who are more inclined towards social justice have a problem with, as they see evangelicals seriously lacking in efforts to meet the needs of the poor and reaching out to those less fortunate.

As a Christian, I believe that my primary duty is to share Christ with those around me. But, having grown up in a developing country, I am also aware that, when people are working 16 hours a day or more for a pittance, sharing a tiny one-room hut with their wife, eight kids, parents and a brother or sister, they are not in a position to listen and accept that the most important thing they need to do is turn to Christ. Therefore, I am also aware that there are different ways to share Christ with others. For some, talking is the way. For others, reaching out in the name of Christ to fulfill their needs, and practically showing them His love, is the answer. This is even in the Bible: 1 John 3:17 says, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"

Those who approach people living in such abject poverty with nothing but the Gospel, powerful as it is, will only succeed in alientating them. To borrow from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people cannot move to the psychological, emotional and spiritual fulfillment, unless their basic needs are met. People cannot be made to think about their spiritual well-being if their mere physical existence is a fight from one day to the next. There are people who turn to God because they have no other hope, and their live on earth is so bad that all they have to look forward to is their life after this one. But there are not very many of these people, and the way to reach most others who are in the depths of poverty is to help get them out of it first.

I don't think evangelicals don't care. I think that many of them, lacking exposure to the terrible conditions in poorer parts of the world, are unaware of how crippling, physically, emotionally and spiritually, poverty can be. But I also think that some are stepping out as leaders to tell the others that they need to look at their mission as showing bringing Christ to others in any way possible, even if that means not even mentioning him for the first six months.

Rick Warren, one of the most well-known American evangelicals, and author of best-seller The Purpose-Driven Life, is one of these. He wrote: "I deeply believe that if we as evangelicals remain silent and do not speak up in defense of the poor, we lose our credibility and our right to witness about God's love for the world," Warren wrote, adding that, "We all grieved when 250,000 lives were lost in the tsunami in Southeast Asia. But there is a health tsunami of that proportion in Africa every 12 days!"