The Corporate Church: Confusing Dogma With Devotion And Capitalism With Chrisitanity

There are a lot of confused 'Christians' out there. I'm talking about the ones who believe in the prosperity doctrine and the ones who are following the false teachings of the Christian Dominionism movement, many of them without even knowing it.

The sect of Christians who think that Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz and Rick Perry are 'good Godly type folk' is mainly comprised of older people, uneducated people and people who just really want to believe in ideas like 'American exceptionalism' and "Christian Dominionism' because these philosophies feed the ego and soothe the conscience. Both the prosperity doctrine and the doctrine of Christian Dominionism are false, if you compare the teachings to what the Bible actually says.

Let's start with the prosperity doctrine. The basic idea here is that God rewards those who are 'good' with good things and He punishes those who are bad, by making bad things happen to them. It's a philosophy that says the poor are poor because God doesn't like them. It teaches that the sick are sick because God is punishing them. If you are robbed, raped, hit by a car or some other bad thing happens to you, well you must have done something to deserve it. 

Strictly from a psychological perspective, belief in the prosperity doctrine provides people with a sense that they are in control of what happens to them. If they're good, if they go to church, send their money to the preachers, say their prayers every night and don't behave like those evil sinners, God will provide them with all the earthly comforts that the world has to offer. Nothing bad will happen to them. They'll be healed of all their diseases. Money will fall from the clouds.

What the prosperity doctrine teaches is a doctrine of works. I am not going to go into all the ways that the teaching of legalism and the teaching of works is contrary to what the New Testament says, because I wrote about that here. Beyond the fact that the prosperity doctrine teaches people that they can earn stuff from God by being good and doing good works, the teaching is based on several other false ideas. 

Let's just start with the concept that anyone is good. For some this is going to hurt. 

Mathew 18:

18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

No-one is good. Only God is good. All of the rest of us are not good. Notice that Jesus didn't put people into categories of goodness, he put every person on earth into the same class, NOT GOOD.

He went on, saying:

20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”

21 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

But, but... he kept all the commandments. He followed all the rituals. He did everything he was supposed to do. Or did he?

The conversation illustrates the difference between ritualistic service and strict obedience to the law, and love for God. It shows that a person can adhere to the commandments of God, without ever making Him Lord. It also shows that the accumulation of wealth and material things is not a sign of salvation. It's a sign that other things in your life are ruling your life.

The next few verses are interesting as well. All their lives the Jews had been taught to believe that by keeping the commandments, they would be able to enter the kingdom of God. So they were, not surprisingly, shocked to hear this.

26 Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”27 Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

That seems very clear to me, with man it is impossible. Jesus was saying that men cannot save themselves. They cannot earn there way into heaven.

Now let's consider the commandments that the rich man said he obeyed. He didn't commit adultery. He didn't kill. He didn't steal. He didn't lie. He honored his father and mother. But the first commandment, to love God with all your heart, wasn't mentioned. Nor was "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.'

Instead of coming out and saying "You haven't kept all of the commandments" Jesus simply chose to expose this person sins. He was not willing to give up all of his material possessions to follow God. Wealth and material possessions had been set up in his heart and mind as idols.

At this point the disciples are completely confused. They gave up everything to follow Jesus.

28 Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

So this seems like a conundrum, because Jesus is saying that those who follow Him will receive 'many times as much' as they've given up, in this life and in the next. It seems like a conundrum, but it's really not. The difference is in the heart. There is a difference between those who follow God for the sake of following God and those who follow God hoping to enrich themselves. 

Mathew 6:19 - 21 clarifies this even more:

"19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.20 "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

If I am praying to ask God for material things, is God really what I'm seeking? No. The same thing goes if I am praying to ask God to heal me or to bless me or to fix some problem in my life or whatever else I am seeking when I pray, that isn't God. The prosperity doctrine teaches people that they can use God to gain what they really want, which is generally stuff. That's not how it works.

It's a two-fold problem, either I am at the center of my prayers or what I want is at the center of my prayers, or both things are at the center of my prayers. But neither of those things is God, who should be at the center of my prayers.

The accumulation of stuff is actually one of the most obvious displays of a lack of faith that there is. I've heard some right wing Christians try to justify their need to hoard wealth by quoting the parable of the talents. That parable has nothing to do with money. Not too long ago I had started into an explanation of this with right wing Christian, but when trying to talk to people about spiritual things, you can pretty quickly tell who is seeking truth and who is seeking justification for themselves. Like Jesus said, 'he who has ears will hear.'

Some people are not open to discussing their interpretations of the scripture, mainly because they're not interested in finding spiritual truth, but rather are interested in finding something that they can use to justify what they're doing to themselves. Again, the difference is in the heart. Are you seeking God or are you seeking something else? If you're seeking God then you aren't afraid of discussion or consideration of His word, because you might learn something and grow from it. If you're seeking other things from God's word, there's no doubt you'll find them, even if you have to take them completely out of context and twist their meaning until it fits your purposes.

When it comes to the prosperity doctrine, there are a few more points that I want to make about why it doesn't stand up to Biblical scrutiny.

Reading the Beatitudes, one gets a sense that the majority of humans have no understanding of what it means to be blessed.


Mathew 5:


Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him,2and He began to teach them, saying:3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.7Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

There is a huge difference between spiritual blessings (the kind that last) and material blessings (the kind you can store in the bank). Unfortunately many people are under the impression that those who have material wealth are spiritually blessed and those who don't, are not. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

If the Bible is true then the Lord chastises the ones He loves. Those who sail through life without want or care are the most spiritually crippled. If you don't believe this is true, then you don't pay a lot of attention to people like Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, who are clearly consumed with their own works. You can hear the false pride and self righteousness really clearly, every time they speak. 

Just let me give one example, "I built that" was the entire theme of the 2012 republican convention. The whole thing was just so Nebuchadnezzar...

Daniel 4:29 - 30As the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

After he said that he was driven into the wilderness and made to live like a beast because of his ego. So yes, it seems very odd to me that the 'God party' would take words straight out of the book and use them in the exact way that Nebuchadnezzar used them, which resulted in the wrath of God coming down on his head.


Those who are surrounded by material wealth usually lack empathy and compassion, not to mention humility. These are the people whose hearts have become 'altogether hardened.' (This is the worst thing that could happen to a person, from a spiritual perspective.)

On the other side, there are those who struggle endlessly, the poor, the sick, the oppressed, those who have been tried by fire, whose spirits have been molded by God.

If the prosperity doctrine is true and God rewards the good with material wealth, why would God have commanded the people to care for the poor over and over again? Why would Jesus have told the rich man to sell all he owned and give the money to the poor? If that was the case, then Jesus was advocating for taking from the good and blessed people, and giving to the bad and 'not blessed' people, which would also be contradictory to what the prosperity doctrine teaches. 

Either way, the teaching does not stand up to Biblical scrutiny. It's time for the Christian community to wake up and realize that the organized churches in the United States are all corporations. They are multibillion dollar enterprises. There are a lot of people getting paid a lot of money to distort the teachings of the Bible. Please note that all of them are storing up their treasures on earth, that should give you a clue as to where there hearts are.

I'll address the lie of Christian Dominionism more thoroughly in my next post, but for now, keep in mind that the prosperity doctrine is the foundation of that belief system. 

A little water on the sand and the whole house crumbles...

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