**Rowland Croucher**
Guest
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 Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: Politics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals and the Poor |
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(If it's sociologist Peter Berger commenting on issues of Evangelicals,
Prosperity teaching/Pentecostalism, and politics, I for one will drop
everything else to read what he says. I was not disappointed. Rowland
Croucher).
*****
Sightings
*9/25/08 Preaching Good News to the Poor
-- Debra Erickson
It is by now old news - or should be - that evangelical Christians have
developed a social conscience that goes beyond wedge issues like abortion
and gay rights. Some are even (gasp!) registered Democrats. In the most
recent issue of *Books and Culture *(put out by the editors of *Christianity
Today*), sociologist of religion Peter Berger, currently Director of the
Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs at Boston University,
launches the latest missive in the debate over what it means to do justice
and love mercy. He invites scholars of religion, and particularly Christian
theologians, to reconsider the prosperity gospel that is sometimes related
to and often conflated with Pentecostalism, the fastest-growing religious
movement in the world with followers numbering in the hundreds of millions.
Rather than deeming the poor around the globe who flock to prosperity
churches - where they are taught that faith in God leads to health and
wealth - to be gullible, stupid, or greedy, Berger offers a sociological
account of the movement's this-worldly values: thrift, hard work, and family
stability will, over a relatively short period of time, lift people out of
poverty. Those who follow prosperity preaching may attribute their material
success to faith rather than deeds, but that is not Berger's concern here.
A connection between spiritual and material well-being can also be found in
the early evangelical movement, recorded in the writings of Anglican John
Wesley, a leader of the transatlantic Methodist revival. Wesley urged his
followers to "Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can." Unlike
unflattering stereotypes of contemporary evangelicals, Wesley was so
concerned with the physical well-being of his poor adherents that he wrote a
home-remedy guide, *The Primitive Physik*, in which he collected folk
treatments for various ailments and rated the efficacy of ones he had
personally tried. Wesley coined the phrase "cleanliness is next to
godliness," recognizing ahead of the curve that sanitary conditions were
less likely to breed disease. Berger notes these historical similarities,
but points out that the prosperity gospel explicitly pursues the material
goods that earlier Protestants viewed as merely a byproduct of righteous
living.
The work of evangelical historians, including George Marsden, Mark Noll, and
Harry Stout, as well as evangelical philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and
Nicholas Wolterstorff, has enhanced the image of evangelicals in the
academy. And the high public profiles of socially conscious Rick Warren, Jim
Wallis, and others have contributed to a more positive assessment of
evangelicals among non-evangelical opinion-makers. Berger asks whether a
similar re-assessment can be made about prosperity believers and
Pentecostals, the latter of whom he terms "the elephant in the living room
of respectable Christendom."
How will his plea be received? Never mind that Berger published this essay
in a journal primarily aimed at evangelicals; evangelicals eager for
respectability may not be so eager to acknowledge their kinship with
prosperity churches. Other observers of these charismatic movements express
surprise that intelligent and accomplished people continue to believe in
supernatural causality that defies rational explanation. But responses of
fascination or repulsion (rather than a conviction of significance and even
religious merit), Berger might say, keep evangelicals and non-evangelicals
alike from truly understanding Pentecostalism's (and prosperity's) appeal.
Berger's line of argument has more than a passing similarity to a central
thesis of just-published *Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the
Working Class and Save the American Dream*, in which authors Ross Douthat
and Reihan Salam contend that the working class is drawn to the conservative
social stance of the Republican party because they have suffered
disproportionately from the fallout of sexual liberation, no-fault divorce,
and abortion on demand, positions championed by the left. Rather than
distracting them from root economic causes (the liberal view), Republican
emphases on family values and law and order address the social disruption
that contributes to the economic woes of the working class.
Together, Berger's essay and *Grand New Party* point out two ways of
condescending to the poor. The first, a favorite of conservatives, is to
blame poverty on poor people's lack of industry and moral rectitude. The
second, a favorite of liberals, is to claim that the poor aren't smart
enough to know what is good for them. Neither attitude helps. Whatever else
we think of them, Berger argues, Pentecostalism and prosperity preaching
empower the poor. Let's hope they are taken seriously.
Debra Erickson is a Ph.D. student in Ethics at the University of Chicago
Divinity School.
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This month, the Marty Center's Religion and Culture Web Forum features
"Secularism, Religious Renaissance, and Social Conflict in Asia" by Richard
Madsen of the University of California, San Diego. The concept of
secularism as a political, social, and cultural phenomenon developed in the
midst of and in reference to Western countries. Madsen applies this
framework to East and Southeast Asia, finding that, while it "does not
perfectly fit, the lack of fit is useful for highlighting particular
dilemmas faced by Asian governments in an era of political and religious
transformation." Formal responses from Hong You (PhD candidate, University
of Chicago Divinity School), Prasenjit Duara (National University of
Singapore), Robert Weller (Boston University), and Hans Joas (University of
Chicago) will be posted throughout the month.
http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/webforum/
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*Sightings* comes from the Martin Marty
Center<http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/>at the University of Chicago
Divinity School.
Attribution
Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author
of the column, *Sightings*, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of
Chicago Divinity School.
--
Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ (20,000 articles 4000 humor)
Blogs - http://rowlandsblogs.blogspot.com/
Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
Funny Jokes and Pics - http://funnyjokesnpics.blogspot.com/ |
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