A False Gospel
Picture this: a slick, well-dressed man with a southern drawl as thick as butter stands on a stage before hundreds of congregants, shouting “MONEY! MONEY COME TO ME NOW!” to the heavens as he clutches stacks of cash in both fists. He quotes Ephesians and laughs wickedly as the crowd cheers him on. The lights gleam off his Rolex as he paces, sweat glistening on his brow. “God wants you RICH! He wants you to PROSPER! If you believe it, if you claim it, it’s already yours! HALLELUJAH!” The congregation erupts, their hands lifted and grasping, seeking not salvation in Christ, but wealth. He pauses for effect before flipping open his Bible, "Ephesians 3:20! ‘Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think!’ That means your breakthrough is coming! Your debts are canceled! Your financial overflow is on its way!"
It is a golden calf erected in the name of Christ. This so-called ‘Prosperity Gospel’ is nothing more than a glittering lie. It places the ecstasy of gold above all, explaining a lack of financial success as merely a result of insufficient devotion—a failure of faith. According to these jackals wearing the veneer of piety , to be rich is to be one of the elect, prosperity granted from above as a sign of favor. One need only look to the words of the preachers themselves. Kenneth Copeland, one of the most prolific preachers of this false gospel, stated “I am a billionaire, because the assignment that the Lord gave me, He said: 'I want you to begin to confess the billion flow.’” This entire line of preaching is not merely misguided—it is heresy, anathema, and those who preach it are little more than common heresiarchs, and ought to be decried as the liars they are. Honeyed words and ivory towers mask a message of poison; cherry-picked verses distort the message of the Lord. They wield these verses as tools, condemning the poor and downtrodden to eternal desolation as having failed the spiritual trials God has set for them.
Yet, what does the Bible say? What does the true Gospel teach?
It speaks of the straight and narrow. Of self-denial and bearing the cross. The apostles did not live as kings; they were hunted, persecuted, and murdered by the state. Paul himself did not live in ease and comfort, but in chains, writing, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." (1 Timothy 6:6-8). What prosperity heretic would dare preach that to his congregation? That contentment, not opulence, is the true mark of faith? That Christ promises nothing on this earth but toil and hardship? None will. They will not preach Christ as he is, instead they sell a golden idol wrapped in the words of scripture. Speak this false gospel, demand its fruits, and God must obey and give you gifts.
What blasphemy is this? To reduce the Almighty to a divine merchant, bartering miracles like some common ware? To turn the sacred act of giving into a portfolio, with divine favor measured by a green line of profit?
The heresiarchs of prosperity gospel stand before their congregations in thousand-dollar suits, promising abundance and hoarding their millions. Megachurches rise like temples to greed, extracting wealth from the desperate, no different than the exploitative actions of any given megacorporation. When the blessings do not come, when the bills pile up and the sickness remains, when the promised financial breakthrough never arrives—who is blamed? Not the preacher. Not the lie.
No, it is the believer who is at fault.
"Whether you win or lose is not up to God. Whether you are a success or a failure is not up to God. It
is up to you,” (Kenneth Copeland).
This avaricious mindset is a refutation of all that Christ, and the Word, command us to. Christ, in his righteous fury, took a whip to the moneychangers. What would He do to these frauds who have turned His name into a brand? His gospel into a sales pitch? Would He not condemn them? Would he not overturn their tables? Their books? Their stadiums? Would he not cast them aside and decry them as the wolves they are?
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." (Matthew 7:15).
The Prosperity Gospel is a blight. A sickness infecting the church. A parasite feeding on the weak and the desperate. It is time to call it what it is—a blasphemy against the true Gospel: a gospel of suffering, of Christ Alone.
It is a tragic irony that our faith, built on the sacrifice and suffering of Christ, has been twisted into a vessel for the pursuit of luxury. The prophet Habakkuk expressed the faith’s true foundation beautifully, for in the midst of hardship he declared: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the olive crop fails and the fields lie fallow; though the flock is cut off, and there is no herd in the stalls; yet I rejoice in the LORD, I will exult in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Here is the great truth the Prosperity Gospel ignores. Even when every material blessing is stripped away, the righteous still rejoice (we have only to look at the Book of Job to see this in action) because faith is not about what God gives, it is about who God is. It is about what faith promises in the world to come, rather than what you can accrue in this one. Habakkuk did not place his trust in prosperity, but in the unshakable reality of God’s goodness and salvation.
True biblical faith is not a contract where belief is exchanged for wealth. Rather, it is a trust in God that remains stalwart through all trials, whether one lives in a mansion or in the mud. True faith steels soldiers through combat, pilgrims through hunger, convicts through their terms of imprisonment. The Prosperity Gospel reduces faith to a formula: more faith leads to more wealth. Yet, what happens when your harvest never comes? What of the faithful servant, such as Job, who loses everything despite his piety? Is his faith insufficient?
The Bible answers with a loud and clear NO. Faith is not measured by prosperity but endurance. The apostle Paul, who suffered trial after trial, wrote: "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11-13). If prosperity was a consequence of faith, then Paul never would have suffered.
The greatest refutation of the Prosperity Gospel is the very life of Christ. He was not born in a palace; he was born in a barn. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and died wearing rags and nailed to a cross. If the Prosperity Gospel is to be believed, then Christ himself was among the most faithless to ever walk the earth. Yet it is through suffering—not riches—that salvation comes. Christ’s call was never, “follow me and I will make you rich,” it was, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24). The Christian life is one of sacrifice. To teach otherwise is to turn the Gospel of Christ into that of Mammon.
Sadly, this rot is spreading. The Prosperity Gospel, once confined to television screens and megachurch pulpits, has extended its tendrils into the halls of power, transforming scripture into a justification for unfettered greed and excess. No longer content with fleecing old ladies of their Social Security cheques, false preachers now fleece the American people.
Paula White, the once and current ‘spiritual advisor’ to President Trump, has openly preached this heresy from within the White House, declaring that opposition to the administration’s policies is akin to “fighting the hand of God.” Such rhetoric is not just dangerous—it is a blueprint for an oligarchic theocracy, one where the suffering of the people is not a social crisis but divine punishment. Such vitriol being whispered into the ears of our decision makers lends itself only to the further destruction of social programs, the dismantling of the safety net, and the gutting of the functions of the state. It is no coincidence that policies informed by such people benefit those already prospering. Where once the Church stood as a counterweight to the excesses of empire, it is now once again being wielded as an instrument of empire itself. The teachings of Christ—compassion, humility, self-sacrifice—have been cast aside in favor of the anointing of greed. Heresiarchs live in mansions (exempt from taxes) and declare them to be rectories.
This crisis is not merely of theology, it is of an existential and national character. When poverty is seen as a personal failure rather than as a byproduct of failing material and economic conditions, governance ceases to serve the folk. A government infected by the Prosperity Gospel no longer asks how it can care for the least fortunate among us; instead, it demands why the least among us have failed to care for themselves. It is a bootstrap theology.
If the faithful do not organize and cry out in anger, if we do not decry this as the vile sickness it is, if we do not reclaim the Gospel, then the preaching of the Word will continue to be corrupted, faith will become a branded product, and the righteous will be measured not by faith or by deeds at all, but by their bank accounts.