Berger on sociology, theology, Weber, Tinzel, and the "health/wealth gospel"

From a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay in Books & Culture by prominent sociologist Peter Berger...

There is an almost universal consensus, right across the Christian theological spectrum, to the effect that the so-called prosperity gospel is an aberration. One should always be suspicious when there is a universal consensus about anything; quite often it is wrong....

First, Berger agrees with the consensus on many levels:

It is certainly a distortion of the Christian message if it is primarily interpreted as a program for the material improvement of the human condition. Where the prosperity gospel does that, it is an aberration—especially so when its proponents suggest, implicitly and often enough explicitly, that giving money to them guarantees that God will bless the donors with success and wealth. Protestants if no one else should recall in this connection that the Reformation began as a protest against the sale of indulgences....

Then Berger shares an anecdote from a visit to a Pentecostal mega-church in South Africa-- before moving on to the application.

The message from the preacher had two major themes. One: God does not want you to be poor! And two: You can do it! That is, you can do something about the circumstances of your life. Should one quarrel with this message? I'm inclined to think not.

Is there a theological warrant to propose that God wants us to be poor? Any more than he wants us to be sick? The prosperity gospel contains no sentimentality about the poor. There is no notion here that poverty is somehow ennobling. In that, speaking sociologically, the prosperity gospel is closer to the empirical facts than a romantic idea of the noble poor—a notion reminiscent of another romantic fiction, the noble savage. Such notions, of course, are always held by people who are not poor and who do not consider themselves to be savages. The notions are patronizing. They are implicit in the famous slogan of liberation theology: "a preferential option for the poor." Mind you, not of the poor, but for the poor—pronounced, as it were, from on high.

"You can do it!" Research data about Pentecostals bear this out. They are more optimistic, more self-confident than their non-Pentecostal neighbors. David Martin, the dean of Pentecostal studies, has caught this theme in the concept of " betterment." The concept refers to what Pentecostals believe to be a fruit of the Spirit—betterment, not only spiritually, but in every aspect of life, including health and material well-being....

The aforementioned package also comes with a moral component—the one that Max Weber long ago called "the Protestant ethic." It is an ethic of hard work, soberness, frugality, and a generally disciplined lifestyle. If it is observed by poor people over a generation or so, it is very likely to lead to social mobility—that is, to an escape from grinding poverty. To be sure, there will be many people who attend prosperity-gospel churches and think of their transaction with God in quasi-magical terms—they will sing, pray, give money, and without any further effort on their part God will shower material blessings upon them. In other words, Tetzel can indeed reappear in a Protestant guise. But it is also clear from the empirical data that those people who do adhere to the Protestant ethic will indeed be materially rewarded, or at least their children will....

Weber believed (correctly, I think) that the socio-economic consequences of Protestantism were unintended. Luther, Calvin, and Wesley did not intend their moral teachings to make their followers rich (though at least the last of the three noticed, with considerable discomfort, that many of his followers did become rich—the "method" of Methodism turned out to have an economic result along with its religious one). The purveyors of the prosperity gospel are, as it were, intentional Weberians: They consciously intend the consequences that earlier Protestants brought about unintentionally. Sociologists will have a hard time quarreling with this program, whatever the qualms of theologians....

People generally know what is good for them, better than the well-meaning outsider. So do buyers in the marketplace, especially if they are poor. Thus the "consumers" of the prosperity gospel generally know what they are "buying." Specifically, they know that the betterment being promised them is not an illusion, and they know and don't care that their preacher has a swimming pool and drives a Mercedes. If they put money in the collection plate, they generally believe that they are getting good value in return. Thus it is not only patronizing to see them as dupes and victims; it is empirically misleading.

Berger's wrap-up:

Pentecostalism is an enormous and growing presence globally. Until recently, it has been under the radar of academic and media attention. It continues to be ignored by many if not most Christian theologians outside its community: it is still the elephant in the living room of respectable Christendom in the global north (and sometimes even in the global south). Given the demographic facts, this will inevitably change. An ecumenical dialogue with Pentecostalism will have to come. To the extent that the prosperity gospel is a sizable component of the Pentecostal phenomenon, a moral reassessment of this component should be part of the dialogue.