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<h1>Believer bitter over 'prosperity' preachings</h1><ul><li class="cnnhiliteheader">Story Highlights</li><li>In-debt believer gave money to prosperity preachers<br>
</li><li>Now bitter that promised blessings never arrived<br>
</li><li>Supporters say message is biblically sound<br>
</li><li>Critics say evangelists prey on vulnerable to enrich selves<br>
<br>
</li></ul><p><b>(AP) </b>-- The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's
living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give,
the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material
riches.</p><p>And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa,
Florida, area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose
frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so
inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn
and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.</p><p>Only the blessings
didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday
loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the
explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.</p><p>"I
wanted to believe God wanted to do something great with me like he was
doing with them," she said. "I'm angry and bitter about it. Right now,
I don't watch anyone on TV hardly."</p><p>All three of the groups
Fleenor supported are among six major Christian television ministries
under scrutiny by a senator who is asking questions about the
evangelists' lavish spending and possible abuses of their tax-exempt
status.</p><p>The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking
Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to
the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills
churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles -- the "Gospel of Prosperity," or
the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.</p><p>All six ministries under investigation preach the prosperity gospel to varying degrees.</p><p>Proponents
call it a biblically sound message of hope. Others say it is a
distortion that makes evangelists rich and preys on the vulnerable.
They say it has evolved from "it's all right to make money" to it's all
right for the pastor to drive a Bentley, live in an oceanside home and
travel by private jet.</p><p>"More and more people are desperate and
grasping at straws and want something that will alleviate their pain or
financial crisis," said Michael Palmer, dean of the divinity school at
Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson. "It's a growing problem."</p><p>The
modern-day prosperity movement can largely be traced back to evangelist
Oral Roberts' teachings. Roberts' disciples have spread his theology
and vocabulary (Roberts and other evangelists, such as Meyer, call
their donors "partners.") And several popular prosperity preachers,
including some now under investigation, have served on the Oral Roberts
University board.</p><p>Grassley is asking the ministries for financial
records on salaries, spending practices, private jets and other perks.
The investigation, coupled with a financial scandal at ORU that forced
out Roberts' son and heir, Richard, has some wondering whether the
prosperity gospel is facing a day of reckoning.</p><p>While few expect
the movement to disappear, the scrutiny could force greater financial
transparency and oversight in a movement known for secrecy.</p><p>Most
scholars trace the origins of prosperity theology to E.W. Kenyon, an
evangelical pastor from the first half of the 20th century.</p><p>But
it wasn't until the postwar era -- and a pair of evangelists from
Tulsa, Oklahoma -- that "health and wealth" theology became a fixture
in Pentecostal and charismatic churches.</p><p>Oral Roberts and Kenneth
Hagin -- and later, Kenneth Copeland -- trained tens of thousands of
evangelists with a message that resonated with an emerging middle
class, said David Edwin Harrell Jr., a Roberts biographer. Copeland is
among those now being investigated.</p><p>"What Oral did was develop a
theology that made it OK to prosper," Harrell said. "He let
Pentecostals be faithful to the old-time truths their grandparents
embraced and be part of the modern world, where they could have good
jobs and make money."</p><p>The teachings took on various names -- "Name It and Claim It," "Word of Faith," the prosperity gospel.</p><p>Prosperity
preachers say that it isn't all about money -- that God's blessings
extend to health, relationships and being well-off enough to help
others.</p><p>They have Bible verses at the ready to make their case.
One oft-cited verse, in Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
reads: "Yet for your sakes he became poor, that you by his poverty
might become rich."</p><p>Critics acknowledge the idea that God wants
to bless his followers has a Biblical basis, but say prosperity
preachers take verses out of context. The prosperity crowd also fails
to acknowledge Biblical accounts that show God doesn't always reward
faithful believers, Palmer said.</p><p>The Book of Job is a case study
in piety unrewarded, and a chapter in the Book of Hebrews includes a
litany of believers who were tortured and martyred, Palmer said.</p><p>Yet
the prosperity gospel continues to draw crowds, particularly lower- and
middle-income people who, critics say, have the greatest motivation and
the most to lose. The prosperity message is spreading to black
churches, attracting elderly people with disposable incomes, and
reaching huge churches in Africa and other developing parts of the
world.</p><p>One of the teaching's attractions is that it doesn't dwell
on traditional Christian themes of heaven and hell but on answering
pressing concerns of the here and now, said Brian McLaren, a liberal
evangelical author and pastor.</p><p>But the prosperity gospel, McLaren
said, not only preys on the hope of the vulnerable, it puts too much
emphasis on individual success and happiness.</p><p>"We've pretty much ignored what the Bible says about systemic injustice," he said.</p><p>The
checks and balances central to Christian denominations are largely
lacking in prosperity churches. One of the pastors in the Grassley
probe, Bishop Eddie Long of suburban Atlanta, has written that God told
him to get rid of the "ungodly governmental structure" of a deacon
board.</p><p>Some ministers hold up their own wealth as evidence that
the teaching works. Atlanta-area pastor Creflo Dollar, who is fighting
Grassley's inquiry, owns a Rolls Royce and multimillion-dollar homes
and travels in a church-owned Learjet.</p><p>In a letter to Grassley,
Dollar's attorney calls the prosperity gospel a "deeply held religious
belief" grounded in Scripture and therefore a protected religious
freedom. Grassley has said his probe is not about theology.</p><p>But
even some prosperity gospel critics -- like the Rev. Adam Hamilton of
15,000-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in suburban
Kansas City, Missouri -- say that the investigation is entering a
minefield.</p><p>"How do you determine how much money a minister like
this is able to make when the basic theology is that wealth is OK?"
said Hamilton, an Oral Roberts graduate who later left the charismatic
movement. "That gets into theological questions."</p><p>There is
evidence of change. Joyce Meyer Ministries, for one, enacted financial
reforms in recent years, including making audited financial statements
public.</p><p>Meyer, who has promised to cooperate fully with Grassley,
issued a statement emphasizing that a prosperity gospel "that solely
equates blessing with financial gain is out of balance and could damage
a person's walk with God."</p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><br><br>Juanita Flores<br>Advocate for the Truth from Jesus